Escape from the Oval Office

OK, I'm going to do this as quickly as possible, because I just spent a good thirty or forty minutes of my life playing Escape from the Oval Office, and I just want to get the review over and done with, so I never have to look at this game ever again.



I felt that I should just go with the crowd and review something political. And even though the USA now has a new, competent President, that doesn't mean we can't still laugh at the old, incompetent one. The only problem is that Escape from the Oval Office laughs at all those who dare to give it a chance.

I'll admit to never being a big fan of escape games, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, just as long as puzzles are logical and the solutions aren't hidden under a pile of confusing mess. Escape from the Oval Office has neither of these qualities.



So you're stuck in the Oval Office and you need to find a way to unlock the door. There's a key on this desk, but let's face it, nothing's ever that easy. We look to the computer, and we need a password to log in, which is helpfully stuck to the monitor with a Post-It note. It's starting to look like George W Bush himself programmed this game, until you see that there is no "W" key on your keyboard!

*gasp!*



OK, let's go find the "W" key, since it's so important that we get on this computer. Travelling around the room isn't too difficult, but it just feels clunky, and the interface can be very unresponsive. Combining items is the most tedious chore; first you click on an item to examine it, then you click and drag the second item to use it on the first. It should come as no surprise that about fifteen minutes in I started to get a headache, and the light yellow walls didn't help.

I should also note that, aside from a crappy drum loop on the title screen, there is no music, and there are few sound effects. So if you like looking at badly drawn pictures of the Oval Office in complete silence, this game is for you.

Anyway, you notice a very obvious secret compartment, but you'll need a screwdriver to open it. So you go to the next view...



...And lo and behold, there is a screwdriver. There are only two types of puzzle in this game - the moronically easy or the stupendously difficult. The mouse gives you no indication of what can be interacted with and what can't, so all you can do is click over the entire screen and hope you come across something you can use.



Occasionally you'll come across something genuinely terrifying, like this fifty foot tall Dick Cheney.



Or this image, which is supposed to be sombre and sobering. Yes, we get it, the guy was an asshole. Now can you please tell me what to do next? Please, give me some clue! What do you want from me!?

Eventually you find the "W" in the bathroom (once you unlock the bathroom with a key found under one of the cushions on the couch - and that took way longer than was necessary.) But George doesn't want to put his hand in toilet water, so you have to take a valve handle that you found in the curtains for some reason, click behind the toilet, turn the valve to drain the water, and then retrieve the button.

Two things. First, wouldn't a plastic button flow away with the water? And secondly, how the hell was I suppose to know I could click behind the toilet? I'm not given any indication that I can do that! I'm not given any help whatsoever at any point in this game! The instructions are about as useful as flip flops in the friggin' Arctic! The only way I could advance was through trial and error or reading other people's hints.



I finally get on the computer and I think to myself, "Thank God, it's almost over." In my travels around the room I came across a drawer with a combination lock on it. I assumed that the combination would be on the computer. I could then use it to open the drawer, find the key to the Oval Office, and make good my escape. How wrong I was! Instead there was nothing but this picture of a wing. Why was there a picture of a wing?



Because I had been searching for the wrong items. How foolish of me to think that you look for a key to open a locked door! I found this on the floor, completely by accident. The object of the game is not to locate the key, but to locate the various parts of the eagle that will then give you the key.

What is the point of that? Why are you giving me one more puzzle on top of all the other puzzles? I found your "W", I found your Wiimote (playing the Wii apparently gives you... something) - what more can I give!? But no - out of nowhere, this bombshell is dropped.

Escape from the Oval Office is complete and utter garbage... but I don't hate it. Why? Because, while reading the comments for it on the Addicting Games website, I couldn't help but notice that many of those who didn't like it also possessed neoconservative values. And since there's nothing I enjoy more than annoying neoconservatives, let me just write that Escape from the Oval Office is a game everyone should play!

