Darkseed
I've always had a penchant for strange and unusual games. Though they can really be hit-or-miss when it comes to the overall quality, I usually enjoy them in some fashion or another. And though most of the weirdest games I've played have originated in Japan, (Pen Pen TriIcelon, Seaman) back in the late 80's and early 90's imported titles weren't as easy to come across and so I had to settle for plain American oddities.
There were of course, more than enough bizarre titles to fulfill my needs. One of the more distressing titles I picked up was the PC adventure game Darkseed. At the time of it's release in 1992, I was more than engrossed in the works of H. R. Giger; the Swiss surrealist who has created artwork and monsters for films like Poltergeist, Species and Alien. Though I'm not sure exactly what the relationship was for this title, Darkseed's Dark World artwork was basically created by composting various portions of his works in to backgrounds and even characters. The entire game is basically just a tribute to his works. As if someone out there just really wanted to turn Giger's artwork into a videogame.
Darkseed was your typical point-and-click adventure, where you explore the world around you and it's puzzles in order to reveal the overall story. As it seemed with this game more than most, the focus was moreso on the story than the gameplay. Not only was it a particularly difficult game so far as the puzzles were concerned, but on top of it all there is a strict 3 day time limit. Time progresses within the game as the protagonist explores the world, but if Mike Dawson doesn't complete his task of destroying the Ancients before then, the embryo implanted in his head births and destroys the world. Pretty intense.
To be honest, I never got very far in this game. It really was too difficult for me at the time and the entire idea of a very restricted time limit lead me to give up early on. Though, I've been reading that this has been regarded as one of the scariest games of all time and so now I think I'm going to have to give this another go. With a walkthrough of course.
Publishers must have seen some money from this as well since they put forward enough to create a sequel, as requested specifically by H. R. Giger himself. A sequel which appears to have featured higher quality artwork and perhaps some more polished gameplay. Both games appear to be abandonware and so if anyone's interested in trying them out, should be downloadable for free.
I've always had a penchant for strange and unusual games. Though they can really be hit-or-miss when it comes to the overall quality, I usually enjoy them in some fashion or another. And though most of the weirdest games I've played have originated in Japan, (Pen Pen TriIcelon, Seaman) back in the late 80's and early 90's imported titles weren't as easy to come across and so I had to settle for plain American oddities. There were of course, more than enough bizarre titles to fulfill my needs. One of the more distressing titles I picked up was the PC adventure game Darkseed. At the time of it's release in 1992, I was more than engrossed in the works of H. R. Giger; the Swiss surrealist who has created artwork and monsters for films like Poltergeist, Species and Alien. Though I'm not sure exactly what the relationship was for this title, Darkseed's Dark World artwork was basically created by composting various portions of his works in to backgrounds and even characters. The entire game is basically just a tribute to his works. As if someone out there just really wanted to turn Giger's artwork into a videogame.
To be honest, I never got very far in this game. It really was too difficult for me at the time and the entire idea of a very restricted time limit lead me to give up early on. Though, I've been reading that this has been regarded as one of the scariest games of all time and so now I think I'm going to have to give this another go. With a walkthrough of course.Publishers must have seen some money from this as well since they put forward enough to create a sequel, as requested specifically by H. R. Giger himself. A sequel which appears to have featured higher quality artwork and perhaps some more polished gameplay. Both games appear to be abandonware and so if anyone's interested in trying them out, should be downloadable for free.
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