Buy Time Gentlemen, Please!

One of the sad facts of the game industry is that good writing – either original or localized flavor – is pathetically undervalued. Usually, a hapless artist or programmer (or worse, Orson Scott Card) is tasked with stitching some sort of plot together 18 months into the project – well after the levels, weapons, boss fights have become immutable and the characters models are etched in Mayan stone. This method works about as well as having your customer support department do your voice acting.

It’s a shame, too, because quality writing is the single cheapest way to improve a game. Compared to the cost of getting actors into the recording studio, fixing the writing up front is pennies on the dollar. This lack of focus is even more depressing when you look at the modern games that people love and adore – Valve’s Half-Life and Portal; 2K’s Bioshock; RPGs from Bioware, Obsidian and Bethesda; even Call of Duty 4. Yes, these games have a lot going for them, but the experience is held together by their stories – and their stories were written by writers. A good writer probably draws half the salary of a mid-level shader programmer, and yet it’s always seen as something “someone else can do.”

Well, someone else did do it, and they did it for as near to free as makes no odds. Ben and Dan’s Time Gentlemen, Please! is quite possibly the funniest adventure game I’ve ever played. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I really mean that. It’s funnier than any of the recent Telltale games. It’s funnier than Psychonauts and Grim Fandango. I would even say it’s funnier than any of the classic LucasArts titles – yes, I know; but like libel, it’s not blasphemy if it’s true. The Infocom Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game might be funnier, but it got to practice its material on the book, TV and radio circuits, first. Portal might be funnier, but it’s so short and scripted that it deftly avoid most of the problems caused by making humor interactive.

Anyway, even if it’s not the funniest game I’ve ever played, it’s certainly the snarkiest. And the…Britishiest. And hilariously, gloriously, adultly profane. This is the uncomfortable, soul-searing humor of Brass Eye and Peep Show. To complete the game, you must instruct protagonist Ben to do horrible, terrible things to animals, people, even his best friend Dan. It’s the same ludonarrative tension found in Shadow of the Colossus, only instead of slaying ancient beasts of wonder and beauty, you’re using objects with other, entirely inappropriate objects. You will do these things, laughing and cringing all the while: you are an Adventurer, which means the Needs of the Adventure trump social niceties, consequences be damned.

Time Gentlemen, Please! is 8-10 hours of the best old-school, LucasArts-style adventure gaming this side of 1993. It’s even improved on the old formula in a few subtle but important ways. First, there’s the OCD amount of text – any object (including Dan) can be used with any other object, any on-screen location, and any NPC for a unique response. Hilarious and informative in equal parts, this mountain of non sequiturs keeps the game from ever getting dull – you’re always laughing, being nudged towards the correct solution, or both. There’s a “magic map” which warps you to any in-game location, completely eliminating tedious backtracking. There’s a text speed slider.

Hell, there’s a racism slider. The game frequently references classic adventure gaming tropes without descending into navel-gazing fanboyisms. There’s a text adventure parody. There’s a SCUMM parody. There are puzzles with WITS, FISTS, and TEAM solutions. There’s an inventory transmogrifier. This game is $5. There’s a free demo too but this game is $5.

This game is simply a delight and would be a steal at ten times the price. It won’t be long before some forward-thinking studio asks Ben and Dan to help them turn their next title into a triple-A multimillion seller. But until that happens, you have a choice: either you buy Time Gentlemen, Please! right now or you are responsible for the death of gaming and can never complain about anything ever again. And I know how much you like complaining.