Episode
Developer: Anim-X Studios
Publisher: Electronic
Arts
Release Date: July 2001
By
Ray Ivey
For two years I’ve
been reading (and sometimes writing) crabby reviews of adventure games. Once the
darling of the industry, adventures have become a favorite target of industry
journalists.
One of the key criticisms being leveled at our beloved games
is that they are acutely behind the times. We’re going through an era that’s tremendously
exciting for computer gamers. New technologies have spurred scintillating possibilities
for games. As a result, there are seriously cool games appearing in the real-time
strategy, action, simulation, sports, and role-playing genres. Only the adventure
genre seems stuck in the past.
That may finally be about to change with
Anim-X Studios’s Majestic.
Majestic is many things, but first
and foremost, it’s an online adventure game. It’s a first in computer gaming in
that the game actually invades your real life. As you explore its wonderfully
paranoid story of shadow governments, evil scientific conspiracies, and murder
by black-suited commandos, you’ll get phone calls, faxes, emails, and other forms
of communication from characters in the game.
Before you get totally scared
off from trying Majestic by that last paragraph, let me hasten to add the
very important point that when you sign up for the game, you have total control
of all of the different ways the game will interact with you. You can choose to
receive phone calls on a certain phone, at certain times, with a tag at the beginning
of each message, or not at all. Same with faxes and email. Thus, every player
can find a way to play the game at his or her own comfort level (not to mention
having mercy on your poor family).
The first episode of Majestic is
free. To play, you must register with the Electronic Arts game site, then register
with Majestic. You also are required to create an AOL Instant Messenger account
(it’s free). (With the AIM account you can communicate with instant messages with
characters and other players.) Further, you must download game software from the
Majestic site. The whole process will take you about fifteen minutes.
The
setup of the game is wonderful. First, you have to register at the Electronic
Arts game site, then with Majestic. After this is done, you’re given a
video tutorial by the various members of the game’s creative team. Through them
you learn the mechanics of how the game works–the progress screen, the communications
screen, the links screen, etc. (I strongly recommend you pay close attention to
these talking heads, for reasons not immediately obvious.)
Then,
while your main tour guide is wrapping things up, the video quality suddenly decays.
After a moment, the image totally disintegrates. You then get an error message
about the Majestic server having a problem. Momentarily you receive an email from
Electronic Arts apologizing that, sorry, they’ve had to suspend the game until
further notice.
At
first, you’re good and pissed off. Until you realize that the game has actually
just begun!
It’ll come as no shock to you that the game’s conceit is that
the conspiracies the story was built around turn out to be based on fact, not
fiction. You’re contacted by various characters in the game about a fire at the
Anim-X studios.
Your first assignment? Find the back door into the secret,
backup Majestic website. Once you’ve figured that out, you’re off and running.
As
I began playing this pilot episode, I got that feeling of excitement that I got
when I first got hooked on adventure games. In fact, it reminded me of why I fell
in love with adventure games in the first place: the ability to participate in
and interact with a dynamic, exciting story.
I will freely admit at this
point that I don’t have a proper sense of objectivity regarding Majestic. I’m
so impressed with what it’s attempting to do, that I’m willing to be more patient
with it than I might be with other games.
When you’re regularly getting
phone calls, emails, faxes, videos, instant messages, and web links from characters,
it creates a gleefully giddy game experience that’s very seductive.
A good
example of this is the effect the instant messages are having on me. Playing Majestic
requires that you get an AOL Instant Messenger account, and with it you can
communicate with other people involved in the world of Majestic. Some of
these people are real players, like yourself, and some are “robots,”
or computer programs acting as if they were characters. Buying into the reality
of the game is so darned fun that I find myself talking to these characters as
if they’re real. “Stop!” I typed frantically the other night.
“There’s a homing device on your jeep! You’re leading the bad guys right
to the hiding place!”
Of course it isn’t real, but then our traditional
adventures aren’t real either, but who cares? The fact that Majestic forces
you to actually play a part in the game means that, on some level, the game is
also an RPG. It’s just a very curious RPG because the role you’re playing is a
made-up version of yourself.
The game’s brilliance comes from the central
fact that, in order to play, you have to enter into the age-old conspiracy called
“willing suspension of disbelief,” in order to enjoy the game’s artificial
“reality.” Since the game is all about conspiracies anyway, playing
it makes you an automatic voluntary coconspirator. This results in the game feeling
like a delightfully naughty, guilty pleasure.
Further adding to the game’s
sense of reality is the fact that it plays out in real time. When a character
tells you he’ll call you tomorrow, guess what–you have to wait until tomorrow.
When you get sent to news stories that pertain to the game, they all have the
appropriate dates on them that correspond to when you entered into the story.
The
puzzles in the pilot episode were pretty straightforward. And the very nature
of the game determines that the whole experience is quite linear (I’m one of the
few weirdos who’s not bothered by linearity in games). And I will say that so
far, Majestic feels more like interactive entertainment than a game.
But
who cares? It’s such a brilliant, innovative idea, I can’t wait to finish the
first subscription episode. I fully expect to get $10 worth of fun out of it in
a month’s time. Besides, if I don’t help Mike and Kendra escape, who will?
I’ll
update you further after Episode One. In the meantime, trust no one.
