Missed Classic: Questprobe #3 - WON! and Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

Time to see what is beyond the wall of fire!

Thing Journal #3 - So Johnny comes and joins me down in the caves and he’s able to get past the wall of fire and slow down the wind. Why there’s a lever to slow down the wind, I have no idea. But then we fly up and he gets the crazy idea to fire me from a cannon at the Blob. Typical hotheaded reaction, but what do you expect? He fires the cannon and the Blob dodges, sending me straight through to the castle. But once there, Xandu gets into my brain right good and doesn’t let me save Alicia. Torch then calls out that he’ll be right back; says he knows how to create an earthquake or something. Few minutes later, the ground shakes and look, Xandu’s knocked unconscious by a statue of Dr Doom. Talk about irony, right? But I free Alicia and high-tail it outta there.

Torch Journal #3 - Hey Ben, I blew up the gas in the tunnel underneath the castle then everything got quiet... Ben? Hello? Anyone?

Missed Classic: Questprobe #3 - A Sticky Situation

Written by Joe Pranevich

Eight villains to defeat! (Nine if you count the snake.)

Torch & Thing Journal #2 - We are back together again and exploring a set of windy caves deep underground. The Thing made it there by holding his breath and destroying the machinery that was sucking him down, while the Torch had to take a longer route to sneak past Dr. Doom’s castle, open a shaft hidden in a cave, and fly down. But now that we’re here and together, what happens next? It’s clobberin’ time!

Missed Classic 12: Questprobe Featuring the Human Torch and the Thing - Introduction (1985)

Written by Joe Pranevich

It’s a good time to be a comic book geek. As I write this, I just got back from watching Ant-Man, a film that absolutely does not deserve to be as good as it is. And yet… wow. It’s the 12th straight film to open at #1 for Marvel. The next film, Fantastic Four, will be out by the time you read this and while it will not be a “real” Marvel film (as the rights are owned by Fox), I hope it does well. I love the Fantastic Four as a team and they deserve to finally get a decent film adaptation. And if you can somehow make an also-ran like Ant-Man into a good film, surely the powers that be could make a great film out of the “first family” of the Marvel universe. If the reviews are good, I’ll be seeing it in a few weeks.

That leads us to our game: Questprobe Featuring the Human Torch and the Thing. Released ten months after Spider-Man, it marks the final Questprobe game and one of the final releases for Adventure International before their bankruptcy. There are a few signs that it might have been a troubled production: the ten month gap between games (twice as long as expected), the game and manual still use an old title in several places (Fantastic Four, Chapter One), and the manual feels less polished than previous efforts. I hope that Scott Adams will share some of these details when he sits down with us in a few weeks.

Just like before, I have a ton of introductory notes. If you just want to get to the gameplay, feel free to scroll down. I won’t mind too much.