Normality Review

|Tap-Repeatedly|FFC Archives

           

Normality

Review by Jen

Having seen this game regaled as a minor classic in the adventure games Usenet group, I thought I would give it a try. I managed to hunt down a copy of it and popped it right in my CD drive.

You play as a “dude” named Kent, who lives in the city of Neutropolis, which is populated by psychotically normal people.  The game opens with Kent being chucked in the slammer because he was caught whistling a happy tune as he strolled down the avenue, and it is not normal to be so cheerful. While in the pokey, an anonymous prisoner passes Kent a note telling him about some kind of insurrection movement that he might want to join. Then, after a week in the cooler, Kent is confined to his apartment and told to leave the TV on all the time or it will be back off to prison with him. His TV, however, happens to be on the fritz, so the first task in the game is to get it to stay on. You figure out how to escape from your apartment and go to seek employment at the Plush Rest furniture factory. From there, you set off on your quest to free the city from the evils of normality. The plot in this game, while pretty silly, is quite good and with no loose ends.

Using a combination of the keyboard and mouse, you inspect the various locales, picking up some things and investigating others.  Perspective is through Kent’s eyes in the active portions of the game and third-person in the cut scenes. You navigate using the arrow keys, and you can look up or down with the Page Up or Page Down keys; views are 360 degrees in the horizontal plane and maybe about 15 degrees up or down. You use the mouse to inspect objects—right-clicking brings up a voodoo doll model of Kent, and clicking on various body parts completes whatever action is suggested by said body part (and it’s only from the waist up, so get your mind out of the gutter!). Inventory is accessed by clicking on the backpack that is always displayed in the upper right corner of the screen, and you then use the left mouse button to apply an item. For me, the keyboard/mouse combo took a little getting used to, and I would never have figured it out without the manual, but once I got used to it, it was very easy to use. The game plays in the LucasArts style, where you pick up seemingly useless items that can be creatively employed in other portions of the game. However, this game has a lot of red herrings, which kept me a little off balance throughout—and I liked it! Periodically, the inventory gets cleared out due to some plot twist, so you don’t have to lug the unnecessary items to the point of the inventory becoming unwieldy.

The graphics are a mixed bag—the cut scenes are all very nicely done, but the active scenes are pixelated to a pretty large extent. However, this game only occupies one CD, so I suppose the bigger pixels were required to make it fit. Whatever the case, the pixels were not so big as to obscure anything, and anyway, when you hover your cursor over an item you can interact with, you get an on-screen description. I think the developers could have put the game on two CDs for a very negligible difference in production cost and a huge increase in graphic quality—this game was only released a couple of years ago and should not look as dated as it does.

Next, let me talk about the voice acting. This, to me, was the absolute worst thing about the game. I was ready to quit an otherwise decent game several times just due to Kent’s grating on my nerves.  The actor, a fellow by the name of Corey Feldman, is some kind of Jim Carrey wannabe, but he takes it to the nth degree and then applies a slacker surfer dude ‘tude overlay on top of it. Now, I am a big fan of Jim Carrey, but you’ve got to admit there’s only room in this world for one of him. If I had heard even one more “whoa, dude” by the time I finished the game, I think I would have gotten out my flamethrower and applied it directly to the CD. The rest of the actors did an admirable job but were just completely overshadowed by the horrible Kent. The sound effects and music on the game were neither intrusive nor inappropriate; they were used in the right places and proper quantity—generally a pretty quality effort. No doubt, duuudes, this whole category suffers mightily, not for lack of effort on the part of anybody but simply for annoying the hell out of me. I play games for entertainment, and it’s not fun to be driven buggy.

In conclusion, this game might be considered a flawed masterpiece.  It has some definite pluses but one great big minus. I did enjoy the style, gameplay, and story, but I would recommend that if you play it, you turn off the volume and turn on the subtitles (it does have that option—dummy me for not using it early in the game). The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Gremlin Interactive Publisher: Interplay Release Date: 1996

Available for: DOS 

Four Fat Chicks Links

Player Feedback

Screenshots

 Click to enlarge   Click to enlarge   Click to enlarge Click to enlarge

System Requirements

DOS 5.0 or higher/Win95 486/66 or higher 8 MB RAM 20 MB free hard drive space 256 colors, SVGA Mouse/keyboard Soundblaster-compatible

Where to Find It

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

Pages

Top

Category Archives

Top

Blog Posts

Top

14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.