Missed Classic: The Dark Half - Won and Final Rating

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Welcome to Miriam's Apartment in scenic New York (MAY NOT ACTUALLY NEW YORK IN THE GAME) where we, who are definitely not George Stark, will investigate Miriam's death. There are a lot of objects I can examine here, but I suspect a flowerbed is the only one I can do anything with. Oh, well, inside we go.

No wonder Miriam got murdered, she lives in Vincent Price's apartment building.

I'm not so sure Stark wasn't doing the world a favor, apparently Miriam really likes green. 10 CAPs for your best explanation of why this room looks like this. The couch, the trashcan and the sign aren't really important, but since we already know that the paper is useful, we'll take it. Inside her apartment we go.

This room has a color motif like the last one, but it's more subtle this time.

Miriam's dead, her throat's been cut. A few flavor items, like the Beaumonts wedding photo with the hair changed to blonde and the names changed to Miriam and whoever it is she was married to. What I can pick up is a tissue containing something, which I need to open to see has an eyeball. Then a fireplace poker, which Beaumont says would make a good weapon. It'd also make good evidence at our murder trial.

Next I spot a whistle while searching the vase. I don't make the connection to, oh, there's a fish tank, until I realize I can use objects on both the vase and the fishtank. So I pour water using one of the glasses I have into the vase, which brings it up. Now I have a bird whistle. Let's just leave.

Our vision flashes red, which reminds me of Kill Bill.

Okay, that was genuinely effective. Especially since a spooky laugh starts when he appears.

"I'm just going to let you do this because...uh..."

Beaumont says he needs to take a picture of him. Makes sense, but that wasn't in the film. Just use the camera, boom, took a picture. Then I use the poker. I'm glad to see the game has actually remembered that it's supposed to be about stopping Stark, not making Beaumont look like he's gone kookoo for Cocoa Puffs. Now I can leave...after I figure out that I have to push the elevator button. Only push, not use...

I guess I better get these photos developed too. Wait, Beaumont says he has more exposures left. Now is not the time to care about that, when you may end up in jail. Well, I guess I need to get the other photographs back. Oop, I need money. Can I give the quarters? No. Uselessly, I keep talking to the guy until he recognizes me as Stark. This makes the fact that Beaumont wasn't fingered as Stark before now unlikely. Well, I guess this is what the book is for, I give it to him and get my photos.

You know, I'm not sure either of these pictures help Beaumont. "Here's a photo of someone who looks like me murdering Homer, wait, why are you arresting me!" "Here's a photo of a guy who looks like me with a bloody, bandaged face!" Let's uh...now what? Let's go home.

Turns out Liz left a note for us. "Pick up milk, I have money in my jacket." Which is in the closet. That has the bloody bottle of whisky. Inside is nine dollars, which I'm sure I won't use to buy milk. This just isn't that kind of game. Good thing I already got the film. Let's try Reggie again, nope. Might as well go to the university again, since I don't have any other option.

"Hello person suspected of violently murdering several people, what can I do for you?"

Reggie is incredibly unsurprised to see Beaumont climb in through the window, and accepts his explanation of Stark committing the murders without question. It seems he's going after everyone responsible for his death. That he gains strength when he's written about. In fact, Reggie gives a more concrete underlying explanation than was ever really given in the movie. They just sort of thought this, and Beaumont writing about Stark made Stark stronger, and Beaumont weaker. I guess it was more subtext, and that was too much for the writers of this game.

Then we get onto the Sparrows, which was something someone else gave an explanation on, but then again, in this game Reggie is effectively a powerful witch or something who knows all. They're psychopomps with the power to ferry souls to the afterlife. Because Stark and Beaumont control the same soul or something, one must be excised. It's in our interests to make it so that the one excised is Stark. I quickly check a walkthrough to see if I need to pixel hunt here, but nothing, I can continue on.

There is nothing of value here, apparently.

I also catch that I have to walk into the hardware store to get a note. Okay then. I do a quick once over. I talk to the barber again, he's suspicious of me, which I can respond to by threatening to murder him. Which is the best answer since it gets me the razor. Our hero everyone. I then return home. It's another fun time with the police. Oops, after I put the gun back in my mailbox.

