Wayne’s World - Final Rating

by Michael

Okay, kids.  Grab some Red Vines and let’s rock out this final rating post.

So, we reached the end of Wayne’s World in the last post, and it’s time to reflect on the experience.  This can be a very educational experience, and with some soul-searching, this process will bring us to total harmony....

... NOT!

Seriously, this wasn’t a bad game.  It definitely has flaws, but I was expecting something much, much worse based on the games of this developer we played already.  Most recently, Alex briefed us on L.A. Law back in 1992, and Ilmari drove The Beverly Hillbillies to the view of civilization earlier this gaming year.  I think they made a better effort with this outing, but let’s see how it fares in the scoring.  

Puzzles and Solvability

There’s a decent assortment of puzzle types here, but not always implemented the best way.  Let’s see... simple fetch quests, inventory manipulation, dialog choices... not bad, so far.  They even programmed in a feature to switch players from Wayne to Garth as needed.  

Sadly, they didn’t make much use of that feature.  For other scoring categories, they used it well.  Specifically, different characters looking at things eliciting different responses.

They wrote the game assuming I’d visit specific locations in a certain order, and none of their playtesters (if they had some) noticed that if you played differently, you would get the answers to puzzles and questions before you asked them.

In the screenshot above, I reference the POTATO chip.  Since we had never seen the build-it-yourself show yet, how would we have known a) this was called a POTATO chip and b) that it packs a lot of power?  Perhaps if I had used a different dialog path with the inventor, I could have learned it that way, but I didn’t.  At this point in the game, it should have just been some electronic litter on the warehouse floor.

The same thing happened with talking to the music shop owner, when my dialog choices referenced Cassandra’s contract.  I hadn’t yet talked to her, so how would I have known?

Ilmari had a lot of pixel hunting last time around, but I didn’t feel that way here, except maybe for the path to the back room of the pizzeria.

Despite this flaw, it wasn’t that bad.  The puzzles were fair, and not always overly obvious.  The mousetrap was a little ridiculous, but using candy as ammunition for a pea-shooter was equally creative and convoluted at the same time.  Well, that was the first 2 gameplay sessions.  How about the third?

That maze was obnoxious.  You want a game that did a sewer maze better?  Can you believe I’m going to reference Police Quest II?

I was ready to give this a higher score than Ilmari did for their last game, but the maze took all that goodwill away.  That means a score of 4.

Interface and Inventory

The game handled this surprisingly well.  The interface was a standard-style icon based system.  You click on the icon, then click on the item.  While they didn’t make much use of it, they managed to make a funny joke useful with the “extreme close-up” choice, referencing the movie.

What’s missing?  A walk icon.  They handled it well considering its absence, but having to “USE HALLWAY” to travel seemed odd.  There was a couple of times I managed to get the boys standing in front of something I wanted to interact with, but couldn’t.  I had to use an icon on something else across the room to move them, and then I could proceed.

The save system was the real low-spot.  A limited number of slots, and you can’t label them.  Also, you don’t know if they’ve been used or not.  In the screenshot above, I think I was up to number 6.  I had to simply remember what was what.

The inventory access was mostly well-programmed.  Click the inventory button, and it overlaid at the top of the screen.  You could use the icons with it, and sometimes items with each other.  Looking at items gave descriptions, and a few items could be viewed close-up.  Simple.

There were so many items in each screen to look at, attempt to interact with, and take.  There were red herrings, or perhaps alternate solutions?  Could I have used the laundry basket for something?  The gum?  I’m curious.  But even if I couldn’t, I’m glad they were there for the taking.  It helped make the puzzles a bit less obvious.

While not perfect, it was workable, and better than both my last game played here and their last game played here by Ilmari.  I’ll give it a 6.

Story and Setting

The plot:  Successful local TV personalities Wayne and Garth are going to lose their broadcast time because the public station lost its funding.  So, they organize a telethon to raise money to save the station, but the behind-the-scenes organization that arranged for the funding to disappear wasn’t happy with their success, so they kidnapped Wayne’s girlfriend and the money to slow them down some more.

