Blue Force – Final Rating

by Alex

I am a slow writer. S-l-o-w. For a playthrough that began on October 25, 2022, I’m just getting to the Final Rating. I am as slow as Jake Ryan walking across Carter’s Marina for the 9,473rd time and there’s no way to adjust the speed, both in-game and in real-life. Yes, I’m that slow.

Now that you’ve accepted my apology, let’s get to the PISSED rating for Blue Force.

Blue Force – WON!

by Alex

Adventure games, as with any sort of storytelling, consist of a series of promises. In a narrative that at least attempts to be coherent, you have a setup, whereby you promise your readers/viewers/players that something will happen, and then you have a payoff, where you keep that promise. This is a reduction of storytelling into two broad parts, but the setup/payoff combination comes into play many times during the course of a given narrative.

Generally speaking, audiences are forgiving up to a point. Fool them once, okay that can slide. But anything more than that and you’re in dangerous territory where you will leave the player, as the case may be with Blue Force, with a serious case of blue balls expectations.

In the first comment to my last Blue Force post, which was published last year, esteemed adventure game designer and all-around cool guy Corey Cole began by stating “This is actually starting to sound like a complex, multi-layered story . . .”

Blue Force – Some Days Are Just Like That

by Alex

Jake Ryan is about to have the worst day of his life on the force. That’s a pretty mean feat considering it’s only his second day on the force, but that’s how things roll on the mean streets of Jackson Beach. You saw what went down in the Tower District with our pals Frank and Tyrone, and the search for young Skip Dixon’s missing baseball card. White guys named Tyrone—what is this world coming to?

We’ll get to all of that, but first, I have a confession to make:

“I like Blue Force.”

Blue Force – Not All There

by Alex

Here are some synonyms for “crazy” I looked up and found on Thesaurus.com:

• balmy
• bananas
• batty
• bonkers
• brainsick
• cracked
• cuckoo
• daffy
• daft
• demented
• deranged
• dippy
• disturbed
• flaky
• foolish
• freaky
• gaga
• goofy
• harebrained
• idiotic
• illogical
• inane
• irrational
• kooky
• laughable
• loco
• loony
• ludicrous
• mad
• maniacal
• mental
• mentally ill
• mentally incompetent
• moonstruck
• moronic
• nonsensical
• not all there
• nuts
• nutty
• nutty as a fruitcake
• odd
• off one’s rocker
• off the wall
• out of one’s mind
• out to lunch
• potty
• preposterous
• psycho
• screwy
• sick
• silly
• stark raving mad
• stupid
• touched
• unbalanced
• unhinged
• unreasonable
• unsound
• wacky

I’m listing these for your reference so you know what to call me when you learn that I, after another play session of Blue Force, still not only do not hate this game, but actively enjoy it.

Blue Force – Violenza Domestica

by Alex

I have a confession to make. Are you sitting down? Good.

I . . . don’t hate Blue Force. In fact, so far, I am actually enjoying it.

Blue Force (1993) – Introduction

by Alex

The email was innocent enough. Subject: “Blue Force and Larry 6.” Sender: The Adventure Gamer The Adventurers Guild’s very own Ilmari Jauhiainen. The message: “Hi Alex! I hope you are doing well. I just noticed that Blue Force - the last Jim Walls made adventure game - is coming up and there’s your name written on it. Do you think you can take up the challenge? Also, Larry 6, another game with your name on it, is coming up pretty soon after Blue Force. Do you think you can do two games so close to one another? All the best, Ilmari.”

My mind raced. Here I was, two years older and wiser . . . well, older, than the last time I played a game for this illustrious blog. Of course I wanted to do another one. Another two, in fact, but little did I know/remember I had already agreed to play these two. Apparently, I am a leading expert on games made by Jim Walls and Al Lowe.

Sweat began to coat my fevered brow. My heart skipped a beat, and then another! I debated calling a doctor, but then remembered that this is just a dramatic retelling and not real life. So gamely, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and sent a terse, very ominous, and very age-appropriate (I’m 41) reply:

“What’s up man?”