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.