The X-Fools

Vintage parody of "The X-Files." Now ex-FBI agents "Mully" & "Scudder" inhabit a trailer where Mully pursues his search for the truth, and Scudder pursues Mully! Not so much of a game as an interactive presentation. You collect successively appearing CDs, dossier files, videotapes, and photo/tape sets. Playing them back on the appropriate piece of equipment( or reading them at the file cabinet) consists of the bulk of the experience. Most are quite funny. You see bits from TV shows which are alien productions (NYPD Grey, ET ER, Slimefeld), read the files of the Marlboro Man and other characters from the show, and observe both still photos and video clips which Mully explains hide alien activity -- once he zooms in and reveals the hidden content! Or explains the =real= meaning of what seems to be a hang glider flight or a mime handing out balloons. Clicking on bits of scenery inside their trailer will spur a witty comment, hint at something to come, or reveal one of the minigames contained within. One is a Pacman-type game, where you can play either character through a maze of file folders and ammo magazines while dodging the bad guys: bad guys and map are all themed from eps (the forest mites, little grey men, etc.) There is "Abduct This!" where you pilot a saucer and abduct cattle and humans, and rescue your friends, while dodging gunfire. Rather difficult is the trivia quiz, hosted by "Gangley, the Lonely Gunman." A mysterious picture puzzle appears at various points, accompanied by mysterious narration, which are part of the conclusion to the main game. Some good re-playability to the minigames. Not so much to the main game, as when you are finished you have all the funny bits to refer back to any time, so there isn't much point, but they seem worthwhile to go back to and chuckle over.

This was a much better effort than the same company's dreadful "Microshaft WinBlows 98" of the same era. Only downside -- pretty short.

Tech note -- played perfectly well on a W7x64 quadcore running an ATI graphics card. Only hitch is that it wants to install QuickTime for Windows, and I had to do that manually, running the QT32 Setup in W95 compatibility mode as admin. I also set it to run low-res graphics, but don't know if that was necessary. The "videotapes" you watch need the QT,otherwise the TV does nothing. Also, there is apparently some sort of real online experience built in, triggered by clicking on the laptop, but I didn't have any browser it recognized, so it just tells me there is none configured and does nothing. Also drops an error message on startup about missing a config file in the User directory, but does not otherwise affect playability.