X-Files
Published By: Fox Interactive

Reviewed by Circe
7/2/99

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First Impressions:

I am an X-File fanatic. The show quickly joined the short list of TV-shows that are an institution in my family (right under Star Trek Voyager). Family and friends gather once a week to celebrate "X-Files night" cheering Scully on and gazing longingly at Mulder with a gourmet meal balanced on our laps.

I first saw the X-Files game at E3 a little over a year ago right before its big debut. Gillian Anderson was there promoting the game and there was a line all the way from Atlanta to Tennessee filled with people aching for her autograph. Now *there* is a female lead character I would have fun playing in a game! Intelligent, Sexy, Cool-headed. Alas, I realized soon on in the game that I was not going to play her at all and that I was going to play some unknown agent Craig Willmore. <sigh>

Graphics:

In a nutshell, the game is fairly amusing. Fox Interactive tried to make it seem as though you were actually maneuvering through a made-for-TV X-Files episode- with a realistic, video-driven interface. This gave the game a spookiness about it- especially when your character dies (ugh). The video was choppy at some points and not of the best quality.

Sound:

The actors were fairly decent as far as voices go- the sounds were realistic (water, wind, etc).

Gameplay:

Agent Craig Willmore irritated me. He comes across as pompous and unlikeable. He says some annoying things in an annoying way. So much for relating to the character---

I did, however, like the flexibility the game gave me as far as turning the "Intuition Function" on and off. That came in pretty useful. There is also another function that allows you to toggle the difficulty of the action sequences.

What was a little confusing about the navigation functions was the use of a map interface on a Palm Pilot to go from location to location in the game. Once at the location, the game developers decided to use a hand to point in the direction you could go once you were at a place, and showed a lightning bolt to tell you when you could interface with an object. You also ran around with a cellular phone that would invariably give you a busy signal or an answering machine unless you used it at precidely the correct time in the game. Ifound that frustrating.

An interesting addition to the interface was the "Idea Caching". When Agent Willmore has an idea, an image of the idea comes up on the upper left part of the screen. You can then drag and drop the ideas (as well as any other objects in your inventory) onto other characters in the game and see how they respond. Usually, it was with a sneering "I don't want that".

Enjoyment:

I did get caught up in this game (mainly because I wanted to see if i would see Mulder and Scully in it at all). The interface dampened my enjoyment a lot as did the set scenarios that were predetermined in the game.

Multiplayer:

N/A

Overall Impression:

Again, it was a fairly amusing game that I think some people may like. I would not recommend it for people who are not used to dealing with tricky interfaces or set scenarios.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

I think the game would have been better if you got to choose either Mulder or Scully to play. That would have been more fun for me as a woman looking for cool female lead characters to play.

One thing I can mention is that Agent Willmore does ppartner with a female police investigator during the game. I thought that that was a good move on the part of Fox to include a woman in the script. She too seemed calm, cool, collected, and very business like. I liked her much more than I did my own character.

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