For a long time I thought of Grim Fandango as the ‘LucasArts game with the skeletons’, whose appeal was a total mystery to me. Maybe it was because back then, when the game was released, I had been somewhat over-saturated (like many others) by countless adventure games. Also they started copying each other more and more and most of the time provided some awfully boring ideas. Still a game, in which you slip into the role of a bony man, seemed just too silly. In the meantime adventure games are returning again and LucasArts finally closed its gates. So after fifteen years I decided to fill a gap in my knowledge.
…the Oscar for the most far-fetched use of a mega licence goes to: First Blood Part II!
The insignificance of the computer game industry compared to more established media in the mid-80s is illustrated easily by Angelsoft's licencing deals. They managed to score at least three of the biggest movie names of the time: Indiana Jones, James Bond and… Rambo – whose second part, in retrospect, has turned out to be something like the pinnacle of the politically ultra-reactionary body cinema so popular at the time; a movie which spends 85 of its 96 minutes with restless shooting. What better way to adapt it than a text adventure?
On the surface, the fifth Space Quest installment appears to be nothing more than a parody of viral scenes from cinematic science fiction culture. But this time, the obligatory gags expected by the audience are just ingredients for describing the development of the main character Roger Wilco, who never overcame the status of a clumsy moron in the previous adventures.
In his role as a space garbageman, the player embarks on a journey from a pimply teenager at cadet school, through a long series of tests and trials, to the final kind of man Wilco always wanted to be: a hero of the galaxy.