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Review Fenimore Fillmore: The Westerner
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Of
Trains, Banks and Farms
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Puzzles Just |
John |
As
I told you, Fenimore has to sort three major obstacles, namely:
get one more man to defend the farms, stop the train where Starek’s
men are traveling and buy a farm defense kit. These big puzzles
are actually comprised of several puzzles each one of them. It’s
a tried and tired formula but it still works well. I probably
don’t need to mention how non-linear the game is, but I just
did. Overall, The Westerner is pretty straightforward
puzzle-wise. They’re mostly on the easy side, but there are many
of them to keep you busy. Some puzzles become rather tricky because
of the lack of customized responses. For instance, I wanted to
open a chest but Fenimore told me I can’t do that. Why? Is
it locked? Do I have to care for it? Whenever I tried using an
item in a way that made perfect sense to me, I also got similar
responses, like Better not. Whether it’s laziness or a conscious
decision, this lack of customized feedback, not only makes puzzles
more difficult in the wrong way, it takes away some of the charm
Fenimore has. Well, look at the bright side of it; at least you
don’t have to push any crates around (guess which game I did
NOT like).
I
was very happy to have optional stuff to do, especially one puzzle
that can make you save a lot money. Yes, you read that well:
money. You need money to buy stuff and sort out a couple of particular
situations. Generally, the only way to get it is looking around
in drawers. If you do things right, like doing that optional
stuff I said, you should get plenty of it. If you don’t, you’ll
be in trouble because there isn’t much scattered around. In case
you spend all of it, you’ll have to visit locations again and
pray for more dollars to show up.
One
very nice detail is a set of hints, nearly puzzle solutions I
should say, cleverly integrated in the game in the form of newspapers.
In those you can read about past news that incidentally resemble
the exact things you have to do to overcome the three major obstacles.
They almost blatantly tell you the final step to solve them,
so I’d advise to stay clear of those newspapers unless you’re
hopelessly stuck. You have to pay for them anyway — nothing’s
free!
Whether
a blatant rip-off or praiseworthy homage, the insult dueling
is the most annoying puzzle to be found in the game. Not because
it’s difficult, but because you don’t understand its mechanics
except with trial and error and expending many dollars. Taking
into account the problem I mentioned with them, well, you get
my point. While in Monkey Island you met several
opponents whom gradually gave you more and more responses, in The
Westerner there is only more man aside from the one you
have to defeat, one of Starek’s boys. He gives you new responses
at a very slow rate and, only after you lose a match with the
Starek’s henchman, he’s replaced with another one who has new
responses. It’s never quite clear how to accomplish this and
that’s the major problem with this obstacle. One of the opponents
actually shows up after completing another different puzzle!
I’m
not sure whether they’re annoying or not, but some gamers won’t
appreciate the inclusion of arcade sequences. One of them actually
works as a mini-game you can use to raise more money, but still
has to be solved in order to finish the game. It consists in
shooting moving targets in a fair game. That one was nice if
a bit long because you have to lose it once in order to figure
out what to do next. A second one is the one that will make some
players whine, as a very good aim and timing are necessary. You
have to defeat four opponents by shooting at their weak points
— problem is, it isn’t clear which ones they are!
The
last one doesn’t really qualify as an arcade sequence and I found
it to be quite clever. You can’t lose, or at least you have plenty
of time to work it out and I never reached the limit, and it’s
really fun. It involves defending the farm and switching between
many of the (good) characters you met during your adventuring
and shooting at the opponent they’re fighting each one them with
a different kind of weapon. But good observation is required
as they’re hiding behind somewhere, and you don’t have to necessarily
shoot them but a special place in order to win this sequence,
which is a perfect climax of an overall fine puzzle design.
They’re
Invading Us!
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First |
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As
I said, I’m a tolerant gamer but I have my limits. The
Westerner has certainly not met them though — by a tiny
little microscopical bit. I know I’ve been probably sounding
like this is the second coming of adventure gaming (please bear
with my sensibilities), and I truly enjoyed it, but this game
has its share of problems. To tell the truth, it has a plethora
of problems. Apart from minor design and technical quirks, The
Westerner is horribly plagued by hordes of BUGS!
