From: ppplee@coos.dartmouth.edu (Pete Lee)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: TG-CD Game Review: It Came from the Desert
Date: 13 Apr 92 17:47:15 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Originator: ppplee@coos.dartmouth.edu


Ahoy!
        Well, I recently decided to treat myself to my first new game in a few
months.  I picked up It Came from the Desert on Saturday from Toys R Us for
$59.99.  This long awaited CD game is really quite interesting to play, but
your mileage may vary.  I've never played the computer version of this game,
so there's no way I can make any kind of comparisons.  Anyway, here's the
mini-review...

It Came from the Desert for the TG-CD.  $59.99 at Toys R Us.
       You play the role of Buzz Lincoln a high school senior who rides a
       Harley.  In a nutshell, the town is being invaded and overrun by an army
       of giant, intelligent ants, led by the "Antmind".  Your job is to stop
       the ants and save the town by killing the Antmind.  You have 8 "days" to
       stop the Antmind.

Gameplay -  Well the game consists of several different kinds of sequences.
       There are the video sequences, where you just talk to people, and three
       different "arcade" sequences.  The first arcade sequence is the tunnel
       or mine sequence which is simply a 2-D scrolling, shoot-all-the-ants-
       and-zombies game.  The second arcade sequence is an overhead sequence
       where your task is to kill ants while sealing up there antholes.  The
       third sequence, and IMHO, the most amusing, is a different overhead
       sequence where your job is to kill ants that are trying to eat one of
       the local citizens.  Here you are given a finite number of shots to kill
       a certain number of ants before the person has all their flesh stripped
       from their bones (pretty gruesome, more on this later...).  Like the
       description, if you don't shoot well, and either you don't kill enough
       ants or enough flesh gets eaten away, you lose.  Your eventual success in
       the game lies in winning these arcade sequences (especially the tunnel
       ones).

Graphics and Sound - AWESOME!  The game uses full motion video of real actors
       and real voices.  The lips actually move correctly with the speech in
       just about every case (there are a few exceptions).  The actual graphic
       quality of these video images is also very impressive.  And of course,
       with the CD, perfect voice reproduction is employed.  The game is really
       huge, even after playing it four times, there were still a large number
       of scenes that I had not seen before.  In the overhead shoot-the-ants-
       before-they-strip-the-flesh-off-the-human sequences, the graphics are
       particularly gruesome.  You get to see several stages of a person getting
       eaten, from blood, to bloody mess, to bone.  Pretty gross.  And for some
       reason the ants don't eat heads/faces, because all that is left is a
       bloody skeleton with a perfect head.  On top of all this, while the
       sequence unfolds, the person screams and says things like "Buzz save me!"
       and "Get them away from me!".  Pretty freaky.

Music - Pretty good, but it could be much better considering the game is a CD
       game.  There is really only one real song on the disk, and some real
       music soundtrack, but neither thing is all that impressive.

Overall - I like this game quite a bit.  It is pretty fun, very long, and not
       too easy to beat.  It is not your ordinary game, but I found myself
       wanting to keep playing, i.e., it is quite addictive.  Also, I am really,
       really impressed with the amount and quality of the video animation and
       real voices.  Finally, the story is kind of amusing as well.

Recommendation - First, I recommend this game incredibly highly to those that
       really like flaashy, high-quality graphics and animation.  If you like
       action, you may not like the game because there is a lot more emphasis
       on talking to people in the video scenes.  I would not say that this is
       a pure RPG, because there really aren't a whole lot of different choices
       to make, or power to build up, or magic to use.  I consider this game
       to be more of an interactive movie/video.


OK, ratings:
            GamePlay:    7     (nothing too great or original)
            Graphics:    9     (video that will blow you away)
            Sound:      10     (real voices, perfectly presented)
            Music:       5     (good, but disappoiniting for CD)
            Overall:     8     (entertaining, but not for everyone)

Thanks for listening.

Any questions, comments, etc. via e-mail to,
Pete Lee
ppplee@coos.dartmouth.edu