Game 50: B.A.T. - Final rating

Written by Aperama

Welcome to your inevitable demise

I can really only say so many times how much I dislike this game. That said? I really, really dislike this game. There's just nothing about it that ever drew me in. I would not have completed it were it not for the fine ladies and gentlemen of this blog.. I'd not have even bothered using a walkthrough. The game's just not fun. There was exactly one point at which I felt the game had some small amount of promise – and it essentially ignored it entirely as best as I can tell, with no point ever seeming to take advantage of the 'RPG' elements – nothing ever increased in ability (I finished at level 4) and there was never a random element (I tried 'stealing' from about fifteen separate people – each and every last one of them caught me.) I can only imagine how poorly this is going to do on the PISSED score – so much so that I was trying to think of an extra 'E' to turn it into a 'DESPISE' score – but hey. There are better games waiting for me over this holiday break I'm presently on to soothe my worries (Pillars of Eternity has remained unplayed since release) – I think I just need to put this behind me. Like, y'know, someone who has witnessed a horrific murder. Uh. I mean, Vive le France! Baguettes and expensive wine, oui oui!

The game's start was its strongest, and even then it didn't do that too well

Puzzles and Solvability

I'm of two minds, here. I'd like to be as fair as humanly possible in trying to give some kudos to this game for what it has to offer – but I think that if I called this game an adventure game, I would also have to credit DOOM for its innovative design choices in having 'keys' to open 'doors'. That is just about literally the extent of puzzles in this game. There are several things that cannot be accessed at first. Some of them require sheer luck. No, scratch that. Most of them do. For instance, to find Sloan (required to get into the DRAG airlock) you need to meet (what is apparently him – more on that in sound/graphics) at the arcade. At 1:00. If you don't click on Bizzy between about 1 and 1:10, he's not there. That's not a puzzle – that's just sadism. If anyone were to even mention that this guy existed elsewhere in the game, that'd be one thing – but the only things you can talk to people about are Merigo, Vrangor and the city. Even they give no clues as to what you're going to end up having to do. I don't know how many times I can insist I'm trying not to be unfair! The only saving grace I can say for these 'puzzles' is that a lot of them can apparently be solved in other ways (if you don't stay in the hotel that has the technician's access card, you can apparently sometimes find it on random people being sold). Not a single 'puzzle' left me feeling satisfied that I'd done something worthwhile at the end of it – I think that has to be the real benchmark here. One point for them existing, another for alternate ways to get through them.

Rating: 2

I think that ID software should really pay some penance to the French developers here.
They virtually pioneered the 'find random keys and use them in doors' approach!

Interface and Inventory

This was what I was prepared for – anyone who has ever played, reviewed or even mentioned this game has spoken of its appalling interface. I can admire that the game's problems are largely that it wants to do too much. It wants to have combat, a (driving) simulator, a maze section, conversation.. it offers everything. What it really needed to do was any one of these well. To have a hunger/thirst system that doesn't show onscreen unless you use your inbuilt wrist thing – which you access by finding a point of the screen that hasn't randomly offered something else to do in spite of whether it's visible on-screen or not – unless you use a program in it, which you can only use one of and you need to decide between 'bodily function', 'combat readiness' and 'translation'? It's just silly. Having an icon on screen which says 'DYING OF THIRST YOU IDIOT' would have done everything. Keep the translate/combat readiness functions and it's a legitimate idea that'd work okay. I also drank (at a fountain in the park) so much that I got thirsty again – I went over 100 which made it 1. That's just a silly bug that could easily have been ironed out. Oh, and the inventory is just worthless. Ceaselessly clicking 'next' as each inventory item is listed, no 'previous' function to go back, and getting minimal information on items? I knew more about items out of King's Quest 1. This is probably the most regressive interface we will see in this blog's history – it would have been clearer what was going on were this a pure text adventure.

Rating: 1

It has so many options, but the majority of them are worthless. You never need to attack anyone, stealing is useless even with my 'high stats' in it, only a few people have anything useful to say – and the 'offer' command is never used in the game's solution. Just so many failures!

Story and Setting

They really put quite a bit of effort into this side of things, I can give them that much. I certainly do think that someone back at French Developer HQ (I refuse to give the company name again out of fear that it is like the Candyman, and will break down my door with more shoddy games if I do) had a very clear idea of what was going on in this game. Unfortunately, it doesn't translate particularly well ingame. There is one monologue which explains the game's story (outside of the manual)

“Hello agent AFGNCAAP, I hope you enjoyed your trip. I'm the one who has to explain your mission in detail. You are well aware of the important role that Selenia plays in supplying raw materials to Earth. As a matter of fact, if Selenia was seized by an enemy, Earth would soon be in serious trouble. We have received information, from a reliable source, that this dreadful possibility could soon become a reality!!! An outstanding, but raving mad scientist, has escaped the penal colony of St. Yver of the Angels. This would not be so important, if it were any scientist other than Vrangor!! We lost all trace of him after the escape, but recently discovered the presence of an ECG wave corresponding to that of Merigo, a prisoner who escaped with him. Merigo is our only possible lead to Vrangor. Also, the governor general of Selenia has received an ultimatum which, to cut a long story short, states that we have ten days to evacuate Selenia, after which every human being will be destroyed. The ultimatum was actually signed by Vrangor!!! The loss of Selenia would be a lethal blow to the Galactic Confederation... That's all I can tell you. It's up to you to eliminate all of the risk factors. Here is your equipment...We've added a hologram of Merigo. Everything depends on your success...”

