Playing through Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender (with a walkthrough) wasn’t too bad. There were times when the game became annoying or tiresome, but I mostly enjoyed it anyway.
POSITIVES
The graphics are well-made and add considerable realism to an otherwise far-fetched story. However, the image resolution is relatively low (compared to modern-day games), so viewing the game window fullscreen isn’t quite as pleasing.
The soundtrack is a bit low-grade and dated, but it’s actually enjoyable to listen to. I wouldn’t add the sountrack to my iPod (if I could), but I didn’t turn it off either.
The interface is very sophisticated and not too clumsy. I found myself liking it more than the interfaces of most other inventory-intensive adventure games, and it’s almost as good as some of the better RPG games of this era.
There are quite a few ways in which the player character can abruptly die, but (thank goodness) the game doesn’t force the player to restore a gamesave. Instead, it merely returns the character to the previous screen unharmed. When I played through this game, I saved it frequently, but I only had to use the gamesaves a couple of times. As a warning, be sure to save this game before you use up any of the disposable inventory items (like the bones). If you don’t use them properly, you can’t get them back again and the game becomes unwinnable.
The inventory-based “puzzles” are challenging, but they also make sense. In other words, if you had enormous amounts of time to waste on wandering around (without a walkthrough) and figuring everything out on your own, you could probably stumble on the correct solutions without any help. That, and there aren’t too many unnecessary take-able objects, so if you’re careful about finding everything, you’ll have everything you need when you need it, as long as you visit each location in the right order.
NEGATIVES
The first thing I noticed about this game is that the introduction is a little too lengthy. There are also some cutscenes that are lengthier than they need to be. A better-edited game would’ve trimmed those down.
After that, the foremost flaw with this game is that there’s no changes in the cursor when it’s positioned over important objects. As a result, finding those important objects is EXTREMELY difficult. Since the default action is always to walk to an object, rather that look at it, even clicking on everything doesn’t work. (Looking at things requires two clicks: one on the ‘Look’ command, and another on the object.) Therefore, the only way to find the important objects is to look for anything in the background image that looks out-of-place, use the ‘Look’ command on them, and then use the ‘Take’ command on anything that has a unique name.
Not only that, but some of the important objects in the game are EXTREMELY small. Interacting with those objects can be frustratingly difficult, at times, especially in the scene where you have to press a tiny red button before the dog moves. Unfortunately, this is a very common flaw in pre-CD-ROM games with relatively low-resolution interface windows. Post-Myst, interacting with objects became a little easier.
And, if that wasn’t frustrating enough, some objects aren’t take-able or won’t appear until some previous (and unrelated) action triggers some other reaction that causes the object to become available. Even more confusing still, if you choose one of the easier game-difficulty levels, some objects NEVER appear.
My only other criticism concerns the plot for the last 1/3 of the game. Having to drive to a dozen different locations became very tiresome and getting in and out of the car felt overly-repetitive, and that was with a walkthrough. If you tried to play this game without a walkthrough, you could spend an entire day driving around in that car, trying to find all of the objects and use them in the correct order. If I had played this game when it first came out (before the Internet and downloadable walkthroughs), I probably would’ve given up on it before I reached the end.
RECOMMENDATIONS
If you’re curious about pre-CD-ROM adventure games, I’d definitely give this one a try, and use a walkthrough generously if you don’t want to waste too much time on it. (However, be aware that the walkthroughs fit the ‘Expert’ play mode, not the easier play modes. The easier play modes remove some items and challenges.)
Compared to other adventure games in the sci-fi category, this is an odd duck by any measure. The sexism in the game is a little more lighthearted and dorky than it is offensive, so even female players might find it to be amusing. Maybe. Oddly, the game also strays into the territory of transgenderism, which is quite surprising for a game of this era. All genders are still treated as stereotypes in this game, and the traditional mostly-negative attitudes toward genders is maintained; however, the story nevertheless presents an interesting twist on the worst-case consequences of intergender hostilities.
