85 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
85 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
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FRIGHT NIGHT
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Microdeal's FRIGHT NIGHT (based on the CBS movie) is a splendid example of a
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game that has almost completely sacrificed gameplay for the sake of audio-visual
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effects. FRIGHT NIGHT makes rather full use of the computer's wonderful graphics
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and sound capabilities, almost to the point where I'd be willing to forego
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gameplay...but not quite. This review is based on the Amiga version.
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You are Jerry Dandridge, the monster instead of the monster-killer for a
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change. It seems that your neighbors don't take very kindly to your religious
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persuasion or your epicurean ideals; they persistently hide in your nice house,
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hoping to eventually wipe you out (and convert your house into a series of
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condos or a nursing home, no doubt). But just because you're a vampire doesn't
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mean you shouldn't be allowed to live in peace, right?
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The neighbors -- armed to the gunnels with garlic, crosses, jelly beans, and
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whatever else it takes to kill a vampire -- are out to destroy you. Whenever you
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enter a room they're in, they lob stuff at you, trying to knock you off.
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Meanwhile, you're running and jumping toward them, hoping for an after-dinner
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drink to restore the vitality you've lost while chasing down these pesky
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neighbors.
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Once you make it through the first round (having killed off the uninvited
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inhabitants and returned to your coffin for a well-deserved rest), you wake up
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the next day and go through it all again. Except this time, the ghosts of those
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you've done in (along with the ghosts of their relatives) are busy reaching up
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through the floorboards at you, or circling around various rooms, ready to sa
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your strength. Each time you move up a level, the amount of house you get to
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explore expands; the rooms change as well, and the number of ghostly presences
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increases, so the game becomes more interesting the further along you get.
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Unfortunately, you only have a limited number of moves: All you can do is run
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back and forth, crouch, or jump. You can also go to certain rooms where your
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energy will slowly return, but that's the extent of strategy involved.
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Although the graphic design is stunning proof of a real artist with a wonderful
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imagination, and the music and sound are so much fun you could just turn your
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monitor off and listen for enjoyment (lots of musical puns on horror-movie
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cliches, interesting clunking/clashing/howling sound effects, and a wonderful
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simulation of Vincent Price playing the organ after a few drinks), the animation
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has got to be the _worst_ ever achieved by a game programmer!
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It looks as if the person(s) responsible for animating Jerry, his neighbors,
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and his neighbors' ghosts may have quit while the game was still being written
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In fact, if you could put a stick through the back of your monitor, paste a
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cut-out of Jerry on the front of it, and move it around like that on the screen,
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you'd be able to animate this game as well as they did. (Well, Jerry himself is
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perhaps slightly better: His legs move, but not much.) You'll also find out --
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if, for some reason, the screen goes weird on you -- that the animation is a
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primitive two-step for the most part, alternating one frame with another
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overlaid.
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On the positive side I should mention that, although you're limited to
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searching rooms, finding neighbors, and draining them, there's a time limit for
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each round. And the neighbors' beliefs in the efficacy of their anti-vampire
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paraphernalia increases progressively with each round, so gameplay becomes
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increasingly more challenging as a result. (Because the neighbors believe more
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fully in their garlic, the garlic has greater power to sap you, for instance.)
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If you write-protect the disk (it's copy-protected and requires you to leave
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the disk write-enabled if you want to record your high scores), when the game
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asks you for your name and you just hit your ENTER key, it makes up all sorts of
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amusing names for you. I played the game an Amiga 500 with 1MB RAM, but 1MB is
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not required.
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Incidentally, I'd rate the graphics PG. There are various naked busts, sexually
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suggestive human/animal combinations, half-eaten bodies, etc., all of which are
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drawings, not photographs. None of these would make the average Clive Barker fan
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think twice, but if you're put off by seeing such things, be forewarned.
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I think FRIGHT NIGHT is a design on its way to becoming a fun game. Despite my
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complaints, I still find myself returning to it regularly to enjoy the graphics
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and sound. And if you can forgive the animators for having left their job
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half-done, even gameplay's not too bad. I only hope that someday somebody
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revises FRIGHT NIGHT and turns it into a real game; I certainly don't want to
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believe this is the best that can be achieved in the computer horror game genre.
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In the meantime, FRIGHT NIGHT will help while away the time until a real horror
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game explodes onto the scene. Call it a holding action, if you will.
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FRIGHT NIGHT is published and distributed by Microdeal.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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