The problem I have with this? This is the only real time at which the game's storyline is explained outside of the manual. For a game that has a twelve page fake novel interspersed with fake encyclopedia entries, I expected an awful lot more in-game. Having Merigo give a death speech was a nice touch – there just wasn't enough of it. And why not have Vrangor give a Bond villain monologue before he begins to open fire? Sure, it might not be realistic, but it would have given a lot more depth to the storyline. Again, I see this on the level of Doom – 'you're in a place, if you take too long you'll die. Kill people and you'll win.' Oh, and I really hated the manual's text, it was just.. gibberish. But hey – you have a clear directive, and the setting is unique. I can claw back some points here, because I'm nice.

Rating: 6

Crisa Kortakis seemed to know what was going on, at least.
Mind you, the game never let me press her for details..

Sound and Graphics

I'm going to be generous and call this an 1989 game for the sake of this portion of the review – according to most sources I can find, it was released in 1989 for the Amiga with a PC conversion being the reason we're playing it in 1990. There are three musical tracks in the game. I am being extremely polite in calling them 'musical'. I disliked the music that blares away at the game's start from moment nought, and it never got any better – I'm guessing that they really were a small team and didn't have any devoted musicians coming up with anything, just resulting in them putting together some slapdash instruments. Graphically, there are some portions which look alright – and others which really don't. The majority of people look like people, aliens look like aliens. There are still a few things that I find myself looking at in my screenshots that I can't quite place. However, there is really no excuse for having a character with an ambiguous name be dressed in such a way that I actually believe he is of the opposite sex.. or at least, the walkthrough I checked after playing suggests that Sloan is a 'he'. That we can have two conflicting ideas of what the picture shows is a bad thing – this isn't a Magic Eye puzzle, it's just a picture of a person. No text identifies them in any way, so we're left entirely with our graphical interpretation – it wouldn't have been hard to, say, not give him lipstick. (I'd not have a problem were he intended as a transgendered person – I just feel that they drew someone of roughly Native American origins and figured that'd be good enough. It's a nitpick, yes, but I feel a valid one.) Without the manual, I'd still not fully understand what a Kradokid is, either, or a Glo(c)kmup – the pictures weren't ever particularly clear, even if they did convey the right atmosphere. Still, the graphics weren't offensive.

Rating: 4

I still see a woman! It's the glossy lips, I think. Do I just need my eyes examined?

Environment and Atmosphere

This game, according to Trickster, was one of those that sucked him in and in spite of terrible interface and difficult playing conditions never let go of him. I don't hide in so much as the slightest that my experience was different. Perhaps it all started badly when I couldn't really read the manual without feeling like I was reading the middle of Dune without knowing what an Atreides or a Harkonnen was, being confused why all of these people were so excited over cardamom and paprika – but the game's interface was enough to keep me at what was well and truly arm's length. Were there just one or two interactible alien characters that gave off some character to the game, it'd be so much different – but instead, I felt repeatedly that the game was suffering heavily from trying to keep to what was in the story in the manual without giving enough to be dragging people into its own nature. What I suppose is the real killer for me is that if the entire game were a 1970s crime series episode – say, you were Starsky (sans Hutch because this is a single player game) – the entire game would have made no difference. Starsky runs through the sewers of Bay City, California after taking down a perp, Mervin, to find key DNA evidence that leads him to drive around to find the evil.. science guy.. Vernon.. who is planning to set off bombs in the city. Done and done. The exact same game. With a rich sci-fi universe these guys were trying to create, they could have done so much more to grip and drag me in – but all this is is a (particularly bad) episode of a cop show set in space without all of the tropes that make the cop scenario fun and vibrant. Having someone from 'home base' to talk to, for instance (one of the many things they could have taken from Tex Murphy that would have actually been good) would have made the game so much more fun.

Rating: 4

At least it's better than Cleopatra 2525

Dialogue and Acting

Nope. None here.

Rating: 0
Okay.. maybe a little unfair. (I've been trying so hard all of this review, dammit!) The game has a very limited amount of dialogue. I've included the large monologue in this post which takes up probably around about 80% of the text listed ingame that isn't the bare minimum to virtually say 'no, we've written this up in the manual'. For instance, my gun by the end, the Nova. It has a rather awesome manual description – 'The most powerful weapon offered, its cannon is in fact a genuine photon accelerator. It is carried on the shoulder and is equipped with multiple shock-absorption systems. In short, it's not to be used in a very busy public place...' In game, all that's given is 'NOVA.' when looking at it along with a piddly little picture. Speaking to people rarely comes up with more than one lot of dialogue (for instance, 'Haven't I seen him on Tri-Dee?' is one of the most common things spoken about finding Merigo – but when around about 20 people say it in a row, I can't really call it dialogue.) Just having a few more individual characters instead of all of the 'random encounter' styled people would make a huge difference here. Unfortunately, as with so many other things in this game, an initial promise falls critically short in all the ways that count. I'm assuming that they made the game out of fear that small text would be too hard to read on the awkwardly formatted conversation screen they created – but really, they'd have been better off taking the gamble and actually including some proper speech, even if it wasn't ever going to be a dialogue between two characters. I'm giving it points for having talking as a necessity (can't get into Xifo without it) and having it be varied.. albeit ever so slightly.

