(author's note: I haven't been able to write a damn thing in three days, so please indulge my efforts at a creative spark)
Writer's Block, the new RPG from developer Trinity Games and lead designer "God" (which I can only presume is a pseudonym), puts the player in the role of a freelance writer trying to write the Great American Novel before his wife kills him for sitting around all day. It blends humor, some very good visual sight gags, and some of the most shameless product placement and advertising I've ever seen in a game. Every company from Carl's Jr. to Whole Foods Market paid to have its logo and even the layout of its stores included in the game, and the net effect is that the environment looks like every American city dweller's worst corporate nightmare.
The story begins with the protagonist meeting with his boss and finding himself pink-slipped from the financial services industry, which I thought was a wry commentary on the state of the modern economy while still being a timeless joke---even if the economy is good people are still going to identify with the corporate cruelty inflicted in the game's opening scene. It also sets up quite nicely the first chapter of the game, although the player swiftly realizes that there's no way to beat this "resumé phase" and every job interview, which is set up like a Japanese dating simulator, is an unwinnable boss fight that serves only to advance the story. The only way the player knows this, however, is after about the sixth or seventh failure (I lost count and I'm not about to go back and play the game again) when a cutscene involving the protagonist telling his wife that he's going to try freelance writing sets up the meat of the game.
The rest of the game is spent trying to break into freelance writing and includes the meat of the gameplay, a point-and-click adventure vaguely reminiscent of an interactive Strong Bad email or a text adventure like Zork where typing combinations of words into the computer yields "completed articles" which are then posted on message board forums or submitted to websites (even The Escapist gets in on the action and kindly licensed some Zero Punctuation videos as a diversion). Here is where the product placement comes in for the first time - the player's desktop is a pixel-perfect rendition of a 2006-issue Dell XPS 410. Even other games make an appearance in the form of a stack of DVDs on the player's desk, possibly an example of cross-promotion. You can't play the other games, however; any attempt to do so triggers the protagonist turning around and yelling "Dammit, I'm supposed to be WRITING!" angrily at the player.
The food and drink system is cribbed from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Venturing outside the protagonist's apartment and down the street leads to a thoroughfare full of fast-food joints, convenience stores, and even a Whole Foods Market and although the latter seems horribly out of place, it's hard to argue with paid product placement. The amount of food you can eat is limited both by the protagonist's appetite and the fact that you can only earn money over the very small stipend your wife gives you by completing writing tasks, which is maddeningly difficult to do correctly - you'll spend more time reading the game's rejection letters than earning income. Still, watching your protagonist gorge himself on burritos and soda is amusing.
I should point out at this point that the game is both maddeningly (as in Ninja Gaiden or Battletoads) difficult and the developer, perhaps realizing this, thankfully included a lot of minigames to make the experience more fun. Provided the player has spent enough time writing for the day (at least six in-game hours), minigames range from the "pet rats" game with the most adorable critters I've ever seen in a game to the sure-to-be-controversial Hot Coffee variant the protagonist can play with his wife.
All these disparate gameplay elements come together wonderfully, but the player is left scratching his head why more features were included. The game clearly takes place in Reno, but where's the casino minigames? Sure, the protagonist refers to himself as a "former" professional gambler but if they didn't want to play up the gambling they could've set it in another city rather than make the player think about what might have been had the game been more ambitious - an expansion pack may be in the works, but we have no way of knowing since the developer, when questioned about their next project, only says publicly that "we work in mysterious ways". Why include Whole Foods Market when the protagonist is obviously a fast-food loving Generation X slacker? Was it really necessary to take ad money from Taco Bell AND Del Taco, especially since the protagonist of the game clearly prefers the latter? You'll be left to spend more time pondering the mysteries of the game world than actually completing the game.
Bottom Line: Writer's Block is an homage to gaming past and present, and any game that can combine Zork, The Sims, and Grand Theft Auto (minus the crime spree) deserves some praise. It's not perfect, and the game world just screams "cash-in expansion pack coming Q2 2009", but it's worth the purchase price. God's prior work proves he is an enigmatic developer (prior games include Spanish Inquisition 1492, one of the most violent games ever made, and Habemus Papam! The Real Pope Simulator) and one can only wonder what was going through his mind when he created the protagonist, who is at once a sympathetic character and someone you want to smack.
Verdict: Buy it. The Hot Coffee minigame is sweet, even if you wish they'd put in more girls.
