This latest entry into the Dungeon of Shame goes where no game has
gone before. Even the furthest reaches of outer space offer no safety net when
mediocrity must rear its ugly head. This is space junk that travels from the perimeter
of a starless galaxy to that black hole in a wallet that has just been sucked
dry of forty dollars. For in space no one can hear you scream … at your computer
as you suffer through endless mind-numbing dialogue that would be better realized
in a pornographic movie. In the history of the Dungeon of Shame, no other game
has received as many nominations for immediate entry as The Orion Conspiracy.

Remember the good old days of gaming in DOS when you would spend more time
configuring the game requirements in autoexec.bat and config.sys than you would
actually spend playing the game? When the phrases “boot disk” and “not
enough base memory” were part of your gaming vocabulary? My first attempt
at playing The Orion Conspiracy–some four years ago–was on a Pentium
60 with a Windows 3.1 operating system. TOC was one of those games where,
if you were able to get the music to play, you had to disable the speech and use
subtitles. Or, if you were lucky enough to get the speech, you had to play without
the music. All of the fiddling in the world would not allow you to play this game
with all of the options intact (though in all fairness, I did learn quite a bit
about operating systems and system configuration due to the machinations involved
attempting to get games such as TOC to run).Well, even a high-end computer
with a Windows 98 operating system and booting in DOS mode will still not allow
this game to run properly. Finally, I had to make a decision; run the program
with music and subtitles only or go for no music and all of the voice acting.
My mama raised a fool–I opted for the spoken dialogue.

The Orion Conspiracy
has the distinction of containing the longest opening sequence in gaming history
(it is even longer, but at least more interesting than, that never-ending tram
ride that begins Half-Life). Every time it seems that the game is about to commence,
there is another segue and then more prologue. So finally (after consuming a bag
of chips and a soft drink while watching the opening), as we begin, what do we
have but yet another classic tale of love, death, homosexuality and aliens eating
intestines.

Just to be clear here; some games do nothing right. The Scroll,
Silverload and Zombieville are all excellent examples, and that is
why they are already deservedly in the Dungeon of Shame. TOC does have
a nice musical score (what little I heard of it) and very nice 256-color SVGA
painted backgrounds and characters. It even has two main plot lines. The first
concerns your search to discover if your son’s death aboard the Cerberus Research
Station was truly accidental–of course it was not–and the second is some silliness
about the Kobayashi Corporation, a black hole, a secret research project and aliens
being trained as slaves–none of which ever made a lick of sense. You play the
entire game from a third-person perspective as Devlin McCormack; your son Danny’s
funeral is the catalyst that sparks your visit to the Cerberus Research Station.

So
what exactly is it that sets this game apart from all others, what is that defining
moment? Is it at the very beginning of the game when, as LaPaz the co-captain
is consoling Devlin on his loss, the ship’s technician Ward approaches and is
asked by LaPaz where he has been. Ward takes affront at the inquisition and exclaims,
“I was f**king busy, okay!” and then proceeds to burn Devlin’s ears
with a string of even worse profanity. Or is it when Devlin challenges Chandra
the cook’s culinary credentials and then proceeds to freeze-dry a live rat with
a fire extinguisher and hide the resulting rat Popsicle in Chandra’s custard pie?
All this just a ruse to keep the cook from blocking the pantry so you can get
an object for your inventory. Or maybe it is that special moment when Devlin’s
dead son’s gay lover (not that there is anything wrong with that) bursts into
the cabin and starts screaming, “That’s right, your son was a homosexual,
a queer, a faggot!” and Devlin has not a clue that his son was gay. No for
me, the defining moment was when Devlin was traipsing around the endless corridors
that seem to comprise at least half of the game and bumped into Brooks, the shuttle
pilot. Devlin feigns amazement that she is the shuttle pilot, and she in turn
is apparently not amused as she exclaims, “Take your sexist comments and
blow them out your *ss. I like a man to be confident but when all they do is swing
their d*cks. …” Well, let me tell you that at this point in the game
I got up and closed all of the doors and windows in my computer room lest my neighbors
think I was watching a porno movie. If Star Trek is considered high art
among its aficionados, then The Orion Conspiracy is graffiti on the bathroom
wall.

As if all of the above were not reason enough to avoid this game,
then rest assured that the voice acting set a new low standard that has not been
surpassed even four years later. The majority of the cast is as bad as any group
reading overly melodramatic soap opera dialogue ever written has been. But it
is Patrick Mower as Devlin McCormack who steals the show. His laughable poor inflection
on the wrong parts of sentences and his mispronounced words are so ludicrous that
you can’t wait until a friend comes over so you can share your laughter. He often
sounds as though he is reading from a cue card, slowly. Mr. Mower, wherever you
are, take a bow, for your performance in The Orion Conspiracy will never,
ever be equaled.

If you are an admirer of bad games, as I am, then you can
still find The Orion Conspiracy at many KayBee toy stores for only $4.99.
Keep in mind that this game is definitely not for children–it is not for anyone,
actually. The next time the developers of TOC get drunk and decide to make
a game, I hope they sober up first.

If you have a favorite
bad game that you would like to see nominated for the Dungeon of Shame, drop me
a line and share your pain with others.