2005 Quest / Adventure / Platform Game of the Year

2005 Quest / Adventure / Platform Game of the Year

While there are those who stick to a single strict definition of adventure games, Game Tunnel groups classic adventure games with Platform games as well as action titles that devote a lot of time to the story and adventure.

As in years past, this category serves up some great games that go beyond your typical non-stop action and provide an experience unlike any other which makes the games stand out as some of the top games of the year.

5th Place - Laser Dolphin

Laser Dolphin is a title that manages to dodge the potentially fatal bullet that is an absolutely absurd premise. The prime minister, see, he's been kidnapped by aliens. So, the powers that be phone—yes, phone—Laser Dolphin whose job it is to recover a UFO that went down in the deep seas. Laser Dolphin pulls off the absurdity though. From the abducted prime minister, to seagulls that drop depth charges, to fish launching missiles, the game is aware enough of its own wackiness to really sell it.

Laser Dolphin is a side-scrolling platformer set in the water. Your dolphin can be controlled either using the WASD keys for tighter movement and the mouse button for firing and orientation, or you can go all out speed and hold down the space bar to propel your dolphin wherever you happen to be pointing the mouse, laser blazing the whole way.

It would be very easy for Laser Dolphin's concept to wear thin. Levels (50 of them!) are underwater mazes and the real variety in gameplay lies in the enemies that the gamer is presented with more than any real variety in gameplay itself. This, however, is only in the action mode for the game.  For more relaxed play, Laser Dolphin includes several other modes of play including a stunt mode (which is exactly what it sounds like!), a race mode and a level editor (not to mention a plethora of cheats (23!) to be unlocked).

This is a title that has a lot going for it. Multiple game modes, secrets galore, a colorful and fun style and a wacky sensibility. There are some control issues with the game, things can feel a little loose, but it's not enough to ruin the thrill of speeding through a level, firing a laser indiscriminately as you go. It's definitely worth picking up.

4th Place - Façade

Façade is one of the hardest games to describe from this year's awards and, depending on who you talk to, it is either one of the best games released in recent memory or one of the worst games ever made.  Certainly that description covers a lot of territory, and so does Facade. 

Façade is an interactive story.  Players play by typing in their interactions with a very troubled couple.  All of the couple's lines are pre-recorded, but there are many combinations that lead to the game being very different each time you play.  The real focus of the game is the interaction that takes place between you and the characters. 

Playing as a male or female character you type in whatever comes to mind and watch the game unfold.  Grace and Trip's eyes and their distance from each other help to give you some understanding of how things are going, but keeping the relationship from ending horribly right in front of your eyes is rather challenging.  Of course, sometimes it can be as much fun to mess with the characters as anything.  You can pick the magic 8-ball up off the wet bar and keep shaking it and then saying whatever you see in the ball.  Or you can make a pass at Trip or Grace, or both of them.  Or you can tell them just how horrible they both are, or antagonize them as they talk about their problems.

The game is built to be wide-open, and while it doesn't succeed all the time, this freeware games packs more than a moments of amazement and many hours of entertainment.

3rd Place - DROD: Return to Rooted Hold

DROD is a hard game to categorize. It feels something like a puzzle game, but more along the lines of an RPG, but not really an RPG, it's a Rolepuzzling Hack & Slash, but in the end we pegged it as a quest game. In Deadly Rooms of Death – Journey to Rooted Hold, you play the role of Beethro, who appears to be a member of a troll-like species, and whose job it is to get to the bottom of whatever dungeon he enters while clearing the vermin out of all the rooms, and, of course, he must do this without dying himself. You have a sword which always points in the direction you last turned, marking a kill zone for Roaches, Spiders, Wraithwings and other mobs you encounter in the dungeons. Sometimes you are accompanied by NPCs like your nephew Halph, who have special abilities and behaviors that factor in as parts of the current puzzle’s solution.

There is some kind of story line, with humorous voice-over dialogue, but, as you are told in the tutorial, you can solve the game without listening to the dialogue at all. However, the funny remarks and retorts the characters have in store for each other make the game that much more entertaining.

Your movements are entirely turn-based, meaning that you can meticulously plan your every move – and in fact, you must! In later levels, every step you take must be a part of your solution unless you want to get eaten alive by a giant cockroach – or worse. Doors need to be triggered in time, your sword needs to be sticking out in the right direction, and your NPC friends need to stay put or follow you around at the right moments. The game is very challenging and sometimes frustrating because of the high degree of precision and discipline it demands from its players.

