Tester Jobs Requirements (VIDEO GAME)

As much as I’ve really enjoyed my time with Manhunter: San Francisco, I have little doubt that the PISSED rating system is not going to be all that kind to it. In fact, I imagine the result will be quite similar to that of Manhunter: New York, since the majority of pros and cons of the first game returned for the second. Let’s see if the improved story and more logical puzzle solutions can push it up past 50!

Puzzles and Solvability
I gave Manhunter: New York a 6 for this category. The sequel uses the exact same puzzle formula as the first one, so it’s tempting to give it the same. However, I just feel that they worked a lot better this time around! I can’t be certain whether it has more to do with me knowing what to look for after my previous experience, but I found the puzzle solutions to be much more logical this time. The ambiguity of the plot meant that I really had to use my brain, and sometimes puzzles took days to solve, but in the end it was logical deduction that got me there. I felt a huge sense of achievement with these successes, much greater than Ive had when solving standard inventory or branching dialogue based puzzles. My biggest complaint for New York was how difficult it was to figure out the suspect’s names, but they were less obtuse in San Francisco. I’m therefore upping the rating to a 7
Rating: 7


Interface and Inventory
Well, nothing has changed between the two Manhunter games. There is still no real mouse support, and moving the cursor around with the keys is slow and frustrating, particularly given how much pixel hunting is required. I still feel exactly the same about the MAD interface too. I really love the concept and thoroughly enjoyed watching the tracker recordings and then visiting the locations in person, but having to watch the full recording to its completion before being able to restart, and having no way to jump to a certain part of it, is irritating. It was even worse in the sequel because each recording was much more complicated and longer. The arcade game sections are hardly worth mentioning as the controls are so simplistic (the drilling vehicle one was infuriating though), and the inventory is pretty stock standard too. I only came across one bug, which occurred during the lava flow map section towards the end (one of the slaves and one of the robots kept appearing off the map, yet I could still move them). I’m sticking with the same 3 I gave the first game.
Rating: 3


Story and Setting
I’m really torn on this one. On the one hand, I was totally captivated by the story in Manhunter: San Francisco. I really liked how it drip fed me information, with new revelations were consistently thrown into the mix. Answers to long held questions were revealed at regular intervals, pushing things along while making the player work for it. However, when I step away and have an actual look at it, I realise that the above feelings have a lot more to do with the game design than the story itself. The fact is I can’t really confidently piece together what even occurred throughout the game, and the majority of the character’s motivations are very unclear. I have so many important questions that remain unanswered, and the failure of the Murry’s to wrap up the story in a third game means I’ll never know the answers. Still, I have to give points somewhere for the amount of enjoyment I got from this game, so I’m going to give it a generous 6.
Rating: 6


Sound and Graphics
Once again, there is very little change between the two Manhunters for this category. There is still an impressive amount of effort and detail put into the game’s visual design, but its effect is dramatically decreased by the very average implementation. The bright colours clash with the game’s overall tone and the animated sequences are fairly laughable. The sound is even worse, and I got to a point where I simply couldn’t listen to the PC speaker quality sound effects and music. I gave the first game a generous 4, but given that much of the sequel’s graphics and sound were lifted from the first one, and the extra year that has passed between them makes it more noticeably horrible than before, I have to punish Manhunter: San Francisco further by giving it a 3.
Rating: 3


Environment and Atmosphere
The Murry’s trips to the actual San Francisco landmarks paid off, and I actually looked up the real locations on Wikipedia a few times while playing, just to see how well they virtually imitated them. Moving from location to location on the overhead map also really helped to make me feel like I was exploring a large area, filled with hidden horrors and dark secrets. The city has the same suppressed yet rebellious feel to it that pervaded New York, and there was a surprising amount of gore in the game that added to the atmosphere. As mentioned before though, the low quality and overly bright graphics don’t help on this front, nor does the silly nature of some of the occurrences and messages. Overall, I think it was the puzzles, the story, and the atmosphere that kept me coming back to Manhunter 2, so I have no issue with using fairly high numbers for those categories.
Rating: 6


Dialogue and Acting
No-one speaks in the Manhunter series. I’m not even sure whether there was any explanation for that during the first game, but I guess it’s all part of the repressed society scenario. It does make this category challenging to rate, and the only aspects I can consider are the various letters and documents I collected and the Murry’s messages that popped up from time to time (mostly when I died). These were mostly of the cryptic variety and in that way I guess they were quite clever, but they were also conveyed in the same toddler poetry style, with an attempted humour that was only half successful. It was 4 before, so it’s 4 again!
Rating: 4

• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For commenting about an adventure game sale on GOG
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For commenting about a new adventure game sale on GOG
• Genre Support Award – 20 CAPs – For commenting about a BIG new adventure game sale on Steam
• Gay Disco Award – 10 CAPs – Seriously guys! I really was very curious!
• April Fools Award – 10 CAPs – For fighting giant robots on top of a zeppelin
• Resident Artist Award – 50 CAPs – For completing the artwork for the new PISSED rating characters
• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with free games
• Batman Award – 5 CAPs – Adam West
• LucasArts Closure Award – 10 CAPs – For giving us all the bad news...or is it good news?
• KickstartVenture Award – 10 CAPs – For telling us all about Infamy’s latest venture
• Ransom Stark Award – 20 CAPs – For solving my CyberNET riddle
• Screenshot Screw-Up Award – 5 CAPs – For spotting my screenshot anomaly
• What’s Your Story Award – 20 CAPs – For answering the What’s Your Story questionnaire
• What’s Your Story Award – 20 CAPs – For answering the What’s Your Story questionnaire
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For letting me know that the path through the warehouse is actually in the recording
• Abominable Snowman Award – 10 CAPs – For picking up my reference to both of our childhoods
• Knowledge Award – 10 CAPs – Because he knows that I don’t know, but I really wanted to know what he knows
• Screenshot Assistance Award – 10 CAPs – For letting me know about the “handy” bug in DOSBox 0.74
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For commenting about an adventure game sale on GOG
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For “reminding” me that I could target other suspects, but I figured it out myself eventually
Failed Bet Award - -10 CAPs – For betting I wouldn’t be able to figure out Tad Timov’s name, but I did
Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing along with me
• Failed Bet Award - -10 CAPs – For betting I’d need assistance with the pipe puzzle (which I nearly did)
• Clairvoyant Award - 10 CAPs - For predicting the score I would give the game

I really wanted to like Future Wars, but I cant say I really did. Apart from the visuals, I dont think theres any part of the game that stands out as exceptional, so I have a feeling the PISSED rating will turn out well below where I originally expected it would. Time to find out!

Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles were unsatisfying in Future Wars. A large proportion of them were solved by following the leads of the environment without any real motivation. To pass the monks in the Middle-Ages, I needed to disguise myself. Why should I climb a tree to achieve that? I did it of course, because that was the only thing that I could do, but there was no logical deduction required and so very little satisfaction. Want to gain entrance to an office? Put a bucket on the door above your boss’ office! Need to escape a prison cell? Use a gas canister to kill all the guards outside! I had no reason to do these things other than the fact that there was nothing else I could do. Other than this lack of motivation, the other main obstacle standing in the way of progress was the huge requirement for pixel hunting. Items and points of interest were so tiny, that it often took many sweeps over a screen for me to find them. Once again, not very satisfying! I suffered quite a few dead ends too, and picked up opportunities for many more while playing. Thankfully the majority of them became obvious fairly quickly, meaning I didn’t have to restore too far back, but clearly Delphine didn’t pay any attention to what the rest of the industry was doing around this time. Earthrise (the last game I played) had its flaws alright, but the puzzles at least made me use my brain and gave me a real sense of achievement when I solved them. Not the case here…
Rating: 3


Interface and Inventory
I’ll start by saying that I didn’t mind the right click – select action interface that was designed for the game. It was a little slow to use, but there were some shortcuts available and it was perfectly functional. The game’s ridiculously pedantic demands that I stand in exact spots to complete certain actions was another matter. It’s fine that the player needs to stand in front of a console if they are to use it. That’s realism that I accept. Having only one exact position that the player can stand in to close a door from is just unnecessary. It literally took me minutes to find the spot on the ground I needed to stand on when using the lance to get the habit out of the tree. The fact that in real life I would have been able to do it from pretty much any angle made it more than a little infuriating! The movement for the most part was slow and clumsy too, and while my experience was vastly improved when Sha1tan informed me that pressing the number key would allow me to use the arrow keys instead of the mouse, there’s no excuse for what I was forced to endure in the game’s “climactic” maze. With only six minutes on the clock to make it to the computer room and then to the first aid hangar, every second counted. Struggling to get my character to stop directly in front of ladders meant I was forced to save and restore my progress dozens of times to make it through what would already have been a challenging experience. The inventory was nothing more than a list and nothing was selectable. Since there was no parser, I literally had no way to look at any of my items, and regularly wanted to.
Rating: 4


