Beware of THEM! (It Came From The Desert)

Name: Frankingsteins

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Product:	It Came From The Desert
Date:	31/05/07 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great box art and B-movie vibe, as well as some attempt at constructing a plot.

Disadvantages: Far too tedious and difficult to be rewarding.

I expected more from a game packaged in a box featuring a B-movie style screaming woman getting terrified by an enormous ant. Despite the intriguing title, 'It Came From the Desert' isn't a comedy game, combining a basic and tediously difficult survival game with a not-so-subtle anti-nuclear message that's likely all inspired by the B-classic 'Them!' The player must track down the cause of the mutations as the most evil and destructive creature of them all: a giant ant! I mean humankind, responsible for these mutations in the first place, obviously. But there is a giant ant too. It's also, sadly, one of those games where the opening animation ends up being far superior to the game that follows, and only in this instance for being painted in particularly pleasing shades of red.

The playing screen is simple to understand, and the player is thrown into the action immediately. The joypad controls the two dimensional movements (alright, so jumping is technically a third dimension if you're going to be pedantic) of a man viewed from above who we later learn is called Buzz, donning a flamethrower, some grenades and a rucksack, and essentially dressed in far more layers than could be comfortable in this generic desert environment. The extent of the playing field is relatively small, as the action primarily moves upwards, but further ground can be accessed by moving a little to the left or right of the default screen. Besides picking up the occasional power-ups that can be salvaged from the ground, such as vital replacement grenades, the object of the game is to make it from the bottom of the level to the top of the level, avoiding the rolling sand trails and burning any pesky oversized green bugs that get in Buzz's way. At the end of each level is a character who Buzz will chat with automatically, revealing the intricate details of the poor excuse for a plot.

The problems with 'ICFTD' are twofold; firstly, it's an overused and very limited idea, and secondly it's fairly impossible to complete each individual area without multiple re-tries. This seems to be a trend with desert-based survival games of the era, and was perfected elsewhere in the great public domain release 'Egyptian Run,' produced independently by some Australian guy for the Amiga on what must have been a fraction of the cost, and to a far greater degree of white knuckle entertainment and hilarious frustration. In 'ICFTD' there's no enjoyment to be found in the anger, as the player is given enough breathing and thinking time as each level begins to deceive them into a false sense of entertainment, before the impassable barrier trails across and the game is inevitably over.

In an attempt to add value, the game box offers a cooperative two player option that sounds at first like a promising way to pass the terrain more quickly and effectively. Unfortunately, it's only two player in the 'Ms. PacMan' sense, with each player taking it in turns to control the same green-coated and green-bandana-wearing character in exactly the same situation. Seriously, how difficult would it have been to just change the colour of the clothes from green to red, or give one player dark skin or blonde hair? Suffice to say, there are several thousand better two player experiences out there, and it's no further incentive to buy this game. Slightly annoyingly, the turn-taking method doesn't even eliminate the need for a second MegaDrive controller as it does with some games, still requiring a second pad plugged into Port 2, or for more desperate players to switch ports with their existing, very well-worn pad on which the writing is no longer legible.

So what can be salvaged from this game, almost twenty years later? Often there's something memorable in the graphics or sound department, but not so here aside from the nice 'blood red sky' mentioned earlier, that even has attention drawn to it in the scrolling story exposition text that comes after. The desert sand is pretty boring, and even when desert roads or the streets of Lovelock usurp it, it all looks very dull, flat and square, lacking the jaunty angles of the many similar games that followed a diagonal isometric plan. The first time I played the game on mute, I anticipated that the opening animation, with its bouncing rabbit, plummeting bird, wide vista and cataclysmic nuclear mushroom cloud would offer something interesting, but instead it's overlaid with nothing more than a simple bass rhythm that evokes none of the necessary emotions. I know this is cheap 16-bit video game music I'm talking about, and indeed I may never learn how futile this all is, but it could have been so much better. The title screen is a little more interesting as a melodic range is added over the top, and even the in-game music (which even I don't expect to be anything special. I'm not that mad) is quite good, with appropriate burny and bangy sound effects, though lacking a boingy or deadey one.

It's cute that programmer Matthew Harmon and co-designer and artist Jon Gwyn attempted to craft a serious story around this game, one that only becomes relevant in the brief pauses between levels. This was clearly something of a pet project for them, however pleased they may have been with their finished product, but despite claiming 'Quality Assurance' by one Mario Escamilla and an extensive list of 'Special Thanks' in the credits, 'It Came From the Desert' can only claim to be memorable due to its cool title (but one that I can't help feeling should be 'It Came From Beneath the Desert,' which would still technically work) and box art of a woman being afraid of a giant bug. Still an all-too-common occurrence in twenty-first century life, though normal sized rather than gigantic ones, obviously.

Summary: Published by Cinemaware (1989).