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(Bad Mojo was reviewed in January 1996)
Summary: Whether you like Bad Mojo or hate it, it's almost guaranteed that you've never played a game like it before.
Just about everyone agrees that cockroaches are among the most loathsome creatures on the planet. So who would think that being one could be fun?
Pulse Entertainment, that's who. The company's latest game, Bad Mojo (acquired through a merger with Iron Helix maker Drew Pictures), lets players take on the role of a man who is transformed into a roach, then sent into a world of grime, despair, and bitterness. You have to wonder exactly what substance the programmers consumed before coming up with the Kafkaesque game's premise. Regardless, Bad Mojo is unique, morbid, absorbing, disturbing, and a lot of fun to play.
You are Roger, a bitter man who endured a tough childhood as an orphan. But just as you are about to abscond with a case full of ill-begotten cash, a mysterious locket casts a spell that transfers your soul into the body of a roach, and you find yourself scurrying around on six legs in the basement of a defunct bar on the San Francisco waterfront.
Similar to Myst, which drops you onto an island with no clue where you are or why you are there, you must figure out Bad Mojo's story as you play. By observing newspapers, letters, trash, and other items scattered about each of the bar's rooms, you must unravel the clues to your own past. Bad Mojo has several possible outcomes, which depend on how many of its puzzles you can piece together.
Along the way, of course, you must contend with all the pitfalls of a roach's daily life, including hungry cats (and rats), spiders, various roach traps, and hazardous wastes that range from spilled paint to spoiled food (even a roach has his limits). Clever puzzles will keep your mind occupied figuring out how to turn off a threatening vacuum cleaner and kill a particularly nasty rat.
Brain power is your greatest asset. As a mere roach, you have few defensive capabilities other than a tough body and armored noggin. However, if you're smart, you can use your head to manipulate vital objects such as cigarette butts and medicine bottles. Multiple hotspots throughout the game generate clues in the form of animated riddles or video sequences.
Bad Mojo couldn't be easier to play. The cursor keys send your bug crawling up, down, left, right, and diagonally. You play mostly from a top-down perspective, but because you can go just about anywhere a roach can go--up walls, under tables, through tiny holes--you must remember to think three-dimensionally.
Bad Mojo's graphics are simply superb. The bar's six rooms fill more than 700 navigable screens, each one rendered in exquisite, high-resolution detail. Some objects are actually photos, but the graphics are so good it's often hard to tell the difference between real and rendered. Your insect self pitches, rolls, and grows larger or smaller as you scamper about, adding to the realism. A dark, eerie soundtrack draws you further into the experience.
If anything's wrong with Bad Mojo (other than the occasional crash bug in our prerelease version that Pulse promises to fix), it's that it may be too simple. Experienced adventure gamers may long for more control options and more complex puzzles. But if you liked Myst and didn't manage to finish it, or are just getting into adventure games, this one ought to be perfect for you. Who knows, maybe you'll leave the game with a newfound respect for the lowly cockroach. Old Website Recovery