The potential for the multimedia ... um, medium, is so tremendous that it's always vaguely disappointing to me that more people aren't really exploring the boundaries. Everything is either strictly a game or strictly informational or archival with little to no crossover between the lines. Not too long ago, I found myself thinking of what a comedy troupe like Kids in the Hall or Firesign Theater might be able to do with CD-ROM capability. (7th Level's Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time is certainly excellent, but on the whole, archival. I want to see more new stuff.)
When I first heard about Paparazzi! Tales of Tinseltown, Activision was billing it as the product of my dreams. An entirely original CD-ROM (two CDs, in fact) developed by a comedic crew known as Museworthy. Unfortunately, my hopes were raised for no very good reason. Paparazzi! falls very solidly into the category of game, complete with time and money goals to achieve. I was hoping for something a bit more formless, with no real purpose but to make the purchaser laugh so hard he or she will break all of his or her furniture. Seen on this level, Paparazzi! doesn't even meet the snicker quotient of recent episodes of Saturday Night Live. (Oooooh, low blow!)
The premise is simple enough, but just maybe impossible to make into an effective game. You are a ... now what is the singular of that title? Paparazzo? Paparazzus? Anyway, you're a freelance celebrity photographer out to make a name for yourself in the seamy world of Tinseltown, catching the most secret hidden life of the stars and putting it in the tabloids for all to see, you vermin, you. To really hit the big time, you need to take shots of all 24 celebs in the most compromising positions possible in your two-week time frame. Each day, you have four chances to take these killer pics, twice in the morning, twice at night. There are thirteen locations in Tinseltown where you can choose to lurk with camera in hand.
The obvious question is, how can you possibly be expected to find where the stars hang out with so many possibilities every half-day? Well, you get tips from your answering machine and clues from the television. You can also divide your forces to cover most of the available territory. Forces? Yes, there are six separate paparazzi personalities, with different levels of integrity. You can shift between them at any time, and they also save your game automatically when you leave. The actions of the celebs stay the same anytime you play.
When you make your decision where to go at a particular time of day, your perspective shifts to a camera with the biggest damn viewfinder you've ever seen. This mini-TV plays a video clip. If you are not in the right place at the right time, you are stuck with a video of Skippy, a truly (deliberately) annoying character vaguely reminiscent of a Chris Elliot creation. He basically wastes your time and, if you are actually foolish enough to snap pictures of this moron, film. But if fortune and strategy smile upon you, you may find America's sweetheart taking a toke or a supposedly prudish politician boogying with bikini babes.
But even if you strike situational gold, you have to figure out which bit of the clip is likely to be snapped up by purchasing publications, or worthy of blackmail potential. You get to take two shots for each clip, and your window of cash opportunity may be 2 seconds or less. You have to decide whether to stick it out for a better shot or to flee, and there are times when your life is seriously in danger. You make your way back to your darkroom and choose which of your two pictures is the most salable. You then take your pick from the list of potential buyers.
One of the more subtle aspects of this sale is the balance between making huge amounts of money and not being generally regarded as the stuff between a warthog's toes. You shouldn't always take the biggest cash opportunity, because people will stop calling you with clues, and you may actually get ridden out of town before you can meet your quota.
While this is not a bad design, that still doesn't make this a good game or a good bit of comedy. There are a few moments of genuine humor, and most of these come from the satiric bits of television that pop up on the six channels you can watch. But most of the time, you are subjected to performances and production values that are more suited to a freshman college film. In fact, there are so many people of such wide-ranging levels of ability to perform the material in front of them that this whole thing has the air of a community talent show with a theme.
Paparazzi! is not awful, but it is thoroughly mediocre. If you want a game, there are a hundred better ones than this. If you want comedy, watch the Simpsons or MST3K.
