Normality
Review by Alfred Giovetti, 09/24/96
Release: August 27, 1996
Genre: adventure
Art:
Music:
Producer:
Programmer:
Developer: Gremlin Interactive
Publisher: Interplay Productions, 17922 Fitch Avenue, Irvine, CA 92714
Phone: 714-553-6678
Website: www.interplay.com
requirements: 486 DX 66 MHz, 8 MB Ram, MS-DOS 5.0, 15 MB hard disk space, 2X CD ROM, Super VGA, mouse, sound card.

History: Gremlin Interactive has been around for at least two years. They programmed a game called Bounder for the Spectrum computer that used an 8-bit chip. I think. Snapshots of bounder shown to the left or at http://gremlin.com/retroindex.html) show how advanced they are with full four colors in the non-animated mat screen portion of the game and one shade of grey scale in the game itself. You can even get an emulator and play it when you get bored with Normality their new hit game.

Plot: In this world normal is required and regulated. Normal is watching television for 24 hours a day, while you are watched by Norm police and forced to do it. Television is normally boring so many find their way outside for adventure. The outsiders, composed of a undercover window washer, dumpster meeting organizer, and an alternative music rock star, form the resistance who wand to replace the boring fascist leader, Paul Nystalux, of the normal town.

Game play: Be sure to use the voodoo doll interface to put everything you see in your pockets. This is an adventure game and treasure hunt puzzles are what happens here, dude. Like those Levis will hold a lot of stuff so tote it.

Puzzles: They are kinda squireley and pretty easy so you can cruise right through them, but you may want to slow down because some of them will stump the most intelligent dudes. Check it out. Get the object and match the object is what you would normally expect from a game like this, but you gotta do what you gotta do, man.

Humor: Humor varies from the gnarly dude washing his face and cool goatee in a urinal, radical, to health adds for lard. I mean are we hard up or what. I think it falls in the "or what" category, dude.

Graphics: Whoa, dude, this game is enormous and real three dimensional, err 3D. Wow, man, you will really like the first-person perspective. You have full character control like in the 3D Doom games man, but this is an adventure, its radical.

Animated cut scenes jump the player from first person perspective to third person, whoa. These cut scenes occasionally give the player a buzz for a few. Go for it dude.

Voice actors: Corey Feldman provides the lame surfer dude’s voice, which should have been gnarly, dude. He looks cool so why don’t he sound cool, bummer.

Music score: More normal stuff.

Sound effects: Also normal.

Website: The website does not have some of the normal things websites should have. Since the website is not normal, we probably should call the normal police and turn them in. Yeah, we need to have that game designer tailed, man. I mean, like, he might harm himself.

Reviewing the Reviewers: These guys really like me, err… the game. Certainly, I was not referring to me. Not me. No I never. I didn’t. . . Why I’m normal. Cindy feels the humor is sophomoric.

Hints: Use the pecking bird with the remote to keep the television turned on, and you will be allowed to leave your apartment. The debris you need to distract the guard is over the grill in the toilet. The benches contain your means of escape so use them to loose them.

Summary: If my dude speak bummed you out man, you should look elsewhere for your fun. But if you think this was gnarly, you will pee in your pants over the game.

References:
Jason D’Aprile, Computer Player, August, 1996, volume 3, number 3, pages 56-57, 8 out of 10 (80%).
Shane Mooney, PC Games, volume 3, number 9, pg. 74., B-, (82%)
http://www.cnet.com/Gamecenter/Reviews/Normality/
Cindy Yans, Computer Games Strategy Plus, issue 71, October, 1996, pg. 100, 3.5/5, (70%-85%).
PC Zone (90%)
PC Power (92%)
Computer Life Game of the Month
PC Home (90%)
PC Review 9/10 (90%)
PC Gamer (87%)
PC Format (87%)
http://www.ukonline.co.uk/UKOnline/Games/Gamezone/normal.htm
http://www.gremlin.com/games/normality/scores.html
http://www.gremlin.com/games/normality/index.html
http://kumo.swcp.com/coach/vre/previews/6596a.htm
http://www.gremlin.com/games/normality/solution.html
http://www.gamespot.com/previews/normality/index.html
http://www.interplay.com/website/sales/normss.html
http://www.interplay.com/website/presrels/nrelspr.html
Walkthrough , Kevin J. McCann, Computer Player, volume 3, number 4, September, 1996, pg. 36-40.