Abuse

aka: Abuse Classic, Alien Abuse, Them
Moby ID: 389
Linux Specs
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Description official descriptions

It is the unimaginably distant year 2009. You are Nick Vrenna, falsely locked inside a high security prison. The genetic experiments conducted in the prison, combined with a full-scale riot that took place recently, caused all guards and inmates to be transformed into insane, aggressive mutants. Your job is to escape while stopping the genetic plague from transforming the whole world.

Abuse is a side-scrolling platformer with a lot of shooting. It's a nonlinear game, as the levels often have a few exits that lead to different areas. Your character is a cyborg equipped with various weapons; initially, you only have a weak laser rifle with unlimited ammo, but you can find more powerful guns later on, such as grenade launchers, flamethrowers or lightsabers. You move through a building complex, fighting any enemies you might encounter on the way. The enemies are mostly the mutants, but also the defense systems (such as stationary missile launchers).

While you move with the keyboard, you can aim with your mouse, so you can shoot at any angle no matter what direction you are running. On your way, you'll find elevators, teleporters, cracked walls that can be destroyed and more.

Apart from ammo and health, you can also find upgrades which have a number of beneficial effect - increasing your running speed, for example.

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

39 People (38 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

Programming
Graphics / Artwork
Sound
Production
Co-Producer
Network Setup & Test
Additional Network testing and technical assistance
Music
Quality Assurance Controller
Project leader Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 24 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 80 ratings with 7 reviews)

Nicely atmospheric, great side-scrolling action... but not much else.

The Good
When I first started playing Abuse, it seemed SUPERB. The character animations and sounds really drew me in, and I was sincerely creeped out about the setting and mutants that leaped from shadows and ripped through walls. Movement was fluid and quick, and worked really well with the platform-style layout. The weapons, as well, were standard fare and then some, featuring my all-time favorite, laser weapons. With the addition of power-ups, it made it possible for different play tactics for different areas, something most side-scrollers don't do.

The Bad
Unfortunately, there is no storyline in Abuse. The setup is quite interesting, I expected more as I played - and found none. Eh, some people might not mind this, but level after level of the same stuff gets mighty frustrating. Especially in areas that have some gorgeous backdrop, like an indoor hydroponics forest, or skyline window, that just BEG for some in-game descriptions or interaction.

A problem with immersion, especially atmospheric emotional fear, is that repetition ruins the immersion. Unfortunately this happened to me with Abuse. After a while, I wasn't worried about what was around the next corner (well, bend in the platform) I was just annoyed. It's a shame the immersion wasn't expanded on with a story or even descriptions, because halfway through the game I just couldn't immerse myself in it anymore.

The Bottom Line
Did I, at some levels and at some moments, have fun in Abuse? Damn right. Was it a good game? Only for a little while. I'm not usually a side-scroller player, but I really loved some of the parts of Abuse. But the lack of other elements (story) and presence of others (atmosphere) made the whole a little confusing and more than a little frustrating.

DOS · by George Shannon (113) · 2000

A wonderful piece of software.

The Good
Well, for one, it's written in LISP - and I can definitely appreciate rarities. The graphics get an A-OK - detailed and well drawn (they remind me a bit of Amiga's Alien Breed) and the game engine works well and is really fast. The music/sound effects are good too, and the gameplay is fun.

The Bad
It's very repetitive, but then it's a shooter, so what do you expect?

The Bottom Line
A rare find - a very good game written in LISP.

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

Pure fun, in small doses

The Good
First of all, it's innovative. Years after 3D platform games proved that 2D platform games are mostly dead, this game, in my opinion, still ranks up there as "an interesting platform game".

The graphics are extremely beautiful in all their low-resolution glory. I really like the look of this game, some areas and backgrounds are absolutely cool. Also, most of the ambient sounds are very nice, good enough to give all sorts of shivers and actually create a believable atmosphere.

It's a fun game too. Sometimes frustrating, but fun. Simple-minded job of blasting uglies has probably never been more fun.

This is probably the first game I've seen that features "live" modding of the game (The Cube Engine being the second, and that was out like 8 years later). The moddability of this game was a very interesting concept - shame that the modder turnout wasn't too huge.

Also, great thanks to Crack dot Com for making the game public domain and all of the future modders - SDL port sure helps me to play the game these days.

The Bad
Basically, the game has a tendency to get boring easily. It is, if I'm to borrow a metaphor, kind of like a game equivalent of holding breath: if you play too much of it, you pass out. This is raw, merciless slaughter in beautiful pixely futuristic environments. Not that there's anything wrong with that... It's exactly the kind of game that you probably play a few hours every year, but no more.

Also, the modding is kind of tricky. There's little documentation for anything; only the level editor is somewhat well documented. The Lisp code looks puzzling to me without proper tutorials - and I'm not a stranger to Lisp. There are a few rather silly examples out there, hopefully, if anyone is to make a real mod.

The game would be pretty damn fun online but finding people who play it is pretty near impossible since there aren't server browsers.

The Bottom Line
Basically, the game is a beautifully detailed 2D platformer, with independent weapons aiming (move character with keyboard, aim with mouse), very nice graphics, and tons of gritty "dark sci-fi" feel.

There's no plot to speak of - actually, the story was changed between the shareware release and the final release, and barely no one noticed. Your job is to kill strangely Alien-like mutants. Tons of them. They can shoot back. There are also less frequent robotic enemies (huge robots that throw grenades, small flying robots that shoot lasers, tunnel boring machines), and traps and environmental hazards. You have arsenal of zillions of nice weapons at your disposal, everything from lasers to flame throwers and energy beams.