As commenter arcanetrivia pointed out, the story line was very familiar to any Weird Al fans in the room.  But truthfully, they both drew off of common tropes.  

It wasn’t based on the movie at all, but was an original story.  It gets some credit for that. 

The game was set in the expected location of their show, Aurora, Illinois.  There was a great variety of locations to visit, none of them especially complex, but again, not dissatisfying.

Honestly, I can’t say much bad about this aspect of the game.  Again, I wish most of the locations had more than one screen to them, but there were so many details added that the world was fleshed out in the smaller space.  So many random items could be looked at, and even taken, even if they weren’t used, my inventory wasn’t overwhelmed.  (Yes, I know, wrong category, but still worth saying.)  

Now if only they had set this at night, like the movie.  But understandably, many of the businesses would have been closed.  Nevertheless,  I’m giving this a 5.

Sound and Graphics

The graphics were quite acceptable.  So much so that they were even stolen for a Monkey Island fan video, which feels like it was taken from an Ernest Cline novel.  There was no pixel hunting, and the detail in the art was better than expected from the previous works.  

Some unexpected little details here and there, like when we get the advertising from the agency, the ad on the side of the supermarket changes.  The mayor’s home, the floors are polished so shiny, we see the reflections of the pillars and the chandelier.  The black & white Frankenstein movie, including the icons.

That’s the positive.  Now the negative.

Ilmari on Beverly Hillbillies: “...the game being filled with a couple of irritating and endlessly repeating digital compositions.”  Well, that hasn’t changed.  The music in my game was slightly better, but I still wanted to shove a pencil in my ears after about 20 minutes or so.

There were a few digitized sounds from the movie overused as dialog for doing something unexpected (like, “Not!” or “Ex-squeeze me?”) but otherwise, it was just the same music on repeat.  I tried it on both the SoundBlaster and the MT-32, and they were nearly identical.

I wanted to go higher, but really, I wasn’t kidding about wanting to stab out my eardrums.  It gets a 4.

Environment and Atmosphere

I touched on it in the setting rating, because for me, it overlaps.  I felt like I was in  Wayne’s world, so to speak.  I just wish it had been set at night.  Also, had they brought back some more characters from the movie would have helped the world feel like the world of the movie.,

Still, they got the job done.  A score of 4.

Dialog and Acting

Surprisingly, they managed to do a good job of writing it for those characters, and having both players react differently to nearly everything was well executed.  Was it as witty as the SNL skits?  Nah.  But they didn’t dishonor the legacy, either.  A score of 5.

The math: 4+6+5+4+4+5=29 / .6 = 46.667.  But I hold a grudge, for the maze and the music, so let’s remove a couple of points from that, bringing it to 45.  

I’m a little surprised here -- usually, I’m the grumpy reviewer that thinks the worst about things, but somehow, nearly everyone guessed lower.  I suppose that’s fair, considering the last game we played from them.

Still, the closest guess was from the reader who paid valuable CAPs to have this game get played, so I suppose he can consider this a partial refund.  Andy_Panthro, the winning guess was yours.  (Only Alex Romanov guessed higher, but his experience with the living room graphics may have clouded his judgment...)

Well, this has been more fun than I expected, and now I’m in search of my next game.  I'll be back soon, returning to the forest with a missed classic.

CAP Distribution

100 CAPs to Michael

• Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - For playing Wayne’s World for our enjoyment

10 CAPs to Andy_Panthro

• Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For having the closest guess to the final score for Wayne’s World

15 CAPs to arcanetrivia

• We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badgers Award - 10 CAPs - For making the connection between the plot of this game and that of the movie UHF

• My Way or the Highway Award - 5 CAPs - For staying awake the day her school teacher taught about world dictators

10 CAPs to Alex Romanov

• Interior Decoration Award - 10 CAPs - For recognizing the living room art from a rare video on a magazine CD insert over 20 years ago

5 CAPs to LeftHanded Matt

• A League of His Own Award - 5 CAPs - For his knowledge of Madonna films

5 CAPs to ShaddamIVth

• Reaching our Goals Award - 5 CAPs - For correctly musing that they would only earn $50k and not one penny more.