- About this item Playstation 1 Video Game.
Product description
-------------------
As field agent Craig Willmore, assigned to assist
Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in their latest
investigation into paranormal activity.
Follow a trail of elusive clues, sift through evidence at crime
scenes, use a wide range of standard issue FBI equipment and
special tools, conduct interviews with witnesses and suspects,
and make critical decisions to solve an all new X-Files case.
.com
----
The truth is out there. And this game, based on one of
the best sci-fi TV series in history, is way, way "out there."
Despite performances by original cast members David Duchovny,
Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, and a few other favorites, The
X-Files puts the "normal" back into paranormal.
Collaboration with the TV show's creator, Chris Carter, ensures
that the game attains the eerie visual quality of the show, but
the lack of any tension or pacing makes one wonder why the game
is spread across an unusually voluminous four PlayStation discs.
Mulder and Scully have gone missing, and as the poorly acted
Craig Willmore, a local FBI agent, you must find the clues that
lead to their whereabouts. Most of the game is spent lessly
wandering from location to location, hoping to find screen
hotspots that may possibly give players a clue as to what they
are supposed to do next.
Conversations with others seem strangely stilted, and often the
script offers up red herrings that will frustrate players who try
to play the game as if it were logically designed. In a number of
instances, even though you know what course of action you should
take, you're forced to wait for the game to catch up with you
before taking it. Unless you are a die-hard X-Files collector,
there is little reason to own this game. --Jeff Young
Pros:
* Lots of well-produced video Cons:
* No sense of pacing
* Limited interaction
* Poor documentation
* Illogical design
* Scully and Mulder's appearances no more than cameos
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Review
------
X-Files is a pretty direct port of the PC version,
though a few of the game's more annoying puzzles have been
removed. The series creator, Chris Carter, wrote an original
story for the game and original footage exclusive for the
game with some of the show's cast, namely David Duchovny, Gillian
Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, and a few other regulars, as well. For
fans of the series, the story will seem quite typical of an
X-Files episode. Players who aren't fans of the series will find
the constant references to the series trivial and unnecessary.
The game starts off with the typical X-Files opening, where it
shows something mysterious happening and then leads into the
show's standard introduction. The game then starts you out as
agent Craig Willmore, who gets a case involving two missing FBI
agents - who, of course, happen to be Dana Scully and Fox Mulder.
From there, you hook up with assistant director Walter Skinner
and visit various locations, like the last place the missing
agents were seen, their hotel, and so on. Along the way, you find
clues and information that lead you to other locations, with
other clues, and other people to interact with. The interaction
is limited to asking them various questions that you select from
a topic window. While the characters certainly respond with
appropriate answers, it's not really an interactive conversation,
since, in most cases, you simply ask them about everything that's
listed on the topic window. The same is true when searching
environments for clues, you basically check everything you
possibly can, take everything you can, and go everywhere the game
lets you go. The only skill, other than finding everything and
asking all of the questions, that's involved while playing is
during the game's "action" sequences. These sections mostly
involve you placing crosshairs over FMV bad guys and shooting
them before they shoot you. Very reminiscent in look and style to
the old Sega CD classics, the shooting sequences involve a bad
guy who steps out from behind a suspicious-looking pile of boxes.
You shoot him, and then another bad guy steps out from behind a
pole. You also shoot him. Other action sequences aren't as
obvious - for some you must you use your head and your inventory
at the appropriate time, like taking a picture of a fleeing car
to get its license plate number. The game can be rather fun when
you're playing through these action sequences, figuring out what
to do next, and moving the story along. Unfortunately, it's
horribly frustrating when you're not moving along briskly, mostly
because you know exactly what you need to do but can't find a way
to do it. The constant problem that X-Files suffers from is the
way it hides objects. For instance, you'll be standing in a
bedroom, looking at the bed. If you look to the right, you'll see
the dresser. If you look to the left, you'll see the nightstand.
If you spin around in a circle, all you can see are those three
screens. But if you walk forward while looking at the bed and
then turn around, you can see there is something on the dresser
behind you. Why couldn't you see that when you turned around
before? This happens throughout the game. Even with the game's
sixth sense help icon turned on (which gives you visual clues
about where you're supposed to go next), it's occasionally very
frustrating. One other major problem occurs toward the end.
During most of the action sequences, you can put the crosshairs
anywhere on the bad guy's body and shoot him. But there's one
generic guard near the end of the game whom you must shoot -
before he shoots you. We tried to accomplish this simple task ten
times. We tried shooting the guard in the face, the legs, torso,
everywhere. It just simply wouldn't work. Then, finally, we
right at the center of the guard's chest, a place we all swore we
had attempted to shoot several times before. This time, for
whatever magical reason, he went down. It's this kind of random
behavior that really cripples the game. Visually, the game looks
very sharp. Half of the game is composed of FMV sequences that
look surprisingly nice, and the other half of the game is
Myst-style stills of the environments you are in. The camera
angles and lighting give the game a striking resemblance to the
series. The game also does a nice job of recreating the
atmosphere of the series with ominous music and sound effects.
The quality of the voices and music is also very good. In the
end, if you're a fan of the series, the game's worth renting. If
you find that the game's storyline hooks you, and you don't mind
the interface, keep it for a couple of extra days and beat it,
since the game only takes about ten hours to complete. However,
if you're not a fan of the series, you shouldn't even really
bother.--Ryan Mac Donald--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All
rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or
medium without express written permission of GameSpot is
prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
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