At the May 2000 E3, we gave Stupid Invaders our coveted “Best
Adventure Game” award. Does Stupid Invaders live up to its rich promise?
It depends. Do you snicker when someone burps? Do you suffer paroxysms of glee
when someone farts? If you answer “yes,” then Stupid Invaders is
probably your kind of game. If you’re ultra-sophisticated, though, you’re probably
better off looking down your nose at the rest of us who think this stuff is funny.

This
is not to say that Stupid Invaders consists of nothing but jokes related
to the by-products of digestion—in fact there really is some more subtle
and highbrow humor too: movie and literature spoofs abound. Yeah, that’s it, that’s
the ticket … See? I really don’t lack class just because I thought Stupid
Invaders was the funniest game ever.

Stupid Invaders begins with
five aliens (with six heads) crash-landing on Earth: Bud, Etno, Stereo, Gorgious,
and Candy. They take up residence in an abandoned house while waiting for Etno
to repair the flying saucer so they can return home. Meanwhile, deep in a remote
area of the desert known only as (insert anticipation-building music here) Area
52, hidden away in a secret laboratory, the mad scientist Dr. Sakarine is plotting
to capture the aliens so he can do some vivisection experiments on them. And it’s
not sex change operations (much to Candy’s dismay)! Dr. Sakarine sends his henchman,
Bolok, out to capture the aliens and their ship. Bolok shows up at the house where
the aliens are staying just as Etno puts the finishing touches on the spaceship
repair. Only by sheer luck, and TV addiction, does Bud escape Bolok’s fearsome
ice gun. As you can probably guess, Bud must then free his compatriots if they
are to have any hope of going home again. The game then plays out over four chapters,
and umpteen million locations, and each alien gets multiple turns at being the
main character (“hero,” if you will).

Gameplay is straightforward–Stupid
Invaders is point-and-click at its finest. You must use the keyboard to access
inventory (space bar), load, save, and quit. All movement and object and character
interaction is via the mouse. The cursor action automatically changes according
to the situation, although once or twice during the game you must change it yourself
using a right click. Puzzles are all organic, every last mother-lovin’ one of
them, and they range from easy to fairly challenging. The game is completely linear;
you must perform certain actions in a certain order to progress. There are lots
of unnecessary things you can see and do in the game, and half of the game’s entertainment
value is found by looking at these things and trying them.

There is a lot
of dying in Stupid Invaders. In an absolute first for me, though, I actually
didn’t mind dying. In fact, I saved lots and then sought out all the ways to die
because the death scenes are almost without exception spectacular. Or if not spectacular,
at least funny.

There is one gigantic drawback that bears mention, a maze!
And what a horrendous maze it is! And then there’s another gigantic drawback,
a desert! And what a horrendous desert it is! I nearly went bald pulling my hair
out over these two things, but you won’t need any Rogaine because I thoughtfully
provided solutions for these in my walkthrough.

The graphics in Stupid Invaders are, quite simply, the best I’ve
ever seen in any cartoon game. The transitions between cut scenes and game screens
are seamless; the only way you can tell which is which is by whether you have
a cursor. The animation is movie-quality, even on the gameplay screens. The use
of color is perfect in every instance, the graphic design is stunning and evocative,
camera angles are positively cinematic. As you can see, I got a little carried
away with screenshots; I would’ve liked to show you the whole game but you’ll
just have to play it and see for yourself how consistently good it looks.

The
voice acting is not only above average for an adventure game, it is exceptional.
You can tell these are professional actors. Every character is brought to life
by his/her/its voice actor, be he/she/it sinister, dumb, snooty, or what have
you. Same goes for the sound effects and music—they rival anything ever put
out by the movie moguls in Hollywood.

Stupid Invaders is fun and
funny, a masterful blend of high art and low humor. (I am glad that computer-generated
odors are not yet a reality.) It is my new favorite game of all-time, displacing
even The Longest Journey and Grim Fandango. I am, however, left
with this scary thought: if I actually enjoyed this French humor so much, does
that mean I have to start liking Jerry Lewis? Nooo! I would rather die!

Final
Grade: A+

If you liked Stupid Invaders:
Watch: The
Powerpuff Girls
Read: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy
O’Toole
Play: Down in the Dumps