Game 46: Countdown – Final Rating

Written by Aperama

This is the first game officially played since the revival of the blog, so I don't mind saying that the hardest post to write is most certainly this one. Trying to use the even-handed approach that I definitely feel Trickster always managed to offer out is sure to be a challenge and a half – and it doesn't help that I find this game to have been one that had a small gem that, were I not playing this game for the sake of the blog, I feel I would have given up on or just followed a walkthrough to beat. The game was challenging only ever in the points that I don't appreciate a game in being challenging – giving a largely artificial time limit that would take being rather daft to not manage to complete the game by, but leaving that incessant clock in the corner of your screen making you all the more cognisant of the looming possibility of a deadline – being the perfect example. Oh, and the timing-based walking puzzles were just insipid. On the other hand, I did like the story, as it managed to be plausible yet out there enough to keep my interests piqued. The end results? Let's see..


Puzzles and Solvability

Countdown is a game that, were only a few things changed, I might not even consider an adventure game. It most certainly is – but if you, for instance, removed the inventory system, the game would almost certainly have fallen more upon the 'creeping around' sections that were quite simply silly. It wouldn't have been hard to enhance them, either – all that would have needed to be added would be the ability to look into the next room whilst in Sanctuary and the death screens would have been much less prevalent. Still, I don't feel I can really deduct points for this – however, having a game that has no inventory interaction (which existed, after all, in King's Quest 1) is a big no-no for me, and the puzzles themselves were almost farcical every time they popped up. On the plus side, there was never a point where I was stuck staring at my screen wondering what had just happened – everything was clear and made sense, even if it wasn't particularly difficult. The real shining jewel could have been the conversation system – but instead of feeling organic, the puzzles that arose from that were largely the result of trial and error. So, to check – it had puzzles, and they were solvable – but they just weren't very good. Well, except for the parrot dropping the key to Mason's drawer – I still don't get how that happened. I'll also note here that Trickster similarly found that the puzzles were almost universally too easy within Mean Streets – so this really tells me that they didn't even learn from their mistakes! I feel thoroughly vindicated giving this a low score.

Rating: 3

The clues were there to let me know to give him wine – he wouldn't stop drinking! But the 'getting' there never felt right.

Interface and Inventory

I've already mentioned the inventory – it's rather woeful. There's a single, shining light in this once more, being the CAD system – it makes sense for a spy-styled person to have an advanced tool to fingerprint and do other such analysis. Unfortunately, it didn't let me continue to examine items, which is where the CAD system falls apart and you're left with a non-interactive inventory that largely depends on memory. Not being able to check the amount of cash I had on hand in my inventory (and only learning at either the video blackjack game or during travel) is a perfect example of the failure here! The conversation system was definitely also a positive at least in idea.. I wasn't a fan of the implementation, but the idea was quite good. They also tried to tell me in the manual that it'd work by using mixtures of conversation trees, so I can only blame myself for not realising that one. In practice, it really came down to 'click all of the buttons in every order until things progress'. The other main interface was the 'Look, Open, Move, Get, Use, GOTO, Talk, Taste and Travel' one.. while not quite as egregious as some of the early Lucasarts games, the 'taste' and 'travel' buttons felt fairly useless (there were about five objects that 'taste' even reacted to, and the 'travel' function was largely unusable except in instances where there was an alternative in just walking through a door to leave), and the 'goto' function only ever really came into play when attempting to scale things. I'd almost be willing to call it passable in this regard (though the either ESP or Reed Richards-like powers that Mason sometimes uses to open doors from across the hall and walk into them past a guard has to be considered impressive) – but even in this one, there's just too many damned flaws! You can walk up the sides of walls, the 'goto' function is almost unusable.. and all of the overhead sections were simply dreadful. Some might note that this was essentially the first game under a new engine, and that hiccups are bound to be made – to this, I say that these people haven't played Countdown.

Rating: 2

Also, pixel hunting. I won't go on about it, but it's there. If you see a key on the screen.. well, you're a clairvoyant

Story and Setting

If it weren't for the story that Countdown threw out, I'd be almost worried that this game would be wandering into the Psycho/Emmanuelle category. The game starts out hazy, and I'm almost entirely sure that a lot of people never got to learn more about the main thing that makes this game worth playing. There's a rich and well-thought story with an atypical twist or two that after wading through the horror that is the Sanctuary really makes the game more enticing. It's quite unfortunate that the game takes the amount of time it does to get to this point, yes – but I'd feel remiss saying bad things about a story that simply takes a while to come into its own. You can learn a lot of what's on offer over and over again, but everyone has at least a slightly different opinion, leaving you sifting through a lot of familiar information with little tidbits that can easily draw you down the wrong path (and did for me, several times!)