Rating: 2

This is literally some of the best dialogue in the game – it's clear, functional and not dressed up in space-talk about space-things that space-space just to sound interesting. Distressing? I think so

2+1+6+4+4+2=19, which divided by 60 equals .3166 recurring – 32 rounded up. However, I'm going to take two points off. Not out of anger at the game's many lackings – it really did have so many moments with promise, falling short at every single one of them – my problem with the game is far more simple. I encountered a game-breaking bug which literally would have stopped progression. Yes, I wouldn't have found anything new after that point if I'd stopped the game there, but having a game-breaking bug is enough to make me want to lower the score on this. Even without it, though, the game was illogical, unfun and generally made me question my faith in humanity.

Cap Distribution

120 CAPs for Aperama

• Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - For blogging his way through game for our enjoyment
• Daredevil Award - 20 CAPs - For getting through a maze half blind

40 CAPs for Ilmari

• Clue Master Award - 30 CAPs - For giving me lots of clues when I did ask
• B.A.T. Master Award - 10 CAPs - For making my double post into a curio of alien culture

30 CAPs for Renke

• French Bird Lover - 30 CAPs - For helping our avian friends survive in the land of mad adventure games

20 CAPs for TBD

• Backstage Antics Award - 10 CAPs - For providing me with a map when I needed it
• Reference Extraordinaire Award - 10 CAPs - For finding my references to geek culture (when I fell into different games)

20 CAPs for Laukku

• Ant Apocalypse Preparation Award - 20 CAPs - For answering the riddle re: Greg Bradley

15 CAPs for Jan Larres

• B.O.B. of All Trades Award - 10 CAPs - For helping me with my programming woes
• Clue Award - 5 CAPs - For giving me a clue even when I didn't ask

10 CAPs for Kenny McCormick

• Genre Appreciation Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a Steam Sale
• B.O.B. Apprentice Award - 5 CAPs - For discovering food and toilet apps reminiscent of my onboard wrist computer

10 CAPs for Laertes

• Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For predicting the score I would give the game

Game 50: B.A.T. - Merigo 'Round + WON!

Written by Aperama (mostly)

Special delivery from the B.A.T. headquarters

Special agents Mr. T and Mr. I

"Have we heard anything from our best operative yet?"
" Not a word. Last time we heard, Mr. A was forced to make his living as a gigolo in Selenia, using all his time to cheat in casinos just to survive. Merigo, the small-time crook he is after, has kept shooting him to tiny pieces, and Mr. A has been forced to go through several regenerative SAVE/LOAD-cycles."
"How awful! Should we just recall him?"
"He did finally manage to get a lead on Merigo and should be reporting in few minutes whether he has succeeded to eliminate this small problem."
"Ahh, I think I am hearing an incoming message..."

TRANSMISSON BEGINS... AGENT A CALLING FROM SELENIA

Angry Guy with a Gun's Journal mk. V: “Okay, now this is just ridiculous. I mean, who in the name of Crisa Kortakis is running this place? I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to save this stupid place any more. I found Merigo. I killed Merigo. Did I get a thank you? A parade? No, I didn't even have anyone notice the body on the floor! He had an access card to the Old City.. and why on Terrapolis I decided to go down there is beyond me. I even took Lydia and Sloane with me – they didn't seem to mind getting lost in what I can only call a hellish maze of tunnels. Well, they didn't complain, anyhow. It's thankful I took Lydia – heck, I think Crisa even knew what was going on – she conveniently left Lydia with a key that unlocked a secret compartment to find an access card to an.. Epsilon something. I can only think that this is going to be my way of getting to Vrangor. I have a new force field, plenty of ammo for my Nova and a DRAG.. it's time to leave Terrapolis, kill Vrangor.. and if they don't parade me as a national bloody hero, I might just blow the city anyway!”

This is what happened the first time I fought Merigo, just for the record.. just I could record it with him in one reliable place. I still wonder if Merigo can be killed without 'finding' the right alien

In order to run this blog (and facilitate between writers and admins), there's a forum for us to post up issues et al. This game gave me a first for the blog, I think – the game managed to literally make itself non-completable. This isn't me saying the game was too hard – it bugged up significantly. There's a maze (more on that later) which I literally needed step by step, square by square directions as it was unsolvable ingame. Despite being given directions and a map, I feel honour bound to say – I cheated. And in truth, that wasn't the advice given – the advice given was actually 'just call it here, the game is obviously doing you significant mental damage and you'd rather be playing a game of stick and paddle.' Or single player beer pong. I think that I might have to drink quite a bit to complete the game at the present rate, actually. Now I see why Chester needs his GIMLETs.

