It Came from the Desert

~ IT CAME FROM THE DESERT ~

Cinemaware / NEC

CD-ROM

1991

This is one of those "special meaning" games for me, as it was the one I bought with my Turbo CD way back in the day. The motorcycle lights of Desert's title screen coming on as the song "Sea of Love" kicked in was my introduction to CD-based gaming, and I was pretty blown away by it all. Since that time, I've seen Desert get about as much love as its ill-fated FMV sibling, Sherlock Holmes--which is to say, not much. In fact, I think the only praise it's ever gotten has come from VG&CE and famous Turbo expert and Duomazov comrade, Keranu McKenna. Well... I agree with VG&CE and Keranu.

Aside from "Sea of Love," the best thing about the game is its story. It's extremely (and intentionally) cheesy, great for laughs, especially early on. As the tale moves along and more and more characters get turned into bug-manipulated "antdroids," it becomes surprisingly eerie, too. And, archaic in style or not, I think it plays out pretty well through the grainy FMV.

So the story rules, but the action scenes are usually considered the title's downfall. But the save-the-antdroid "shooting gallery" mini-game is really rather cool. What's not to like about blasting insects who are eating the flesh off helpless screaming victims? And the music is appropriately spooky.

The overhead parts aren't too bad, though they play out slowly and don't feel very polished.

The side-scrolling segments are really where the game falters, as jumping control is nonexistent and it seems at times that if the game wants to deplete your ammo supply or have the ants kill you, it can go ahead and do so at will.

So sluggish controls and lack of polish detract from two of the three action parts, and if you don't finish the ants off quickly, those action scenes will get mighty repetitive by the end. Thankfully, you can kill the queen long before the eight-day time limit has elapsed.

Of course, you'll miss some of the cool story moments if you move that quickly, but chances are you'll see them anyway while you're getting the hang of how the game works. It's probably not something you'll conquer right off the bat.