Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller

The Good
This game was an honest attempt to create a stylistic cyberpunk adventure game. The title screen is very cool and sets the atmosphere. You get to play one of the two main characters. They are ex cops who are on the run from their own agency. The government is a theo-technocratic organization that strictly enforces its own doctrine of rules. You use your contacts you made as a cop to progress in the game.

At the time, the graphics were decent. The story is told through a variety of partial screen FMV movies. The game play consisted of moving and using your character through a 2d background. Lot of the voice acting was fairly decent. Dennis Hopper performed well but the stiff render of him stole from his performance. Lots of interesting and strange dialogue trees to play with.

The Bad
The dorky music. Played through a standard FM synth sound card, you will find yourself quickly turning it off in the main menu. The game ends up to be a series of 'fed-ex' missions, going to one part of town to the next.

Getting it to work is a big challenge. One must master dos configuration to get it to play acceptably. If you run it under windows, make sure to have windows 9x and a pentium II.

The Bottom Line
An old school FMV adventure with some cool twists. Some very interesting production values and unique character interaction. Definitely PG-13.

The Good
Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller is a dark, point n' click graphic adventure game features the voice talents of Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones and Stephanie Seymour. It is fun to play, with some cool locations to explore, interesting items to locate and an odd (but engaging) cast of colorful -- even supernatural -- characters. Even the dystopian tale, while not too original, manages to keep you interested while taking some jabs at ultra right-wing politics, especially the religious right.

The Bad
The game's writing is a bit too cheesy and predictable. While it is certainly not for kids, its focus on profanity, graphic violence, blood and gore will probably seem cool to teenage boys. The 18+ crowd will probably find the content to be a bit restrained especially in terms of its politics and sexual themes. As dystopian, cyberpunk graphic adventure games go, this game comes off as a bit pretentious. Its politics are too superficial to appreciate and it is actually pretty restrained in dealing with sexuality, something that would probably be a big issue in a fascist, theocratic nation. The animation used for the full motion video sequences often repeat themselves and the early 1990s CGI has not aged well. Last, but not least, you will end up going through lots of dialogue before you really start getting into the more traditional elements of adventure gaming.

The Bottom Line
Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller is a good, early 1990's graphic adventure game, that could have been great. It is certainly not for children, but actual adults may find the game's "adult" content a bit too pretentious and restrained to take seriously. The game is something akin to watching a big budget B-minus science fiction film. It is pretty fun to play and sometimes some interesting ideas are sometimes, sort of raised, but it cannot be taken seriously or viewed as high art.

and the politics a bit too superficial.