Now, the cops have been smart up until this point, except that part of their suspicion of Beaumont is that Miriam last called him. The blood thing should really be the only thing we're concerned about here. So I ask how I'm bleeding and he says they'll do a strip search down at the station. You know, things would be a lot easier if we just let Beaumont get arrested, but that would conflict with the grand narrative this game is setting up. YOU can't figure out the mystery if you're in prison!

Even if you do, it still looks pretty grim, because there's someone with your exact DNA killing people.

Then I'm given three options, give them the razor, give them the photo I took, or give them the photo Homer took. Beaumont said that he's lucky that they didn't notice that photo at the development place and thinks that the photo he took will help him, so let's try that. Oh, right, we don't have an actual photo, just film. I can give them the message I got from Stark, but that doesn't help either. So next time, I figure I should try the other photo. This doesn't result in Beaumont getting arrested and gives me the option to claim the killer is pretending to be him and is afraid for his family.

This allows me to suggest that I know who is going to be killed next. This naturally results in Beaumont getting arrested. In my defense, I'm not sure where the game is going with this, beyond it being incredibly stupid. They should be arresting me for having a random eyeball in my pocket. I then try the razor, the barber reported it stolen. Huh, is this entire part of the conversation a dead end? No, admitting to it reveals that the phone call was made by Beaumont's calling card, which I'm guessing was a smoking gun in the '90s and claiming George did it is suicide.

So I check a walkthrough. No, it should be going well based on what I've done, so I double check. Oh, I forgot to pick up the note in the hardware store...or rather I didn't realize I needed to pick up the note in the hardware store. When I bring this up, the conversation continues, but the Sheriff says anyone could have dropped it off. Man, the cops in this game are really competent, Beaumont is just making things worse by what he's done. I then give him the eyeball, and he believes Beaumont, but also puts him and everyone he know under constant police protection. And his phone is being tapped.

I'll give the game some credit, someone here knows how to frame shots to create a quite menacing effect.

Meanwhile, Stark is about to eliminate that police protection. Er...now what? Am I just supposed to randomly leave my house to go to Mr. Cowley's office in New York or where ever? I guess so.

Literally, they're looking at me with George's eyeball!

Check out this police van. They must be real small officers if they can fit in there. Eh...I can't leave yet, I need to lose them. Hey, I have that piece of paper.

Oh, hey, it's the blog mantra.

I feel like this is what a psycho stalker and not an evil twin should be saying. Er...now what? I try opening the windows, one has been stuck for ages and the other he won't because it looks like rain. Yeah, raining blood, but I guess King was born twenty years too early to be making Slayer references...actually wait a minute, did he ever mention Anthrax? Well, one of the band members wrote the foreword to one of his books, and another place mentions that he made a reference to him in one book, but the article is gone.

Getting back on topic, I hit upon the telephone pole...but I can't actually do anything to it. Every time I try an action, nothing happens. I try to use the bed again, thinking that it won't do anything...it does. Well, the light does.

In the movie, this was Liz...which it actually is in the game, just depicted badly, because this scene doesn't actually appear in-game.

Another dream sequence, this time we get this at the end of it. Kind of not as impressive as a mysterious hooded figure should be. Kind of looked like a woman, you know like those Japanese horror movies. When I saw that it was a man in distress it kind of got less creepy. And it's still night out. Suddenly the game stops for a ringing phone. Beaumont wonders who it is, since it's 4 in the morning. There isn't a clock in his bedroom, by the way. Every time I press walk to living room though, the game just repeats the ringing sound. I reload once, and eventually make it past it by using open instead of walk. It isn't doing anything special, it just bypasses the real action, I guess.

On the phone is Stark, with another of the game's genuinely creepy moments. The guy's face looks pretty nasty animated. Beaumont's agent is dead and we being giant suckers are now going to try to figure out a way to get past the police to get more of our grubby DNA all over the crime scene. I had to look this up, because I wouldn't have figured it out even if it is reasonable. Light the tree branch I got eons ago on fire. It slipped my mind because it was just so long ago.

Only George Stark knows what's going on inside Beaumont's head, and he's crazy, so maybe.