The game takes you to all sorts of locales, and is definitely adept at making one place seem different from the next

I almost find the story a touch hard to summarise, yet I fully understand it – this gives a decent idea, I think, of the way in which the game manages to both draw you in with intrigue and keep itself coherent and rich. I'll try to sum the story up quickly – there's a conspiracy going on in the CIA, with a fake terrorist organisation operating from within the 'Company'. This is entirely a scheme to get a hardline President elected. You happen to be one of the fall guys to throw those who are investigating off the trail – but through a mixture of luck and cunning, you manage to escape your captors. In an attempt to stop a world-shattering terrorist event, you end up inadvertently exposing the nature of the 'Black December' group. The game ties off many of its loose ends quite well.. the only real negative I can give it here is that by keeping the entire game within the settings of the Middle East and Europe, the opportunity to explore some of the wider world was lost. Looking over Trickster's posts, though, I realise that he typically notes the NPCs for a richness of feel – and that was definitely a flaw. A couple of caricatures could very easily have stood out (a la Buzz Brezhnev, the jolly KGB agent) but you're simply never around anyone for long enough to really get to know them outside of a simple question and answer session with each portrait given character. Also, the 'fake terrorist group' idea came from Die Hard.

Rating: 6

Come to think of it, Lisa and Hans Gruber die in the same way.. coincidence? Perhaps not!

Sound and Graphics

I'm definitely of the thought that these two categories can be split perfectly down the middle. Unfortunately, that would mean that it only has a score of 'one' in sound. Why? There's one musical track (the one that plays during the introductory sequence) and some of the most grating audio effects that can be imagined. There's a gunshot (that breaks the game when played), a few pieces of heavily grainy digitised speech (which is where the single point comes from for at least offering that rarity in this era), a brain-shatteringly annoying shriek that occurs dozens of times.. and then nothing. On the plus side, this means that the gunshot which breaks the game is largely missable.. but the fact that the game doesn't even introduce music where it would be a natural fit is quite jarring.

Ever been to a strip club/cabaret without music? I mean, of course, theoretically, if you'd ever been to one..

The graphics, on the other hand, are fairly impressive for the rich detail that has clearly been poured over them. There's small amounts of animation – just good enough to not look ridiculous – the walking looks natural without feeling forced. There's also a technical pallet swap near the end with Mason donning the vestige of a priest.. taken from the body of an unconscious person who had previously taken it from a dead body. (He wouldn't take any of his dirty laundry in his apartment, though – that'd just be gross!) The backgrounds never left me guessing as to what something was (with the exception of certain pixel-hunting objects), and while some things perhaps could have been slightly clearer, the graphics are definitely quite good for their era. There's one thing that I have to take a step back on here and mention – the portraits. They were all universally ridiculous, and felt entirely out of place. They essentially turned what I definitely felt was supposed to be a serious spy thriller into a game where everything looked as though it was tongue in cheek. They're unique, most certainly – but 'unique' also means 'nobody was silly enough to go this exact route beforehand'. They're cringeworthy for the most part, and probably have to be considered a negative, even if the game otherwise looks crisp.

Rating: 4

Fontaine is written as a hard-nosed, ruthless assassin. He is drawn as Alfred Hitchcock dressed as Dr. Who.

Environment and Atmosphere

The game has good and bad points in this category. I think it goes without saying that the vast majority of people who have played or will play this game probably only experience the opening area – it does work, in spite of how much I do loathe it. The 'Sanctuary' is largely infeasible, but it does give you the legitimate feel that you're in an unforgiving place where there are terrible things happening. Access Software proved in Tex Murphy that they were more than happy to make ridiculous things happen in spite of a serious setting, and I definitely think that this detracts from the overall experience. If they'd committed more to either a humorous setting or knocked off all of the goofiness, there's every chance that the game would feel a lot firmer in one boot or the other – but instead, it consistently struggles to decide whether it's all a self-referential joke or a serious spy thriller.

The notion of finding a skeleton in the observation room of a hospital could be horrifying. This? This is not.

If you have the patience to traverse the catacombs and escape the Sanctuary, there is definitely one strong point that simply begs to be addressed. The entire game takes place around Mason not remembering exactly who he is. He regains enough of his memory to know people from one another, sure – but the game is more about remembering the exact details of the incident that led to him being thrown into Sanctuary in the first place. Consistently littering the game with triggers – broken glass, blood, his name – and assuring that the entire cutscene when played has a decent amount of digitised voice all are points in its favour. The fact that they didn't actually put many more locations after the fact also has to be a sticking point – you can visit three places in Turkey, one place in Greece, two places in Italy and then the endgame takes place on a train and in Paris. You also visit a few other places – but they're just explained in a short, textual blurb as opposed to giving much real interaction. I'm also shaking my fist at the game for its treatment of both the Jackal and Fontaine – they're supposed to be these scary individuals, you drug them, leaving them prone to whatever you would do to a mass murdering criminal hitman (as they both are)? And you.. leave them where they are. It just reeks of incompletion. I'm not even suggesting that they need to be killed – but you don't tie them up, call the authorities on them – you just leave them where they are! Still, I can't be too harsh on the game for what is otherwise one of its strong points.

