Some impressions for Jack Orlando: Director's Cut
What we have here is a point and click adventure game from the year 1997. Now, 1997 was pretty much starting the sunset of point and click adventures, and for some reason the quality of the ones that remained was also in decline. Sure, the year gave us a few good ones: Riven. Broken Sword II. Blade Runner. But Lucasarts gave us "Curse of Monkey Island" which wasn't nearly as well received as its predecessors, and Sierra gave us "Shivers II: Harvest of Souls," a horror game sandwiched between Leisure Suit Larry 7 and King's Quest 8. So if you hadn't heard of Jack Orlando, nobody's gonna blame you. There's a reason people don't talk about this game much.
The music and sound: Really nice. The company sprang for Harold Faltermeyer, the guy who penned "Axel F" for Beverly Hills Cop. Some great jazz tracks to get you in the mood for 1933 America. Too bad the voice acting is pretty bad. The dialogue isn't great to begin with, but everything's delivered in flat tones with bad accents (more on that later.)
The graphics: Not terrible. Keep in mind, the screenshots look better than in-game for some reason. Maybe there's some antialiasing on the screenshots. There are black lines around everything in game. What immediately sprang to mind was "CD-i version of that Zelda game" but that might be slightly unfair, especially in an era when adventure games were trying out *shudder* FMV.
The story: You're a hard-on-his-luck private eye who yearns for the glory days when he was given the key to the city. Prohibition had just ended and he's been hitting the bottle hard. It's unclear whether or not he was drinking while it was still illegal. You witness a murder, get knocked out trying to intervene, and wake up to get arrested for the murder. You know, because the guy was shot, you're face down at the scene of the crime with no gun to be found anywhere, so obviously you're the murderer! You pull some strings with the inspector and are given 48 hours to clear your name. The premise itself is alright, but the devil's in the details.
Stereotypes EVERYWHERE. I honestly couldn't tell whether the game was supposed to be some kind of parody of 30s movies, or if the European developers genuinely thought this is how people talked and acted. The owner of the Chinese laundry is complete with topknot and full-length robe, referring to you as "f'liend." There's an Irish cop, no less than three Italians connected with the mob, and a violent black man.
The gameplay and puzzles: You know you're playing an old game when you have to hit F1 to access your inventory and options. Saving your game brings up a Windows window asking you to type in a filename for your .SAV. I'm actually scared to attempt to use more than 8 characters for the filename. That aside, this game commits all kinds of adventure game sins:
Huge cursors with tiny hotspots! The hand is grabbing...why isn't it picking it up? *moves around in small circles clicking frantically* Oh there it goes. The game also has the object permanence of an infant: walk in front of an object and you can't pick it up anymore. It's as if the game doesn't realize it's there until you move, then peek-a-boo!
Missables! Forgot something early on in the game? You're fucked! (Sierra did this a lot too, and people didn't like it then, either.)
Items you'll never use! You can literally pick junk off the streets and keep it in your inventory. I'm currently holding an apple core, a banana peel, a broken piece of hose and an old can. Why? Because I could! In case you're wondering, yes, I did try to put them into garbage cans, but that didn't work.
Puzzles that make no sense! Characters are unhelpful until you give them items that they gave no indication they wanted. Someone gives you no hints that they're a smoker, but they need cigarettes. Another person needs a newspaper but never once asks you for it.
Offensive puzzles! Need to pull down a ladder to get to the roof of the building? I'll just use this item that I borrowed from my white neighbour...oh wait, that doesn't work, he says she'll get upset if the item breaks. I know! I'll ask this black guy for this other item. Oh, he refused? I'll just assault him and then steal it! (Don't forget: your character used to be a hero who was given the key to the city.) Okay, developers, I get that the protagonist is a misogynist and ever-so-slightly racist because he has 1930s society views. But do we really need to make him a full-on asshole? I don't identify with him and I don't want to root for him.
The verdict: the game blew its wad on sweet music. Other games were blowing their wad on movie actors like Christopher Walken, so as far as that goes their choice wasn't bad. By 1997 standards it probably would have been a mediocre game. By today's standards, it's little more than a history lesson on what gamers eager for adventures had to put up with. And yet, I'm still glad I got to experience it for that alone. You, dear reader, might not want to, however.
