Guilty

The Good
The adventures of Jack T. Ladd continue in Guilty, which is the sequel to Innocent Until Caught. Jack goes his merry ways until he gets arrested for hijacking a Jersey cow and placed on board the "Relentless", later to be dropped off at Alkaseltz Prison. Unfortunately for Jack, it turns out that the arresting officer is a female cop called Ysanne Andropath, but Jack goes out of his way to make Ysanne's life a living hell.

At the start of the game, you have to select which character you are going to play as, either Jack or Ysanne. I recommend playing Jack since you have to do things that could upset Ysanne. Depending on the character you choose, the paths will be different. For example, at the start, Jack has to break his way out of his prison cell, while Ysanne has to plot a course for a mining colony as a result of Jack ruining the ship's hyperdrive so the ship is forced to use Impulse Power. However, no matter which character you choose, you will explore at least five planets, including Lixa, Gelt, Broygus, Lowe's Planet, and Haven. And it is these planets that there is a greater variation of gameplay. For instance, you have to beam down on Lowe's Planet to investigate a distress call from some colonists. On the planet, Jack and Ysanne have to enter a cave, where Jack has to collect some eggs and bring them to the colonists for research. Ysanne, meanwhile, has to search for the alien queen who keeps reproducing those eggs, and destroy it. This type of gameplay means that both Jack and Ysanne carry different inventory items to each other, and there is different dialogue between the two. Unfortunately for the both of them, they eventually have to work together to stop the upcoming Alien invasion. Besides Jack and Ysanne, most of your favorite characters from Innocent are also found in Guilty, including Narm, P'PauD'P'Pau (I would like to know how that sounds in the CD-ROM version of the game), and his daughter, Ruthie. (who looks exactly like my friend's girlfriend, who also is called Ruthie. What a coincidence.)

Guilty's interface is the same as Innocent with the map, icons, and inventory window sitting next to each other. One thing I noticed that is different is that you don't have the blinking eye among the icons, which allowed you to magnify objects in the room. Instead, in its place, is just a blank area, reserved for inventory items that you are currently using. This wasn't available in Innocent. Also, the inventory window is revamped with scroll buttons on the right side, which could be useful if you have items that go way beyond the space in the window. To tell you the truth, I haven't worked this one out yet as I'm used to just piling shit on top of other shit, and then dropping shit that I no longer need. Pressing space doesn't bring up the same status screen that we all saw in Innocent, with a picture of Jack or Ysanne in the middle. Instead, it brings up a menu that allows you to save and load games, change game and audio options, view your progress, and quit the game, among other things.

Like Innocent, you can save in many positions as you like. Speaking of saving, all the games you save apply to the character that you picked at the beginning of the game. What I mean is, if you play as Jack and save something in Position #5, you'll find nothing saved in that position if you play as Ysanne. The save games are independent to the characters. Also, you can't die in this game, no matter how stupid or lame-brained you are. You can try to use unusual solutions to get past obstacles and you still won't die. This technique reminds me of the "no death" policy in LucasArt's adventures, such as the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle.

Graphics are still in 256-color VGA, not SVGA. However, there is support for more sound cards (contrary to Innocent's choice of Adlib, Roland, or Sound Blaster), including the Tandy PC Speaker, Pro Audio, Microsoft Windows Sound System, and the SB AWE-32. The sound effects are great, which my favorites are the jungle birds, and the trans-dimensional rip near the end of the game. Also, be aware that if you save a game using the speaker, and try to load the same game using a Sound Blaster, it won't work. I tried this, the music just stuffs up.

The Bad
When you speak to numerous characters, you automatically go to the conversation screen like you do in Innocent, where you are presented with a list of questions you can ask. Only this time that the two characters do not appear in ovals, but sitting right there in deep space, looking slightly pixelated. Some of the dialogue appear outside their speech bubbles. I also expected an alternate ending if you play either Jack or Ysanne, and the ending to Innocent is much better than the one Guilty has.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, with two different characters to choose from, Guilty has a high replay value, but not as high as King's Quest VI or Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive. So, if you have finished playing the game as one character, you might want to play as the other just for an alternative.

As I said earlier, there is a CD-ROM version of Guilty containing full speech throughout the game. In the setup program, I have the floppy version, and I've found that enabling the "Audio soundtrack" option does nothing. Maybe that option is reserved for the CD version.

Rating: ***

The Good
I'm not keen on repeating games, so therefore, same game can never have repeating value high enough for me. However, in certain games, like this one, or games such as Blade Runner, where the whole story is different, the character you play with, or the ending, there's a thing that make me finish them on more then just one way. When the intro to this game started, I thought I'll acquire the role of that thief, but all of a sudden I was given a choice to choose weather to play as Ysanne Andropath, the arresting officer, or as Jack T. Ladd, the jack of all trades ;)) Well, after playing in both ways, I must say they pretty nicely combined both stories, even though they are not exactly the same and only through the different point of view (like it's a case with Half-Life and Opposing Force).

