IFReviewed by
Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 08:57
I give up. This game may be a brilliant evocation of a man being driven out of his mind with frustration by disgruntled Marx brothers. I'm unable to appreciate it, because I was driven out of my mind.
Yes, the NPCs are copious and they recite the appropriate in-character dialogue. Yes, it's frighteningly well-researched. But I couldn't make anything happen. By luck, as far as I could tell, I got one take started. ("Boom in shot!") Then I spent the rest of the game following Harpo around.
The problem is, even with all this work, the characters react pretty mechanically. Chico won't follow you unless the other three are; Groucho probably won't unless two are; Zeppo usually follows you; and that means you have to chase Harpo. Which does't work. If there are more subtleties in the behavior than that, I couldn't predict them enough to exploit them. So I couldn't win.