When visiting a bar, you naturally expect to find an eclectic mix of society: men and women of all colors, religions and social statuses, with varying personalities. What you certainly do not expect is to see a Marmali serving a “Wiggling Willy” to a Napthaleen, a Zzazzl making a “Vicious Leg Cramp in the Shower” for a Sraffan or a Mytosi splitting on its barstool. Unless you have stumbled into the Thirsty Tentacle, a dive next to the spaceport on planet Armpit VI. And that’s where our story takes place.

Meet Alias Node, a mere human - one of the lowest species in the universe - who had the nerve to join Armpit’s police force – the Amalgamated Vacuum Security Force. Along with his partner Maksh, a Marmali with whom he has gone through a lot in the past, he is assigned to apprehend the thief who broke into corporate HQ and stole important secrets. All that is known of the thief is that he is a member of the Kur’Pupu race and he is hiding in the Thirsty Tentacle. The problem is that no one knows what a Kur’Pupu looks like. That is because the Kur’Pupu can take the form of any other living creature, and they never leave their home planet - Kur’Plattur - in their own form nor do they welcome any visitors. To add insult to injury, he will be catching the 22:50 flight to Karkas IV, which means time is limited.

So, let’s order another “Flaming Armpit”, kick back, relax and follow Alias as he goes undercover in the Thirsty Tentacle to find and arrest the vile Kur’Pupu. Kick back? Relax? No, no, no. No such thing in Space Bar. Because this game comes from the mid-90s, back when adventure gamers were not put in strollers and taken for a nice outing in the park. Things used to get tough back in those days, and, trust me, if tough is what you want, tough is what you’ll get. You can still order your “Flaming Armpit” though!

The investigation starts inside the Thirsty Tentacle, occupied by creatures of all kinds of races. A very helpful database computer can be found right outside the bar to help you dig up information about all the species, their planets, and even a few movie reviews! It is amazing the depth that the people behind this game (can you say Steve Meretzky?) have gone to. Read the info very closely, as you never know what you might need to know. Alias can question most of the creatures he comes across, but be discreet, cause you don’t want to blow your cover and, after all, you’re just a mere human! Along with the questioning, other detective techniques will come in handy, like residue printing (something like fingerprinting) or voice recognition.

“So how big is this bar anyway, and how can it comprise an entire adventure game?” I hear someone asking. The answer is simple - and is also the core of Space Bar’s gameplay - Empathy Telepathy (Emp-Tel for short)! Emp-Tel is an interrogation method that Alias was trained in, where, while chatting with someone, he can enter their memories and relive through their eyes events from their past. From there, useful information can be retrieved and used in various manners: unlocking doors, making friends and, of course, getting closer to solving the case. So for the most part, Space Bar occurs in the memories of creatures!

Besides the happenings inside the bar, each Emp-Tel experience is its own game, replete with backstory and tasks that must be performed. The puzzles span from inventory, to logical, to timed and the overall difficulty level is set between moderate to hard, varying from Emp-Tel to Emp-Tel. It will definitely send newer, less experienced adventurers to UHS-Hints plenty of times and get them wondering how people managed to finish those games in the pre-Internet days (heck, we were all smarter back then!). A couple of puzzles were a bit too much though, especially during the Sraffan Emp-Tel, which had the makings of a trading strategy game, rather than an adventure. Overall though, the puzzles are interesting, clever and fair, and will keep your gray cells active.

The game is played in first person, through the eyes of Alias. At the bottom of the screen is your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), which blinks whenever a message is received, and also houses the inventory, map, logs, important info and the system menu. Every time Alias enters someone’s memories, the game is played through that someone’s eyes, and the PDA, as well as the cursor, change accordingly. In some cases the changes are drastic. For example when entering the memories of a Zzazzl, a bug-creature with multi-vision. At that point, the entire screen turns into several little screens! Of course, unless you’ve had some previous experience as a bug, the game becomes unplayable, but thankfully this can be taken care of with the simple strike of a key. A really neat effect nonetheless.

All of this craziness is sprinkled throughout with incredibly witty humor. From the outrageously funny names of the drinks (care for a “Throbbing Stalk in a Puddle” or a “Bad Acid Trip on Yzore for 2 Weeks with a Lawyer”?) to the dumb Salivraster’s attempts to say your name correctly, every detail has been taken care of to encourage side-splitting laughter. Your investigation will uncover, among other things, what turns-on a Vedj, why the Neblitz are always so cranky, and what a Fruufnid’s brains look like! And if you soon aren’t roaring with laughter, then someone needs to put a mirror in front of your mouth to see if you are alive!

On the downside – as are many older adventure games - Space Bar is loaded with dead-ends and death! If you die in the bar it’s game over, while dying during an Emp-Tel will snap Alias out of his visit and he then must reenter and start all over. But the worst part is the time limit. While regular time doesn’t pass inside an Emp-Tel, it does while exploring the bar and talking to people. Every move Alias makes, be it walking, using an item, examining or choosing a dialog option, counts as one tick and rest assured the flight to Karkas IV will wait for no one. This tight time limit necessitates regular saving as extremely crucial. A good strategy is, when first entering a new area or encountering something new in the bar, to save, exhaust all possible actions first, and then restore and only perform the actions necessary. Same for when you feel you’re stuck – keep a save until you find out what to do next and then restore to get the lost time back. This unfortunately negates a good chunk of the fun, but at least it’s only an issue in the bar, not during Emp-Tels – which do have some timed events, but are not timed overall. And one small piece of advice so that you won’t stumble upon one of the worst dead-ends known to human kind: choose to play the Seedrot (a middle-aged Vedj) and the Click Snap Snap Rattle (an Auditon drug pusher) Emp-Tels as early as possible!

Visually Space Bar excels – well at least for the time it was made. On modern computers there is an issue with the speed of the camera panning and a CPU slowdown utility might prove very helpful. The voiceovers are simply fantastic and imaginative and add immensely to the game’s atmosphere. You’ll hear numerous weird accents and tongues – my favorite is the Napthaleen language, even though it is just sounds! Ambient background noises and music is plentiful. In the bar you’ll hear bar noises (got to love the Pac-Man noises in the arcade room!), near water you’ll hear, erm, water noises, while in some places you’ll have to keep your ears wide open cause background talking may give away important clues! At certain places though, background noises can occasionally become annoying.

Space Bar is a brilliant piece of adventure gaming from the 90’s. It is clever, imaginative, tough and funny; in one word “loads of fun” (ok, in three words). Its complex worlds, stories and brain-challenging puzzles are from an era that, unfortunately, seems to be over. If you haven’t played it, rush and do so ASAP! Yes, it has its nuisances and a few puzzles go overboard, but this can all be forgiven (except for the really short time limit in the bar that is very frustrating, puts a ton of pressure on the player and can end up making playing stressful instead of relaxing). But its amazing world and fantastic characters will have you immersed and wanting to come back for more. And after you finish it, you will be left with a fulfilling emotion of achievement and of a great adventuring experience. Oh – as a final touch of wild imagination and wit as a way to tell you goodbye - you will be shown what a Kur’Pupu looks like in the end. And trust me, no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you tax your brain to picture how a Kur’Pupu looks, you will never have expected what you finally see!