I have a CD version, and I usually prefer voice version of the same games (like I have Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis CD version, Dune CD version, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers CD version, Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos CD version), so I figured I'll have privilege of enjoying the speech as well. Heck, I couldn't accomplish that at all... what's even worse, I couldn't accomplish to play sounds neither. All I was accompanied throughout the game was midi music which suddenly brought me feeling like playing some Amiga old game with C64 music. That ruined my game atmosphere for at least 60% :( Still, this wasn't just a bad attempt to copy so famous LucasArts' SCUMM adventure type of games. Heck, you can play with a beautiful redhaired chick ;)) But still, I wouldn't say that's just enough.

One thing in the game was reeealy amazing, and that would be animation sequences. Animation sequences consist only of animations with the Federation ship you're flying and the planets around, but are really nice for 8-bit color mode. They're even nicely intersected with static 2D backgrounds, even though it's obviously seen you're ship is 3D animated.

The Bad
Story does have a certain potential, but it's not that well developed. It lacks on many points, and holds some illogical and silly puzzles. Also, as much as it's obvious that development team wanted to add a certain touch of humor, but instead they made a big whoop in humbug. Also, dialogues are on the level as if some base school kid wrote them. And just to read the dialogues between your two main characters, it's not hilarious, but plain dumb. Throughout the game they show no feelings whatsoever, and then at the end they go all like mushy and yet not, yeah right! The ingame text sucks, and that's the fact.

Interface is somewhat annoying, and the usage of items is more then just that. You never know weather you must pick the certain item and place it to use it, or just click on 'use' button and then on it, or in which order, etc.. Also, with dialogues, on many places sentences you've used are left there so you can ask again, but to get exactly the same answer. I hate that with games. If they don't know how to make the response vary, then they should just remove the same sentence.

As for the music, there are some okay tunes, but mostly they're high midi tones that drives you crazy. I doubt they would sound much better if wave or mod format, though.

The Bottom Line
This is 2D point-and-click adventure game with some addings of 3D animations, but not the one that could be a competitor to any of the LucasArts' games of such genre, nor Westwood's Kyrandia Legends. Still, it's interesting to compare and observe how different companies and countries make different games of a same genre, and I'm glad to have it in my collection. If you can find it for a cheap price, and you like such adventure genre, it shouldn't be a NO-NO to buy. You just hope you'll have more luck in setting speech and sound if you get a CD version of a game ;)

The Good
The fact that you can play the game either as Ysanne or Jack T. Ladd gives the game some replayability value. Anyone who plays this game through as one character -must- play it through as the other, because of the subtle differences in gameplay. Jack is, after all, a master thief, so the puzzles that he goes through are quite different from those that Ysanne, law-abiding bounty hunter, goes through. In both cases, the dialogue options were full of wit and humor, especially when both characters interact with one another.

The Bad
A lot of the solutions to the puzzle were just plain outlandish. When playing, some of the problems just don't seem to make any sense, and neither do their solutions. They usually involve going out of your way in order to accomplish a simple task. Additionally, the characters walk pretty slowly, so when you're backtracking through various areas that you've already explored, you tend to lost interest rather quickly. Personally, I thought the ending rather lame: it seemed kinda rushed: it just happens, and then that's it! Nothing else. I thought it was a fairly disappointing ending.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game was good. It's interface is exactly the same as that of Innocent Until Caught, and there is really nothing new to be found here. The game doesn't require that the first part be played, although it includes occaisional and subtle inferences to the previous part.

The Good
The best asset of the game is its humor. Pretty clever sometimes near the edges. I love drawn graphics instead of 3d or polygonal graphics, and this title has some really good draws. Most of the actors (when it comes to the cd version of the game) are pretty convincing. Especially the 2 protagonists voices are perfect choices for the characters they play.

The Bad
The plot is almost awful. The whole game looks like series of non-continuing episodes. The had some good ideas... but the just couldn't fit them together and make a robust story. Riddles. I wonder why is it so difficult for adventure game makers to make logical riddles. But 20% of the riddles in the games are logic... but 80% is a heavy problem. There are problems where you can think the obvious solutions but it will not work...because the games requires to act a series of silly things prior to the obvious. Really annoying. Gameplay. Really bad. The operate option and the pick/drop are annoying. There should be one single use option to do both.

The Bottom Line
Although every classic adventure gamer should play it... its a real disappointment. Especially if you played and enjoyed innocent until caught.