The Gene Machine is an old school point and click adventure game. These have always been my favorite types of games so I decided to try it out in hopes I would find a new, fun challenge. The twist in this game is the main character, Piers, is incredibly unlikeable. He is part of the upper class of society but does not quite have the money to back it up. He has a manservant, Mossop, who he treats worse than a dog and has a girlfriend who is, if possible, even more unlikeable.
The Gene Machine is an old school point and click adventure game. These have always been my favorite types of games so I decided to try it out in hopes I would find a new, fun challenge. The twist in this game is the main character, Piers, is incredibly unlikeable. He is part of the upper class of society but does not quite have the money to back it up. He has a manservant, Mossop, who he treats worse than a dog and has a girlfriend who is, if possible, even more unlikeable. This actually makes it funny because we feel, as an audience, he deserves this kind of person in his life.
The storyline goes that this half human, half cat creature
comes into Piers home upon his arrival back from his journey to America. He wants Piers to go find Dr. Dinsey on Dinsey Island to get him to stop combining animals and playing with genetics. Piers does not have the money it will take to go on a trip of this nature so he must lie, cheat and steal in order to get what he needs. All the while the faithful Mossop stays happily by his side. Once you collect the money, the ship, and the crew the next job becomes to actually find where this island is and getting through all the obstacles that get in your way to get there.
The game itself is very impressive looking. The graphics are reminiscent of Monkey Island 3 with that gel-drawn style to it. The background is actually a little fuzzier and all the people and objects you will need are made much clearer. This actually makes it easier to figure out what it is going to be that you will need to take from a certain room or what objects you will need to use later on. Everything is fairly obvious and it will not take too much thought to figure out the puzzles which is probably a positive thing because it limits the frustrations these games can sometimes provide.
The biggest downfall to the game would be its actual point and click interface. Rather than there being words or right clicking to get to a certain motion, like examine, you have to click on an object and then choose one of the choices that comes up on the bottom. It is not really all that bad it just becomes annoying to have to go through the extra step. Also, if you move the cursor to the bottom of the screen your inventory comes up and gets in the way when you were just trying to walk some where. The other problem I was having was that some of the cut-scenes did not work but it did not affect game play.
Overall, the game is pretty fun and interesting and while not that hard to complete it will still take several hours to get through the entire story. Anyone who likes the point and click genre will like this game.
