D/Generation

Title           D/Generation
Game Type       Action adventure
Players         1
Compatibility   All
Submission      Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) Profiled Reviewer

Review
D/Generation is one of the few games from the early 90's with a really
deep, intriguing plot. Even the packaging seems to emit an air of intrigue
so thick you could cut it with a laser beam. To put it short, a large
multi-national genetic engineering company called Genoq has developed an
entirely new type of biogenetic weapon, but it has got out of their hands
and taken control of the whole central office building. The head of Genoq,
Jean-Paul Derrida, has requested a package from abroad to help him fight
this dreadful weapon, called the D/Generation. You take the role of the
courier bringing him this package, and pretty soon it becomes apparent you
are Genoq's only hope of survival.
  What the game turns out to be is an isometrically viewed action
adventure. Even though the game's deep plot is still strongly present
during the playing, the focus is on the action. Your character lands on
the 80th floor and has to work his way upwards to the 89th floor, where
you will confront the D/Generation and hopefully save Genoq.
  Each floor is made up of rooms, which can be viewed as miniature levels
in a platform-style game. There are walls, doors, keycards and switches to
utilise in the correct order, but that is not all. Almost every room is
also infested with renegade biogenetic weapons, called A/Generations,
B/Generations or C/Generations. You must kill all the biogenetic weapons
in a room and seal off the air duct they came from until you can proceed
to the next room. Trapped humans are another element in the rooms. If you
save them from death in the hands of the biogenetic weapons, they reward
you with extra lives and may offer clues to the adventure's plot.
  The action is usually very fast-paced, it is almost impossible to get
bored in any part of the game. The control system is simple, you move your
character with the joystick, using the keyboard to converse with rescued
humans. The graphics are simplistic, but very well drawn. They remind me
of early Commodore 64 games, where playability was more important than the
graphics. Sound is even simpler. The intro music is a very absorbing James
Bond / Dr Who -type tune, but the game itself has no background music. The
sound effects are standard fare, footsteps, laser blasts, and so on. They
do their job, but are hardly special.
  Even if you are a hardened gamer, forget all hope of finishing
D/Generation in one go. It would require the reflexes of Annie Oakley, the
patience of the Dalai Lama, and the intelligence of Stephen Hawking.
Luckily, the programmers have kept this in mind and implemented an option
to save your position to disk. However, the saved positions always revert
to the first room on each floor, so the benefit is not as great as it
would have been. Still, it adds to the challenge, which was obviously the
intention. Just save the game every time you go up to the next floor.
  D/Generation is an excellent game for those who just require good, solid
action and hold playability above presentation. In spite of that, it can
hardly be considered a classic. It will always be one of my favourite
games, but it doesn't have anything to merit a place on the very top of my
list. It's just good, solid fun.

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