Meat Puppet

TBH bought this to replace my faulty CD-ROM version from 1997. It works on both Windows 7 and 10 smoothly (although the cutscenes are scaled down). I am recommending it as a nod to anyone out there who wishes to relive or archive this as part of the game they played a long time ago, and never got to finish either due to bugs or slow hardware. The cyberpunk setting and gun-chick with an attitude was part of the appeal of the game, including some nice narratives, interesting enemies and a different take for an iso-shooter. I propose that many would agree the gameplay takes a backseat to the story (as me and many friends/people wanted to see the conclusion to the story) For newcomers and modern gamers, this might not be your cup of tea. For a start the controls could be regarded as horrendous, hit-detection and box issues, unclear mission info etc. Watch the gameplay via youtube, and see the control scheme (which I've written a quick guide) to imagine what it's like to play it - you have been warned.

Meat Puppet is an ancient game from 1997. It's a whopping 27 years old at the time of this review. 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. The game was a lame attempt to try cash in on the hype that Syndicate created in 1993, so if you're nostalgic for the weird 1990's hacker/cyber/guns ethos that was booming so well, uhh, try that, because Meat Puppet is just garbage, really. I think maybe it's trying to do too much and from a studio capable of so little, and of course because it was such a flop, the gravediggers at Piko Interactive had a field day exhuming this corpse. It's trying to be a 2.5D isometric platformer (a genre that NEVER worked well), shooter and puzzle game all at the same time... conceptually such a game might work (just look at Deus Ex, that's got platforming and shooting and a million other things in it), but this one was stillborn, with clunky, janky controls, it's bug riddled, and just generally un-fun, with pickups in unreachable places, the ability to get stuck on a knee high bag of trash (containing unsold copies of Meat Puppet), the list of gameplay defects is long. And those gameplay defects are coupled with almost as many technical defects. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. 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 only displays in 4:3 pillarboxed aspect ratio, due to the age of the game, it predates the 16:9 widescreen gaming standard established back in 2006. It's possible they're marketing this towards people using an old CRT they found in a dumpster, or this game is being specifically marketed towards people gaming on PC's from 1995... either way, this isn't really acceptable in the modern era of PC gaming. It's obviously not going to look right on a modern 16:9 gaming display. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH. The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. Meat Puppet is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $9 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. Even when it was new, this was never a triple-A game. This is the kind of game that went almost directly from the warehouse into the cheap bargain bins at the front of the shop. Now, on Steam, without any modernisation? This is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $9 asking price for this game could get you games like "Payday 2", "Ark: Survival Evolved" or "Don't Starve Together". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. There's also thousands of free, superior quality games on Steam. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]

game has a cool William Gibson inspired cyberpunk world and the gameplay is unique.

We are all meat puppets

Meat Puppet is a weird, fascinating relic that’s equal parts cool and clunky. Despite some technical hiccups (like playtime not tracking properly), the game runs fine once you’re in - and what you get is a genuinely unique experience with striking visuals and a strong art direction. There’s something undeniably compelling about its world and overall vibe. Unfortunately, the controls and movement haven’t aged well at all, feeling awkward and cumbersome, and the combat is serviceable at best. It’s the kind of game that begs for a remaster to modernize the controls while preserving its distinct identity. Flaws and all, though, this is a memorable, offbeat experience, and one I wish I had played back in its prime.