Final thoughts?

[Martli]

#9033

**Spoiler alert**

I finished the game a few nights ago/ I chipped away at it 30min at a time or so for a couple of weeks. I must say as it went on I relied more and more on the hint guide to help me get through.

I definitely enjoyed it. Did I enjoy it as much as something like monkey island or loom? Probably not. I found the Britishness/general humour great (kinda reminded me of a bullfrog game), I liked the music and presentation, I liked the intro animations etc. and the story was somewhat compelling, though I feel they could have gone even deeper on the cyberpunk/tech noir vibe.

I thought Joey was a cool character, and using him to solve puzzles in his different bodies was a fun feature. Sometimes the dialogue was a bit much and dragged on a bit, especially if I’d been killed and had to repeat a section, good thing it’s skippable. I liked that you could die, but that it wasn’t a Sierra-style one pixel too far to the right and you’re gone kind of death. Entering the linc-space and executing the programmes seemed a bit odd to me, but I liked the aesthetic of it.

I dunno, I guess I just kinda got bored of it as it went on. The final assault on linc and the final reveal was interesting and I could feel the tension build as I got closer and closer to linc, plus it was cool to have Joey as a humanoid friend after his many different forms, but by that point it was starting to feel like a bit of a drag. I was very happy for Joey in the end though. Dream job!!

Will I play it again? Probably not. Am I glad I played it? Yes I am. Put your thoughts below!

[Mike]

#9034

Yep, that’s basically how I feel about it too so I have nothing interesting to add really. I like it quite a bit but not as much as everyone else in the adventure game community seems to because I think it has some pacing issues.

[TigerQuoll]

#9035

Yep, have to say I agree on all points too (except I haven’t quite finished – I’ve just entered the subway)
Yes, it could have been even more cyberpunk. It feels at times like it doesn’t know what tone to go for – silly or grim.
One little complaint I have – and this could just be personal taste – is how some doors will open or items become available only when you’re “ready” for them, not through solving some related puzzle.

[Wesbat]

#9036

This wasn’t my first time playing BASS, I’ll always be a fan of this game. It does have some flaws.

The most obvious is the varying quality of voice acting – the sound levels are all over the place, and start grating your ears after many hours.

The most frustrating is hunting for that one pixel in the subway puzzle, it is cruel and unforgiving.

What I love:

– the story
– the artwork
– the puzzles (most of them)
– the characters, and interacting with them
– LINC space, how it looks and your inventory inside it
– the ending

[TigerQuoll]

#9037

A couple of points I forgot to mention:
I love how, when you talk to someone, Foster first patiently waits for them to finish doing whatever idle activity they’re frittering away on, and then the two characters do a little tango around the whole room before they can actually speak. (Is it some weird future etiquette I’m not aware of?)

But I am quite impressed with some of the animation. A lot of it is merely utilitarian, but there’s definitely moments where it is positively gorgeous.

Agreed on the voice acting, Websat. Although to be honest, hit-and-miss voice work was probably better than par for the period! (Usually it was more miss than hit.)
The worst, I hate to admit, was Foster himself. A lot of his lines sound like he was reading to four year olds from a picture book.
I loved Joey while he was being totally misanthropic and surly. I wish he would have stayed that way for the whole game.

I guess my final verdict is that the game is worth a look. There are some striking and interesting elements there that give it a unique appeal. I don’t think it suffers from any fatal flaws, but it also doesn’t quite hit it out of the park in some ways it could have.

[Mr Creosote]

#9039

Hiring Dave Gibbons for the artwork was definitely quite a scoop. That alone would have been reason enough for me to buy the game.

I absolutely love the opening scene. The helicopter crash, escaping into the factory. The music blending with the stomping of the machines. Wow, what atmosphere!

After that, after finding Joey (great Planetfall hommage!) and being more or less able to move around freely, it really loses its urgency and much of its tension. The characters are cheap caricatures. It feels indeed very British in its apparent break of the “grim, oppressive” towards “people are people, facing mundane difficulties”. It went really overboard with the court scene.

Some other scenes, on the other hand, are still strong throughout. Such as going down into the subway, exploring this world’s subconscious underbelly.

Overall, I believe it still holds up, even if not exactly exceptional in the gameplay department.

[Dreamkid]

#9045

Despite playing for the first time only a year ago, I forgot so much that I had to figure out most of the game again (although I resorted to hints/walkthrough a lot when I first played). I enjoyed it more this time than I did my first play for some reason (maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it at the time). It did sort of interrupt the flow of the story when I got stuck for awhile. There doesn’t really seem to be any obvious significant flaws although the puzzles seemed a bit obtuse for me.

Not a bad game, but not my favorite adventure.

[watchful]

#9091

One thing that helped me enjoy the game more was lowering the music volume. The default volume drowned out dialog and got distracting too often.

I’d also agree that it’s mediocre in many ways, yet some combo of nostalgia and world building kept me coming back.

[Evil Taco]

#9317

I think I’m glad I played the floppy version without the voices … !

There was certainly tension at the beginning of the game. It’s really easy to get your first death, and that can set the tone for a while. The music and sound really highlighted the mood as well – I dug the music a lot (played with the good old adlib sound).

It took a while for me to ease into the “adventure game logic” world, where it isn’t dangerous at all to walk into the police station even if you’re a wanted fugitive. It helped a lot when I read a few hints in the other thread, that there are no dead ends (or maybe there could’ve been, towards the end?) and if someone takes items away from you, you don’t need to worry.

I had some friction with the puzzles towards the beginning, but after about a 1/4 or 1/3 through everything started flowing quite naturally – maybe I got to the right rhythm with the game. Talk with everyone, try items with everything if you need to – but most of the time I quite naturally thought what to do next. The hints about Joey’s importance were rather crucial to get going!

I definitely thought that all the different ways of interacting with the world added a lot to the world of the game. Needing to drag Joey along, him having quite often something to do in many screens, needing to talk with people to progress, the LINC terminals, the cyberspaaaaace … there were a lot of things to do, and not just the “usual” point and click stuff. I very much appreciated that.

The tension picked up at the end. It was clear the game was building up towards a climax and it also started feeling a little dangerous again. I got a bit anxious and afraid to go to the next room and really wanted to finish the game (just now!) in one final push, and not take a break!

Even if the atmosphere was a bit uneven, sometimes quite benign for a cyberpunk story, sometimes rather grim (like finding the bodies in the locker..) I still thought overall with some forgiveness I had a great experience. A remarkable game for 1994, great music, great visuals! A world and characters, a Virtual Theater if you may, I was able to sink into and enjoy. Looking forward to playing more Revolution adventures!