Then, there's also multiplayer mode, ability to write fairly unusual mods in Lisp, a simply Tab-togglable map editing mode, and other fun stuff. This game is pretty much a very geeky concept, and I love it. Maybe its unusualness made it less popular than it deserved to be. I think it's still an extremely innovative and fun game, as long as you don't play it all day long.

DOS · by WWWWolf (444) · 2004

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cancelled ports

In January 1996, Crack dot Com contracted Reflex Entertainment to do the SEGA Saturn and Sony PSX versions of Abuse. In May 1996, Crack learned that Sony would not allow a PSX version of Abuse because it wasn't 3D and it was a port.

Changed plot

The game's plot (shown in the opening screen) was changed at some point. Originally, the player was to take the role of a special agent infiltrating a base in order to stop an alien invasion by "the ants". The 1.x shareware version still features this back story, whereas the retail game and 2.x shareware both have the new "mutants in prison" plot. The original story's text is:

The Ants were fearless, efficient killers. The Unified Underground's only opening was that the Ant defense systems were designed by engineers too arrogant to consider the threat of an individual. It was enough to justify the covert Abuse Missions.

On August 31, 2021, eight bytes were zeroed in a computer, and Nick Vrenna's identity was erased. A suit of armor cradling his smoking auto rifle stood in shadows appreciating the stench coming from the first retired Ant of the day. The armored soul feared the effort would end up as pathetic as the Terran Surrender Terms, but humanity had nothing else.

Copyright infringement

The iPhone version caused quite a stir when Stephane Portha released the ported game using the title Alien Abuse on March 17, 2009. The original development studio Crack dot Com released all the shareware bits of Abuse to the public domain when it went out of business, but kept ownership of the Abuse trademark, the registered levels, and Bobby Prince kept ownership of the sound effects.

Unable to come to any sort of agreement with Portha and unable to get Apple to take down the game, despite a DMCA notice, one of the original developers, Dave Taylor went out and had the game ported to have an official version of the game available using the name Abuse Classic. It was released in August 2009. Soon after, Alien Abuse was pulled, either by the original developer or by Apple.

Development

The game was largely written in C, but it also featured a Lisp interpreter. Most of the character logic and AI was written in Lisp, and it was possible to write mods simply by defining new game characters and game characteristics in Lisp code. Early shareware versions included a complete Breakout clone example game (somewhat misleadingly titled "Pong"). Regrettably, there were many changes between versions, and mods for 1.x shareware versions don't necessarily work without changes in 2.x retail version.

Macintosh version

The main improvement from the Macintosh version over DOS and Linux versions was that it had better graphics; the entire thing was worked to work perfectly in 640x480 resolution, as opposed to the VGA 320x200 used by the DOS version. (The DOS and Linux versions can be made to run on higher resolutions, but the game itself isn't scaled to those resolutions!)

Level editor

The game has a built-in level editor, and you can make levels for the shareware version. An interesting feature is that it can be made to work in sync with the actual game engine. If enabled at the command line, the editor is accessible at any part of the game which allows you to test flags and triggers in real time for your latest creation, or alternatively, modify parts of the game's included levels on the fly (ie: can't find the key for that pesky door?? Then remove it!)

Naming

We chose Abuse for our first game name because the game involved knowing full well that pressing the buttons in all those rooms was going to bring down hoards of howlers, but you would do it anyway, abusing yourself. It also went well with Crack. An alternate name considered was "Them."

References

Crack dot Com must have been Nine Inch Nails fans -- the clear namesake for protagonist Nick Vrenna is onetime NIN drummer Chris Vrenna.

Source code release

On Jul 12, 1997, Crack dot Com announced the release of the game's source code to the public domain alongside the shareware game data. Registered version levels were not released because the game was still sold at the time. Crack dot Com could also not make the game's sound effects public because they were owned by Bobby Prince.

While the code and most data assets of Abuse became public domain, the title remained a trademark held by Jonathan Clark and Dave Taylor. Using the title (e.g. to create a derivative game called Abuse 2) without licensing it from the original developers is thus not allowed.

Additional information contributed by Arson Winter, B.L. Stryker, Pseudo_Intellectual, Roger Wilco, Sciere, WWWWolf and Zovni

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Related Sites +

  • Abuse
    game page at Crack dot Com's website, preserved by the Wayback Machine
  • Abuse FAQ
    Explains much of the game. Required reading if you love Abuse.
  • Abuse abuse
    Dave Taylor's story about the iPhone version of the game
  • Abuse by Crack dot Com
    game page at the Origin/EA website, preserved by the Wayback Machine
  • Abuse for Windows/DirectX
    website of Jeremy Scott's original Windows port of the game, preserved by the Wayback Machine
  • Alien Abuse story
    Stephane Portha's side of the story regarding the iPhone version of the game
  • Craig's unofficial Abuse Website
    Wayback Machine copy of an unofficial website with user-made levels, add-ons etc.
  • abuse-game.com
    Fanpage with download of the open source release and user levels

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 389
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by emerging_lurker.

GP2X Wiz, GP2X added by 666gonzo666. Acorn 32-bit, Macintosh, BeOS, iPhone added by Kabushi. Amiga added by Игги Друге.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Sciere, Pseudo_Intellectual, Crawly, Patrick Bregger, lethal_guitar, MrFlibble.

Game added November 6, 1999. Last modified March 19, 2024.