Rating: 6

Really? Sounds interesting! Wish I could've seen it for myself..

Dialogue and Acting

This game is probably one of the first that I feel the 'acting' term could be used against.. but I won't be that cruel. (The portraits giving the short animations to show what happens between 'neutral' and 'angry', for instance, would be a great instance of some of the earliest acting in video games. Well, they could be. As I say, I'm not that mean.)

And the Academy Award goes to.. Buzz Brezhnev, for actually having multiple faces to cycle throughout

The dialogue is, for the most part, wooden. It's not hard at all to find an example of rushed writing that simply doesn't feel realistic. The doctor in the first act seems entirely too calm for someone who is being threatened with a scalp(a)l to the neck the entire time, for instance. There are a couple of good instances slipped down in the interim – the three dialogues that occur in Venice are actually quite noteworthy. Golden Desire, for her utterly ridiculous name, actually manages to give an impassioned speech over the way her boyfriend was being treated. Brezhnev's speech isn't too forced – it actually could be 'English spoken as a second language' as opposed to 'Yakov Smirnoff' levels, yet still makes him sound like a clever man. Scorpio also gives a few good diatribes. Unfortunately, they're the bar set, and much of the rest of the dialogue feels either forced or simply bad. I've also got to address the writing, here – the entire game is absolutely littered with spelling mistakes, which for a game that has far more text than it does graphics or sound is definitely a huge minus. The occasional typo is almost guaranteed – but they're prevalent enough that you can't go an entire conversation without seeing at least one mistake that would make an English teacher shudder.

Rating: 4

Probably because they try to insist that they spell it 'psychiatrist', eh Jackal?

Total

Adding up my scores, 3+2+6+4+6+4 = 25, which divided by 60 equals .4166 recurring – so 42 rounded up. However, I'm going to insist and give my discretionary point of deduction for the litany of death screens that utterly flood Countdown – not to mention the fact that the game simply feels unpolished. Just a few tiny changes would have hugely made for a better game – unfortunately, it was released in the state it was. It can probably be noted that the game was released between Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum – it's possible they were just using the game to try and polish up their ideas for the coming sequel to Tex Murphy. As it stands? I feel that this game thoroughly deserves its position as 'the largely forgotten game by Access Software between two far better games'.

And the closest guess to 41 is... Fry with 43. Fry's cunning plan to guess a rating based on the ratings of Mean Streets, Deja Vu and Deja Vu 2 has paid off. 10 CAPs coming your way. Andy Panthro also generously offered a Tex Murphy game to the winner so if that's still the case there's also a Tex Murphy game in your future.

CAP Distribution

100 CAPs for Aperama

• Blogger Award – 100 CAPs – For blogging his way through the game for our enjoyment

60 CAPs for Ilmari

• True Companion Award - 10 CAPs - For playing the game along with Aperama and completing it with some assistance
• Adventure Award - 50 CAPs - For writing the Missed Classic post on Adventure

25 CAPs for Kenny McCormick

• "Violence IS the answer" Award - 5 CAPs - For encouraging Aperama's violent tendencies with the goodly Dr. Hashish
• Dragonborn Anonymous award - 10 CAPs - for starting an off-topic discussion in the 'Join The Tag Reviewers' discussion and discovering that others share the same addiction
• Missing Title Award - 10 CAPs - For finding a loophole in Ilmari's contest in Adventure's Missed Classic post

20 CAPs for Andy Panthro

• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with a free game

20 CAPs for Zvonimir

• WYS Award - 20 CAPs - For sending his answers for the 'What's Your Story?'  questions

15 CAPs for Fry

• Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For getting the closest prediction for the final rating
• Man Eating Plant Award - 5 CAPs - For giving a correct answer to Ilmari's riddle in the Adventure Missed Classic post

10 CAPs for Deimar

• Kickstarter Award - 10 CAPs - For noticing an adventure game related Kickstarter

5 CAPs for Charles

• Spelunker Award - 5 CAPs - For finding out the reference to Jules Verne 

5 CAPs for Joe Pranevich

• Beanstalk Award - 5 CAPs - For giving a correct answer to Ilmari's puzzle in Adventure's Missed Classic post

5 CAPs for TBD

• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing a new adventure game sale on Steam

Now, to pass the baton onto whoever's next! Spellcasting 101 and Elvira, here we come!

Game 46: Countdown - Won!

