Déjà Vu I & II: The Casebooks of Ace Harding

Feisty publisher Kemco colorizes a pair of noir-ish gumshoe classics.

Emboldened by unexpectedly strong sales of Shadowgate Classic, Kemco is bringing two more 8-bit point-and-click adventures to one Game Boy Color Pak.

With a tip of the battered fedora to the movies of Humphrey Bogart and Alan Ladd, Deja Vu I & II plumbs a Depression-era underworld of gangsters, femme fatales, back alleys and midnight assignations. In Deja Vu I you wake up in a seedy Chicago hotel room with a throbbing headache, a trench coat and not a clue as to how you got there.

In the extremely honestly named Deja Vu II, you awaken in a seedy Las Vegas hotel room with a throbbing headache and a trench coat. This time, though, the amnesia plot has been forgotten. Instead, you have a name -- Ace Harding -- and must find $112,000 of a gangster's missing money or its cement-shoes time for you, buddy.

Originally developed for the Mac by the Shadowgate team at Infinite Ventures, Deja Vu I & II takes a simple '80s-era approach to gameplay. You click on an action icon, then perform that action by clicking on an object in your environment. Deja Vu I appeared on the NES, but Deja Vu II never did.

An early version of Deja Vu I & II makes good use of the Game Boy Color palette. Small touches, such as the spiral notebooks that display the text and icons, neatly evoke a world that's all rotten underbelly.

Like Shadowgate Classic, this is a game that will reward patience and a willingness to poke everywhere. Deja Vu I & II is the sort of game that could sell lots of Game Boy Colors to sophisticated players.

Source:

www.nintendo.com – Game Boy Color