Jeff K.'sVerdict: YUO=FAGROT
Walter Miller's Verdict: Why can't we be freinds?
My Verdict: This game was written for me, and people like me. People who have grown to loathe the brainless net.mite
Game Information
Game Type: Inform
Other Games By This Author: Lomalow, The Big Mama
Download Link: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/comp00tr/comp00tr.z5
The Review...
Alright, here's the deal -- this game was entered into the
2000 Interactive Fiction Competition, a competition where 95% of the judges have
absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever. Don't believe me? How did Pass the Banana
do last year? How did Comp00ter Game finish up this year? Not enough to
even garner some Ass-Kicking Peanuts, that's how. Pour your heart and soul into a small
comedy, prospective IF authors, but don't enter it into the freaking IF competition,
unless you somehow enjoy pissing people off.
This thing is funny, though. I'm hesitant to say that it's an
"in-game." Seeing how if you're reading this you have access to the internet
it's just a matter of time before you meet an idiot who speaks the way that Barnwell's
character does in Comp00ter Game. Like it or not (and believe me, I do not) the
kiddies have invaded, set up their bases on the shore and begun shelling us. Don't believe
it? Go look at the comments section on the Shugashack.
Doesn't matter which news story you're looking at. By comparison, the PC in this game
looks like a PhD candidate.
This thing could not have been easy to program -- aside from the fact that keeping track
of your objects effectively is difficult enough in a language without an IDE, having to
test code which is supposed to come off as "buggy" is some proxy version of hell
I would want no part of.
It's frustrating, it's inane, it's a close-up look at a soul with nothing to offer and
nothing to say... but it's also a very amusing snapshot of the type of humanoid I have
learned to fully loathe. As IF is mostly about words, dialogue and textual interaction you
would think that there would be more games at least trying to come off as funny. This one
does so, and by simply coming around with some energy and great lines I found it more
amusing than any other game entered this year. It's all about how much fun you're having
as you type at the prompt. As a programmer in the 2000 Comp there were three games I could
give a vote for in the Author's Tally -- this got #3.
Simple Rating: NA / 10
Complicated Rating:
Story: 0 / 10
Writing: 9 / 10
Playability: 1 / 10
Puzzle Quality: 0 / 10
Parser Responsiveness: 0 / 10