Déjà Vu: MacVenture Series

Quick review: If you never played the game before, keep it that way. If you remember playing this game, and really loved it, get it for the wonderful nostalgic value. It hasn't changed in both the best and worst ways possible. Déjà Vu is a pioneer game in the point & click adventure genre, making a visual transition from the classic text based adventures. At the time of it's release, it was groundbreaking in giving players a true visual sense of the items and people they are interacting with. Vibrant and distinct colors make the world come alive from text, but text is still used to give hard definition to the characteristics of each individual object and person. Déjà Vu, along with the other MacVenture games, also made themselves distinctively different from the other games in their genre by allowing (or requiring) players to combine inventory items within the inventory, instead of only with the environment. Many years ago, this game was ahead of it's generation. Now time has caught up with it, and it is more of a solid piece of nostalgia rather than a classic game. Playing it again since the last time I played it more than a decade ago, I am getting a flashback of just how hard it is to play. Just like the old text based adventures, it is very unforgiving, has a steep learning curve, and my require you to reset your entire game over and over again to line every event up perfectly to win the game. Way back when these games were released, we were astounded so much by the actual colors and freedom that we wanted to suffer through hard challenge to really get the full potential out of the game. Now that the video game market is oversaturated with more games than can need more time than a human lifetime can offer, people need to be more picky than ever for what they are going to spend their time playing. While this game was considered a gem back in the day, it may look more like another hard rock to the newer generation of gamers.

Déjà Vu and all the other MacVenture series games are some of the most entertainingly written adventure games I've played. It doesn't visually depict all of the actions, but instead uses its creative writing to allow you to visualize the events yourself, creating a much more powerful image than what any animation or cutscene could accurately portray. The porting could have done with some polishing, though, as the recreated interface looks very amateurish with its generic font, blank right click context menu and clumsily resizing windows, strongly reminiscent of a quickly made flash game UI. Fortunately, these are relatively easy to ignore as everything is still functional. The puzzles can be quite challenging and might require use of the good ol' pen and paper to remember vital information. Overall, the game doesn't have many seemingly absurd solutions, so beating it should be doable within some hours. The weakest part of the game is the amnesia. The game starts out only allowing you to perform a specific amount of actions before your memory deteriorates further, and keeps doing this until you lose the game, having a chance of leading to save games you can't recover from due to too many actions before finding the cure. You should get this game if one of the following applies to you: [list] [*]You enjoy point & click adventure games [*]Enjoyed the original/ports and wish to relive the experience [*]You want it [/list]

In my ongoing and likely futile effort to write a Steam review for every game in my library (#255 out of 612)... it's time for Deja Vu: MacVenture Series. If ever there was an argument for the necessity of remasters, Deja Vu is it. I won't call the game unplayable--it's not, literally speaking, impossible to play: it's just very, very, very difficult to get into. Presumably it would be a bit easier to manage if I were more familiar and/or nostalgic for the first generation or so of point-and-click adventure games, or had at least played one or two of these games on an Apple II back in the day... but I didn't. I'm looking at Deja Vu as a player in the year 2020, and this thing is just too dated to enjoy. The visuals are black and white, there's zero audio, and the game itself simply emulates on old Apple PC, which makes for a tediously anachronistic UI. So, uh, there's not much I can say here: as much as I love adventure games, Deja Vu is very much not for me.

Early point/click adventure(the first?) with some adult themes Well the game is set in 1941 Chicago and it has the feel of an old, gangster/detective film. It's a very early point and click adventure, but is different from others in it's allowing you to drag, drop, resize, open and close. It has a very dark, serious, adult feel to it, you're in a dirty city full of crooked, untrustworthy characters, Ace Harding himself appearing to have a skeleton or two in his closet. The graphics are nice, like pencil sketches in this original, black/white version. I found it very easy to die, you begin by having to counteract the effects of a drug before it's too late. Also there's a mugger on the street that can pop up at any time, wasting valuable time(or killing you). There are a lot of locked doors. Basically I found there was too much to do in too short a time. I also thought the sleazy atmosphere of the game was a bit too much. I like that Ace Harding isn't supposed to be some sort of saint in a city of sin, but I wish the game had some momentary relief from all the sleaze and crookedness. If you want to trace the roots of point and click adventures then this is surely essential, but it's not the most pleasant game. I wouldn't recommending trying too hard to finish it, at least not without a walk-through.

SCORE: 3/10 - AWFUL I got this as a freebie with Shadowgate (2014 version). I remember enjoying Deja Vu as a kid on my 8-bit Nintendo, so I was curious how the Mac version compared. Unfortunately, I didn't have much fun with the Mac version, and it certainly didn't seem like a game that has aged well. It didn't even have any music.

