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Dead Race Reviews
Author: Justahack
Date: 2009
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by James Webb (as revgiblet)
Everyone has at least one
Zombie game in them, and this is Justahack's (or so it seems). I'm not sure
what I think about this game. Zombies may be overused, even in the world of IF,
but there's still life in them yet (ho ho, I made a pun). The problem is making
such a common scenario seems fresh and interesting. To me 'Dead Race' feels
very clichéd in its set-up. It doesn't help that it's minimalistically
implemented. I couldn't examine anything or really do much other than get the
ubiquitous gun (it's a Zombie game after all) from the bedroom and climb out the
window. I assume this was because JaH cut some corners to get the game in for
the deadline. This is fine. It is a demo, after all, and the point is to try
and grab me with the setting and story. Those of us who just cut down an
already partly-finished project had an unfair advantage in respect of
implementation. The trouble is that it's becoming increasingly hard to make
Zombies an interesting hook.
The mobile phone could be interesting. The first text message just
cemented my feelings about the game's hackneyed approach, but the second text
message was more amusing and made me wonder if JaH was going to pull a
switcharoo and put some kind of unique spin on the genre. It's certainly
possible, and the ending of the intro (it had an ending. Yay!) could certainly
lead in that direction - or maybe it was just a convenient literary device to
signal the end of the demo. On a different note, I would advise that JaH come
up with something other than the oh-how-convenient "You lose the signal as soon
as the message arrives" mechanism to control the player's use of the mobile
phone.
What I did like was the use of bold text to highlight functional room features
(at least I assume that was its purpose, as nothing was implemented). Some
players may feel that this is hand-holding, but in this case I appreciated not
having to wade through text to identify the important things. I think this will
be a matter of taste, but I liked it.
I suspect the deadline forced JaH to rush this somewhat, as it didn't seem to
have the same sparkling writing as his 'Spring Ting' entries (second text
message and the cry of the being-eaten passer-by excepted). I stand by my
comments for my last reviews of his games - this boy has the ability to write
very good IF, so I'm hoping that he can do something with Zombies that will make
me give this the thumbs up.
EDIT: I too failed to try "look at..." instead of 'x' and 'examine'. The game
is not as sparsely implemented as I assumed. Sorry JaH.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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