"A redundant, simplistic "satire" of 1950's paranoia? How creative!"

I wasn't expecting much from this game. I figured I could rent it and have some fun just messing around and destroying some buildings without too much hassle. Maybe I'd laugh once or twice. Who knows? However, with expectations that vague, it still managed to disappoint me. The opening movie went by, nothing special, but nothing particularly bad aside from the oddly stiff characters. The music was decidedly cheesy, but in a seemingly intentional fashion. The humor in the first conversation involving the actual main character was droll with little recognizable as humor. Also, Crypto's voice-actor did a horrible Jack Nicholson impression. Which really didn't fit the context at all. On into the first mission, without so much as a real joke. Oh, a crap joke? How very clever.

At this point, I would like to point something out. Since this game was released, it has been referred to as being "satirical." In fact, it doesn't fit any criteria for being a satire. Is it witty? No. Is it sarcastic? Not really. Is it ironic? Heh, not even close. In fact without wit, it can't even meet the following possibilities. Ultimately, we end up with blunt humor that often makes no sense, possibly because the creators thought people would think it was a reference they simply didn't get. However, even being familiar with its subject won't help deciphering the abysmal writing. On an indirectly related note, Peter Lorre was an incredible actor.

I was still willing to play, since the ship and telekinesis might prove fun. However, the game's pathetic draw-distance quickly ruined that. Sweet Christ, people and vehicles disappear when they are well within seeing distance, even more so in the ship. The weapons aren't that great since two basically do the same thing and two others are useless for most of the game. In the ship, one is useless and the rest, other than the sonic boom, are barely amusing. Also, there is a weapon called the anal probe which is a beam which inexplicably causes rectal discomfort, and, eventually, the explosion of the head in a burst of green fluid. None of which makes sense.

The game quickly gets repetitive and shallow to the point of boredom. I never felt compelled to do anything, and not for lack of direction. The only thing I was intrigued by was the appearance as the mayor, which proved as shallow as everything else. The controls were passable and the collision-detection functional, but it was all too derivative. Everything was a variation on some existing cliche, and parodying 50s sci-fi has been stale for 45 years, yet is made even worse as the entire basis of a game. The special features aren't that great, being compromised of making-of footage, concept art, early showings of the game and clips of movies that should never have been made, even if they weren't serious. Altogether, it is a dismal package full of insipid content and low production values. (Also, the fact that what little music they had was repeated ad nauseum didn't help. Or the horrid, generic voice-acting.)

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05