By now the media has convinced us all that there are only a few facts of life, the most important being that you are broke and that you will be attacked by pirates should you ever decide to paddle away from it all. The only safe economic advice they manage to give you amongst all the scare mongering is that guns and booze sell alarmingly well during recessions. Feeling a combination of depressed and empowered, I did my part in boosting the economy by dropping ten dollars on a half-rack of Milwaukee's Best to fuel some raged zombie killing. Some friends dropped by soon after with their own form of cheap escapism, and before I knew it my Left 4 Dead spree had turned into a Mystery Science Theatre crit-a-thon.
Then something amazing happened; one of them managed to dig up my old Sega CD. If for some reason you didn't read the title, I should warn you that we are indeed going retro, but when I say "retro" I don't mean that we have to somehow believe we're all trapped in 1992. This also isn't meant to bring up the question of whether or not a game stands up to the modern standard. If modern game producers did their jobs right, the latter wouldn't even be a question, which is a rant I will save for another time.
For as many times as Night Trap tried to convince me otherwise, there was genuine fun. The MST3K crowd dialed the lines right in from the second the S.C.A.T. van arrived. For those who haven't played it before, Night Trap is the exact opposite of what 1992 media tried to convince you that the game was about. Maybe my mental state has become too corrupted over time to take serious notice, but this game does not feature any explicit gore, encourage stalking, or even involve schoolgirls showing off their racks. In fact, it is your job to prevent this. Even if you fail, you are shown none of the above horror movie perks.
You are a member of the police unit S.C.A.T., a joke which never gets old with the proper crowd, and are tasked with the interactive surveillance of a group of teenage girls who are being used by S.C.A.T. to bait a group of unknown predators out of hiding. If it sounds like a bad episode of To Catch A Predator, then just replace Chris Hansen with J.D Roth and you've got the trick.
The game is terrible, make no mistake, but you knew that coming in. The game's only function is to serve as a vessel for bad acting and worse writing. Your only way of interacting with the "game" is to channel surf through bad acting, get information from the bad acting, and occasionally interrupt the bad acting to drop someone down a hole and fork the FMV path to a different scenario of bad acting.
While that doesn't sound appealing, you may find yourself surprised. By no means should you play through this game on your own, but it makes for great social interaction. The golden trait this game has is simplicity. Channel changing is about as complicated as the play control gets, so it opens up a whole new world of team gameplay. No one ever demands to be the player with the controller and everyone is rewarded for being a mere mocking observer, because the only thing anyone has to do in the way of thought or action is to scream out the name of the appropriate color (used for security codes in the game) and the word "NOW!"
The idea of retro gaming really tends to shift when you consider value vs. historical merit. One could easily tell you to avoid this game at all costs due to the latter, but the value of the game says otherwise. It's quite possible to find this game for free, and I do mean legally, so you really can't go wrong. To make a recommendation about this game involves a lot of ifs, but IF you have a few friends, IF you appreciate the B-movie genre, and IF you constantly fight the urge to loudly yell jokes in a movie theatre then I have to suggest that you give it a go.
Then something amazing happened; one of them managed to dig up my old Sega CD. If for some reason you didn't read the title, I should warn you that we are indeed going retro, but when I say "retro" I don't mean that we have to somehow believe we're all trapped in 1992. This also isn't meant to bring up the question of whether or not a game stands up to the modern standard. If modern game producers did their jobs right, the latter wouldn't even be a question, which is a rant I will save for another time.
For as many times as Night Trap tried to convince me otherwise, there was genuine fun. The MST3K crowd dialed the lines right in from the second the S.C.A.T. van arrived. For those who haven't played it before, Night Trap is the exact opposite of what 1992 media tried to convince you that the game was about. Maybe my mental state has become too corrupted over time to take serious notice, but this game does not feature any explicit gore, encourage stalking, or even involve schoolgirls showing off their racks. In fact, it is your job to prevent this. Even if you fail, you are shown none of the above horror movie perks.
You are a member of the police unit S.C.A.T., a joke which never gets old with the proper crowd, and are tasked with the interactive surveillance of a group of teenage girls who are being used by S.C.A.T. to bait a group of unknown predators out of hiding. If it sounds like a bad episode of To Catch A Predator, then just replace Chris Hansen with J.D Roth and you've got the trick.
The game is terrible, make no mistake, but you knew that coming in. The game's only function is to serve as a vessel for bad acting and worse writing. Your only way of interacting with the "game" is to channel surf through bad acting, get information from the bad acting, and occasionally interrupt the bad acting to drop someone down a hole and fork the FMV path to a different scenario of bad acting.
While that doesn't sound appealing, you may find yourself surprised. By no means should you play through this game on your own, but it makes for great social interaction. The golden trait this game has is simplicity. Channel changing is about as complicated as the play control gets, so it opens up a whole new world of team gameplay. No one ever demands to be the player with the controller and everyone is rewarded for being a mere mocking observer, because the only thing anyone has to do in the way of thought or action is to scream out the name of the appropriate color (used for security codes in the game) and the word "NOW!"
The idea of retro gaming really tends to shift when you consider value vs. historical merit. One could easily tell you to avoid this game at all costs due to the latter, but the value of the game says otherwise. It's quite possible to find this game for free, and I do mean legally, so you really can't go wrong. To make a recommendation about this game involves a lot of ifs, but IF you have a few friends, IF you appreciate the B-movie genre, and IF you constantly fight the urge to loudly yell jokes in a movie theatre then I have to suggest that you give it a go.