Déjà Vu: MacVenture Series is an ancient game from 1985. It's a whopping 39 years old at the time of this review. It predates the internet, it's older than most gamers on Steam. And it's abandonware. It was designed for the original Apple Macintosh (yes that one). Remember "Don't let 1984 be like 1984"? How's that going now? Apple has the biggest walled garden in the world, with the strictest rules. Anyway. The game lacks support for any modern gaming display resolutions (or widescreen monitors), hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge, or just a cash grab to try profit from abandonware. It's an old point and click adventure to see if Macs could be used for gaming. The resounding discovery is "no". It does remind me of the old adage, "How do you prevent your kids getting addicted to video games? Buy them a Mac!". And this is a prime example of just how bad gaming on Apple used to be. So this port over to Steam isn't really a product for anyone apart from lost and confused Apple Mac owners who the developer is trying to scam into buying their game again. The game is an experimental adventure game (not totally unlike Zork where the wrong move kills you immediately), but it's using the Apple Mac OS windows to display inventory and so on. It caught on so well that it took Microsoft 10 years to introduce DirectX because it turns out that OS window managers aren't actually a fun gaming interface. Mind you, Microsoft did have to introduce Windows to the PC ecosystem first. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The game interface is mostly just text boxes/dialogs and features mostly static, barely animated 2D images, the kind of thing you expect to see in browser/HTML games from the 1990s. While that might be fine for the 1990s, gaming has evolved a lot since then, the ATI Rage became mainstream in 1996... it's 2024, and that kind of thing just won't fly anymore, it's just not visually up to scratch. The implementation here is of such poor quality, the developer couldn't work out how to make the game display in fullscreen, it only runs in a window. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The game never really caught on with the millions of gamers on Steam, with a very low peak player count close to launch, and then just a handful of players launching this game every couple of days. This is undoubtedly caused by factors such as those raised in this review. It's always helpful with buying decisions to consider how popular and successful the product is, and unfortunately while this did accumulate a few participation trophy reviews, overall, people just aren't using it. So, should you buy this game? Déjà Vu: MacVenture Series is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $3 USD, and it's not worth it. The game is just too old, hasn't been modernised. And as the old saying goes, you can't go home again. This is also competing with over 11,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product.

In Sum: A frustrating adventure game with a good storyline and no replay value, but is overall satisfying. 4/5. An old classic game that has caused a lot of headaches. Deja Vu is the story of Ace Harding, a private detective with amnesia, in a film noir setting. It is a kind of point-and-click adventure, I believe predating games like Maniac Mansion by a few years, and it requires quite a bit of thinking to play. Graphically, it is well-done for the time. There are very few animations, rather the game is played with still images and a set of commands to use. Sound is minimal. One thing the game does to annoy even modern gamers is a primative version of QTEs. Every now and then, a thug will come up to rob you, giving you a few seconds to react. This game is frustrating. There are countless ways to die, most of them are unexpected. Unlocking the wrong thing, taking a wrong turn, or even random encounters. You have limited resources and it is possible to block yourself from finishing the game with too many taxi rides or firing too many bullets. Unless you are using a walkthrough, you will have to play through this game many times to learn the exact steps you need to win, and using a walkthrough ruins the game. This also makes the game have little replay value, once you have solved the case. The story never changes, and there's not enough depth to keep you engaged in subsequent playthroughs. That said, it is very satisfying when you finally get to the end, and close the case. For classic game fans, and those who want to look at the roots of adventure games, this is possibly an essential game.