And it's OK to be gay!

Haunted House Escape

Yes, I know, I didn't write a review last week, and no, I don't have an excuse. At the end of the day, I was tired and it was late.

Guess I do have an excuse. Anyway, I have returned with a point and click adventure that involves lots of random clicking but very little point, Haunted House Escape. Now, I tend to avoid these "escape" games because they rarely interest me, but for some reason Haunted House Escape caught my eye, and I figured I would give it a shot. How could I have foreseen the soul-sucking experience that was to befall me for almost twenty agonising minutes?



So we begin our adventure outside the haunted house. Oh, OK, I guess the game is over then, because as the title clearly states, the object is to escape the haunted house. It's kind of hard to escape something you're not even in. But this is explained by telling us that the front gate is locked, and the only way to escape is to go through the house.

Let's consider the logic of going into a building in order to get out of a building. And while we're at it, let's prove the existence of dark matter with a rubber band a toothpick. And why exactly was climbing over the wall not an option? There are giant trees right there; surely you could climb up one of those, shimmy along a branch and make your way down the other side with the minimum of fuss, right? But then, it's exactly that kind of thought process that means I review crappy games, not make them.



The first order of business is to find a brick in the wall that will move aside to reveal a knife and a mirror, which must be tilted in such a way as to catch the moonlight and beam it towards another mirror. Of course, finding the brick is the hard part, since it could be any one of the large grey slabs of granite that make up the front of the house. There are no clues as to which brick is the one you're looking for, and the cursor does not change when you hover over a hotspot, so that's no use either. The only option, therefore, is to click every brick until you reach the right one, a time-consuming and frankly boring endeavour.



The reason behind all this mirror moving and brick clicking is to beam the moonlight onto a cellar door, which you then cut open with the knife in order to get inside the house. You might ask why one should even bother, especially when you can cut the ropes holding the cellar door closed at any time. But the light plays an important part in the next puzzle, so the tedious work must be done.



Just so we're clear, I didn't get through this game because I'm a brilliant puzzle solver or because I always consider the possibility of hidden mirrors in brick walls. No, I won thanks to this walkthrough, provided by the developers on their website. A Flash game really shouldn't need a walkthrough. Hints and tips are always good, but a full explanation on how to beat every puzzle in the game shouldn't be necessary. These are games you play during your coffee break - they're not supposed to be fucking Myst!



So we get into the house, and the first stop is the kitchen. Somewhere in here is a shard of a mirror, hidden behind a China plate. Of course, it's behind that lone plate on the right, because you're too busy looking through all the crap in the middle, where you'd expect that sort of thing to be. Again, it's a case of clicking everywhere until the answer suddenly appears right in front of you and you feel like an idiot for having missed it for so long.



The reason you're going to all this trouble is to find four keys that will unlock a secret passageway out of the house. I should probably note at this point that at no time in my search for these keys did I come across a ghost, a monster, a poltergeist or any spiritual being of any kind. For a haunted house, this place is awfully lacking in scariness.

Anyway, you put the keys into this contraption and click each one a certain number of times, which will unlock another door. There are numbers scattered around the house to tell you how many clicks each key requires, but if you don't remember or don't know where to find these numbers you're in trouble. And what happens if you click too many times? I never found out, thanks to the walkthrough, but since the keys don't seem removable I'd hope you get a second chance.



The keys open this lever in the cellar, which in turn opens a door upstairs that leads to a secret escape tunnel. I'm not sure how an upstairs door leads to a tunnel - it may be a vortex, which would at least help the house live up to its "haunted" billing.

Once again, I've put too much thought into this. If you're looking for an infuriating, time-consuming, evil bastard of a game, play Haunted House Escape. If you're looking for something fun, then keep looking.

Intruder

I might get some flak for reviewing Intruder, because as far as games go, this one isn't so bad. A point and click thriller , it has divided opinion, and I personally see a lot of problems with it. You might call this nitpicking, but hey - I'm a gamer, that's what I do.

