Review Rent-A-Hero Developer: neo Software Publisher: THQ Genre: Adventure Release Date: 1999 Platform: Review by August 30, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:
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It’s Sunday morning. You sluggishly roll out of bed, spread some butter and jam on toasted bread, brew a cup of coffee and kick back in your comfy chair in front of your PC. All you want is a peaceful day. No worries, no thinking, no stressing. What would be more ideal, than a fun and easy adventure game that can be finished in one day? Well, Rent-A-Hero is exactly what you need!

Meet Rodrigo, hero for hire. His specialty: rescuing princesses. Unfortunately, his specialty is considered the lowest type of hero job, but he has to make a living somehow. What he has been waiting for is that one big job, something that will elevate him from his second-class state into a first-class hero (and improve his financial situation at the same time). Now, finally, opportunity seems to be knocking on his door. Pirates have attacked Tol Andar, his home island, but these are not regular pirates, for they have in their possession magic that can make their ships fly! Now, if he can vanquish them, he would certainly become the most famous hero in the land! And this is where you come in. Your job: help Rodrigo make his dream come true! Will it be an easy job? Yes it will be!

Rent-A-Hero is a traditional 3rd person point ’n click adventure. Clicking around the screen will make Rodrigo walk, while double-clicking will make him run (really fast!). The cursor will change to an arrow wherever there is an exit, and to crosshairs wherever there is a hotspot – an item to pick up, a door to open, something to operate etc. The game begins with an interactive intro with a surprise ending as Rodrigo on his trusty glider, chases after a dragon. After that, the glider will be used in order to fly to places that are too far to walk to – as Rodrigo states, you won’t catch him walking more than he needs to! Rodrigo can either fly within Smashville - his village in Tol Andar - or to other places on the island with the use of a map screen.

Rodrigo will also meet several characters (humans and non-humans) with whom he can interact. Clicking on a character will begin the dialogue, which will stop after a couple of lines, and clicking on the character again continues the dialogue. This has to be done as many times as needed until the entire dialogue ends! I really didn’t understand why this method was implemented. Since there aren’t any dialogue trees, one click would have been enough and the whole dialogue should be performed. This way one could sit back and enjoy the dialogs instead of having to click every couple of seconds, which became slightly annoying in the process.

The puzzles are mostly inventory based, but in a very peculiar manner. Rodrigo’s inventory is at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on an inventory item results in a description of that item unless Rodrigo is on a screen where this item is supposed to be used. There, he doesn’t need to be next to the place where it has to be used, nor do you need to take it from the inventory and click it on the corresponding hotspot. One click on the item will have Rodrigo go ahead and use it wherever it needs to be used! This of course oversimplifies things and drops the level of difficulty to simply locating the items! Occasionally, Rodrigo will have to search a place that he has checked before, because things change as the game progresses. There were also a couple cases of pixel-hunting, one of which is pretty severe. The last puzzle of the game is by far the hardest and demands that you have paid a lot of attention to what was done and said during the game, but unfortunately it can also be solved by trial & error.

The graphics are a combination of 2D and 3D – called 2.5D in the manual! They are cartoonish and colorful, and despite their age, still look pretty good. The characters are also well designed, especially Rodrigo. The sound is of high standards also, with beautiful and atmospheric soundtracks that perfectly fit the fantasy atmosphere of the game. The voice acting is well done and features lip syncing – a very rare thing for its time. The lip-syncing cannot be compared to today’s standards of course, but it was a very innovative move and it looks way better than what used to be the standard those days. Something that struck me as odd, when it came to voice acting, is that the subtitles would be very different than what was spoken! Not different meanings, but sometimes entirely different words!

Overall Rent-A-Hero is a very easy and short adventure that will not overly tax your brain. It is though enjoyable, and ideal for a day of peaceful adventuring. The little nuisances (dialog implementation, a couple of pixel-hunting cases) do not diminish the general enjoyment of the game and in the end you will not feel as if you have performed a major accomplishment, but rather that your time was well spent in a fun manner.

Final Grade: B
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System Requirements:

• Pentium 133 MHz processor
• Windows 95/98
• 16 MB RAM
• 2 MB graphics card
• 6X CD-ROM drive
• DirectX 6.0 (included)
• Sound card