Written by Aperama

Mason Powers Journal Entry #7: “It's been the ultimate pyrrhic victory. I solved the case of the Black December terrorist group.. that's something. Also kept a gigantic bomb from going off in the middle of Paris – go me! Unfortunately.. just about everyone I've ever known has died. Some died meaning well, some didn't – but it doesn't really matter, I guess. Jack Quinn is dead, Earhardt Fleischer and General Leeland both took their own lives before they could be exposed as the true masterminds behind the group, Hakeem is dead, Lisa.. oh, Lisa! She fell off of the Eiffel Tower, and.. well, she was.. I guess she was a bad egg after all. Hey. Wonder what Rachel Akure is up to?”

“You know. Because we think you're a terrorist double agent.
But hey, we think maybe you can do something for us, so may as well just let you go free huh?”

This last play post took around about an hour, and it was an extremely frustrating hour that undid all of the good will I had for it in the last post. Jack Quinn and Earhardt Fleischer (pictured here making sweet ear nookie) have very little to offer. The Cliffnotes version of the whole conversation is as follows: “We think you're the mole that McBain was trying to ferret out, we still think that you're the one that did everything bad – but the only person that Hakeem Ababash, who this pair of clowns is certain will be the only person who has actually managed to collect the necessary information on Operation Thunderbolt, will trust is Mason Powers. Yup, you got it. The one person they need the most, just so happens to trust the only one they believe is guilty of all of the crimes. So, in order to prove that we're not that person, we're being sent out to grab Hakeem, who is apparently in the Roman Colosseum.. ugh.

One.. two.. THREE PUT ON YOUR CRIMINALLY INCOMPETENT FACE!

Surprise surprise, though, when we head over to the Colosseum, we're encountered by.. being proven to be the incompetent ape that we're constantly being accused of being. Mason hears a whisper near the scheduled drop point, he turns his head to discover the source of the noise.. and gets knocked out. He then wakes up in a scenario that I think may have actually been designed for the other game being played..

No, Mr. Bond – I expect you to die!

What follows is possibly one of the most aggravating things that I have ever encountered in all of my years of playing video games. After being stuck in the air for what is legitimately a minute in real time, the candle tears through the rope, and Mason is left in front of what is the least aggressive tiger in the planet. I'm convinced that the bloodstains on the ground must actually be the result of the frequent feedings he's been given – it's the only reason I can think for him not even attempting to go after you, simply walking around in circles. There's some rope on the ground – and behind the well-picked skeleton, there's a hook. So I'm thinking either grappling hook (but you can't use items on other items in this game) to swing over the tiger, or a lasso to take the tiger down. The little lever underneath Mason's prone face is to open and close the tiger den – but good god, the collision detection is horrible. If it had an obvious, clear reasoning behind the tiger taking you down, sure – but it seems that more or less every time it passes by, (that is not in front of you, but is horizontally on the same axis as you with your body and its back legs) you die. The way to get around it is to walk towards the gate, use the awful clipping to your advantage and end up with your body half way down the 'talk' command on the interface..

Zoological fans, tell me – can a Bengal tiger really eat a wimpy ex-CIA operative in three chomps? Tell me in the comments!

So, I'll spare you all the pain of getting lucky enough to have the tiger walk into the den (it will also walk through the top gate if you don't push the lever immediately) and have it not eat you, and subsequently not have the game bug out and decide that you're stuck in that little piece of the screen next to the 'talk' command – and instead say you move under the window and throw up a rope. It's possible that you need the hook in order to do so – I'm not going to go back and investigate, as the very screen gives me the heebie jeebies.

New top suspect: obscenely fat people?

The body hanging up there is your good friend Hakeem Ababash. Yep, sure enough, he's dead too. There's not too much in here, but this is another room that is obscenely easy to get stuck in. Every one of those stones are an interactible object. A few of them (the ones just to the right of the table) note that 'a gush of air' is popping out from behind them – there's one stone that when 'moved' (not 'opened' or 'used') makes the door pop up, with no obvious reason behind it being that particular stone. Worse still, that stone would be in reach of the person being hung up – so theoretically, he could open it and try to call for help. More importantly though, items! There's a branding rod sitting next to the hot coals. A sack with all of your stuff next to the window, which I immediately pinched. (I lost my two random boxes, all of my plastic explosives, my toolbox, flashlight, my keys, my mountaineering gear and my bag? But most tragically, the SCAL-PAL. (I shed a single tear of pain for that one.)) The table has a blueprint that is 'written in French'. Regardless... I have no earthly clue as to how you can read these blueprints, but they're there, and I take them because that's the sort of thing that Mason Powers would do. There's a newspaper article explaining that there's going to be an international summit on terrorism this Sunday in Paris, because General Leeland is winning several polls on the terrorism issue. There's also a postcard under the sack of greasy fast food that is of.. uhm. I'm honestly not sure what it's of.