Looking back to games that I used to watch as part of my usual 'Let's Play binge' sessions from way back in the late 2000's and early 2010's goes, the MacVenture games always fascinated my mind to no end as I loved how it presented each of their worlds in a rather impressively detailed (at the time) manner that allowed players to inspect, interact with and roam the game's universe in ways previously unexplored by mostly arcade-like titles at the time. Given how the video game industry has evolved as a whole since the mid 80's though, expanding into vastly numerous genres that appeal to just about every kind of gamer out there alongside technology having allowed for far more possibilities than were available to inspiring solo/indie game developers of the time back then, it has unfortunately relegated the beloved series here into relative obscurity, save for the old retro fans that are nostalgic for the earlier gaming days here, simpler times and all. Although I was tempted to get Déjà Vu alongside the sequel and two other games, Uninvited and Shadowgate, as part of an 8-bit collection 'remastered' port on the PS4 some years back, I ultimately chose not to simply because such an experience didn't strike me as particularly interesting at the time although, given how I've been eager for more retro gaming experiences since spending time on Steam here, I eventually decided it was worth taking a chance with what has always been my personal favourite of the three to watch on YouTube, hence my own playthrough of it and documenting my overall thoughts on it. Now, seeing as this is a game from the older days, no doubt the things we take for granted in today's gaming scene aren't present in a title that was made over 38 years ago in 1985 for the original Macintosh version alongside it's slightly more modern Apple IIGS port in 1988 (the version I ended up choosing to play on largely due to the availability of colours to make the visuals more appealing for longer gameplay) will be sorely missed on here as it's why, going into this relic of a game here, I'm refraining from donning on any 'nostalgic googles' so to speak, as I'm hoping to look at it from the perspective of a gamer who enjoys older titles and their quirks but also had a set standard for what games should strive towards which, truth be told, most games in their original release from the 80's would pretty much fail on the spot, but I am keen to look at this with an open-mind regardless! So to delve into what gameplay is on offer here, Déjà Vu is largely a point-and-click adventure game (with minimal focus on any sort of typing) set in the 40's in Chicago where you take control of a private eye detective known as Ace Harding who is in the middle of what the game's subtitle accurately describes as 'A Nightmare Come True' since, unbeknownst to the player at the start, the situation the player finds themselves in is one that is less than ideal, making them quite the big target for both the local police as well as gangsters looking to finish the job and all other manners of muggers and gangsters that are out to make Ace's day as miserable as possible! Without going heavy into the spoiler side of things, I do still find Déjà Vu's story to be quite the engaging tale of delving into the seedy underworld of Chicago in an exciting tale full of twists and turns whilst danger awaits at many corners, since it is quite the suspenseful narrative for those who have yet to experience this game for themselves, which I give credit to the original developers, ICOM Simulations, for as a good story can do a lot to keep people going when struggling through a game and it's challenges, be it traditional skill-based shooter action or more logic-focused puzzles that keeps people trying to figure out where the next clue or step is. However, with that being said, I do feel there is some issues about this game that I need to mention here, starting off with how clunky Déjà Vu's gameplay is as a whole which, whilst to be expected for a title as old as the Macventure series, is quite disappointing when you compare it to the PlayStation 4 port (a collection of the original trilogy of Macventure games) known as '8-bit Adventure Anthology Volume I' which, although more so a faithful adaption than an actual remaster of the sorts, still has more on offer to the modern player than this game here does, seeing how the version they use is based on the NES which, to my understanding, is more of a polished product than either of the ones offered here are (being released in 1990 alongside Nintendo having strict standards for their consoles which meant any bugs/glitches in earlier versions were patched alongside general improvements to the flow of the game itself) plus being easier on the eyes too with multiple filters to experiment with and borders on the side to customize as well. On the topic of glitches, one issue I came across a fair bit was trying to click on tiny objects (a common problem when you are dealing with old retro games on a PC that offers a much higher resolution, though you can intentionally downsizing it for specifically these situations) however it is when you try dragging it around that a much nastier bug can crop up here. Seeing as I mainly played the Apple IIGS version here, this may not appear on the Macintosh side of Déjà Vu here, however dragging around objects of any size (generally any big object that isn't allowed/meant to be placed into your inventory) has a chance of being 'frozen' on your screen, by which I mean it stays stuck on it as a non-interactable graphic that sticks throughout screen transitions and even being carried from one save file to another, the only fix being to force a shut down of the game and restart. Other problems include the lack of any music (again, an advantage the '8-bit Adventure Anthology Volume I has over this on Steam) that many of the original fans of this game will recall fondly of the NES's catchy tunes and generally not having a polished look to it that could have been resolved with some modern 'touches' to them, but alas this is a straight translation of a several decades old game as opposed to a more modern port so this is all that this game and it's equivalents will likely be receiving here. In truth, I would recommend skipping this game in favour of purchasing 8-bit Adventure Anthology Volume I that has Déjà Vu alongside Uninvited and Shadowgate, though it lacks the sequel to Déjà Vu which, in my personal opinion, I would have to play for myself to see if it holds up but, based on my initial experience here, I do not hold high hopes for that. Regardless, you would be best avoiding this version of the game other than if you are VERY curious about versions outside of the well-recognized NES edition or a large discount is on offer for these games here as, otherwise, it is not worth the price as it currently stands. TLDR Version: • A look into one of Steam's oldest games at a fairly low price (+) • Offers two entirely different versions, with the original Déjà Vu Macintosh from 1985 alongside the Apple IIGS from 1988, each bearing completely different graphics (+) • Has no form of censorship unlike the NES ports in the 8-bit Adventure Anthology Volume I game (+) • Lacks the polished touches that a more modern port would offer as opposed to one that lacks any quality of life improvements (-) • Contains an irritating glitch that impedes navigation or interaction via a graphical bug from dragging interactable objects in a specific manner that forces a restart to fix (-) • No charming music like the NES version has nor it's better-designed user interface (-) • Given the old age of the MacVenture series, Déjà Vu's gameplay is sorely outdated compared to titles similar to it later on that did the genre far better, such as the Sierra games (-) • When compared to 8-bit Adventure Anthology Volume I, there is a general lack of care in this version of the iconic series (-)

i grew up on the NES versions so for me this sucks. no music. menus make less sense. hard pass.

I've come to realize I have never been a fan of point-and-click games where one wrong move kills you. I found this tedious. If there is a nostalgia factor for you, it might be worth it.