DS Fanboy feelers-on: Insecticide
Gamecock sent over a near-final preview copy of Insecticide, and I've been playing through it for the last few days. I haven't encountered any bugs yet -- except the ones that are supposed to be there, amirite? I previously played the game during the Penny Arcade Expo, but this time I had the benefit of playing a more complete copy, for more than ten minutes, while sitting down in a room with fewer than ten thousand people in it. I don't want to evaluate too much in a preview, but in the small portion of the game I've played, it's clear to me that this is exactly what people hope it is: the return of the funny 3D adventure game.
While the adventure genre (by which I mean the third-person, 3D-movement, point-and-click adventure game, as opposed to graphical text adventures like Phoenix Wright) hasn't quite died, it has been populated in recent years by games like Indigo Prophecy and Syberia: dour, dark, gritty, Serious Business. Insecticide is not that. It evokes something like a Grim Fandango or a Space Quest: interesting characters who have a lot of funny things to say, in a game that requires you to adapt to a unique world's somewhat joke-based logic.
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The major difference between Insecticide and a classic LucasArts adventure game, obviously, is the platforming. The game alternates between platform-action levels and investigation levels, giving the game a linear, level-based structure also unique among adventure games. The platforming levels all seem to involve chasing a suspect (though it's checkpoint-based and not a race). Most of the challenge here comes from being shot at by enemies. There are a few annoying precision jumps, but this is mostly third-person shooting. You run and jump through a noir-ish, but still quite fantastical, city that is suspiciously full of small platforms, stopping to get into gunfights with bug thugs. Generally, they spawn a couple at a time in specific locations. Your target is always visible on a radar on the bottom screen (which also shows other enemies for stylus-based lock-on), preventing you from getting lost. Chrys has a double-jump that helps a lot with platforming. Of course this double jump is explained by the fact that Chrys has two pairs of legs.
Having tracked down the perp, you'll be given a lead that takes you to the next phase of your investigation. In the first couple of levels, catching the guy takes you back to the precinct, where, as Detective Chrys Liszt, you're responsible for collecting all of the case data and putting it on the wall. In order to do this, you, of course, need to talk to everyone in the office in order to get their reports, and also get a witness statement. The random pixel-clicking of old adventure games has given way to a less subtle/infuriating approach for the small screen: areas of interest are highlighted with a magnifying-glass icon, and conversation partners a similar 'talk' icon. When you choose to investigate an area, a zoomed-in, prerendered view will appear on the bottom screen. Here, you can pick up objects, examine the scene, and use items, all with the stylus. Talking also takes place on the bottom screen, as basic conversation trees. A character portrait also appears on the touchscreen; items can be dragged onto this portrait to give the character an item.
To give you an idea of the kind of puzzles found in (the beginning of) the game: in order to get a bomb report off of one soporific detective's seat, I had to sneak coffee into his cup, then grab the item when he shot up out of his chair. Another detective needed coffee (with creamer) and donuts before he could remember where he put his report. These interactions are made all the more fun by the dialogue given to the characters, which is both filled with insect references (all the food has gone bad, of course) and stereotypical cop-movie personality.
Later, I made clever use of resources in a diner to get information out of the patrons. One of the, uh, diners at this diner was in fact a criminal, and the rest were just criminally uncooperative, and didn't appreciate having their pathetic, lonely meals interrupted. I don't want to spoil the puzzle here, but getting these guys to talk involved the kind of lateral thinking that I find so appealing in this kind of game. I was able to figure out who the suspect was from items laying around the diner. I felt very satisfied when I completed that sequence -- not with myself, but with the game.
I can't say enough about how right this adventuring felt. It's not even nostalgia for an old game type. It's just a new, good game in a favorite genre. It's also an explosion of cherry flavor! (You will find this retroactively funny upon playing the game.)