The great landmark of.. uhm.. a mountain.. and a canyon.. Roman pillars.. I don't even know what country this is supposed to be. My first thought is maybe the Grand Canyon? It was one of the listed 'terrorist targets' for Operation Thunderbolt..

Admin's note: I guess it's Acropolis

Given the fact that I'm loading this up with the CAD – and everything else has had hidden writing in it – I zoomed in, found no writing – but then the game came up with 'MICRO-DOT DETECTED'. It's a small black dot just between the mountain and the building, which gives you the knowledge you need to finish off the game. It would really not have been hard to miss – essentially the only reason I did was how little I trusted the game by this point. The 'dot' reads 'Regarding your concerns about a possible change of location, when the Jackal leaves Belgrade on the Orient Express, he will be carrying a second device. The first device is already in place, but this will make out plan fool-proof. - Stormbringer'. All of my hard work until this point is proven rather useless as I travel to Belgrade and make my way to the Orient Express.. on Saturday at 10 A.M. I'd managed to keep myself to Thursday at 8 AM by this point, so I was a little miffed to be honest.

This game was before the Last Express,
so I suppose I can at least be lenient in the setting of the 'inrtigue'..

… But I can't forgive it this. What-a you say-a? You no need-a the book, yes?

The train carriage doesn't have much of interest. There's a bunch of people who 'speak bad English' (they didn't want to make another portrait is my guess), a bunch of useless red herrings – and a telegram that has been conveniently discarded just next to an ashtray. It reads 'To Jack L. (ha!), awaiting your arrival from Belgrade. Stop. Per your instructions I will look for you as a man of the cloth. Stop. I will be expecting a special package from you. Stop. Gina.'

Mr. 'Jack L.' has apparently dropped in on Father Flanigan...
 (It's apparently a reference to the charity group BoysTown and its founder)

The main carriageway leads to some side cabins. Most of them don't have too much to speak of – one that has a chess set 'where the Bishop has been knocked over', which I think is supposed to be a joke about how they've just had a priest killed for his costume. The 'jackal' is in a room a few down from him, and he's quite easy to get upset..

I kick arse for the Lord!

This is one of the last dialogue puzzles in the game. Basically, you have to play to the Jackal's strengths – the idea that I think they're trying to convey is that he's someone who would rather stay in character, because he's such a master of disguise. You convince him that someone has fainted in the next cart.. he tries to get out of it but soon realises that to be a convincing priest, he really needs to at least drop in.

Food, food. It's all this guy talks about! Some international superspy..
(He looks nothing like he did in his picture!)

We've got the knockout capsules, slip it in his food.. yeah, it's not too complicated. None of the puzzles in this game have really been too big and surprising. Long story short, he comes back, eats some food and passes out. You pinch his clothes and his briefcase (filled with a hundred thousand dollars) and go to meet 'Gina' in his stead. Before that, though, I was quite concerned about the note that the Jackal was apparently wandering around with a backup nuclear device. I found it, found some plastic explosives and electrics in there.. and had no other interactions in spite of using every single item I'd received in an attempt to sabotage it. Mason, being Mason, was too afraid he might trigger the explosion. So he leaves the Jackal on the train, with the nuke still aboard... does he search him for and steal his gun? Toss him out the train cart? Nope, just leaves him to his own devices. This guy really is inept. However, instead of taking screenshots of the casket with the nuke inside..

… I decide to reminisce to a far, far better detective game

… then get to admire the gloriously 80s dress sense of this lady
who is clearly phoning her performance in

Gina has very little to speak of, again. I kinda think they were going with the thought that people would be more eager to rush out to the end of the game by this point – I'll admit that I might have rushed it were I not here to take screenshots. She uses a pretty lame codephrase – 'Have you got the yo-yo?' 'Then I've got the string'.. and then promises to take us off to replace the nuclear device on the premise that it's faulty. She leads us to a back alley to the conference site that the world leaders are all congregating at in France via a back alleyway. The game leaves us with a forced 4 hours to complete it in – but it took nothing like this long. The rooms are a bunch of extremely simple puzzles that don't even involve the objects you have in your inventory..

In this room: a shaft missing a gear! (I've already replaced the gear in this screenshot)

In this room: A gear! That leads to a pulley, that pulls down the drawbridge
to make a walkway, which won't work.. Hard puzzle, game!

It's this sort of puzzle that just bugs me about a game. There are a couple of potential red herrings to bring your thoughts out – but as soon as you locate the gear, it's almost impossible not to immediately react with the thought of 'just put it in the next room?' It's just padding, plain and simple. Go across walkway, go up ladder, and you're in a room full of largely cheap seeming art. (One is actually listed as having a 'retail value of $20'.) There's one doorway that leads to instant death, and another one that's been boarded up – the only item left in our inventories at this point that interacts with it is plastic explosive.. Seems safe nearby a nuclear device, right?