Oh, first thing's first:



If you're young, weak of heart, or have never watched the nine o'clock news, you better log off now, because we're about to get hardcore up in here. The subtitle to Intruder is "Help your friends and don't make a sound!" Except every time you move or open a door or pick something up, you make a ton of noise. What are you even doing anyway? Oh yeah, your friend Sarah has called you sounding very distraught. There's someone in the house, and you're the only person she could think of to call.

OK, Sarah? The number is 9-1-1. They make it very simple, so even an idiot could dial it. Then again, your character may be a cop. Anyway, time is of the essence, so you drive to the house and-

Wait, you're not even within walking distance of the house? If this was real life, your friends would all be dead by the time you got there, surely? But this isn't real life, this is a game, so I should just let it slide.

I must admit, everything is very well drawn, but the game is dark as hell. You can't even admire the black and white artwork because it's always shrouded in shadow.

I mean, look at this!



Aren't there any lights on this street? Why go to all the trouble of these very detailed images if the player can barely see anything? Is it supposed to be scary? Well, it's not!

Look, I'll save you some time here and tell you that you go around the house and enter through the back yard. But before you do that, you need to go the garage. If you find yourself lost or stuck, the developers have handily provided a map of the house, along with hints and tips which more often than not completely remove any challenge.



Yeah, just fumble around in the garage while some maniac carves up your buddies. You find a couple of batteries - gee, I wonder what I'll use these for?

After you leave the garage you head up to the back porch, where a flashlight just happens to be. And wouldn't you know, this flashlight takes the exact type of batteries you found in the garage! What a coincidence!

All right, I know, that's nothing to complain about, not really. Better to complain about the fact that the porch is so friggin' dark, you can barely see the flashlight in the first place!



Where the fuck is it!? Well, eventually you find it, and you can finally enter the house. Your first port of call is the laundry room, for some reason. Unfortunately, despite your brand new torch, you still happen to hit a tin of cat food and make some noise. Oh no, the intruder is coming! At this point you have to decide what you're going to do, and you get to choose from three options.



If you picked "Meow like a cat", congratulations - you're still alive. And to think - they laughed at you for spending all that money on animal impersonation lessons!

Oh, I should add at this point that the reason you enter the laundry room is because you'll find the first half of a pin code in there, casually thrown in the trash - the same trash that the cat just happened to be rummaging through.



I don't know about you guys, but I can make out the third digit as well. I think it's safe to assume it's a 2. So we're really just looking for one more number. Don't worry, we'll find it soon enough.

Anyway, we move into the kitchen, and God damn it, it's still really fucking dark!



They should have just made this a text adventure, it would have been no more difficult and saved them a lot of time. You pick up a couple of things, here. First there's a knife, but don't go thinking you can just sneak up on the intruder and stick him like you used to do on Riker's. Also of note is a calender. Hmm, calenders have numbers on them, don't they?



One of these dates is significant. Hey... you don't think it's the only date with a big black circle around it, do ya?

As you move further along, you soon find the pantry, which just happens to have a doorway down into the cellar. And wouldn't you know it, this door is currently shut tight with a combination lock.



Oh man, I wonder what the numbers are? (We're drowning in sarcasm here!)

Head down into the cellar and you'll find a fuse box. It should be incredibly obvious to all but the most moronic what you do here. Hell, they even point it out to you on the map.



OK, so you return the power to the house and all the lights come on. How were they turned off to begin with? The fuse box is down here in the cellar, the door of which was locked. Clearly no powerlines were cut because everything is back on, so what happened here? Unless the intruder happens to possess the skills of the Jedi, I don't see how he managed to flip this switch without physically being in the room.

Come to think of, he is pretty Darth Vader-like.



Check this shit out: the lights are on, everything is bright and visible, but this guy's still completely black. Is he wearing some sort of cloaking device? Is he a ninja?