It's more complicated than that, so I really wouldn't have figured it out. Use the tree branch in the bowl under the smoke alarm. I'll give credit to the game for this, it's an entirely reasonable and logical puzzle given the circumstances even if the way the game is structured makes this something I would never figure out. Two seemingly useless objects and an item that hasn't been useful for the entire game. That said, the step of having to hide behind the cupboard to avoid the cops coming in is really annoying. You'd think they would know that Beaumont is screwing with them by the second time.

After that they walk into the bedroom, allowing me to leave for New York again. Wow, look at those potholes. Actually, I can only look at the city, the door and the taxi. I'm going to say it, this is a crappy looking screen. Sure, it has some decent perspective, though look at the sky at the horizon in New York freaking City, but it's mostly just an odd mix of flat colors and simple shading. Look at the building I'm going into! It could be taken from a EGA game, and put into a CGA game with little change.

Periods apparently don't sell books.

Inside we get a gruesome scene. The phone rings, and we talk to Stark again. He tells us that he decided we need a new agent, and to ask a Doctor Pritchard what's going on. That's helpful. This room doesn't really have anything in it. We can pick up some notes that are the ones that Beaumont wrote to Stark, apparently, and read an excerpt from Stark's book.

So we go to the hospital and meet Pritchard. He recognizes me, because uh...your guess is better than mine at this point, I'm in too deep. I get three conversation options as if I needed that here. I ask him about the surgery, and he tells me that Stark was an unformed twin who was partially absorbed by Beaumont in the womb, and the surgery was done to remove what was left. Beaumont's parents buried him because they thought he deserved one. He goes off to get his files.

Now I can explore the room, there's a cabinet on the left which is locked, but what I really want is a drawer on the trolley on the right. Inside is another scene in which I can grab a scalpel, and a first aid kit. Inside the first aid kit is gauze, just gauze. There's a lot of stuff inside and all I get are one-line comments like the usual joke about hospital gowns.

Good thing he killed him in the bathroom - Easier to clean up the blood.

Surprise, Stark kills the doctor. I think. It looks less like his throat's been cut and more like someone stuck a piece of rubber on his neck. Then we hear a car driving off, Beaumont rushing to the window and saying it's Stark. I try to go into the room the doctor went into, no dice, then outside to travel, but Beaumont wants to call Liz first. So I do that, basically just telling her to go without packing. Now I can leave, but I can't go home because the police are there...so I guess I should return to the college.

This is affecting me quite badly, you can tell by my expression.

Uh-oh, Beaumont is starting to become weaker. Fortunately, we're about to play twenty questions to find out how to kill Stark. Or rather, defeat him, since I can't kill him or we both die. Instead I have to just be the stronger of the two until the sparrows come to take one of us away to the afterlife. Asking her about the book and she tells me that if I help him write the book, he'll steal my strength.

At this point it cuts to Beaumont's house, where Liz tries to convince the police she's in danger from Stark. They still don't believe he exists, and really, who can blame them? Cutting back to Beaumont, Stark calls us at the university, saying that his wife isn't going anywhere. Heheheheh. Which Beaumont, not unreasonably, takes as him being there. In the movie, Liz was able to get away with their children. Come to think of it, they aren't anywhere, guess Capstone was too skittish to include the possibility of child murder in their game. Which I don't think a mainstream American game would feature outside of something in a backstory until around Postal came out...but that implies Postal wasn't being incredibly edgy.

Beaumont looks like he's about to drop a really lame rap rock album.

Back to the game, Reggie gives me a disguise...the same kind of cap and glasses Stark is wearing. You know, the film didn't really entertain it, but is the game genuinely making it a mystery as to whether or not Stark is just hallucinating this? Well...time to go home to fight Stark.

Outside, the cops have been killed. Farewell, Michael Rooker, your character didn't deserve that fate considering you were more competent than the actual protagonist of this game. Inside, we have Liz. Using the scalpel I can free her. And nothing is preventing me from just walking out and leaving, except that the game won't let me travel anywhere. Lame. Actually I can't get in, it's locked from the other side for some reason. Uh...I guess I should activate the smoke alarm? Maybe pick up the whisky bottle, since Stark drinks it.

Beaumont's mixtape is, as the kids say, fire. FIRE!

Huh...the bookcase is an impenetrable block. I can't activate the smoke alarm for some reason, and I can't open the bookcase by any method I can think of. Even trying to talk. Guess I'll look it up again...make a molotov cocktail by combining the whisky and the gauze, then lighting it. Sure, if Beaumont wants to burn down his own house, but I guess it's reasonable.