Priceless art, eh?

AMERICA! Something.. yeah..

The final room of the game is just about desolate. There's one interactive object – an elephant on top of a box – you move the box, you move the panel behind where the elephant was. This all felt like padding. Just taking us to one room with a few puzzles in it that led to a crate holding the plastic explosive would have well and truly done, in my humble opinion. Anyhow, we're to the true final screen of the game: The bomb!

Let me just pull out my trusty screwdriver..

This should be fine. I've already been told what to do with the wires.
Blue: 3 o'clock, Green: 9 o'clock, Red: 6 o'clock. Probably in that order t--

um.. oops.

So, I've got no idea how you were supposed to actually get the order to cut these in. My thought was it was in the order of the note that was given – but regardless, as there's no actual stress in this situation, it wasn't a trouble. I blew up Paris a couple of times, reloaded, found the right order. I presume that it means we had to do something with the blueprints found back in Hakeem's death room – but I honestly don't know how. And this game honestly doesn't make you want to reload to find these things out – it's just as easy to re-reload, even if it's probably at the cost of a few points.

In true superspy tradition, I waited until the last second to strip the final wire

And like that, Countdown's climax is at hand! The game proceeds with a short set of end-screen speech, which I'll recap instead of going through screenshots. “I had saved the President's life... along with the heads of state of six other countries. Black December was exposed as a fraud. Phony terrorists organised by an inner circle of self proclaimed messiahs trying to seize control of the most powerful country in the world. At the head of this conspiracy was General Leeland, the man who would be King. His second in command was Earhardt Fleischer. But there would be no trial for their crimes... Both had arranged to save the taxpayers a substantial sum in case their plan fell through. One died by poison, the other by gunshot. Other co-conspirators, though no one would ever know if all had been captured, were rounded up and the incident was closed. Well... not quite! I got a big promotion and finally started moving up in the company. Now, I felt I could try to strike something up again with Lisa...”

“I love you..”

“Die, pig!”

This was a really nice, if largely unneeded twist – the game really didn't need it to conclude, as Lisa has really done very little throughout the game. It just shows off another conspirator – Lisa didn't have to be a part of this.. but turns out she was! Mason ducks as she lunges with a knife, he reaches out to save her regardless – and she slips from his grasp with a shriek. Eep.

Yep, Mason's that nice a guy

Cue hard rock music from intro! (And the second piece of music period for the game..)

If anyone has any information on my missing 35 points (take off two for not being able to re-see the cutscene where Mason jumps out of the window in this playthrough), feel free to let me know. I never used the battery, the branding rod, the 'watch' that appeared in my inventory from the sack in the torture room, the pliers or the coat hanger – everything else actually had either one or multiple uses.

On to the rating!

Session Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 10 hours

Game 46: Countdown - Leaving on a Jet Plane

Written by Aperama

Mason Powers Journal Entry #6: “I'm finally beginning to make some headway into this case, I think! It's all confusing, really, but I'm definitely less lost than I was just a little while ago. My trusty CAD let me know where I had to go next – a lovely night club in Barcelona, Spain. Carlos Ramirez was Jackal's handler – it took a bottle of wine that probably cost more than my retirement fund, but I got him to tell me more about Jackal – and why McBain was still looking for the presumed-dead Scorpio. He also gave me a lockpick, and I think I now know how to disarm the bomb that Operation Thunderbolt is inversely linked to! Anyhow, this all sent me down to Venice, Italy, where I met a money-grubbing bartender, a lovely stripper with some delightful moves, a KGB operative who looked like he could snap me in half like a twig.. and, most of all, Scorpio! Turns out he faked his own death after the Jackal began to threaten him, sure that the Company would just send him to a mythical place like Sanctuary.. turns out he probably would have been right! I've only got time to say this because I took a flight to Rome, Italy – my old lover Lisa Loomis let me know that the Company was willing to hear me out. I'm ready to present my case to Jack Quinn and his lapdog – I sure hope I don't mess up any words!”

Technically, this flight cost $700. But travelling by line-air is all worth the while

Countdown, since doing its utmost to lose me completely, has been remarkably straightforward and game-like as of this update. This is very much working in its favour coming up to a PISSED rating – but I still don't think that coherency now saves it too much in the face of what has happened. And there are still lots of gaping issues that should really be addressed.. but again, I ramble over the game because my cheeks are still glowing with a mixture of anger and pain at the way things have come together. Anyhoo! Last I left you all, I was left with a vague clue as to where to go next. I've learned the likely name of 'Stormbringer' – 'Jackal'. Confused? Don't be, they're all just the creepy guy with the moustache in the last update. I thought at the time that he was likely 'Scorpio' – but the game seems to have left that thought for dust throughout this update, as several people have affirmed that they're two separate people, and I just don't see why people such as Carlos Ramirez, Jackal's handler, would bother to lie to me about that sort of thing..