Merigo looks a little like he was dressed as John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever.. 
maybe he got what was coming to him

So when I last left off, I was ready to run into the Xifo club and face Merigo. As you can see from the video above – prepared, taking him down was actually quite simple. It just took having B.O.B. set to 'accelerated' (accelleration – I'm willing to forgive this spelling error as it may be something from the original French) to give me the time needed to blast his face off. (Well, actually, I aimed everything for his gut, but good enough.) So, on killing him, he drops a keycard that allows access to the Old City – a series of underground tunnels that sit underneath Terrapolis. Thankfully, as Ilmari refused to allow me to bite off my nose to spite my face, he pointed out before I touched in on the horrendous maze to come that I was missing a key item in the comments. This game is so awful that even his clue wasn't good enough! I had already found a 'hotel' – why would I be expecting to find another hotel hidden behind the force field shop? Keep in mind that to locate a place in this game is already like pulling teeth, having to go over the entire screen and sometimes not even getting a result despite being in the right spot (if it's decided that a random 'person' is there to be spoken to, you can have the 'speech' command override the 'go out of the room' command with no way of knowing you've missed it). Still.. even with the knowledge that this place was here, I wouldn't have thought to rent out a room, be 'randomly' assigned the right one and 'find' a keycard for the underground tunnels inside. Maybe if there wasn't already a place in another room called 'HOTEL' with a sign out the front I might have been looking for it.

Mummy. I give. Hail freaking Satan. Whatever I have to do to make it stop

So, I can only restate my thanks to Ilmari for giving out that hint – I'm not a hundred percent sure what it unlocked underneath the tunnels, but I'm certain that if I'd had to go through the maze of a thousand terrors again that I would indeed lose my marbles completely. See, here's what forced me to (for what I believe is a first in this blog's history) actually need to ask for an exact map of a maze. For one thing, the maze is absolutely huge – I'm certain that even TBD's work on gridding out KQ5's maze has very little in comparison to this thing. See, this one has dead ends. Several of the 'gates' which you go through actually don't allow you back through – to the point that you have to take an extremely wide arc to get around them. I'm willing to map out, trial and error and all of that. But now, add in another killing blow? What the FAQ writer apparently thought of as 'random' (it actually seemed to occur pretty damned reliably at four different locations), the maze will turn you around on entering a new room – instead of facing the same way every time, you face the other. Now, why couldn't I just grit my teeth and bear it?

What the maze is supposed to look like

What it looked like half the time

You can't save in this thing. Over 300 required squares (who knows how many erroneous paths) of individual, featureless nonsense. I mean, I can say that it does stop half way and you can save there – but trust me, that is barely good enough. This maze technically only took around about 30 minutes during the first section and maybe 15 on the second (as I had a better idea of what I was doing, using the mixture of 'sometimes this turns you around here' annotations from the walkthrough that Ilmari had copied out for me – the map was more useful overall though) but the true toll that it took on me was definitely mental. I can barely insist enough on how painful it was getting through this thing, and it's only out of sheer dogged persistence that I managed to go through (well it was 290 something and then the last lot is just 'keep going to the end', so I kinda blanked out for those last maybe 30 squares or so – that said, it did turn me around here in spite of the walkthrough's guide not telling me it would – I nearly cried when pushing forwards did nothing).. but to be honest, the real sin here is that for the incredible amount of effort taken, this is pure padding – it's not even where you end up wanting to be, this section of the game is simply to send you to get a single keycard which I'm assuming will allow me into Vrangor's base.

The 'underground city'! It's impossible to describe the elation in seeing this screen

Don't have to tell me twice, sir

So, now that we've finally made our way into the underground city, there's.. some people to talk to! They don't really say anything – they're pretty much mole people, and don't know anything about anyone. Even Merigo, who has obviously been down here recently in planting the bombs that the manual speaks of, must have forgotten to tell them his name – they don't respond to much of anything, so it's just onwards ho. I'm guessing that the last screen is the one that the technician's access card lets us into – I didn't go in without to confirm, but it does sorta look like an access tunnel-y place that it's sending us through. When we enter what looks to be a control room of some sort (albeit bereft of any real interactible features), Lydia pops up and finds something that the necklace Crisa gave her when we met with her 'would fit into perfectly'. So clearly, Crisa's in on this (though she won't let us in to see her again and confirm it) – maybe she's quietly trying to let us not have the city blow up, or she just thought it'd be funny to have us go a hundred and fifty squares through a maze to pick up something that the game has yet to say we'll need...

How convenient!

Radar.. thingamebob.. amewhatsit! Okay!

Again, it might not look like much progress has come out of this post – but good god does it feel like it. I'm calling it here. My word/character count is quite a way down from when I usually finish a post, but this is a special circumstance. The game literally doesn't want me to beat it. I can only say how frustrating the game is so many times. But it is. A lot. Alcohol. I need alcohol.

this haunts my nightmares

Session time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total time: 7 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. But if anyone is about to tell me I've missed something, tell me. I'm not sure I have the mental endurance to have to reload significant portions of the game – heck, even minutes of it could be tough. I just want the game to end. Can you please make it end? I'm willing to consider anything. Hammer to the brain? I understand that's a pretty polite way to go.

END OF TRANSMISSION

"I say, what a remarkable man! Walking through a devious maze almost blindfolded! I think he deserves 20 Cassiopean Astro Pins extra for this assignment!"

"Quite right. But what is this? A second transmission from Mr. A.!"

"So soon! What a remarkable man!"

TRANSMISSION BEGINS... AGENT A CALLING FROM SELENIA, AGAIN!