No wonder, if you think forced is the accurate word here.

Finally, we see our alter ego. Interestingly, while there's a lot of mirroring going on, they do add differing details. He wants my help writing the book, naturally, starting off with the next title. I pick what I think is an already used title, Mean Machine...and Stark blows up with rage.

Seeing Stark cutting your throat is oddly effective imagery. When we play games in first person, we're either killing machines or running away from vague threats. A very real action like this just doesn't happen. Kind of like seeing your body in first-person.

Oh, no, Beaumont's had raspberry jam spilled on him. Actually, hang on a moment. Firstly, the all-seeing lady of plot development told me that by murdering me, Stark dies too. Secondly, someone who won't start writing a book until he has a title and needs help for that isn't selling anything, except a book of blank pages. Thirdly, family? Game, the only family you've shown is Liz Beaumont, the kids don't exist. Right, serious answers then. Steel Machine, I guess, even though that sounds like a lame title for a book. He writes and then asks Beaumont for more, but I get the option of asking him to get another pencil, and I take it. Aha, he left his razor on the table, and I can pick it up and replace it with the dull one I got earlier. Nothing seems to actually happen, so I guess I screwed up.

It's okay, I still have skin on my lips.

Now I have to suggest what Stark should write. It's not really obvious what the game expects me to put in at first, since all I know about Stark's novels is that they're over the top crime affairs. I don't think it really hit me until I started offering suggestions that this Alexis Machine guy is some sort of super criminal who never loses and commits bizarre acts of violence. He can't blackmail people, because he lets his gun do the talking. His gun can't just go off, because he doesn't let it. He can't lose his weapon, because he doesn't lose his weapon. But he can escape from a fight by a random torch setting the place on fire. Each time I get a "wrong" answer, he cuts me, and it doesn't occur to me that this is the razor switch working until...

...Stark is taken away by the sparrows. Hey, it's the view from the cabin, taken at his house for some reason.

And the game ends, as does Beaumont's marriage, before he eventually kills himself because of the experience. The end.

Okay, that was the film, whatever happened here is clearly something else and incredibly absurd. I can't imagine the Thad Beaumont doing something like killing himself, that would imply that he would let someone else solve his problems. His marriage could still end, but Beaumont would make it the most painful divorce ever done in human history. Actually, that sounds like it would be a hilarious game to play.

Getting away from that, I am surprised at how short this game was. I can imagine being disappointed by that, in addition to the other negative qualities of the game. This cost $60 at the time, which today sounds like an absurd amount of money to spend on a game that was four hours long. There's less than that in content, and probably more in time guessing the solution, so that's an absolutely terrible deal. Not the worst deal, but if you don't speak Japanese, it might be up there.

This Session: 1 hours 40 minutes

Final Time: 3 hours 45 minutes

Puzzles and Solvability

I think this is a first for me, a pure graphic adventure game, which, based entirely on its own merits, is completely awful. Not because of a gimmick, not because of a weird issue. It's pure crap. What's worse is that towards the end it was producing puzzles that are not unreasonable...except that the puzzles were from a game which was bizarre the rest of the time. If you put them in a game that had a closer relationship to reality I think they were more reasonable.

For instance, you are given multiple occasions where you are given a room full of useful objects which could solve any number of issues...and what you can pick out is seemingly arbitrary. For instance, in a truck scene, you have to pick up some objects that would incriminate you in order to advance, yet you can't pick up all the objects that would incriminate you. You also don't really dispose of any of this, just putting one bottle of whisky in your closet, where it is unnoticed by the police despite frequently searching your house. Then afterwards, you have to use it to make a molotov cocktail with a wad of gauze you randomly picked up in a hospital room. The thing is, the game doesn't really prime you to blow something up that way. It just sort of expects you to guess things, whether they make sense or they don't.

1

Interface and Inventory

On a simple level, it kind of sucks. Left clicks should not stick. If I left click before I'm able to move, and then I both move and can't stop my action, we might end up in a self-perpetuating loop. So the simple act of moving around is made worse by the game. Boy, that's a great start.