My first attempts to persuade him to join the good fight were.. less than convincing

Carlos is a drunk. Well, the game doesn't really give you a clear idea of this, but you meet him in a cabaret, and he repeatedly goes for swigs of alcohol from what appears to be a cognac glass while you talk to him. The only way to get him to talk is through BLUFF-BLUFF-PLEASANT-PLEASANT. Basically, you intone that you're a member of the CIA looking into some double-crossing action, insist that you don't want to involve the full chain of command, and then offer him the ridiculously old bottle of wine found back in Sanctuary. He sees a good deal (this must be 15th century or so – I can only imagine how expensive it must be) and begins to blab along. He doesn't really have too much of use to tell about Jackal, ironically, given he's seemingly 'the only one who could wrangle him' – instead, you learn something about Scorpio through him. Scorpio used to have a girl back in Venice, Italy by the name of 'Golden Desire' – turns out, he was thinking of turning coat to the Soviets at around about the time that he had his 'accident' in Beirut...

Yeah, mister? Well not only did I live to tell about Fontaine, but I left him in an alley, completely conscious and.. oh god he's behind me isn't he?

The other thing he has to offer – which I got absolutely no indication of other than the fact that I obsessively use every item on every person in an adventure game that feels like it's lacking in sense (if you offer cash to someone who is willing to take money, they'll pull up a 'haggle' screen) – is a lockpicking kit for $400. Sure enough, that's what I needed for the safe back in Athens. Technically, I didn't rush straight out there – I'm on a deadline, and Italy is on the way to Greece – but it definitely felt as though you were supposed to race back there straight away. There is only one thing in the safe, being a small, encoded message – fed through the CAD, it reads as follows:

Do you put plot-sensitive pieces of encoded paper into blatantly obvious safes, too? Congratulations, you can be a part of Black December!

Anyhow, this stop 'technically' happened near the end of the playthrough here – but there again, in truth I'm very mindful of the timer in this game and had actually run from Carlos the moment I got it to take a peek. Savescumming hurts nobody, right? (Right.) From Greece back to Italy, and Venice – and what would appear to be either a high-rent strip club or a low-rent cabaret, I'm not entirely sure which. The first room brings us out to a bar, where there are two wise-cracking Europeans, and a bartender – we'll get to him in a moment, but first let's continue our little tour of what I plan to now title the 'striparet'.

The front room, where hilarious jokes are told.

The back room, where.. BLACKJACK?!?!?

I'd been wondering for a little while as to how this game would be completable if you hadn't found all of the caches – and I could already sense my dollars going down rapidly given that I was taking the plane every time for time constraints. But no? This room has a video blackjack machine. Excuse me for a moment..

Leisure Suit Larry has taught me well, sensei

Yeah, I ended up with about $5500 before I actually worried about things like 'plot'. Psh. Who cares about plot, anyway? The back room really had nothing much to speak of, as I wasn't able to talk to the dancer onstage, and she didn't seem to be going away any time soon. The dancer's room is closed off with a bouncer, and you can't threaten him with a scalpel OR plastic explosive.. no fun, game. A quick jaunt up to the front bar (where you can taste some Finlandia vodka no less) and we get to talk to the bartender.. who unsurprisingly wants a bribe. $500 seems a whole lot less when you're wandering around with an infinite money-generating device in the next room, so I pay the man and happily – he tells us that Golden Desire is more than likely to be willing to chat to us, and that he'll tell her to come down from the stage and wait for you in the next room. He also mentions that it seems strange – he remembers the name 'Scorpio', yet after the reports of him dying came out, she never seemed particularly worried about them despite them seeming quite the couple..

I'm only insulting these people for -you- guys. You wanted to see their silly faces, right?

Mason's default dialogue is, to be perfectly honest, somewhat dire. All he seems capable of doing is insulting her or introducing himself – but that's fine, as she doesn't need any real coercion to tell you things that might help you. She mentions that the Jackal was an absolute animal when he worked with Scorpio – and gives a rather impassioned plea attempting to explain that Scorpio was knotted up in all sorts of trouble, got unlucky and got taken out, and is clearly very angry with the CIA for putting him in a position like he ended up in to begin with. The dialogue is actually decent here for what I take to be about the first time in the game thus far – the writing makes her seem legitimately angry, and almost human. This is about the first 'sad' sprite that we actually get to see, but it's not actually that humorous – so instead, here's her reaction to being called 'babycakes'...

