Stupid Invaders

"About as funny as a pile of dung."

Actually the makers of this game would consider that a compliment I guess.
See, the whole game is full with crap. Not rubbish, but crap.

Everywhere you look are toilets, crap references and just crap.
At first I thought it was just some one time joke (how childish it may be), but upon getting further in the game it appeared to be all about it.

I wonder what a scatologist would have to say about this game.

Graphics
-
The graphics are very colourfull. Ranging from colourfull characters to crap. All the characters have one major colour and this works out pretty good.

What is noticed immediately is that when a character uses an object with something or when some process is started the game plays a movie. Not a cut scene,
but a movie of the character doing something in game. This looks pretty nice, as the character is anti-aliased and stuff (as any pre-rendered movie is).
But this is probably also the reason the game is 4cds big. I still don't understand how it otherwise could be that big. Since the rest of the game severely
lacks.
The cut scenes are nicely done. And look really clear and crisp.

The designers did a great job and deserve a better team to work with.

Music
-
The music is very sparse. Mostly some strings to fill a gap which exists without any music at all.
It is pretty monotonous. Not that is bad, just in some cases.
The music in the maze sounds exactly like the music from Dune (the movie, not the horrible series).
Out of ideas?

The sound effects on the other hand are very nice. Fire, ray guns and of course crap, it all sounds real.
And the voices are really nice too. This is most certainly (together with the graphics) the best part of the game.

Story
-
The story is the worst part of the game.
These 5 extra-terrestrials have some major problems with their space ship (which they call their UFO for some unholy reason (it really doesn't look unidentified to me)).
They crash land on earth next to some empty house (how convenient) in which they hide until the smart ET repairs the ship. See, they are all stereo types.

There is a smart one, a dumb one, a ''manly'' one, a ''girly'' one (which actually wants a sex change) and a scientific correct one (which has two heads).
By the time their spaceship is finished some baddie spotted them (how remains unanswered). He sends some mercenary to capture them.
Four of the ETs get captured and the fifth one (the dumb one) is able to escape. You start playing with him and later on you get to play with the others (joy!).
The story evolves pretty predictable. The thing that makes the game ''special'' (or just disturbed) is how the makers added crap to nearly every scene.
I can imagine a small child to laugh at these things, but adults who are able to code and design an entire game?
After a Rorschach test these people would be locked up for sure.

Since this game is an adventure you walk around and pick up things, use them together, etc.
Some adventures are meant to be funny (MI, Sam & Max, etc) and others are dead serious (Gabriel's Night, The Dig, etc). This one falls into a new category:
The games that try to be funny real hard, but almost never succeed in doing so.
I've had many moments in this game after something ''funny'' happens, that I thought ''that wasn't funny at all''.
I could call this ''stupid'', but since this is part of the name it could be meant to be so. Therefore I do not mean ''stupid'' as in funny, but it really is just dumb.

The final score got upped one whole point, because of the joke with the snail. That one was really funny and technically could be in any game.
It just has the bad luck to be in a bad one.

Gameplay
-
Most adventure games (especially those from Lucasarts) won't let you die. Now is this a good thing I think, as you can relax and play. In this game you can die, but it's not as exaggerated as some older Sierra games. This is the case because the game is very easy.
You don't have to talk to a whole lot of people, you don't carry around a hundred items which you can combine and use in different ways. Items even disappear after having been used once (what is up with that anyway?).
Objects which are of use can be looked at, picked up, talked to. You don't even have to choose the appropriate action. The mouse cursor just changes into an eye or a grabbing hand.
There also is an awful amount of switches and levers (a bad thing). Save your game before trying them out. Some just lead to sudden dead.

It's all pretty static. You enter a room and look into it in some angle. You can walk to different places to change the angle. This is pretty restricting, also because of the fact almost nothing can be examined. Only those things you need can (with a few exceptions).

The things you have to do and encounter are incoherent.
''Hey, let's put a coffin in the cellar and put Santa Claus in the chimney. Great idea, that would fit perfectly with the ferocious plant and the purple bear with the hammer in the closet.
Uhm.

Verdict
-
The lasting appeal of this game is zero. Although if you like crap you might play it again.
The whole game is just some simple actions around 4cds of CGI movies with a non existent story.
It isn't possible to compare it to other adventure games, as those are all so much better.
I still play through the Monkey Island trilogy (yes, it is a trilogy) every once in a while.

The jokes are so poor, it makes me wonder if adults worked on this game at all (saving the snail joke).

Rent or borrow it once.

Amount of clean toilets:

3

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/02/01, Updated 05/02/01