Within the last year, Sanctuary Woods has released two very unusual adventure games, Buried In Time and The Riddle of Master Lu. Combine that track record with their successful Predator Series of strategy games, and you have the makings of one of the most innovative companies in the industry. Prepare to have your definition of "adventure games" stretched again this Spring with the release of Orion Burger, a tasty animated treat for your PC.
The dark, empty reaches of outer space are not as empty as they seem. There are, in fact, zillions of travelers of various species in need of rapidly prepared victual nourishment. Fast food, that is. Enter the universe's most successful chain, Orion Burger: Googles and Googles Served. With so many hungry customers, the demand for meat is almost insatiable. Agents of Orion Burger, known as "harvesters," are constantly scouring the backwaters of the galaxy looking for lifeforms that would taste pretty good with ketchup.
This Epicurean scavenger hunt used to go on without any regulation at all, until an alien rights organization called the Planet Huggers started causing trouble. After many bloody conflicts, a compromise was worked out between these antagonists: intelligent life forms would henceforth be off-limits to Orion Burger, and no longer ground up, fried into a patty and sold on a sesame seed bun. This limited the corporate giant to "un-intelligent life," -- beings too stupid to live.
To determine whether a species is sufficiently dense to be served with extra pickles, a harvester chooses a random specimen from the planet in question, and subjects it to extensive intelligence tests. If the subject fails any of the tests, it will be returned to its planet of origin in time to watch all its family and friends get harvested and dipped in special sauce. You might think this would cause crippling guilt pangs to whoever was unlucky enough to be selected, but the Alien Abduction Act allows the poor sap to be returned to the same time and place it left, with its memory of the test erased.
MEANWHILE...
Harvester Zlarg has selected Earth as a potential meat source, and his random specimen is a young man named Wilbur, a resident of Anywhere, USA. Wilbur is zapped from his familiar surroundings and subjected to the standard battery of grueling tests. These puzzles measure aspects of his intelligence ranging from his language skills (and particularly, his ability to learn an alien language) to his "neuro-synaptic bandwidth" (where he must conduct 100,000 volts of electricity with his head). Ultimately, Wilbur doesn't have a chance of succeeding, so he is shipped back to Earth to await the coming of the cleaver.
But on board Wilbur's return vessel is a Planet Hugger spy named Astral. She tampers with the computers on board so that Wilbur not only keeps his memory, but returns to Earth a few hours before he was initially abducted. Now he can get information and equipment from his Anywhere neighbors to help him pass the intelligence battery and keep mankind from being sold as a Value Meal. When the proper time comes around, Wilbur is abducted and the cycle begins anew. There's no telling how many trips Wilbur will take in this temporal merry-go-round, but eventually he's bound to save the Earth! Right?
This bizarre sequence of events is brought to life with traditional cel animation and computer coloring techniques. The look is unlike anything seen on the PC before, with a combination of realistic and outrageous character designs. Wilbur is by far the most normal entity in the game, both in personality and appearance. After his abduction, he will have to contend with Zlarg, a massive flabby green creature with a fashion sense that leans toward spikes and leather. Rather than walk, Zlarg prefers to get around using the single wheel strapped on his gut. His toadyish assistant, Flumix, is a small green blob in an airtight bubble with mechanized arms and the ability to float around.
But the residents of Anywhere are just as weird as the representatives of Orion Burger. As Wilbur tracks down the info and components necessary to save the world, he will have run-ins with the mayor (an outrageous split personality), a hillbilly distiller of bathtub gin, some redneck cops and the members of a seedy rock band. And then, there's the mutant gerbils, but that's another story...
In short, Orion Burger will be a colorful, sarcastic, challenging, bizarre adventure game that will appeal to fans of shows like The Tick and Pinky And The Brain. (In fact, Wilbur is even voiced by Rob Paulsen, a.k.a. Pinky. POIT!) It should be one hell of a ride.
