Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender

The Good
Take two parts Leisure Suit Larry, one part Space Quest and then make everything far more raunchy and politically incorrect than Sierra would ever dare to and there you have Rex Nebular, a humorous point-and-click adventure game by Microprose.

In this game you get casted in the shoes of (you guessed it) Rex Nebular, a space-faring dork who goes around the galaxy picking out odd-jobs and trying to make ends meet. Essentially a dorkish Han Solo sans Chewy, but far closer to Larry than to Roger Wilco. As the game starts you get commissioned by a space magnate to find some sort of vase in a lost planet, you crash into it, and soon find out that the planet is populated only by women... YeeHaaw!!! Party Time! Right??? Wrong, as you'll find out soon enough, this isn't Duke Nukem in Land of the Babes, and pretty much all the chicks in the game are uptight ultra-feminist trigger-happy mamas. It's up to you then to survive the ahem hostile world of Terra Androgena and escape with your life and the vase. Got it? Good.

Now as a story that's pretty much run-of-the-mill, but as I mentioned early this is a humorous game, so the story is merely an excuse to set up the gags and main direction of the jokes in this game. And you have to admit that when you take Rex "Himbo" Nebular and pit him against a group of feminazis the results are, even if expected, quite hilarious. The sense of humor in this game is certainly politically incorrect and very edgy, the game focuses on cartoony reactions of life-like characters, scatological escapades, and general juvenilia. You won't find smart and sarcastic remarks or witty verbal sparrings in this game, and there's simply nothing wrong with that. This isn't "Monthy Python" or "Spinal Tap", this is "There's Something about Mary" and as long as you understand that then you are going to find out that Rex Nebular is a riot to play. It is wacky enough and immature enough to capitalize on all its potential and has a lot of hilarious moments and situations that add a lot of charm.

The gameplay uses a typical Scumm-ish engine to allow you to explore the gameworld and solve the various puzzles in the game, which are to be fair rather easy but clever and very well laid out.

Technically speaking the game was also a major achievement, with crudely digitized characters (that were nonetheless a wonder to behold) beautiful, detailed graphics and smooth animation, heck the game even boasted digitized speech for some sequences and 3D rendered animations!

The Bad
There is pretty much nothing to hate about Rex Nebular other than Rex Nebular itself :). I mean, if you don't like the type of crude, in-your-face, politically incorrect humor this game has then you are screwed. If you only find funny the wacky cutesy cartoony or the smartly sarcastic then you are not gonna get much out of this game since the story itself is not too exciting and there are pretty much no interesting characters other than Rex himself.

The Bottom Line
A truly hilarious adventure that also happens to be a very well made classical adventure game. Just be sure you are in the right "tune" for this game. This game is much closer to Larry than Monkey Island or Space Quest, but then again it's also much more raunchier than Larry and more edgier too. It's up to you really. Can you laugh about stuff like Machopolis, repeated sex changes and a fat chick that kills you by slamming her fat ass on you?

If you do, then you should give Rex a try. It's a cool game, and besides nowadays nothing like it could ever be made without P.E.T.A., N.O.W., Dykes on Bikes or whoever spitting on it for it's "offensive" nature.

The Good
There's lots to like in this game. It's quite short, and the puzzles are easy, and logical, so if you play it with a walkthrough you can complete it at a single sitting (if, like me, that's the way you like to play adventure games). The last 'puzzle', which involved filling an underground city with seawater was very cool.

The Bad
Two things: the plot seemed lop-sided. The zany title and cover art suggested a racy, comic adventure involving lots of scantily clad women and sexual shenanigans. It doesn't. In fact the gender-bender thing is irrelevant, to the point where it just seems like a sales gimmick, and far from being comical the overall feel of the game is rather serious and involves rescuing a vase (yawn).

Of course as a red-blooded male I'd have liked to have seen Microprose develop the 'landing on a planet of sex-starved women' plot angle a little more, but perhaps that was too obvious, which is why they just stuck to rescuing the vase (yawn).

The other thing was the music: wailing theremin-type atonal sci-fi cliche.

The Bottom Line
Don't get me wrong I liked this game. It is pleasing and enjoyable for all its flaws, and I'll probably play it again sometime.

The Good
I liked quite a bit, really. The graphics, while nothing spectacular in today's terms, were cool back then, since the characters looked more "real". Also, the humor in this game is up there with the best around, and kept a smile on my face the whole time. The puzzles, while not overtly hard, are tough enough to make you think for a while. I suppose the best part about this game is its "spirit"...that is, I got a feeling from this game that was wholly unique and enjoyable. It wasn't a "LucasArts game" or a "Sierra game", it stood on its own. This game had it all, and still stands on my top 5 of all time.

The Bad
Well, like any good game, you don't want it to end. There are also some "lonely" segments of the game, where you don't really interact with any other characters. But this doesn't detract from the whole experience in any way.

The Bottom Line
An adventure game for the ages. Up there with the best LucasArts, Sierra, and Access have to offer. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and play it over and over. An underrated classic if there ever was one.