Good thing that the CIA have knocked Mason off of their lists – he's a walking sexual harassment suit

The next step is more than a touch counterintuitive. Unfortunately, the game has taught us that time is an issue, so you should rush whenever you can – I'm still staring at the top right corner of the screen every time I get involved in anything. Thankfully, keeping saves sitting around, I was staring at the screen and trying to use my inventory on everything and anything – and then the bouncer up and left. Yup, just left. No tact or foreknowledge necessary – he just up and went away. Hooray! That makes things easy enough, I guess. The room ahead is Ms. Desire's dressing room – there's not too much of interest in here, really, just a one-room puzzle that involves finding a key which leads to another key which leads to a memo. The memo runs through the CAD, and gives an anonymous memo that essentially reads 'I'm going away for a while, don't tell anyone anything – Buzz Brezhnev will know where I am.' (There's also a makeup kit, which I take just.. because.)

Bonus quiz: where's the first key in here? Hint: it's the thing that looks like a clipping issue..

As last time, I'm almost tempted to end it here – but everything else that I've done to this point is entirely set in the chat window. Buzz Brezhnev is a man that looks like he belongs in Red Alert more than anything – he's described by the bartender as a 'big Russian bear'. He's also in Venice.. the weird thing is that it's not entirely certain as to how Mason manages to find him, as he's apparently 'somewhere in Venice'. There's a pretty consistent problem with this – it's never particularly clear as to how exactly we find out where these sorts of things are. Regardless, Buzz is here, and he's quite a difficult man to get anything out of. It takes several minutes of messing around to find the exact key – he likes to be harassed heavily, in that co-conspiratorial fashion I'm imagining. He's also full of the most ridiculous faces in the entire game IMO, having a full range of emotions in his character portrait.

He's quite fun to be around, this ol' Buzz.

Eventually, by sheer trial and error, you work out that you have to convince him that you're sure that Scorpio is alive, using the knowledge of the memo – and after a little bit of work, you manage to get him on your side. After you manage to convince him that you're not angry or looking to take out Scorpio, he'll share the fact that indeed, Scorpio is alive and well.. and looking to speak to you! He's also in Venice. He has a lot more information to give you, including the fact that the KGB have similar interests to you in taking out the Black December cell. This is a nice little touch from this game – they're essentially giving you a reason why this KGB agent is actually willing to talk to you, which I rather like. He also passes along some knockout capsules to be slipped into people's food at a cost of $500.

They really worked on this man's expressions..

Given we don't even leave the state, let alone the country to do so, I'm including Scorpio's short piece. He's quite condescending, telling you how he's amazed that you've even made it as far as you have. He's open that he's a member of the KGB now, and asks for your promise of silence on the matter. He doesn't actually offer anything particularly groundbreaking at this point, but he does make it rather clear that he's not the Jackal in disguise. He's also a well-thought character, making this more or less three for three – but that doesn't forgive the sheer amount of caricatures that have existed up until this point. If anything is to be taken, just the following conversation should really do as an example of this game at its best:

This is an amazing example of what this game can be.. and I wish, was, the whole way through.

Scorpio more or less gives us a running commentary on the things we've learned up until now – and he continues to keep the idea going that he was a bad guy to be on the wrong side of.. and that Jackal is just as bad in his own right. He's clearly the bad guy, but I'm still a bit weirded out by the idea that Scorpio and Jackal are very, very similar in looks to my mind. The story is actually shaping out really well, now – Jackal's motives seem to be an attempt to get the ultra-conservative General Leeland elected as the next President of the US, given that 'another large-scale terrorist attack would almost clearly win the election for the General' according to more than just a couple of people. The game's actually beginning to get some positive points for it, which has me quite happy to say I think it might finish strong. When leaving Scorpio, a message pops up from our CAD, sending us off to our e-mailing system – Lisa Loomis has something to tell us, and she just happens to be local, just down in Rome..

See you next time, dear! (This entire picture was such a fan service moment. Why didn't they just have it on an e-mail? Woulda been fine..)

The notion of listing inventory has backfired a little as the game refuses to get rid of seemingly innocuous things, leaving me with two uninteractive boxes that I can't tell apart and a bag – but I'll keep up traditions..

- Coat hanger
- Mason's wallet
- Scalpal
- Keys
- Grappling hook
- Flashlight
- Boots
- Bag
- Box (two separate ones)
- Fake passport.
- Cash ($3703 – no real risk in losing any more.. we've got blackjack now!)
- Three doses of plastic explosives
- The CAD
- A battery
- Pliers
- Wire cutters
- Note with hidden message to Rachel
- Screwdriver
- A photo of Jackal
- A makeup kit
- 'Stationery' (the note to Golden Desire)
- Knockout capsules
- Message with (wiring diagram?)

Session Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time: 9 hours 00 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. Thanks!