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(c)1988 Hudson Soft
TurboDuoCDRom HCD8003
Digital Comic / Adventure game
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It Came From The Desert is a Video Adventure by Mirrorsoft
and based on Cinemaware's game released for the Amiga and
PC computers in 1989. The game takes place in the 1950s, in the small
town of Lovelock lost somewhere in the most desolate areas of
California. The player incarnates Buzz Lincoln - a young man who,
helped by the local geologist Dr.Horton T.Pangbourne tries to investigate
some unnatural happenings - twenty feet tall Ants seem to be roaming in the
nearby desert and no one in town seems to have seen a thing. The goal of the
game is to fight the giant insects and also to convince the townspeople of
the danger they are in - and time is against him and he only has eight days
to achieve his goal. And danger there is as our giant Ants can turn humans
into Ant-droids zombies. It Came From The Desert features motion
video sequences that unfold the story based on the player's actions and
choices. Parts of the game feature simple action phases such as side-scrolling
sequences where our hero, armed with a gun and grenades, fight the creatures
inside their den, or creepy shooting phases where flesh-eating ants have
to be gun down before they turn incapacitated town people into skeletons.
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It Came From The Desert was first released for the Amiga
in 1989 and then ported to PC Computers in 1991 and the
TurboGrafx CD (version tested here). The Turbo CD version
is however very different from the original game - it uses digitized 'captured'
animations rather than drawn graphics. Turbo Play from January 1992 specs
the game as "full motion video running 10 frames per second" and
"one full hour of video, 180 video sequences". The game's structure
was also rearranged and the various dialogs changed. Most of the action
sequences are unique to the version - only a couple were borrowed from
the Amiga original. A Sega Genesis version was in beta but was
later cancelled. This version, unlike the other versions, is an overhead action game.
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
O
V
s
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The B-Movie feeling that emanates from
It Came From The Desert is probably its best asset - and also the
way how everyone in the game seem to be alive and do their own things as
the story progresses. But the rest of the game is terrible. The video
sequences are great technical achievements, but they are often dull
and I personally prefer well drawn static graphics than these animated
but horribly pixelated animations. Then some of them just don't make
any sense - what is the girl in the Borax Saloon talking about ?
And everyone in the game seem to be upset and have something
against you... and I'm not talking about the town people that
have been "Ant-droidified". Finally, the action phases are probably
the worse I've seen on the system - they feel unfinished, incomplete and
are unbelievably tedious. It Came From The Desert is only worth buying
if you want to own every single piece of American Turbo-only software.
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