I Just don't know any more. Why am I even keeping this? Journal 6: “I.. uhm. I won, I guess. I don't know about the bombs and stuff. Was that important? I don't know. After making my way through the tunnels, I went down to the technician's station behind the airlock (gee, they hid that one well! It's just lucky I guessed they were there!) I found the code for what I knew was going to be the Epsilon Station from the code I found in the underground city – a series of eight left or right switches.. I could have guessed it but I think it would have taken a while. Anyway. I amped B.O.B. up to accelleration (damned French designers misspelling everything!), made my way into the Epsilon station – and found Vrangor already swinging his sidearm at me! I took a few hits, but I took him down. He's dead, so I won't be asking him any questions. I'll try to get onto B.A.T. command and report what's happened.. and.. god, what if those bombs are still active? Seriously, this could be bad..”

French Developer 1: 'Mon dieu! I know what zis game is missing!
The worst part of le Tex Murphy games!'

French Developer 2: 'But monsieur, if we were to do zis, we would have to make
le space stations look like circus tents.'

French Developer 1: 'Brilliant! But le bad space station is evil, so.. orange and black?
Like le Halloween!'

Tears. Tears of utter pain and disappointment. As though the game weren't causing me enough grief, it has to not only end badly – but badly on a cliffhanger. Hoo-boy. There is one key positive I can take of this – I'VE FINISHED B.A.T.!!! I DON'T HAVE TO PLAY THIS HORRIBLE GAME ANY MORE!!! WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!! (Also on the positive side, I only had to get through two bottles of cider to get through this section of the game thanks to my meticulous game saving.) I was wrong on Ilmari's clue from post #4 – it was actually needed for Vrangor's station, so I didn't actually need it when I was worried I would – but it saved more trial and error to make my way through.

Where we essentially last left off

The DRAG was a lot like the Tex Murphy flight simulator portions – except without elevation, or anything interesting. Or an auto pilot. Essentially, all it was was just going around in circles until I found an orange dot on the radar section, going around at full speed until nearing a place to make sure it took my entry properly. Not complicated. Landing in the station, it looks sorta like the Epsilon station has been crashed into or something. I really don't know what to make of it.

What would you guys call that?

Unfortunately, this led to the final 'puzzle' of the game – an entirely guessable 'code'. I figured having five different keys on me would mean that one of them would allow me in – after all, I had picked up the 'epsilon radar' thing in the underground city – but it was actually the technician's pass that was the way through here. I hadn't noticed another entryway in the 'northern airlock' area (I found it by sheer chance, naturally, as that is how this game works – I was scanning rooms at the time and figured that I hadn't given much care to the DRAG area, but found another arrow on my way to getting there) which let me enter an area with some people standing around in space suits. They told me to 'help myself to this data'. I did.

Thanks, guy!

LRLRRLLR? No, up up, down down, left right, left right, B A start, you fool!

The game has no sound, just music, by the way.
So when you click on this, you have to BACK out with no clues that the door is now open

So, I know what you're all thinking. There's going to be a great big climactic showdown of wonderment, where all of the questions we haven't bothered to ask are going to be answered? No, they spent all of their budget on printing manuals with indecipherable information and creating a useless flight simulator. And a useless maze.

So yeah. Nope!

Session time: 20 minutes
Total time: 7 hours 20 minutes

TRANSMISSION ENDS

"That's it, Mr. A did it! But what did he ramble about bombs? Surely he should have remembered that we were after Vrangor just for his assets?"

"I am afraid the traumatic experiences of Mr. A in Selenia have caused a partial amnesia. He thinks he is part of some silly intergalactic space police, instead of the Bureau of Avaricious Taxmen."

"How awful! He must be given some time off for his duties. So there were no bombs, then?"

"Of course there were bombs! What do you think we were blackmailing Vrangor with?"

"Ah, the standard procedure. Wait a minute... I am getting something... yes, Mr. A has been transported to a Bureau space cruiser with his harem that he insisted taking with him. Should we call our troops to remove the bombs?"

"And leave this rat hole colonized by French Maze Builders Association intact? Better to end its misery..."

Game 50: B.A.T. - Gettin' Bizzy Wit It

By Aperama

Duke Garland's Journal, Vol. 2: “I have recovered the first of the Tears of Esmeranti! Despite a perilous journey through the cavern of Malicia, I have emerged victorious against the evil gigantic crab, Cangrejo. In spite of his many attempts to cover my head in.. well, it seemed to me that he was attempting to defecate on me, the powerful artifact that I purchased back in Muralla town, the Magia Stone, has seen me through danger. On arriving in the next town of Satono, the sage Yasmin has taught me the secret magick of sword throwing – Espana. If all works as quickly as I hope it will, Felicia will be turned back from stone and Jashiin will be dead at the hands of the Fairy Flame Sword in mere days!”

I especially like the part with the rainbow explosions. B.A.T. is managing to impress me now

So, I've done a deep amount of soul searching in an effort to work out why it was that I hated B.A.T. so much. In the end, the answer seemed a lot more obvious than I thought it would end up being. See, when B.A.T. was released, I would have been about 2 years old. (Yes, I'm a young'un.) Still, in spite of the rapid acceleration in hardware standards et al over the time that I would have actually been able to worry about these considerations, my family was not so rich that the latest and greatest could always be ours – we would have been more likely to play an older game on our (some years old) hardware, meaning this could just as easily have been the first game I ever played. I have clear memories of these games in my formative years of only 4 or 5 – among the first I really remember being the game in the video above. The game I reference here was traded with a family friend (for a 'value pack'-market copy of Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter) and is one of the games I have the clearest memories of. It was nasty at several points (in spite of the cheap way I've displayed it here), particularly with my reflexes at the time – but at no point was it ever unfair. There were several points at which one could scam the in-game systems, saves were free – but this little platformer stumped me until I was 15 or 16 and able to navigate the ludicrously difficult final dungeon in spite of the game coming with its own maps. I felt accomplished when I did – I never once felt like I was losing because of the game system being too random or what have you.

