John Crichton is an American astronaut, catapulted by an experiment-gone-wrong into a distant corner of space. He’s been taken in by a motley band of escaped alien prisoners on a living ship called Moya. They travel around the galaxy, constantly staying one step ahead of the evil, militaristic Peacekeepers. Farscape: The Game takes place after his arrival in a whole new galaxy.
System: PC
Genre: Action-RPG, Adventure
Release dates: August 8th 2002 (USA), September 10th 2002 (EURO)
Players: 1
Developer: Red Lemon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Interactive
Origin: England
Astronaut John Crichton attempted to use the Earth’s atmosphere to propel his ship, Farscape 1, at great speeds across the solar system. He went much further though and was sucked down a wormhole to a distant part of the galaxy and into the middle of a battle. He was rescued by a group of escaping prisoners and taken aboard their ship, a living ship. As the years went by, Crichton has made enemies, powerful and dangerous enemies. On his journey to find a way back home, he freed other captives who became part of the crew on Moya.
While at the time of Farscape: The Game’s release in 2002 the Farscape series was in its fourth and final full season. In this adventure (set during the show’s smash first season), Moya is in orbit around an isolated desert planet, recovering from damage. She is suddenly attacked and boarded by a Peacekeeper strike wing. Moya’s crew scatters. Some hide aboard the ship; others are captured; and a few escape.
Crichton, with the alluring Chiana, makes it off the ship in Aeryn’s Prowler. They are shot down, and crash-land in the trackless desert. Stranded, unaware of their friends’ fates, Crichton and Chiana must find a way to fix their spacecraft and get back to Moya to free their friends. In the meantime, they become mixed up with warring alien factions, and uncover heinous conspiracies and terrible crimes that threaten the stability of the entire galaxy.
The game is an action/adventure/RPG that aims to make you feel like you’re playing an episode of the popular TV series from the Sci-Fi Channel as you move through a plot-driven world with lots of action and puzzle-solving. While Aeryn, Rygel, Zhann and D’Argo get locked on board in the cells aboard Moya, and everyone’s still worried about a pregnant Moya. The main purpose of the game is for Crichton and Chiana to get reunited with the rest of Moya’s Crew and escape the attacking command carrier.
Watch the Farscape: The Game launch trailer.
What are Farscape: The Game’s minimum PC requirements?
* Windows 98/ME/2000/XP (with DirectX 8.1 compatible drivers)
* Pentium III 450MHz (recommended Pentium III 700MHz or AMD Athlon/Duron processor)
* 64MB RAM (recommended 128MB) / 128MB RAM for Windows XP (recommended 256MB)
* 3D Graphics Accelerator Card with 16MB of RAM compatible with DirectX 8.1 and higher (recommended 32RAM and supports Hardware Transformations and Lighting)
* Install requires 450MB Hard Disk
* DirectX 8.1 or later (included) with compliant sound card
* Quad Speed CD-ROM drive
* Microsoft compatible mouse (recommended 3 button mouse with wheel)
Watch a Farscape: The Game gameplay video.
As a conclusion let’s rate this game on its fun-basis.
FUN FACTOR – 4.0
While Farscape: The Game is based on the first season of the Jim Henson Company-developed science-fiction television show Farscape, it doesn’t add any valuable lore to the series. It’s an average plot, but it does have the same style and sense of humor as the TV show, which it references a lot. All the game does is send you on a bunch of meaningless quests (kill this, go do that and now do it again), but quest is such a strong word when it doesn’t reward you or drive the plot forward. It’s just going through the motions. Where are all the rich sci-fi background materials that could’ve been used from the TV show? What’s left of this “game” is a mediocre experience at best. But honestly, if you’re like me — a huge fan of the Farscape series — you’ll buy Farscape: The Game regardless of what anyone says. So go ahead and pick it up to complete your Farscape collection, but don’t expect much.
Graphics – 4.0
The game’s environment artwork is great, however, the overall feeling in-game leaves you with a lack of atmosphere… even down to the sometimes good, sometimes bad character designs. Basically they only spent time on the main cast members and not the other aliens. The outdated low-polygon graphics don’t exactly help. The (combat) animations seem rushed too.
Audio – 7.0
The voice acting is done by the same actors who do the TV show, so it’s very true to the series, sadly the audio quality is sometimes low making the game’s only strong point have less impact. The (weapon) sound effects are your standard fare. At least the soundtrack borrows from the show.
Ingenuity – 4.0
The single player gameplay mainly consists of you clicking your mouse to move around and shoot to kill some alien monsters. You’ll find yourself doing this again and again as part of quests, while you return to the town to re-equip (by selling the monster hides for money to in turn get new ammo) and go back out there again. That’s all there is to it almost the entire time, except for when you have to briefly explore or do some non-challenging puzzles. Not to mention that the radar shows everything on the map. The computer controls everyone else who tags along with you as you follow an arrow that tells you where to go, that is if you can get there with the game’s terrible collision detection and wonky camera. Oh and you won’t die, because if you get hit you just say away from danger for a while and your health will automatically regenerate itself. All in all, it just makes you feel like you’re playing a boring demo or tutorial.
Replay Value – 4.0
Expect to play through the game in less than 2 hours. It’s not much, but for fans looking to hear a few extra lines of dialog now that the series has ended with 2004’s Peacekeeper Wars miniseries, it’s something.
Most likely you’ll be playing this if you’re a fan looking to hear the entire dialog and watch the intro and ending sequences, to get there faster here are some cheat codes you. Enter these codes as name to activate cheats, you will see confirmation message if you typed code correctly. Codes are not case sensitive and you need to enter name again to play the game.
mivonks — Extra ammo
kijrot — Extra Health
schalars — Extra money
sticky — Stickmen
So maybe the game isn’t very good, but that won’t stop me from cheering you up with a wallpaper-size picture of Aeryn in a Cher costume.
Update: Farscape will be revived on the Web in a series of 10 webisodes in 2008 or farther into the future.