Presented in Retrovision: Disaster Report
Since I began writing my little, weekly article on old gaming, I have focused primarily on games that I enjoyed when I was younger, or titles that were from years long past. This week, I decided to alter my focus a little bit and take on a title that, while relatively recent, was barely noticed by the atypical retail patron. As such, I present to you Irem’s Disaster Report.
Every so often, I find myself navigating the bargain bins of random game stores. These bins are usually filled with games of good intentions and poor implementation: Bad cover art, last year’s sports titles and a wide assortment of board game conversations. These are games that any intelligent person with a desire to make a sound investment would avoid like the plague. I, however, am not one of these people. I am drawn to games that are poorly designed, titles ill conceived and the genuinely lackluster. From this affliction, I have a small cabinet filled with games of zero resale value.
It was a common day, nothing out of the ordinary about it. I was walking though a local media store looking for something to waste some cash on. I began sifting through the piles, expecting to find a poor conversion of The Game of Life, or perhaps a long forgotten Choro Q game, when I encountered Disaster Report. Just looking at the cover was enough to sell me: A silly shot of a panicked woman hanging onto a man as they both dangle precariously off of a large building. A painfully rushed photoshopped logo only further reinforced its B-Movie quality.
Examination of the game description proved promising as well. Disaster Report is a survival horror game. Anyone who knows my game tastes can attest for my addiction to this genre. The title deviates from the norm in one major element: You’re surviving nature. You will be surviving an earthquake most specifically. After reading this description, I was firmly encouraged that the $20 price tag was worth every penny.Disaster Report was quickly booted. Keith Helm got his dream job as editor for a newspaper in the futuristic Capital City. Capital City was constructed on an artificial island. Problems ensued, and on the way to his job, Keith was caught in the middle of a terrible earthquake. Narrowly escaping death, Keith found himself on an unstable bridge. Navigating the terrain was hazardous from aftershocks and debris constantly forcing the player to duck and cover, avoiding getting smashed or falling to their ultimate doom. Eventually, I found a woman needing help, a compass, and various implements of survival gear.
The first and most apparent unique trait of the game is the inclusion of a fatigue system. Depending on the difficulty settings, the player becomes progressively weaker, and you can only restore it by drinking fresh water. As you can imagine, fresh water quickly became scarce after the island began to disintegrate. Along with the difficulty in maintaining hydration is the limited amount of gear you are allowed to carry. Backpacks are found and their space gets progressively larger as you progress through the game. Initially, your total storage is somewhat like the bag you’re allowed to take through a modern airport. With this in mind, it is not uncommon for the player to be forced to choose between bandages for possible wounds and another bottle of water.
The remainder of the game consists of average puzzle solving and typical survival horror fare. There is a branching story arc with a different area to navigate and ending depending on whom you choose as a companion for Keith. Much like Ico, I spent a good portion of the game dragging around a mostly helpless girl through the rapidly dissolving wasteland, hoping that she would eventually unlock a story arc and go away. This never happened. Instead, I was presented with a jarring conspiracy story and was eventually being chased down by a helicopter staffed with mercenaries toting semi-automatic weapons like a surviving Black Mesa employee.
Weird plot change aside, Disaster Report is fantastic. There is even a cute little meta-game involving collecting hidden compasses. While some are quite entertaining, most are altogether meaningless. The game suffered from poor localization: Characters suddenly became blond and unnecessarily westernized, and the cover art looks about as professional as a public television auction piece. The camp factor was enough to initially sell me, but strangely enough, the game had proven itself to be thoroughly fun and well worth the money. Recently, a sequel was even released in the US, also for a budget price, under the name Raw Danger. Both games are Grade-A cheese, and if you can afford the $5 for a used copy, I wholehearted recommend picking it up.
Asterick
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 3 January 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: agetec, budget title, disaster report, irem, Presented in Retrovision
Not enough people got to play this game. Silly plot and all, bringing something like this to the Wii would be incredible!
i actually played through Disaster Report twice i enjoyed it so much!
however Raw Danger is a poor sequel. good premise but crappy control and cheap deaths. i was crushed when it came out and barely got halfway through it - TALK ABOUT FRUSTRATING!
Oh God, I so called it you'd do Disaster Report.