From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, a trip to the English Riviera in a bit of multimedia horror tha
From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett (opens in new tab) wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, a trip to the English Riviera in a bit of multimedia horror that didn’t even get to ride the CD-ROM wave and call itself a Torquay adventure…
As an institution, the BBC has done many great things over the years. The iPlayer, for instance. Televising democracy. Cancelling Robin Hood. Combine one of its biggest successes with the power of CD-ROM, and you’d probably expect something quite impressive. And… well, that’s actually true, provided you think of impressions as just depressions with better marketing.
Car on loan from Rentaghost, apparently.
Even by the standards of multimedia tie-ins, this one extracts enough piss to fill a small swimming pool. Which takes some doing. Just look at the likes of Stephen King’s F13 and comedy enema Microshaft Winblows 98, and realise with raised eyes and a shocked look that this is almost infinitely worse.
At least in both of those games, there was a hint—the slightest, tiniest suggestion—that someone involved might, possibly, have either cared or had a single creative synapse fire. Here, the kindest thing you can say is that at least exposure to the game probably won’t, directly, cause flatulence.
(Until you discover that it came out in 2000. Not 1995. 2000. I have never seen development credits fly past quite so fast, or been so surprised not to see the entire mess blamed on Alan Smithee.)
Did any of these multimedia thingies succeed? Sure, a few—not least a couple of the Monty Python games, which benefited from the cast actually being involved. For this one, it’s doubtful John Cleese was even aware of its existence. It’s one of the silliest things the BBC could possibly have done, short of—pffft, I don’t know. Creating a Doctor Who game where he runs around shooting Daleks!
Uh… OK. Should have remembered. Okay, I know! Turning ‘Allo ‘Allo into a platformer…
Hurm. A Transport Tycoon rip-off based on Oh, Doctor Beeching? (opens in new tab)
Well, that’s OK then. And at least other top shows were spared. I mean, can you imagine giving this kind of treatment to, say, Only Fools and Horses? I dread to think what it would have consisted of. A leopard-printed calculator maybe. A pub quiz minigame. A series of—it exists, doesn’t it? (opens in new tab) Crap.
But back to this specific argument against the license fee.
« Look at you? I don’t need to look at you, I can smell you from here. »
Really, this picture should say it all. Just admire it. Stare in wonder at the way John Cleese’s head has been stuck onto someone else’s body and never turns to face the camera. The crap 3D rendering, with what looks like a bench blocking the entrance to the dining table and the carpet actively trying to suck your eyes into a universe of infinite pain. Most notable though is that on this screen… well, guess how many bits of this screen are interactive. Does the plant hold any mysteries? What lies upstairs? Is there a secret hidden in the fact that the grandfather clock quite visibly has no hands, or that some sticky-fingered thief has stolen much of the set dressing?
Nope. Exactly four things are clickable, and one of those is the Quit option—the biggest, and most enjoyable thing you can click. The office is « Videos », in which you can play short clips almost as efficiently as just waiting for the actual episode to be re-run somewhere. The Kitchen is Desktop Customiser, where you’ll find lots of wallpaper, cursors, icons and other accoutrements to make your copy of Windows look crap—but also by far the best part of the experience even if for some crazy reason you don’t want the default Windows beep to be replaced by Sybil Fawlty saying « Mrs. Richards » for no reason.
Hours of fun!
But we’re not interested in that, are we? No, what matters is the Games section. This was 2000; the year that brought us Deus Ex and the Millenium Bug. Diner Dash was yet to be a glimmer in the Flash world’s eye, but still, would demonstrate that things like running a restaurant could be entertaining. Fawlty Towers at least has some promise there, right? Juggling plates to keep guests happy as everything comes crashing down, Basil constantly being driven into psychotic fury at having to race from the reception to the dining room to the kitchen, dealing with familiar problems like a rat running around or distracting a Health Inspector while Polly and Manuel clean the kitchen.