Deadly Rooms of Death – Journey to Rooted Hold has a sizeable fan base, mostly since the DROD series has already been around for a couple of years and because Caravel Games goes to great lengths to please the community. Thanks to this intimate relationship between the community and the developers, and of course a great game that is  challenging and unique, the DROD fandom is flourishing.

2nd Place - Mexican Motor Mafia

Mexican Motor Mafia takes you back. It takes you back to the good old days when Grand Theft Auto was a top-down, 2-D automobile-based game. It takes you back to the days when Antonio Banderas was a desperado with vengeance on his mind. It takes you back to a happy place that any gamer should be excited to return to.

Your brother was shot and killed, in front of his children no less, by Priest, the leader of the Red Texas Four who escaped from prison and went on to terrorize the general citizenry. His aggression cannot be tolerated and you’re on a mission to take down each of the members of the Red Texas Four: La Toro, Tito, Whistler and Priest.

How are you going to take these dangerous men down? With a couple of firearms, a sweet ride and your arrow keys, or if it strikes your fancy, the WASD keys. You view the action from a top-down perspective, use the keyboard to move your cars around, and aim with the mouse. Your weapons are limited by the space inside your vehicle, so when you begin, you can only fire out of the left side of your car. As you move up in the world and purchase better cars, you gain armor, speed, cargo space, and gun space, meaning you can go faster, take more damage and fire all sorts of ammunition from both side of your car.

When you arrive at a mission location, gameplay switches into a deathmatch arena style of play. It’s just you and however many bandit-filled cars happen to be on that level. You achieve victory when your engine is the only one left revving on the field. Your enemies will be in several levels of vehicles with several styles of weapons, each of which will require it’s own particular strategy to defeat. If you can’t seem to get the best of a particular gang of baddies, never fear. When you’re beaten, all you lose is a portion of your cash and then you get to continue where you left off from a nearby town.

Mexican Motor Mafia is the kind of work that deserves to get noticed. It takes on the kind of gameplay normally tackled by big name developers and does admirably with it. The music is excellent (not some MIDI rip-off of an NES game) and really helps to round out the overall feeling of the game, it alone would almost be worth the cost of the game in MP3 downloads. Gamers looking for an action fix should take the time to check it out. With the new multiplayer online mode...we'll be destroying you shortly.

2005 Adventure/Quest Game of the Year - Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

Weird Worlds is the sequel to the amazing Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.  While that game focused on providing an adventure in 20 minutes or less, Weird Worlds expands the galaxy and looks to give you even more adventure (in just a few minutes more than 20).

Weird Worlds is a difficult game to describe.  The galaxy map is somewhat reminiscent of Master of Orion.  As a player, you choose between 3 different professions before you begin your journey.  The 3 professions guide your journey somewhat as they give you a focus as you play.  As a scientist, you fly around the galaxy looking for life forms and new planets.  Pirates are doing a bit of trading, looking for rare and valuable items that will bring in the biggest bank.  As the Captain of a battleship, you fly around protecting your home world from alien threats while also finding new improved weapons to aid you in your fight.

The thing that really drives Weird Worlds to be great is the story that unfolds every time you play the game.   Since the galaxy is randomly generated, every time you start a new game you will confront a new challenge.  The items you find, the mercenaries you can hire, and the aliens that are anxiously awaiting the chance to blast you into bits all change from game to game.  Take the different professions that have different goals in exploring the galaxy and add the fact that there are more stars than you are likely to visit in a single game and you have a game with the ultimate replay factor.  With a short game time (small and medium sized galaxies are easily finished in 10-15 minutes) Weird Worlds gives players a quick adventure across the galaxy that is always different and enjoyable (and players can chose a longer game by setting the galaxy size to large).

The graphics are greatly improved over SAIS, and that is not any kind of knock against that good-looking game.  Instead, the statement is due to the mouth-dropping lasers and other weapons that you can see just by starting up the game and watching the battles that ensue on the screen behind you.

The title-screen battles may be all you want to see initially as the space battles in Weird Worlds are difficult until you begin to understand how to call upon the Klackons for help or use one of the various super weapons in the game to get the upper-hand in combat.

Ultimately Weird Worlds is about adventure as you scour the galaxy and there are enough special objects in the game to keep it continually interesting.  Using the hyperdrive to get from one planet to another by disappearing into an explosion of lights is cool, but you haven't really traveled until you've folded space! 

As the coolest trip across the galaxy in the history of games Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is a sure-fire hit that should be in every gamer's library.  It was a run-away winner of our Adventure/Quest game of the year for 2005.