DISAPPOINT AND CLICK: A 3D EXPERIMENT
Also for: Linux, Macintosh, Windows
Normality is an old forgotten oddity, a genre mash-up from
Gremlin Interactive that I played a little bit of as a
teenager. It combines a two-and-a-half dimensional engine (like the original Doom)
with point-and-click adventure gameplay, creating something unlike anything I've played
before or since (well, maybe apart from Gremlin's own horror game
Realms of the Haunting). The idea is an entertaining but frustrating
experiment that ends up combining the worst of both genres, like a reverse
centaur with the horse part on top and the human part at the bottom.
The story - tonally inspired by rad 90:s movies like
Wayne's World and Beavis and Butt-head do America - has
aged very poorly. It goes for juvenile satire, depicting a cartoon dystopian
city where everyone is required to dress, speak and behave "normally".
Anyone refusing to conform must be punished, which is what
happens to the zany protagonist Kent Knutson one day when he starts
whistling a tune as he walks down the street, which is seen as a rebellious act. He gets arrested and whilst in custody, someone
slips him a note under the cell door, suggesting that he seeks out a
resistance group somewhere in the city.
After you escape the "tutorial room" (your own apartment), where you're confined, the rest of the
adventure can start with you trying to find that resistance group. And right
away, the interface and brand new perspective start to feel like a
hindrance. It's the type of game where you pick up everything not nailed
down, because you might need it later to solve puzzles. In classic adventure game fashion, you need to combine items from your inventory to craft distractions, gain access to sealed-off areas and bribe different characters around the city.
With a world map divided into several different areas, the game covers too much ground. Items are placed where it makes no sense, because this is
such an edgy game, remember? This makes it difficult to figure out what
items to look for and where they could be. All the visual clutter doesn't help. The most insignificant wall
texture could be crucial, and with illogical puzzles (although sometimes
pointed out by rather obvious hints) the solution can take a long time to
figure out.
Some items are red herrings, or they might be part of alternate solutions to
puzzles I never thought of attempting. This leaves you with a lot of
unwanted items that clutter your inventory and prolong the frustrating "try
everything on everything" segments you resort to after running out of ideas.
On the plus side - and it's a big one - I'm happy to report it has no "dead
ends", meaning you can never lock yourself into an unwinnable state.
Controlling with mouse and keyboard feels very clunky. First-person movement
is way too direct and busy, and the perspective is too narrow. The best
point-and-click adventures handled movement gracefully - you just clicked on
the screen and the character moved automatically. In Normality, you need to
do everything manually, which takes up too much of your attention when all
you want is the freedom to think about weird puzzle solutions.
Besides, finding items was never a matter of placement and perspective in
classic adventure games - you just scanned the screen with the mouse pointer
to highlight important details. It was such a laid-back experience. Ah, I
miss those days.
In Normality, you run around like crazy, occasionally stopping to check
what's interactable. Right-clicking anything brings up the interface, where
you get your choice of commands: talk, use, pick up, open and examine. But
small objects might be hard to highlight with your pointer, especially ones
that move around. You have to time the mouse-clicking just right to get the
correct input. The first-person perspective requires you to carefully search
every nook and cranny of every room, even the floor and ceiling. And you
often have to backtrack, because progressing the story might have opened up
new possibilities in already visited areas.
Without a guide, a playthrough could come to a complete halt for hours. The
story is too crappy to justify such a time sink, relying on pothead humor
and puns, with voice acting and recording quality all over the place. The
dialogue is unskippable, and you'll end up hearing the same lines over and
over every time an item is used the wrong way. And as the absurd storyline
spills over into the puzzle logics, the end result can only be described
as "ass".
A genre mashup is a great idea, nevertheless, and I salute Gremlin for the
creative attempt. It is the key to invent truly original concepts, and maybe even
give rise to new subgenres (look what Fortnite made just by adding
crafting to Battle Royale). More people should experiment with the good old
point-and-clickers. Quest for Glory (1989-98), for
instance, was a wonderful series that added RPG mechanics and combat to
the genre, allowing the player to solve puzzles by different means,
depending on class choice.
The first person point-and-clickers (FPPC:s?), however, never gained any
traction, because they combined the wrong things from the right genres. They
should've added dialogue, more complex puzzles or a story to the Doom
experience, instead of adding the Doom perspective to the adventure game
gameplay. Normality would have been decent as a traditional adventure game.
As it turned out, it doesn't present a strong argument for existing except
as a warning sign: "Let the crazy dead ideas rest in piss."
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