I'm fairly certain that if we had instead traded for B.A.T, I would have properly gotten into sports. Or trainspotting. Or anything other than computers. It's a cruel adventure indeed where you're told at every turn that you have a clear means to a puzzle's end, only for the puzzle to turn out to be solvable only if you perform a small satanic ritual first. Unfortunately, though, I signed on for this, so.. well, I'll conveniently forget the strikethrough text for all of this.

BigGuns McBizzy's Journal #IV: “So, I'm kinda making a mockery of this whole 'interstellar police' thing. I've spent the past three days of 'investigation' talking to people who don't know an awful lot, gambling because I really haven't been given enough money to do what I need to do, and buying guns. Oh, and hanging out with girls. In bars. Come to think of it, I may actually be a gigolo. I should probably double check the next time I fill out a tax form. But, uh, yeah. I can head out on the DRAG any time I want, but I found some Kradokid who turned in Merigo. May as well blast him before getting the heck out of Terrapolis. I might not even bother saving the place. Chances are, with my Bizzy skills, I'll own this town before the end of the week anyway.”

Where we last left off – a screenshot I didn't actually think was worth showing off.
Flipping marvellous.

If any of you have been reading the comments, you'll realise that I was planning for this post to be entirely about the cheese sector of Europe I would not have even possibly continued further on without assistance. As I'd sorta predicted, I only really needed a short set of clues to set me on the right path – but the game really doesn't do itself any favours. In order to find Merigo (properly, not just have him randomly drop in on you in an attempt to kill you) you need to speak to a lady in a bar (which I had done as of post #2) and then find a random alien (type of which she names) randomly (the screen gives no graphically intuitive idea of what you're doing) who in spite of looking and greeting in the same manner, and having the same responses to everything else, will ask for money when you speak about Merigo – 'lots of it'. There's only one way to get money – the 'Bizzy Game'. It's a simple game of Simon Says, which I have been heavily cheating in for quite a while up until this point. It could likely fund the entire game without any more than a few clicks of buttons, particularly as time stands still when you're – and I beg forgiveness for this – Bizzy-ing yourself with this.

Nope..

Not quite..

And that's a bingo! Congratulations!
You somehow avoided burning your game diskette in sheer frustration!
(These are six different individual Kradokids between the screenshots I've taken here, by the way)

So, this left me with one clue that I had not yet spoiled myself with – and it was honestly more or less the one I was more interested in. The Bizzy Game, to my mind, couldn't possibly be only there for bloating out gameplay by giving a 'money' source. It wasn't fun like, say, poker is for example – it's just rote memorisation which anyone with half of a brain would immediately turn to using a notepad or the like to get through. I have a computerised version of a notepad. It is called 'Notepad'. Noting down squares by two-letter combinations (I use 'FS' for 'full square', 'DI' for diamond and so on) it's child's play to get to level 14 or 15 without anything possibly going wrong – this left me with utter oodles of credits in my account. However, reading Ilmari's clue let me know that if I was in there at 1:00 – not 12:59, not 1:10 (as I was there in both of those timeframes on 'Monday') but 1:00 PM, a girl would be there to challenge me in Bizzy. I can only imagine how this game would actually work in reality. It has no timer, so it's sorta like playing blackjack where the house lets you count cards. Onto a sheet of paper in front of you. While wearing a hat that says 'I AM CHEATING'.

I had 996 Krells on hand when she challenged me to this. I had to reload, get money out and go back because she accused me of 'not having the money'...

I already have access to potentially unlimited money. For that matter, I already have 'Lydia' following me around from the club. Sloan, you're now the head of my harem?

It was clear to my adventure game logic (the one I have referenced in other posts that tells me that rope is quite possibly the most valuable substance created by either God or Man) that we're not out for her money, anyhow – even if we needed it, you always want a favour more than money. And as it turns out, this is exactly what she does for us – I was looking for something to do while waiting until 10 PM for my Kradokid friend to turn up at the museum and started clicking on things to see if they'd allow me through now that I have a bevy of beauties at my arms. As it turns out, Sloan knows someone in the DRAG pilot circuit, and she makes the guard step aside so that we can slip on in. Of course, she didn't think to mention this to us on agreeing to take her as a 'guide'.. come to think of it, why they wouldn't let a B.A.T. member through in the first place is beyond me, but hey. The hangar is somewhat less than appealing with very little in the way of interactivity. Going up some stairs leads to the 'DRAG Hirer'.. who is ready to charge us even more than I've already earned through Bizzy. Yoiks. Of course, our harem comes in handy once more..

My Nova, the best gun known to man, Kradokid, Robokiller or any of the other
made up names I care to mention, is in contrast worth 400 Krells..

Ah, so this must be where my B.O.B. comes into its own as a phone, my convenient plot device?

Nope. Phone booths. Welcome to the XXIIst century, pal!

