Mini-review of Stupid Invaders

Introduction:

	I found this game to be a mixed experience, so my review may
	end up looking the same way.  Graphically and artistically,
	this game is at the top of the heap.  From a game playing
	perspective, it's not very good.  The end result was a game
	that is fun, but frustrating.  I'll describe this mixture in
	more detail, and let you form your own conclusions...

	Oh, and an obligatory warning for those that are bothered by
	such things: I never have any spoilers in my reviews, but I
	do discuss things like action and timed sequences in great,
	bitchy detail.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

	This game is blessed with truly superb graphics, easily as
	good as any other game I have ever played.  They are cartoon
	style, but with incredible detailing in the lighting,
	complete with motion blurring effects in the cut scenes to
	help add reality.  If you have seen the TV show Space Goofs,
	then be prepared for a very pleasant surprise; this game's
	graphics make the TV show look very, very crude in
	comparison.  At one point, I had to make a character go up
	some stairs several times in a row, just to watch the
	incredible effect of his shadow moving up the wall.  This
	game is the best mixture of computer technology and human
	artistry I have ever seen in a computer game.

	If nothing else, the game was fun to play because of all the
	inventive and unique locations you got to visit throughout.
	In other words, it wasn't just good graphics in this game,
	but true artistry.  The rooms, buildings, props, and machines
	were always a unique adventure in their won right.

	This game was very good at having no action sequences for the
	player, but was still able to give a sense of action through
	clever use of the cut scenes.  More design and graphic
	artistry that I must commend.  There is one major exception
	to this: towards the end of a game, you are "allowed" to
	watch a five minute cut scene which is funny for the first 5
	seconds.  The remainder of it appears to have been added for
	no other reason than to take up time and extend the game
	playing time.

Sound (music, voices, special effects)

	Very good throughout.  The voice acting was obviously
	professional, and perfectly matched the characters in all
	cases.  The music was varied, and wasn't obtrusive, so it
	gets a thumbs up from me as well.

Story (plot, theme, depth):

        I'll just mention that the characters are from the TV cartoon
	called Space Goofs, and that you have to help them get away
	from the bad guys, fix their spaceship, all so they can go
	home.  There isn't much plot beyond that, but given the
	"cartoony" nature of the graphics and characters, it probably
	didn't need much more.

	I should probably talk about the humour here, since it has
	been a topic of discussion in reviews and the adventure
	newsgroup.  It is definitely toilet humour, but I don't have
	anything against that (I did find some of the jokes quite
	funny).  In general, the nature of the humour didn't do much
	for (or against) the game for me; it was just part of the
	story.  If you don't find toilet humour offensive, then I
	don't think it will affect your enjoyment of the game.  On
	the other hand, I don't think that Stupid Invaders was all
	that hilarious either.  Cute, yes.  Funny in spots,
	definitely.  Hilarious, not really.  However, lack of
	hilarity is not exactly a major sin, so my final comment
	about the toilet humour is "so what".

Characters (depth, development, interaction):

	You get to play each character throughout the game, but it
	doesn't really affect the gameplay all that much.  About the
	only thing that changes with each character is the type of
	humour used.  Some of the "bit" players were a lot of fun; I
	liked the cows and chickens a lot.  They were drawn
	inventively, and used inventively, which is yet more proof of
	the high level of artistry that went into this game.

Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity):

	This is where Stupid Invaders just didn't make the grade.
	The artists involved knew how to make a visual treat, but
	they obviously didn't have much experience at adventure
	gaming.

	The good:

	No action sequences and no timed sequences.  You could take
	all the time you wanted to do something, and there was no
	requirement to be fast on the mouse once you started.  Many
	of the puzzles were entertaining, especially in the first
	half of the game.  Oh, and the puzzles weren't fiendishly
	difficult, which may be a good point or a bad point,
	depending on what you like.


	The bad:

	You died a lot in this game, and you were given no warning
	whatsoever.  It was so bad that I ended up saving the game
	before walking into a room or opening another door, since
	that could kill you.  In many cases, the only way to solve a
	puzzle was to find the one sequence of actions that didn't
	kill you.  I find it pretty bad when you solve puzzles by
	elimination in that manner.  Oh, you were only given 27 slots
	for saving games; I probably used them 5 times over.

	Not only did you die a lot, but there was no auto-restore to
	the point just before you died.  Nope -- you had to be
	religious about saving games.  The cut scenes where you died
	were sometime a lot of fun to watch, but that doesn't make up
	for the fact that it wasn't very well designed gameplay.

	A huge, pointless maze.

	Another huge pointless maze.  They called it a desert, but it
	was just another maze in sandy clothing.

	The ugly:

	Puzzles and cut scenes were added at the end with an obvious
	goal of doing nothing more than adding time to your gameplay.
	Some marketing idiot must have demanded that they have "at
	least X hours of gameplay", so the developers just merrily
	went and added time wasters.  Here's a few examples:
	- a pointless cut scene that takes about 5 minutes to play
	- multiple puzzles that involved walking tremendous distance
	  to get a single item which is needed to solve the "puzzle"


Controls (user interface, save/restore, sound/video adjustments):

	With a few exceptions, the user controls for this game are
	"point and click" at its finest.  Inventory, saving games and
	movement were all intuitive and easy.

	Some areas weren't marked as "go here" when the cursor moved
	over them, causing me to miss one area completely until I
	looked at a walkthrough.

	One area required you to flail about with the mouse in a dark
	area until you found a hot spot.  Pixel hunting at its worst.

	There were a few items which had more than one action that
	could be performed on them, but there was no indicationthat
	this was the case.  You had to right click to cycle through
	the other possibilites, but you weren't used to doing it since
	most items didn't require this.

	You died extremely often in this game, but there was no
	auto-restore available.  You always had to explicitly go to
	the main menu and load a saved game.  

Bugs or problems:

	None.

Install/Uninstall:

	I chose the "large" install, which installs all of the CDs
	onto your hard drive.  You don't need to read a CD
	afterwards, even to start the game.  Thumbs up for this
	feature -- it takes about 2GB of disk space and 30 minutes
	to install, but it worked perfectly for me.

	The un-install didn't ask me if I wan't to keep my saved
	games, and just deleted them all.  It also left a few keys in
	the registry.  I wonder why companies think that having their
	name in my registry is all that important?  Especially
	considering the ill feelings they will generate when people
	find out about it.

Pros:

	Beautiful graphics, innovative artistry, unique locations
	Fun cut scenes
	Excellent user interface (with a few glitches)
	Some fun puzzles

Cons:

	You get killed frequently without reason or warning
	Two really pointless mazes
	Scenes and "puzzles" added to just take up time
	Fairly simplistic gameplay -- if you die, you did it wrong
	
Conclusion:

	Stupid Invaders was blessed with wonderful graphics and cut
	scenes, and cursed with some pretty poorly designed gameplay.
	In spite of all the irritations, this was still a game which
	was fun to play.  I recommend it, but don't expect any
	massive challenges or thrilling puzzles.  I hope the
	developers do another game, only I hope they get an advisor
	to help them improve the "game" portion of their next
	adventure game.