Central High

The Good
Ah, the charms of cheesy FMV. Central High, a game apparently made by a group of educators, psychologists, and social workers, is intended to convey moral and ethical values to teenagers. It does so via a fairly ridiculous framing structure that is never actually referenced in-game again — aliens have decided to destroy Earth due to its corrupt and greedy nature unless a random 16-year-old kid in a Massachusetts high school named Kevin can effectively make a series of "right" choices over a 6-day span. Thus begins a journey of hilarity and frustration.

Gameplay here is your basic "choose your own adventure" style, and the game has an abundance of unintentionally hilarious scenes, even as it weaves in fairly sobering topics such as eating disorders, suicide, drinking and driving, and even child abuse.

Clearly, Central High is not the sort of game that can really be described as 'good.' For all of its problems, though, it does have two major strengths going for it. One, the acting is surprisingly good, even as most of the teenage cast was literally sourced from the drama club of the local school in which the game was shot. Secondly, this has quite possibly the most entertaining ending of any game I've ever played, and this is not an exaggeration.

The Bad
Central High is undoubtedly the hardest type of choose your own adventure FMV-type game I've ever played. If six indicators light up after wrong answers, the Earth is destroyed. And these aren't easy black or white questions you might expect from a preachy game like this. Try to encourage a friend not to underage drink? Decide to buy a down-on-his-luck panhandler some food? How dare you! Two light bulbs go off — game over. There's also no save system here to restore to. No, you've got to restart from the beginning.

The Bottom Line
Worth at least a longplay view just for the absolute pure gold at the end.