This number puts us on a direct line to Crisa Kortakis' secretary. It would have been nice of Lydia to tell us that she knew the woman that I've been spending two posts trying to find while outside the door speaking to her evil 'hulktronic'. Crisa Kortakis is clearly just here because the creators of the game didn't feel that their space-age game reminded people enough of Jabba the Hutt – she's a human, incessantly obese lady sitting on a floating chair with wires connected to her. She has three options to her – ask to arrest Vrangor (she berates you), ask to give you some money for the DRAG (which she does, gives Lydia a small jewel for around her neck and kisses her) and ask to leave Selenia (which she grants by killing you. I sincerely hope she at least shoots your remains into space. Though I guess the bombs soon to explode will probably do that.)

Oh, god, she's not wearing anything

I sincerely worry for whoever thought drawing this was a good idea.
You could have made this thing an alien, France! YOU COULD HAVE SAVED OUR EYES!

Plus side? She's loaded

So, with nothing else obvious to do apart from hiring a DRAG (which seems a poor idea given I know that Merigo is still outside the area with the Bizzy game, kicking people's arses with ludicrously overpowered weaponry and doing it in such a quick fashion that nobody can actually react) with the money she's just poured into our account, there's nothing really left to do here apart from go down to the 'hibernation hotel' and wait until 10 PM. Of course, even this is more difficult than it has to be – instead of just giving a number to decide how long you'll sleep, there's an awkward slide bar that has markings of 2, 4, (big space), 8, (reasonable space), 16, (virtually none), 24. So I needed to wait nine hours – one click above '8' became 10. Instead, I waited just under eight and then clicked at random. I've heard of another infamous and similar puzzle involving time waiting and goats, so I presume this is an intended test of the gamers' skill. Right? Right. Anyhow, it's off to the museum we go to find a strange idol from Barnett College for Marcus Brody to bribe us a Kradokid. He gives us a time for 100 Krells, and sells us a pass to the Xifo club for 300. Of course, we couldn't just ask Crisa for this. Hell, we couldn't even just do any number of things that would logically lead to us being able to get into a successful nightclub owned by the clearly very close friend of the woman we've seduced – we had to find a random alien, get him to tell us that there was a criminal liable to blow up the entire city who often visited there for money, and then think that the 'kid' (there it is, in his NAME!) would have a pass. To a nightclub.

I'm stopping here just so I can wipe the fury off of my cheeks. With a metal scourer.

Session time: 1 hour
Total time: 5 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. But if anyone is about to tell me I've missed something, tell me. I'm not sure I have the mental endurance to have to reload significant portions of the game – heck, even minutes of it could be tough. Thanks!

Game 50: B.A.T. - Forced Into Submission (Request for Assistance)

By Aperama

Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Human Adventure Person's Journal #3: “This city is not the place for me! It feels like every way I turn, I get shot at! Thankfully, I have a pretty good memory, so I haven't had any trouble making sure I'll be able to live out my ten days on this rock before it goes up in flames through the Bizzy game. I'm still nowhere closer to finding Crisa Kortakis, my leads are all running dry and the most notable thing is that I've gone from a weapon I can hide to a full-blown forcefield and the most powerful gun I can lay my hands on. Every time I set my way out into the city, I find a new path to get lost down – and a new angry Stickrob, Robokiller or Glockmup shooting at me. I haven't done anything wrong! Though I could have sworn one of them was actually Merigo.. Must have been a mirage, right? Well, back to pretending to be a beat cop..”

The good news is that through boredly keeping it in a window while I watch movies, currency is not going to be an issue

B.A.T. is proving itself to be ever so typically.. French. I think I managed to get through about a single line of dialogue that I hadn't received prior to now in my continued exploration of the town of Terrapolis.. in the two hours I spent trying to find something (anything!) to do in my time playing this game. It's just so bloody inconsistent. I had to restart DosBOX because it wouldn't let me out of the hibernation chamber (the most convenient way to test out different times to see if different people are around) around about four times, so I was convinced that the ONLY WAY OUT wasn't working for some reason. I am seriously not liking this! There are a few interesting things here and there – and I have managed to find a few extra new areas to go through, so that's something – but there's no real excuse to have exits and entrances be so incredibly difficult to spot. The navigation doesn't even make much of any sense! To find the police station, for instance, you go to the doctor's surgery, which can be found in the (northwestish quadrant) of the gunsmith's screen (which you return to via the east/northeast pointing arrow.) You then go south. And south again. When you reach this screen? North! So when you think you're doubling back? You're not..

You're at the police station! Coincidentally? First place I had a random encounter whilst starting this post. Really nice place, this town

So after getting the piece of tape covered in cat hair to pretend I have a moustache The revelation that completely random arrows could pop up out of nowhere a la Leisure Suit Larry 3's lawyers in a manner that I only discovered due to scanning over the entire screen with my cursor, I managed to find one more thing that the manual had alluded to that I knew would be of some assistance – a mirror to escape to Wonderland a forcefield generator for combats for the low, low price of 400 Krells. I'm kinda skipping ahead here, though, as I didn't get a screenshot of the real curio of this post – Merigo! He turned up in the Hot Quarter outside the Bizzy Game arcade in a combat that I had one second to prepare for – he killed me nigh-on instantly. I reloaded, came back through, and at 1:30 PM exactly, he showed up again - and I again died before I even got to select my weapon. This just means that I need to use B.O.B. to be 'accelerated' instead of 'normal', though. Quickly switching over in a third attempt, I've had no luck spotting him. (In preparation, I got enough through Bizzy to also afford the game's most powerful weapon, the Nova, because.. well, I value my wrists, and I've seen no real indication of an advantage to having weaker weapons aside from cheaper ammo. This is possibly going to be a fatal flaw, given I sold off my Hacker, my Moz and all of the ammo I had for either – if they stop me from walking around a club or whatever with a gigantic gun, there's not much I can do – the weight was too much to carry them both.)

