Inside Mac Games Volume 6 #3/IMG 54 Vol 6-3.iso/IMG Volume 6, Issue 3/IMG Volume 6, Issue 3.rsrc/TEXT_151.txt

Text File | 1998-06-12 | 18KB | 290 lines

  
 



 



 



 



 

                              by Bill Jahnel


                              Parroty Interactive, $20. Requirements: 68040/PowerPC, 16MB RAM,
                              System 7.1, 2x CD-ROM Contact Parroty at http://www.palladiumnet.com/
                              Shaft/winblows.html

                              Microshaft Windblows proved a welcome surprise.  I must admit that I have
                              been somewhat hesitant to open a Parroty Interactive title since my first
                              encounter with the company after their CD-ROM PYST.  PYST engaged in
                              saturation-bomb advertisements, appearing everywhere and seeming to be
                              a low-cost dead-on parody of Myst.  Instead, the title (to myself and the
                              friends I later donated the CD to) PYST seemed static, uninspired, and the
                              worst crime of all possible proportions for a humor product, deadly dull.
                              At that moment (and with my PYST CD becoming the gift of choice at White
                              Elephant parties for months to come) I had sworn off Parroty Interactive
                              titles, thinking them as glossy packaging with little content.

                              Congratulations, Parroty. You proved me wrong and I couldn't be happier.
                              Microshaft Windblows shows the company's designers have come a long way
                              since PYST. Microshaft Windblows proves to be fully interactive,
                              sometimes humorous and on occasion downright funny.

                              Bill Gates is the Man We Love to Hate.  No product or company serves as
                              better fodder for late-night humor material than Microsoft. Microshaft
                              Windblows takes aim at their flagship OS by creating a minor story line, a
                              few interactive games, and some occasionally wry and one or two downright
                              cunning parodies of the software industry.

                              You begin by booting up "Windblows 98," which has a cute animated title
                              sequence that parodies the Windows 95 startup screen (though I felt had it
                              done the moving line at the bottom of the screen the parody would have been
                              more dead-on.)  Once there, you get treated to a long video introducing our
                              two narrators, Meg (a beautiful corporate executive assistant's assistant to
                              the assistant to Bill Gates) and Graham (a janitor who idolizes Gates and
                              was a kid hacker).  The frame story is that these two created a parody of
                              windows - Meg to "get even" and Graham because he wants to poke "gentle
                              fun" at his idol . . . and because he has a crush on Meg.  The "tour" can be
                              divided into five parts: the humor areas under the icons on the right of the
                              desktop, the "mini-games," the frame story videos and requirements, and
                              Internet Exploder.

                              The frame story develops that you must find the "Access codes" to get to each
                              "new material" stage of Windblows.  You click on the email icon, read an
                              email, and then try and get a computer term out of a two or three word clue.
                              (For example, one of my favorites - though puzzling at first - was the clue
                              "Pamela Anderson's Breasts."  The password: Silicon Valley.)  You only get
                              clues after you have gone through each one of the gags opened up at each
                              "level."

 






















                              These gags can be found on the left-hand side of the desktop, divided into
                              different sections by icon.  The Campus Cam emulates grayscale security
                              cameras placed in the Redmond Microsoft campus.  MSTV - Microshaft TV -
                              is a compilation of TV show parodies with celebrity voice impersonation
                              voice-overs while a slideshow of some extremely good caricatures of the
                              parody show scenes play.  The Reject Bin shows products that Microshaft
                              beta tested and then dumped.  Bill's personal outlook has entries from Gates'
                              fictional email, journal, and daily planner.  You get 1 or two of each of these
                              areas per "level", and must look at all of them in order to get the next email
                              to get the password to proceed to the next level.  Each level changes the
                              desktop in the background.

                              Think of Microshaft Windblows as a Saturday Night Live in recent years.
                              Some of the sketches may make you smile, a rare few are extremely funny,
                              and a few have funny ideas but they run too long, and some just miss the
                              mark entirely.  The Campus Cam had some very clever ideas - the technical
                              support call that comes in which is emulated through Macintalk and is
                              supposedly Professor Stephen Hawking calling because he is lonely was just
                              downright brilliant. Both technical support actors are very good in all the
                              sketches they do.  There are a series of three "church of Microsoft" type
                              sketches, of which two have good ideas but only one, a wedding / merger
                              ceremony between Microsoft and Apple, really ends up playing out as
                              extremely funny.  There are also a series of break room skits and exercise
                              room skits, none of which really stand out, though the idea of a programmer
                              mistaking a stair climber as a "foot mouse" had potential.  The biggest
                              problem here is not only the inconsistent quality of the material but the
                              sense that the Parroty Interactive team was on a limited budget for these
                              and only had a few locations where they could shoot, so props are mini-
                              malist.  The church sketches would have been tremendously more enter-
                              taining if they had actually gotten permission and re-dressed up a real
                              house of worship, and especially would have been a LOT more valuable to
                              have confessional booths for the confession sketch.

                              MSTV really shines. Whoever did the art on these has dead-on ability to nail
                              the celebrities in question, and integrates the computer components into
                              their sketches with great accuracy.  The sketches are often lively and have
                              some real flair, especially Xena: Code Warrior.

 






















                              The reject bin has some really good sarcasm toward MS products - MS
                              Word-Up, a translator for street language, may be politically incorrect but
                              it is inspired.  My favorite is the Naughty Net Nanny: The filtering program
                              that brings you ONLY the smut on the net.

