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Insecticide: Part 1
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Graphics & Sound:
Insecticide: Part 1 is the first half of a game that is equal parts action-platformer and adventure. While the shooter aspects of the game tend to get a bit repetitive, I did find the puzzle-solving aspects to be a nice change of pace. The odd thing is, when I played the game for the Nintendo DS, I had a lower opinion of it than now on the PC. I don't know if that is completely because of the change in platforms, expectations on the respective platforms, or my personal view of this type of game has changed, but Insecticide just feels better on the PC.
Insecticide really nails down the nitty-gritty film noir feel for this insect-ruled world. Inspired heavily from classic detective stories, everything from the long trench coats to distinct accents really sell the game's overall feel. As for polygon count, Insecticide won't win any awards, but what it does have looks good and is effective. Pre-rendered cut-scenes look the best (as you would expect), but even the in-game work isn't all that bad.
Background music and general sound effects also help pull off the classic feel, but some of the game's advanced technology (like Chrys' guns or some of the objects in the room) definitely gives the game an otherworldly feel (if the man-sized insects didn't already do that for you).
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Gameplay:
Insecticide takes place on an Earth where Humankind's time has reached sunset, and man has been reduced to simple creatures, meanwhile, insects have evolved into the new dominant species (think Planet of the Apes, but with bugs instead).
This particular tale in the insect-ruled world follows Detective Chrys Liszt, as she hunts down the clues behind a murder in the Nectarola plant. Armed with only a few weapons, her partner Roachy, and antennae designed to sniff out perps, you must alternate between chasing down enemies in action-platformer environments, and hunting down clues in a classic point-and-click style adventure format.
The game's division of labor is pretty hard and fast. Instead of trying to intersperse platformer environments with puzzles to solve in a seamless manner, you will find that each gameplay type is clearly segmented off into individual levels. So, you will start off chasing down some crickets in an alleyway, and the next scene you will be at your precinct trying to talk to all of the other detectives and help them gather clues in a manner that wouldn't be out of place in any dozen of adventure titles.
While I can easily see some criticism arising from the fact that these two styles are blended together in a more homogeneous manner, in a way, it sort of helps. At the end of a level, you pretty much know that you will have to take off your shooter hat and put on the problem-solving one. While it might make the game a bit more approachable by both audiences to have elements of both gameplay types in each level, this way fans of only one of the two gameplay types can get the full adventure or shooter experience while they are in their preferred level style, and they know they only have to put up with the one they are less skilled at for a short time before they get back to a more appreciable level.
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Difficulty:
Insecticide: Part 1 isn't all that long. It takes you to about the half-way point of the game's overall story. What helps to drag out the gameplay a bit is the switching between action-platformer levels and adventure levels. If Insecticide was just one of these two genres, then it would be a much quicker game, and quite frankly, far less interesting. As it is, the switching not only forces you to alternate between different skill sets, but it also keeps you into the story. As it is, neither half of the game is terribly tough. The puzzles you will have to solve end up becoming more fetch-missions than extreme logic problems, and the shooter stages tend to blend together, but the game tends to be a bit tougher than the sum of its parts.
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Game Mechanics:
Like I mentioned above, Insecticide was previously released on the DS, and while that system has lent itself well to a growing adventure market, there was something about it at the time that just didn't feel right. I think a lot of it had to do with the shooter levels, and the fact that the controls just didn't quite feel right for the game.
Well, a lot of those issues just don't seem to exist on the PC. Maybe it has to do with the system's long-standing relationship to both shooters and adventure games, and the fact that controls for both of those genres are very standardized, I don't know. What I do know is that it was much easier to get through the game's story with a mouse and keyboard in my hands than a stylus.
What really makes Insecticide different is its switching between the two gameplay modes, and this mechanic keeps the cut-scenes nice and short. Think about it, in a standard action-platformer type game, once you get to the end of the level and your character has come across a scene that has some clue, typically you see a cutscene of him investigating the area and drawing some conclusions. Here, those scenes are the adventure parts of the game. The opposite can be said for the adventure genre since you typically just watch the scene where your character chases down the bad guy you just exposed.
So while Insecticide doesn't fit neatly into any one slot, and probably won't win any Game-of-the-Year awards, its story is solid and a lot of the gameplay elements are worth checking out. I would stay away from the DS version unless you really want the portability of it, because for some reason, it just feels a lot better on the PC. But then again, that could just be my personal preferences speaking. |
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-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer |
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP, Pentium 4 @ 1.5 GHz or Equivalent, 256 MB RAM, 600 MB HD Space, 64 MB Video Memory, DirectX Compatible Sound Card, DirectX 9.0c |
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Test System:
Alienware Aurora m9700 Laptop, Windows XP Professional, AMD Turion 64 Mobile 2.41 GHz, 2 GB Ram, Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS 256MB Video Cards, DirectX 9.0c |
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