Writer's Block, the new RPG from developer Trinity Games and lead designer "God" (which I can only presume is a pseudonym), puts the player in the role of a freelance writer trying to write the Great American Novel before his wife kills him for sitting around all day. It blends humor, some very good visual sight gags, and some of the most shameless product placement and advertising I've ever seen in a game. Every company from Carl's Jr. to Whole Foods Market paid to have its logo and even the layout of its stores included in the game, and the net effect is that the environment looks like every American city dweller's worst corporate nightmare.
The story begins with the protagonist meeting with his boss and finding himself pink-slipped from the financial services industry, which I thought was a wry commentary on the state of the modern economy while still being a timeless joke---even if the economy is good people are still going to identify with the corporate cruelty inflicted in the game's opening scene. It also sets up quite nicely the first chapter of the game, although the player swiftly realizes that there's no way to beat this "resumé phase" and every job interview, which is set up like a Japanese dating simulator, is an unwinnable boss fight that serves only to advance the story. The only way the player knows this, however, is after about the sixth or seventh failure (I lost count and I'm not about to go back and play the game again) when a cutscene involving the protagonist telling his wife that he's going to try freelance writing sets up the meat of the game.
The rest of the game is spent trying to break into freelance writing and includes the meat of the gameplay, a point-and-click adventure vaguely reminiscent of an interactive Strong Bad email or a text adventure like Zork where typing combinations of words into the computer yields "completed articles" which are then posted on message board forums or submitted to websites (even The Escapist gets in on the action and kindly licensed some Zero Punctuation videos as a diversion). Here is where the product placement comes in for the first time - the player's desktop is a pixel-perfect rendition of a 2006-issue Dell XPS 410. Even other games make an appearance in the form of a stack of DVDs on the player's desk, possibly an example of cross-promotion. You can't play the other games, however; any attempt to do so triggers the protagonist turning around and yelling "Dammit, I'm supposed to be WRITING!" angrily at the player.
The food and drink system is cribbed from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Venturing outside the protagonist's apartment and down the street leads to a thoroughfare full of fast-food joints, convenience stores, and even a Whole Foods Market and although the latter seems horribly out of place, it's hard to argue with paid product placement. The amount of food you can eat is limited both by the protagonist's appetite and the fact that you can only earn money over the very small stipend your wife gives you by completing writing tasks, which is maddeningly difficult to do correctly - you'll spend more time reading the game's rejection letters than earning income. Still, watching your protagonist gorge himself on burritos and soda is amusing.
I should point out at this point that the game is both maddeningly (as in Ninja Gaiden or Battletoads) difficult and the developer, perhaps realizing this, thankfully included a lot of minigames to make the experience more fun. Provided the player has spent enough time writing for the day (at least six in-game hours), minigames range from the "pet rats" game with the most adorable critters I've ever seen in a game to the sure-to-be-controversial Hot Coffee variant the protagonist can play with his wife.
All these disparate gameplay elements come together wonderfully, but the player is left scratching his head why more features were included. The game clearly takes place in Reno, but where's the casino minigames? Sure, the protagonist refers to himself as a "former" professional gambler but if they didn't want to play up the gambling they could've set it in another city rather than make the player think about what might have been had the game been more ambitious - an expansion pack may be in the works, but we have no way of knowing since the developer, when questioned about their next project, only says publicly that "we work in mysterious ways". Why include Whole Foods Market when the protagonist is obviously a fast-food loving Generation X slacker? Was it really necessary to take ad money from Taco Bell AND Del Taco, especially since the protagonist of the game clearly prefers the latter? You'll be left to spend more time pondering the mysteries of the game world than actually completing the game.
Bottom Line: Writer's Block is an homage to gaming past and present, and any game that can combine Zork, The Sims, and Grand Theft Auto (minus the crime spree) deserves some praise. It's not perfect, and the game world just screams "cash-in expansion pack coming Q2 2009", but it's worth the purchase price. God's prior work proves he is an enigmatic developer (prior games include Spanish Inquisition 1492, one of the most violent games ever made, and Habemus Papam! The Real Pope Simulator) and one can only wonder what was going through his mind when he created the protagonist, who is at once a sympathetic character and someone you want to smack.
Verdict: Buy it. The Hot Coffee minigame is sweet, even if you wish they'd put in more girls.
