Central
High is an education title, designed to give kids an entertaining series of
vignette stories while teaching some finely drawn lines regarding human interaction
and correct choices, moral obligations, ethical standards–stuff like that.

I
failed and blew up the earth the first two times through.

So although I
feel positive about the title, you should probably take what I say with a grain
of salt as I am apparently morally bankrupt.

Here’s the story as given in
the opening sequence: “Due to the corruption, greed and violence of the people
on the planet earth, a super intelligent alien life force has targeted the human
race for extinction. But we have one final hope. If Kevin can demonstrate the
eleven strengths the human race will be spared. You must guide Kevin in his decisions.
You have 6 days.”

I do have to say, I didn’t get to really see any
aliens, and they aren’t mentioned in any of the stories. This part seems to simply
be some sort of impetus/challenge given to the player to set the goal of getting
through to the end and not giving up.

The graphics are basically full-motion
video. I don’t know about you, but I never minded FMV, and I think using it for
educational work is a very logical thing to do with it. The writing actually is
not half bad, the stories held my attention, and I’m just a whiny old mom. The
acting is well-done for the kind of title this is, and the character of the kid’s
father actually got a couple of one-liners out that made me chuckle.

The
music is kind of a series of fairly well-done rock and roll songs, Elvis Costello
meets Blues Traveler, or son of Elvis plays something like Blues Traveler, I don’t
know. I can say it’s better than some I’ve heard, which is actually quite smart,
as nothing in my experience will make a high-school student reject something faster
than having creepy, bad music attached to it.

The player interacts
with the game by making a series of choices (71 in all) that must be made correctly
to see the game entirely through to the end. There are six light bulbs at the
bottom of the screen, and if a wrong choice is made, a light bulb is lit. If all
six are lit, the planet blows up.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that
blowing up the whole planet because a kid locks a lock left open on a locker with
the combination unknowingly inside, thus making another teenage girl mad and pouty,
seems a little over the top. Couldn’t Kevin just get ridiculed by a cheerleader
or suspended instead?

Am I a good judge? Who knows? I’m 40 years old and
think I already know what’s right and how to make choices. So how do I find out
if this lives up to expectations? That’s right, find a kid and make him play it.
Well … actually … grab my son and tell him he’s going to play it. So
here’s his opinion, just to mix it up a bit. He’s 15 years old, has been homeschooled
for the last five years, and is a Resident Evil fan. Take it away, Brando: “This
game is very interesting. Most of the morals are okay, but a few are obviously
wrong. But other than that, I enjoyed the game. It taught the right things–honesty,
respect, and responsibility–I enjoyed it very much.”

I’m giving this
a B-, mostly because the production values seem like they’re fairly high for an
education title of this sort. It really follows the same successful lesson-teaching
that’s been done over the years in other things like ABC’s Afterschool Special
series. But I’m not giving it anything higher because I don’t agree with all of
the moral dilemma choices that are the “right” answers. Someone’s taken
one too many psych classes and it’s gone to his or her head.

Final Grade:
B-

My version did not have system requirements listed, but it was for
Mac. It played smoothly on a 333 MHz iMac, and it broke up and got sluggish on
a 6400/200 Power PC.