Story and Setting
I found the premise of Future Wars to be reasonably interesting. It soon became apparent that very little of it was going to make any scientific sense, but time travel stories never really do. There were quite a few questions that came to mind that were never answered, and unlikely coincidences occurred throughout, but the biggest issue was how predictable and cliché things got once the basic premise was set. It was so very obvious that certain events were going to take place. Of course Lo’Ann was going to save me from my execution! Of course the bomb was going to be detonated 65 million years ago and wipe out the dinosaurs! I know that a lot of games have predictable plot devices, but there was something particularly telegraphed about the stuff that went on in Future Wars. I was subjected to quite a few explanatory conversations in the game, but reading over them now it becomes clear that they all cover exactly the same ground in slightly different ways. Most of it was cryptically explained in the manual before I even started. I think it was Laukku who mentioned how bland the game’s characters were and he’s absolutely right on that front too. My own character was boring and as much as I wanted to get excited about the “beautiful” Lo’Ann, her actions and dialogue was entirely wooden and predictable.
Rating: 4


Sound and Graphics
I was a bit disappointed with the sound in Future Wars. I’d read somewhere that Jean Baudlot had been responsible for some great game soundtracks, but there was nothing memorable or impressive here. For the most part I was sitting in silence, which is something I’ve started to punish, and when music arrived, it was all a bit blah. The visuals were quite fantastic though!!!! Actually, let me adjust that statement slightly. The outdoor visuals were fantastic!!!! From the side of the skyscraper at the beginning, to the swamp and forests in the Middle-Ages, right through to the ruined landscape of the future, the environments were both convincing and beautiful. I really think the colour selection was far and away the best of all games so far (with the possible exception of Loom), and a major reason for the game’s attractiveness. The indoor sections were also attractive, but the designers’ decision to decrease the window size in proportion to the space dramatically affects the outcome. Pixel hunting was required to succeed in Future Wars, but it was made extra difficult by the play environment constantly being shrunk in this fashion. As a final point, the animation is very smooth, but it could probably be blamed for the very slow speed that the main character moves at.
Rating: 6


Environment and Atmosphere
As you would expect for a game that takes place in several time periods, the environment of Future Wars was varied. These environments included an office block, swampland, forests, futuristic post-apocalyptic landscape, an underground sewer, prehistoric caves, and an alien space station. As mentioned in the graphics section, it was all pretty convincingly realised (well, apart from the futuristic bits which already look a tad dated). Many times I was reminded of Out of This World and Flashback, which are two games that graphics man Eric Chahi would go on to play a major role in. I can’t fault his design or the result. When it comes to atmosphere, I didn’t get into Future Wars anywhere near as much as I felt I should be. The graphics and environments should have been right up my alley, but the X factor, the magic, just wasn’t there. Perhaps my character’s complete lack of motivation was transmitted from him to me? The lack of effective humor (or anything resembling entertaining dialogue) didn’t help, and my struggles with the interface / movement wouldn’t have either. Now that I’ve thought about it more, I think what was really missing from Future Wars was fun!
Rating: 5


Dialogue and Acting
I’ll say straight up that the dialogue and descriptions in Future Wars are like literary masterpieces when compared to that found in the previous French games on the list so far. Mortville Manor, Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess and Emmanuelle: A Game of Eroticism all had shocking translations and I’m not convinced they would have been much better in their native language (I can’t criticise Captain Blood for bad translation, but deciphering it’s alien language offered a very similar challenge). Future Wars contains perfectly adequate English, but it’s difficult to call it anything other than that…adequate. Effort was made to inject humor and some of the landscape descriptions were relatively detailed, but none of it really achieved anything beyond letting me know what was going on. The blame for the blandness of the characters shouldn’t be laid at the feet of artist Chahi, and instead with the writer, Paul Cuisset. Even Lo’Ann, who could have been a really strong character, gave me very little to care about (or be attracted to given my character’s apparent feelings for her). I’ve been pretty harsh throughout this post, but I guess I won’t be too harsh on the rating for this category. After all, I’ve certainly had to deal with a lot worse than adequate!
Rating: 4


So thats 3 + 4 + 4 + 6 + 5 + 4, which equals 26, divided by 60 comes to 43 when rounded down. Hmmm...that leaves it equal with both Earthrise and Neuromancer. Those games were pretty different to Future Wars, which makes it difficult to make comparisons, but the sour taste I have in my mouth is compelling me to remove a discretionary point here. No, I wont do it. Ive definitely punished the game enough, so 43 it is!