~ BUBBLEGUM CRASH ~
ARTMIC / Naxat Soft
HuCard
1991
BC's story really doesn't do much for me. It focuses on a group of gals who decide to investigate some mysterious bank robberies. The little troop goes from place to place and from person to person, finding clues and unearthing truths that just aren't very
fascinating.
Sure, many other digital comics require players to partake in the same sort of fetch-questing, but the quality CD ones usually feature superior eye candy to make the location hopping a little more tolerable, not to mention music that isn't a complete
afterthought and at least a few effective attempts at drama. Here, my attention drifted, as nothing remotely exciting happened until a brief cinematic sequence that preceded an interactive (but unchallenging and lusterless) bike chase.
But as boring as things had been to that point, the worst was yet to come. The final stretch is a first-person maze sequence, a downer of a gameplay element in almost every comic that employs it. This one is even worse than most, though, as it has you
participate in random battles that never play out quickly but are practically impossible to lose. You'll have to put up with lots of these pointless fights (which always pit you against one of only two enemy types) and search dozens of rooms (almost all of which are "labs"
or "warehouses" that contain absolutely nothing) before you'll finally solve the labyrinth and face a wimpy final foe.
It's during this maze trek that the game goes from dull to dreadful, and the short, subpar ending sequence does nothing to redeem the by-then-floundering effort.