The command list feels unnecessarily large. Not even in the usual slightly pretentious point I make about how many actions do you really need, but merely in that you have too many actions for the game. Actions only work if an object can use those actions, which I suppose is fine, except they made a game with basically one line of text per use of an action, and 10 actions you can use on something. Even poor quality amateur adventure games will give you responses for common actions 90% of the time. A game that was sold for real money can't do that?

More to the point, some of these actions are useless. Push and pull basically just do things you could solve with open and close, and use in one case. Give to could be combined with use. The game doesn't give an answer for the wrong but still technically true action, it doesn't do anything. You've just added in guess the verb to a graphic adventure game.

In theory, the inventory system was fine, but it does expose that most stuff at the top of the screen is entirely useless. You'll never need to just use something at the top, since that opens your inventory. You also have a lot of clutter going on there, things that are useful once remain inside your inventory for the entire game, which just makes unnecessary questions about later puzzles.

3

Story and Setting

This is the first time that seeing the material a game was based on beforehand has actively made the experience worse. The movie is the story of a man haunted by a twin brought forth by pure hatred, and this game isn't that. It wants to be that, but it fails. It isn't even a game where by cleverly paying attention, it's revealed that our hero is secretly the guy committing all the murders. It's just a game that poorly does it's own plot, raising doubt as to whether or not the hero is sane because that was never supposed to be part of the plot.

A lot of plot developments feel really convenient for the player. Like starting next to the graveyard, being able to find a character's address, or getting the information we need in such detail.

Small town America feels underused as an adventure game setting, and this isn't going to change any minds anytime soon. Places are odd props, which are nearly always useful twice, then never again. They always feel incomplete, despite no rational reason for this. This is specially noticeable in Beaumont's house, which is smaller than the house he had in the film, not even counting that it combines two places from the movie into one.

1

Sound and Graphics

There is one musical track, a single track about five minutes. It plays throughout the game. It's good enough, fits the mood and is generally non-disruptive enough that this isn't a problem. Otherwise there are sounds that play during important moments and come off as quite jarring. I think that also works, even if it is, in actuality, janky.

Graphically, I always thought something looked off about this game whenever I saw it on abandonware websites. Even before I started really paying attention to these things. Now, I can see why. The game frequently has simple colors, no details for the majority of the game's objects. The exception, often, is in more complex objects the developer doesn't quite know how to draw, so they replace a quality drawing with detail. Which wouldn't be bad if everything was consistent, instead, it looks out of place. I think in some cases though, this was just poorly shrinking some real image they hand down to scale, which also produced some out of place results.

The animation is fine, I guess, typical lower end adventure stuff. The walk cycle jumps around too much, but every purpose built animation seems fine. It is amusing seeing the insane deformation they put on the primary sprite though, you get really tiny, and still have a normal-sized stride.

The portraits of real people are bad. Not cursed, they just don't really look like the people they're supposed to represent.

3

Environment and Atmosphere

You just can't do anything in this game that isn't part of the plot. Everything is flat and quick. Like it was written by Ernest Hemmingway. Except without his wisdom of cramming it into short text. Instead it is terse and flat. Also, I can't even make a joke about using Liz. If you can't use your wife, who can you use? Seriously, if you can't make flavor text about using your wife, you've clearly phoned in the writing.

Parts of the game were moody, but other parts were sort of just there. At first the darkness is quite evocative, but then it's just sort of there. I find it amusing that when I was covering Last Half of Darkness, someone got it confused with this game. Because both basically use the same trick, dark blues to depict darkness. Yet, even when that series is at its worst, it plays out like we're temporarily away from it. This just has it by coincidence.

2

Dialogue and Acting

I don't really have any problems with the dialog except that Beaumont and some of the side characters really seem like idiots a lot of the time. But I don't really think that is a problem with how they talk. By the same token, I also don't really think much of it. It's just there.

3

1+3+1+3+2+3=11/0.6=18.333 or 18. Let's subtract a point for that nasty little bug I only got past via luck, so 17.

LeftHandedMatt gets it with the closest score of 24. Surprised nobody guessed something in the teens considering the reputation. Even as a Hail Mary option.

I think I'm going to continue the missed classic kick by finishing up Valhalla. I think enough mainline games are going right now that everyone will forgive me for letting mine slide a few weeks while I finish up unfinished business.