Short,
but sweet. A great sentiment when describing a visit from your mother-in-law,
an appointment with the proctologist or even my mother who is only
5-foot in height, but not when applied to life or, for that matter,
a computer game.

Fenimore Fillmore’s
Revenge is the title character’s third appearance –
3
Skulls of the Toltecs (1996) and Wanted:
A Wild Western Adventure (2004) being the previous two – spread
out over a span of thirteen years.

This time our lanky John
Wayne wannabe has finally hooked up with the sexy Rhiannon, who is
wearing a blouse that threatens to explode free of its buttons and
blind some poor cowpoke at any moment if she takes just one hefty
breath. An encounter with a wounded stranger puts the couple on the
hunt for hidden treasure but first they must survive a kidnapping,
outlaw ambushes and frenetic shoot-outs.

The
3D western graphics are beautiful with a wonderful color palette,
the dialogue is humorous at all of the right spots and the voice-acting,
well, it won’t make you cringe – at least not too much. Still,
the characters are likeable and if you’re an old-time Zorkian
adventurer, then the old outlaw in his rocking chair next to his jug
will have you mouthing, ‘Want
some rye? Course ya do.’ You can also play as either Fenimore
or Rhiannon, depending on the situation, though by game’s end
Fenimore seems to have been relegated to the shooting sequences. As
for the score, we’re not talking Do Not Forsake Me Oh My
Darling here, but neither is it intrusive.

The game is traditional
point-and-click and it would have been a welcome addition if –
as many adventure games now include – a key could have been
pressed to highlight all of the hot spots on a screen as there were
times when frustration would set in as a puzzle couldn’t be
solved and the mouse had to be dragged continually across the screen
in search of a pixel that may have been missed. Overall, though the
puzzles are not too difficult and follow logic. In fact, this is the
first game I’ve played in ages in which I didn’t need
a hint from the developers or a quick peek at a walkthrough.

But
that could also be because there are a few puzzles in the game that
for some inexplicable reason the developers decided to do everything
but solve the puzzle for you. For example, Fenimore and the old outlaw
arrive at a mine where the other bandits are expected to arrive, Fenimore’s
companion tells him that they need to construct a trap to stop the
bandits and that maybe Fenimore should chop down the telegraph poles
and then put them in the mine cart and then push the cart over to
the mine entrance and then put the chopped-up poles on the…well,
you get the picture. Seriously, what was the point of this entire
puzzle? The solution is laid-out in precise order and one simply needs
to complete the tasks. There is no thought process involved on the
part of the gamer.

What
could have been a highly recommended game though ends up riddled with
two large blanks from the six-shooter. First, is the inexcusable combat.
Yes, I said that horrible word that does not belong in any review
of any adventure game – ever. While a game-ending shoot-out
between the bad guys and the good guys would have been understandable
– this is after all a game set in the Old West – the developers
decided instead to include numerous shoot-outs, each longer than the
previous and each based on a trail-and-error process that requires
the gamer to start and restart the sequence numerous times until having
memorized the location of every opponent. Worse than the combat though
is a sequence early in the game where the old outlaw insists that
Fenimore must complete a training program that consists of shooting
four targets. I still don’t know what constituted success –
if it was the order in which the targets were shot, or the time it
took, or even how many as it took me over 50 attempts to complete
this section and I still don’t know what I did correctly.

Then
immediately after, the old outlaw is still reluctant to help Fenimore
unless he passes one more gunplay test by shooting a tossed whiskey
glass. This actually turns out to be a puzzle and not a shooting sequence,
but it takes a few attempts before realizing that not only do you
not need to shoot your gun, but that the clue to solving the puzzle
is in the cut-scene.

The second large problem
with Fenimore Fillmore’s Revenge is that it
is short. Short, short, short. As in, you can complete this game in
under five hours short. In fact, I was quite taken aback when the
game abruptly ended and wondered if I had somehow bypassed some areas.
I know times are tough and budgets tight, but adventure gamers expect
a little more game for their money.

At times, playing Fenimore
Fillmore’s Revenge was a hoot as the quirky characters
were like revisiting old friends and the puzzles with an old west
twist are a unique change of pace. But the shortness of the adventure
combined with the excruciating shooting sequences and occasional pixel
hunting will have this game galloping quicker than the Riders on the
Storm to Boot Hill.

System Requirements:

• PC: 2.0 GHz (Dual Core
  1.6 GHz) Processor
• Windows XP/Vista
• 512 MB RAM
• DVD-ROM Drive
• Nvidia GeForce or ATI
  Radeon with 64 MB RAM
• DirectX Compatible Video
  Card
• DirectX Compatible Sound
  Card
• 4 GB of Free Hard Drive
  Space
• DirectX 9.0
• Mouse and Keyboard