The back of this place sorta reminds me of evidence lockers. Wonder if I'm buying this from a black market cop bunch?

So, here's the critical issue. I'm looking around for Merigo again – I figure I have the right idea given he turned up and shot me like a crazy person. Knowing roughly where to search for him, I'm trying to do so in the Hot Quarter – but all I seem to get attacked by now that I'm properly armed (in spite of making sure that it was both on the Monday that I arrived in-game and that it was the magical number of 1:30 PM) are Robokillers, which carry nothing on a use of the 'search' command on killing them (thanks again, Jan Larres) though in truth, most of the combats I've received items for have just been food. As much as I want to kill random Skunks for steak and chips? It just doesn't seem to make much sense to waste resources of any sort to fight, given that my last doctor's visit cost 180 Krells from one fight in spite of having the best weaponry and armour in the game, both of them equipped prior to the fight starting with a Robokiller. The fights may as well be identical to one another, though, given they all involve the same tactic of 'click like a crazy person after selecting weapons and armour'.

On the plus side, I've levelled up! And I have.. received absolutely nothing for it. Je ne comprends pas?

As far as the actual exploration side, I've found several areas that appear to be for random encounters (as in the picture from the police station, it all but says 'this is just here to make things seem more dangerous than they actually are'), I've wandered about in the hopes of finding different people at different times – but I have yet to find any permanently-placed people that change over time. (I hope I've explained what I mean here well enough to not need to go into this further. While you guys may have enjoyed yourselves throwing up dozens of bets in some other game – and it technically may have had the first Request for Assistance – I'm officially throwing out one here and now out of desperation. I'm obviously missing something either involving finding my way into Crisa Kortakis' club, finding Merigo as a permanent fixture to talk to and then take down or triggering his random fight (is that even supposed to be a thing?) I think I've fully scoured the town now, and have spent over an hour reloading in a desperate attempt to find something interactible.

At least I've found the 'old building'. Guess I need something to interact with it? Yeah, I'm stumped

As I feel I have been so overwhelmingly negative and distracted during this post I think I've paid my penance for Les Manley already I would like to at least show one glimmering light in the game's overwhelmingly lacklustre nature – B.O.B. has feelings, too! I have absolutely no idea why or when this happened, but when I was in the police station I found what seemed to be the desk clerk wasn't allowing me to speak to them – they were still in alien/gibberish/trying to tell Billy Blaze how to rebuild the parts to his rocket ship. It's not really a puzzle, though – I'd discovered what was going on back in the forcefield shop when I noticed an option that said 'computer test'. Expecting to have a short quiz on the history of the personal computer, I clicked it, being told that I was forced to spend 40 krells for an assessment – and the shopkeeper told me there was nothing wrong with it. I worked it out when I got the following screen:

'You're playing this horrible game! WARNING!'

The clue that made me realise anything was even wrong

So, I can at least say that I've solved one puzzle throughout this game (Two if I count 'go to the toilets to find my equipment'.) However, back to my request for assistance! I feel I've pretty much exhausted my ability to search through this town any longer. The random combats are enough to make the task completely monotonous, and the fact that almost every conversation is identical to the last is driving me thoroughly insane, making me want to do virtually anything else. However, I'm not giving up completely – I'm fairly confident that there's not an awful lot to this game in the first place, so all I really need is a start. It's up to you guys (well, up to Jan Larres) as to how much in the way of help I'll need. Obviously, if one of these will lead to the rest sequentially opening up, the first is all I'll probably need. Here's my list of issues:

• Crisa Kortakis' club – how to get in? (As a subplot how to get into her office building – but I figure they're related) 
• Merigo's random combat: glitch or important? Are my stats the main reason I'm struggling so hard there, or is it level-based, or will I moiderise him now that I have a bigger gun? 
• Is the Bizzy game the only way to make money? Is that its only purpose? 
• The map I bought turned out to be dancing lessons! How do I get my money back? 
• Do levels mean squat? Is it worth grinding between the Bizzy game, ammo, surgeons' and forcefield seller just to level up a bit more? 
• Is my Nova going to mean I can't get into Crisa's club as the manual sorta suggests? I figured it'd stop me from the nightclub back at the start, but I've really noticed no difference whatsoever

Remember to code your hints/spoilers in ROT13, and start with a vague hint then get gradually more detailed if it's possible. If the solution is something mindbogglingly simple, though, feel free to just spoil away. I can only imagine that the timing system will have something to do with it, so I'm expecting something that isn't entirely ROT13-able (e.g. 'go to the old building at 10:30 AM on Tuesday and they'll open up' – well, I'm probably going to be able to work out what '10:30 NA' is just from a glance).

Session time: 2 hours
Total time: 4 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I have made a request for assistance. Thanks!