(3 / 4)
Also for: Amiga CD32, Atari ST, DOS, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Windows, Windows 3.x, Xbox One
JEAN-PAUL DERRIDA, I PRESUME?
As I try to wrap my head around Mindscape's 1991-92 action puzzler D/Generation, I realize its setup is very similar to a whole different kind of game, one that wasn't in the limelight until almost a decade later: the immersive simulator. It shares so many elements with games like System Shock and Bioshock that I'd say D/Generation probably inspired them on some level, were it not for how utterly forgotten it is. It's like it never existed at all.
The game starts you off as an unnamed courier in the near future, stuck close to the top of a Singapore skyscraper in lockdown. Your job is to deliver a package to someone named Jean-Paul Derrida, but inside the building you find that things have gone haywire. The security system targets you at every turn, making the turrets fire grenades as you pass them by. Electric floor grids fry you to death as you step on them, as do the bouncing laser beams if you fail to avoid them.
To make matters worse, genetically engineered bioweapons emerge from air ducts and start chasing you down. In bits and pieces, surviving employees reveal what has happened, leaving it up to you to form a bigger picture. It all points towards moral bankruptcy fuelled by corporate greed. To beat the game you need to reach the top floor of the skyscraper, deliver that package, and restore the natural order.
With only a few alterations, the very same description could be applied to a number of subsequent entries in the immersive sim genre. Those games were all played through the first person perspective. D/Generation, however, is viewed isometrically, an old viewpoint that is very hard to make immersive and frightening. As a spectator, you are too far removed from the action, making the characters and monsters seem too microscopic and cute.
But the constant ambient drone, present in the Amiga CD32 port, as well as the dark visual tone, suggests that horror probably was what game designer Robert Cook aimed for. He might have been just a little too eager to get D/Generation made. System Shock was released just a couple of years later, after the FPS revolution, and was scary as hell. With the technical limitations of the early 90:s, the only way to possibly make D/Generation scary would have been to make it a dungeon crawler, like Dungeon Master - also played from a hero's viewpoint.
Luckily, Cook got a lot of other things right. He used the limited color palette to great effect, contrasting bright objects against the surrounding blackness to highlight points of interest. The game controls smoothly and the animations are more detailed than necessary, with some NPC:s given personality quirks through exaggerated gestures. The ten levels are neatly designed, with some confounding door switch puzzles requiring precise aiming with your laser gun. The difficulty curve escalates reasonably well, until a difficulty spike in the last couple of levels, where you suddenly find yourself within a strict time limit.
Rescuing surviving staff members provides you with extra lives. Since your starting amount is five, which is not nearly enough, this basically means you lose a life if you don't help out. You need to act quickly since the enemies move around in a set pattern, and will swallow anyone in the vicinity. Once a room is secure, with all the floor ducts sealed, the survivors will follow you to the exit. Some of them might fill you in on corporate secrets, give you some rare equipment or tell you passwords to hack terminals.
Back in 1992, it was a breath of fresh air to get dialogue options in an action game. It doesn't give the game much of a story in the sense of arc and character development, but it helps establish the scene, gives the game a nice rhythm and provides a great motivation to reach the end. Who is this "Jean-Paul Derrida" they keep mentioning? What is the "D/Generation"? You need some answers. This was my first taste of the kind of storytelling that would get widespread acclaim with such prominent titles as Bioshock and Dark Souls.
Unfortunately, D/Generation is hardly a flawless retro experience, even from a gameplay standpoint. At some points, you won't be able to proceed without certain rare items, like bombs or shields, that sometimes lie hidden in plain sight. If you missed them or wasted them needlessly, you might reach an unwinnable state and have to start the game over. This design philosophy might appeal to fans of early Sierra On-Line graphical adventures (I'm not one), and no one else.
Another Sierra-inspired nuiscance comes with unforeseen, near unavoidable deaths. The first time you encounter a certain enemy, which shall remain unspoiled, you are guaranteed one death since it appears completely out of the blue. Also, some levels start you off immediately surrounded by the enemy, giving you only a second or two after the loading screen to react before you lose a life. Since losing a life only means restarting the room, this is a minor inconvenience. Besides, since the game has a story, it could be argued (but not by me) that it logically makes sense for a corrupt security system to want to halt your progress.
Albeit drawn in accordance with the overall style, I find the minimalistic enemy design lacklustre. Your most common adversary is simply a red bouncing ball, resembling a human-sized clown's nose. Hardly more exciting is the second most common one - a blue, bouncing cylinder. That leaves only one other regular enemy, which on the other hand is so brilliantly conceived that I'll keep it under wraps. Combat is a quick and simple affair, with one hit kills either way. As usual, the enemy outnumber you, but your laser gun is really the most brilliantly engineered killing machine in the entire game. Its beams bounces off walls, and can consequently be used to shoot around corners.
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who is the obvious inspiration for the character Jean-Paul Derrida, was the father of "deconstruction". Knowing this might prepare you for the last level of the game, where the game becomes deeply subversive, in the same way Hideo Kojima one decade later would wrap up Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Both games got glowing reviews, but in neither case, I think the gaming crowd was sufficiently prepared to deconstruct their experiences. Sons of Liberty, once the black sheep of the mainline Metal Gear Solid-series, has since had a massive redemption. D/Generation faced a different fate, getting lost into obscurity on the other side of the 2D/3D partitioning line.