A Jedi ninja. You might as well give up now.

Regardless, he's moved away from you (which is strange - I would have thought that he'd start to suspect that maybe someone else was in the house at this point.) Make your way down the hall and into the office and... *gasp!*




Oh noes is right! Scott is dead! Why!? Not Scott! Anyone but Scott! Oh, cruel hand of fate, why did you strike down one such as Scott!?

Remind me to pour one out for my dead homie when all this is over.

Scott may have been slashed from ear to ear, but that doesn't mean you can't root around through his stuff. Before that, though, his mobile will get a text, and you have to hide before the intruder finds you. But yeah, once you're done fucking around with that, jimmy Scott's drawer open with the knife. Sure, you'll lose the knife, but now you'll be packing!



Now we're talkin'! We never really got to know Scott, but it's still surprising to find some heavy-duty weaponry in his desk. That text was from Sarah; she's locked herself in the bedroom with the other gun. The other gun? Jesus - Scott and Sarah are straight up gangsta!

Don't bother checking the computer - all you'll find is some stupid maze game that you have to play or else attract the attention of the intruder. Yeah, I don't have time for a psychopath wielding a butcher's knife, I have to finish Scott's game. Hey - it's what he would have wanted.

We head further down the hallway and discover just how dumb the intruder actually is:



I don't know about you, but if I was lying in wait for somebody, I probably wouldn't stand just inside a doorway so that my shadow is reflected off the far wall every time lightning strikes. But hey, this guy's a professional, he must know what he's doing. Or not - I swung in there and unloaded a clip on him. Somehow he manages to hit you and run off. You're a bit shaky, but it's OK. You gotta take this guy out now, though!



He's in one of these rooms. Choose wisely, for the wrong decision now could mean your death!

No it won't. You can just leave and go into the other room. I would have thought the intruder would have tried stabbing you in the back. But apparently not - this particular nutjob has a lot of respect for fair play. That's nice of him. But I'm still going to blow his head off. And even though my shooting arm is kind of shaky, I still manage to do it with some ease.



That one's for Scott, bitch! You notice he had in his hand the key to Sarah's bedroom. Wait, he had it this whole time? And he just figured he'd skulk around the house for a while first? What kind of serial killer is this? A dumbass serial killer, that's what.

So yeah, you head back down the hallway and unlock the bedroom door. You don't knock on it or perhaps shout, "Sarah, it's me, Edgar." (I don't actually know what his name is, but Edgar's as good as any.) No, you just unlock the door and barge right in. So you really shouldn't be surprised when this happens:



You have three choices - shoot her first, tackle her to the ground, or let her shoot you. Apparently, the dumbest choice is actually the right one. Because she had blanks in her gun. You remember the box of blanks in Scott's desk? Yeah, that's what happened to them! Wow, good thing they only own one box of real bullets and one box of blanks, huh? And it's really good that Sarah is illiterate, or else she probably would have read the word "Blanks" in bold type on that box, and loaded her gun with the others.

Unlike Sarah, you are capable of calling the police, and they arrive quickly. You're both safe, but not for long, it would seem. Because you suddenly get a mysterious call on your phone. "Next time you kill someone, you better make sure they're dead." What?



Oh no! That's not possible! How is he still alive!?

No, seriously. That's not possible. How is he still alive? I'm no doctor, but I would have thought shooting someone at point blank range in the forehead would be enough to put them down for good. Wouldn't he be missing the back of his head? And how'd he get my number anyway?

So the intruder, it seems, was an immortal Jedi ninja. Thinking about it like that, I was actually lucky to beat this game!

OK, OK, so it's not a particularly bad game, but that doesn't mean it's a good one. While it looks pretty, there is no challenge here. This is why so many games are shitty - they're either too easy or too difficult. I want a game that I can beat, but I don't want it to be a walk in the park. Intruder has a lot of potential but falls way short of the mark.