And they dont ship a fumigator along with the game [insert
cricket sounds here]
Not
long into the game I found myself getting stuck in a place and
then having to restore, experienced nasty clipping problems,
missing textures, looping sections of music like a scratched
LP, missing animations and, on top of it all, an unwinable situation
— to overcome this I had to restart the game after installing
the latest patch. I could go on mentioning all the problems I
had when I first installed The Westerner. Unpatched,
the game is a mess, plain and simple. Even patched it is not
bug-free, which makes me wonder what’s going to happen with the
North-American release. However, Revistronic made a very clever
move by adding some truly funny deleted scenes (bloopers actually)
with the patch. Not only it fixes a great deal of errors, but
those scenes, obviously intended to placate adventurers’ fury,
make the download a must.
Aside
from being bug-infested, I noticed a few more things. First,
there’s a rather strategic element in the game, which I welcome,
but wasn’t well planned. As you know by now, Fenimore rides a
horse to move around but you can’t pretend it to do it without
having some food. Just like a vehicle needs combustible fuel,
you have to feed it. Well, the combustible here is in the form
of carrots, which you can find scattered around or available
for buying at the convenience store. To get them in big amounts
without expending any money though, you have to grow them at
either one of the two farms you’ll visit during your adventures.
To do this, you water them with the help of a bucket. The process
is too slow and I found it taking me too much time to get just
five carrots. You waste one carrot to move from location to location
but, for instance, to get from one farm to the town, you have
to waste three carrots because there’s another intermediate location.
Since you must travel quite a bit and, depending on the order
you solve puzzles, go back and forth, this can get annoying.
I know what you’re wondering about but no, you can’t get stuck
because at least one carrot will randomly appear inside a drawer
every time you visit a location that is not a farm. In case you
run out of carrots during travel, you automatically return to
the Bannister farm.
Which
brings me to another point: drawers and closets. They hold either
money or carrots and special items in some cases, but mostly
money. Problem is, you find too many of them during the game
and, since money is randomly generated, there will be many empty
ones. These are minor quirks though but I realize the strategic
element will bother some players.
Clearly,
Revistronic’s proprietary engine still needs a bit more work.
There were path finding problems in some locations crowded with
stuff and loading times can be a bit long. Also, the simple inventory
system, which consists in scrolling through the items you possess,
doesn’t fit for the huge amount of stuff you carry around. I
found myself scrolling for several seconds in order to find one
the items I took early in the game. Anyway, I’ve seen this same
problem in some adventures lately so I don’t think it’s that
serious. Those are minor, almost non-existent issues if we take
into account the abysmal condition this game was released.
Speak
Your Last Words, Cowboy
I
have some news for you: point n click is alive and kicking —
and it’s better than ever! This is the thing that most surprised
me from The Westerner: the ability to move around
a lavishly rendered 3D world with just one hand. Give me this
anytime over direct control. Sadly, this and perhaps the great
characters and style are the only things I can rave about this
game. The lack of a more involved plot, or perhaps more locations
to visit, and gameplay issues prevent me of awarding it that
magic A, not to mention the embarrassing bug problem.
I
also have the feeling that The Westerner might
be too passé for the nowadays adventures general audience.
Whereas adventures are now aiming towards more adult-oriented
stories and less challenging puzzles, The Westerner is
all the opposite, a throwback to the old days with a simplistic
story filled with puzzles. You know how the game’s going to end
right from the first minute — it’s how you get there the whole
point of it. I believe that, if done well, a game like this could
bring old-school adventuring back to the front but, as it is,
it’ll probably pass unnoticed except for the most dedicated fans.
The novel interface and engine could be the only thing that grabs
the attention of the more mainstream adventures audience.
Despite
all the problems I found, it was only after watching the final
sequence and the bloopers that I realized how much I had enjoyed
this game. In the end, I didnt care about the bugs, as much
as annoying as they had been. Some moments were truly funny and
I found myself laughing out loud in them. But, like I said before,
thats me and Im aware some people might even feel cheated with
a product like this. This is quite serious because, at some points, The
Westerner looks like an early beta. To be fair, and because
I really appreciate Revistronic’s effort, I will use two separate
grades.
So,
as a final word, if you fancy an old-fashioned adventure with
a truly modernized look, and don’t mind a few hundred bugs, you
simply can’t go wrong with this game!
Final Grade: As a professional reviewer wannabe, D+
As an enthusiastic and good spirited gamer with a heart
of gold, B+
System Requirements:
- Windows
98/ME/2000/XP - Pentium 733
MHz - 128MB
RAM - 1GB
hard disk space - 32MB
DirectX compatible video card - DirectX compatible
sound card - CD-ROM
drive