There is a time for everything, and the early 90:s was unkind to D/Generation. It had the story content of an 00:s game, but the isometric presentation of an antiquated 1980:s ZX Spectrum puzzler. Not even a 2015-16 remake for Windows and consoles garnered much interest. I say it deserves better. With better timing and luck, the name Robert Cook could have belonged to the pantheon of game visionaries like Ken Levine and Warren Spector, who practically invented the brilliant genre of immersive sims. It was simply not meant to be.
The game starts you off as an unnamed courier in the near future, stuck close to the top of a Singapore skyscraper in lockdown. Your job is to deliver a package to someone named Jean-Paul Derrida, but inside the building you find that things have gone haywire. The security system targets you at every turn, making the turrets fire grenades as you pass them by. Electric floor grids fry you to death as you step on them, as do the bouncing laser beams if you fail to avoid them.
To make matters worse, genetically engineered bioweapons emerge from air ducts and start chasing you down. In bits and pieces, surviving employees reveal what has happened, leaving it up to you to form a bigger picture. It all points towards moral bankruptcy fuelled by corporate greed. To beat the game you need to reach the top floor of the skyscraper, deliver that package, and restore the natural order.
With only a few alterations, the very same description could be applied to a number of subsequent entries in the immersive sim genre. Those games were all played through the first person perspective. D/Generation, however, is viewed isometrically, an old viewpoint that is very hard to make immersive and frightening. As a spectator, you are too far removed from the action, making the characters and monsters seem too microscopic and cute.
But the constant ambient drone, present in the Amiga CD32 port, as well as the dark visual tone, suggests that horror probably was what game designer Robert Cook aimed for. He might have been just a little too eager to get D/Generation made. System Shock was released just a couple of years later, after the FPS revolution, and was scary as hell. With the technical limitations of the early 90:s, the only way to possibly make D/Generation scary would have been to make it a dungeon crawler, like Dungeon Master - also played from a hero's viewpoint.
Luckily, Cook got a lot of other things right. He used the limited color palette to great effect, contrasting bright objects against the surrounding blackness to highlight points of interest. The game controls smoothly and the animations are more detailed than necessary, with some NPC:s given personality quirks through exaggerated gestures. The ten levels are neatly designed, with some confounding door switch puzzles requiring precise aiming with your laser gun. The difficulty curve escalates reasonably well, until a difficulty spike in the last couple of levels, where you suddenly find yourself within a strict time limit.
Rescuing surviving staff members provides you with extra lives. Since your starting amount is five, which is not nearly enough, this basically means you lose a life if you don't help out. You need to act quickly since the enemies move around in a set pattern, and will swallow anyone in the vicinity. Once a room is secure, with all the floor ducts sealed, the survivors will follow you to the exit. Some of them might fill you in on corporate secrets, give you some rare equipment or tell you passwords to hack terminals.
Back in 1992, it was a breath of fresh air to get dialogue options in an action game. It doesn't give the game much of a story in the sense of arc and character development, but it helps establish the scene, gives the game a nice rhythm and provides a great motivation to reach the end. Who is this "Jean-Paul Derrida" they keep mentioning? What is the "D/Generation"? You need some answers. This was my first taste of the kind of storytelling that would get widespread acclaim with such prominent titles as Bioshock and Dark Souls.
Unfortunately, D/Generation is hardly a flawless retro experience, even from a gameplay standpoint. At some points, you won't be able to proceed without certain rare items, like bombs or shields, that sometimes lie hidden in plain sight. If you missed them or wasted them needlessly, you might reach an unwinnable state and have to start the game over. This design philosophy might appeal to fans of early Sierra On-Line graphical adventures (I'm not one), and no one else.
Another Sierra-inspired nuiscance comes with unforeseen, near unavoidable deaths. The first time you encounter a certain enemy, which shall remain unspoiled, you are guaranteed one death since it appears completely out of the blue. Also, some levels start you off immediately surrounded by the enemy, giving you only a second or two after the loading screen to react before you lose a life. Since losing a life only means restarting the room, this is a minor inconvenience. Besides, since the game has a story, it could be argued (but not by me) that it logically makes sense for a corrupt security system to want to halt your progress.
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who is the obvious inspiration for the character Jean-Paul Derrida, was the father of "deconstruction". Knowing this might prepare you for the last level of the game, where the game becomes deeply subversive, in the same way Hideo Kojima one decade later would wrap up Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Both games got glowing reviews, but in neither case, I think the gaming crowd was sufficiently prepared to deconstruct their experiences. Sons of Liberty, once the black sheep of the mainline Metal Gear Solid-series, has since had a massive redemption. D/Generation faced a different fate, getting lost into obscurity on the other side of the 2D/3D partitioning line.
There is a time for everything, and the early 90:s was unkind to D/Generation. It had the story content of an 00:s game, but the isometric presentation of an antiquated 1980:s ZX Spectrum puzzler. Not even a 2015-16 remake for Windows and consoles garnered much interest. I say it deserves better. With better timing and luck, the name Robert Cook could have belonged to the pantheon of game visionaries like Ken Levine and Warren Spector, who practically invented the brilliant genre of immersive sims. It was simply not meant to be.
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