                              Bill's Outlook tends to be rather flat, with one or two inspired moments and
                              a mostly flat representation everywhere else. The famous "Bill Gates'
                              Secret Diary" published on the internet not only did it first but did it
                              better.

                              While not having access to all of these features at one time does give a sense
                              of progression to watching the sketches, and gives the title some sense of
                              structure, it also ends up forcing you to go through all the material on the
                              CD.  If you only found the MSTV very funny, for example, you would still
                              have to see all the other parody areas before you could gain access to see
                              just the MSTV areas.

                              Separate from the humour skit areas are a series of mini-games on the
                              desktop.  The most noticeable is the Billigotchi, a very clever idea wher you
                              have to raise a virtual Bill by giving him money, talking to him, and
                              spanking him when he is naughty.  Like the Tomagotchi that it parodies, the
                              Billigotchi is a cute idea but damn annoying.  There is no "off" switch until
                              the stupid little bugger dies.  One problem is that he continues to die in
                              "real time" even while you are playing the other games or watching the
                              skits elsewhere, which makes keeping up with this virtual Bill tedious.  As
                              you pass from the very last password and get the Bill gates puppetmaster
                              desktop, the Billigotchi will then turn into the "Final version of Bill" - if
                              you kept him extremely happy he is a software mogul, if you let him stay
                              dead, he is a hobo.  Sadly, there is no way to see these final sequences except
                              just after you type in the final password.

                              The other games have a similar hit and miss value.  PinBill is an
                              operational pinball game - much to my surprise, it really is a very
                              playable game, though one questions how funny it is to constantly shoot a
                              pinball up Gate's nostril. However, in most humour titles, these parodies
                              rarely actually makes the games play like games, and PinBill is to be
                              commended for its play-a-"Bill"-ity.
                             
                              Of mixed success is "Win Bill gates' Money."  While a nice knockoff of You
                              Don't Know Jack with Microsoft themes and with Steve Jobs as your host, I
                              expected this to be knock-down funny.  The questions often were as funny as
                              I had hoped: the alternate wrong answers are a  hoot, but the Jobs character
                              didn't have as many really clever script zingers for right or wrong
                              answers.  My absolute favorite was the overdrive section (which mimics
                              the YDKJ Dis or Dat question) where you were asked to differentiate if a
                              term was a computer application, a sexual position, or both.  Suddenly the
                              terms Ram Doubler and Stuffit took on a whole new light!

 






















                              The Roll Ahead is finely crafted but a dull actual game.  Something of a cross
                              between Candyland and Monopoly for juniors, you move your miniature Bill
                              Gates or Steve Jobs around a board, with the possibility of buying a few
                              spaces and placing corporations on them.  The game is slow and really
                              rather inane as a game, but the Chance / Community-Chest type of cards
                              often are funny, so it is worth playing just for that.

                              Microshaft Exploder, the weakest of the bunch, is a space invaders game.
                              Neither original nor inspired, it just is.  As the police say, "move along
                              folks, there's nothing here to see."

                              I had the impression from reading the documentation that Internet Exploiter
                              would somehow use my normal browser but give it an aaron-like look and
                              feel of the Microshaft theme.  Sounded cool to me.  Also didn't happen.  All
                              the "Internet Exploder" does is send you to the Microshaft website, which
                              you can get to on you own without the games' clunky interface to get you
                              there.  For example, it forces you to quit your browser if it is running in
                              order to take you to the web site.  The website itself is cute, but there's not
                              a lot of new material on the site that isn't already covered on the disk.
                              There are a few items that you can ONLY get to through the Microshaft
                              program, but these are not all that exciting.  There are downloadable items
                              but all are for (surprise!) Wintel only - even the desktop patterns are
                              placed in self-extracting ZIP files, so they cannot be used by Mac Users.
                              Ugh.  I do suggest visiting their Easter Eggs section before you start
                              playing, because since each desktop has one Easter Egg, and you cannot
                              access lower levels once you go to the top levels, you will want to try these
                              first.

                              Microshaft Windblows is a mixed bag.  I was impressed that the games of
                              PinBill and Win Bill Gates' Money were actually quite functional and
                              entertaining.  Some of the skits and ideas were very clever, and some of the
                              little bits like the sarcastic little Start Menu and some very clever desktop
                              background parodies made me smile.  On the negative side, though, the
                              developers rely far too often on the repetition of a few gags (how many
                              references of "The Road Ahead" do we have to hear?) and there are more
                              misses than solid hits on this title. These flaws notwithstanding, Microshaft
                              Windblows proves that Parroty Interactive has come a long way from PYST.
                              I should note here that one of my fellow reviewers at IMG loved PYST and
                              the review we published was very favorable.  I personally cannot agree
                              with that reviewer's sentiment, but I can recommend Microshaft
                              Windblows for people looking for some moments of knocking the Redmond
                              gang.


                              Highs:
                              • Some skits are very funny
                              • MSTV area extremely well-done parody of TV shows
                              • PinBill and Win Gates' Money MiniGames fun
                              • Cool small Easter-Egg like funny bits.
                              • Reasonable price per gag ratio

                              Lows:
                              • Internet Exploiter a clumsy way to send people to a web page; downloads
                              are all for PC only
                              • Billiogotchi dies on you while you are exploring other areas of the title
                              • You are forced to go through ALL of the humor skits to see all of a certain
                              area.
                              • Many skits drag on too long or are not punchy enough; some good ideas
                              executed poorly.