After completing work on the now-remixed Hotel Mario review last year, I eagerly dove back into the CD-I cesspool with not a moment wasted. At the time I had many games ripe (and I do mean ripe) for review, but there was one that was particularly laden with material, and by that I of course mean "what were they on when they crapped THIS one out?" However, after completing all the screenshot captures and getting through the damn thing, I was dissatisfied with the picture quality even more than I was with the original Hotel Mario stuff. More, I really needed audio and video to do this game injustice, and I generally found that to be the case with the majority of games. Now that I have that capibility, the gravy train will roll once more. But after all the teasers I've done for "lost" reviews in the past, not to mention the 150+ screenshots wasting away in a lonely folder, I decided to finally make good. You won't get a full review, I'll probably drift more than usual, and we'll only really scratch the surface. And unfortunately, even that may be more than enough.
Laser Lords was a game designed by old nerds on a budget of $250. I have no concrete proof of this, but I feel that by the end of this not-review, you'll not only agree with me, but will wish you stopped reading at this sentence. Ever see Wet Hot American Summer, a parody of basically every 80's movie ever? The David Hyde Pierce character, the gawky middle-aged nerd professor that Janeane Garofalo has a thing for; this game was designed by a team of those guys.
So after popping in Star Wars one too many times at old CD-I headquarters, this game was born. The budget was indeed whatever these guys had in their wallets and some copper wire in the corner. To give you an idea of what's to come, I'll just spell it out - your spirit guide is a human fish-lizard thing in a bathrobe with rearview mirrors on his head.
That's Zendo, the thing who picks you up in a flying car and prattles on for about 5 minutes about the plot. And oh ho ho, the plot. Let me explain how the game works first. It's somewhat of an action game, and I use the term "action" looser than a Fornax space whore. The reason is that the majority of the game consists of stopping the action to utilize a point-and-click menu, to "hail", "offer", "recite", "sit on loaded laser pistol", and so forth. There's a lot of planet-hopping, bringing things to other things, trial and error, all that fun stuff. The reason you are doing all this is to prevent this guy from sucking the universe into his purple egg:
Most of the cash was blown on the top-notch Zendo and Sarpedon masks, and so most of the rest was sunk into a 1-ton lump of clay that was used to carefully craft the remaining characters. Let's meet some of them:
Forgive me for the continual movie references, but we had 40-Year Old Virgin beat by over a decade here. It just keeps going like this. Now, if this isn't enough for you, this is where the audio would have really come in handy. I still don't know how I'm still (relatively) sane enough to type this over a year later after having to listen to hundreds of these stupid clay people talk to me about reciting "Sooth Stone Seb" to the planet mother.
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LUXOR: The "Egyptian" planet. This is where Zendo suggests you start your journey, and despite inherent evidence to the contrary (the rearview mirrors, for one thing...), you may as well listen to him. One, there aren't any enemies until later, two, it's harder to get yourself killed, and three, you have to visit most of these planets seven times anyway. That's the thing though; due to lack of enemies in this game, you can die quite easily just by picking the wrong word in the text box. Several words in every paragraph will be highlighted when you're talking to someone, and clicking on a word will get the annoying clay person to expound on that subject - sometimes with hilariously terrible results. There are several shops here, and a creepy beatnik chick in the coffee bar. I should also probably point out at this juncture that your character looks like a poor man's Duke Nukem in a green jumpsuit. |
| ARGOS: The "Greco-Roman" planet, travellers from this world abandoned this game over 3,000 years ago to flee toward Earth, eventually establishing a civilization that would give way to the events of Rygar. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. Anyway, you'll sure as Sarpedon see the usual stuff, such as exciting gym battles, treason and deceit, and best of all, red tape and bureaucracy. Here's where you get to start fighting, but contrary to the game's title, you get nothing even close to a laser until much later on. You're stuck attacking with a sword using a two-step dance maneuver of some kind, or punches and sweep kicks if you forgot your sword. And let's face it, you probably did. Argos is likely the text-heaviest planet, and I think I've given it more than enough text already, so onward. |  |
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FORNAX: The ... yeah, the uh, "floating space casino" planet. You can't say "fuck" on the CD-I, and so the nerd development team took "fornicate", broke it down to its origins, and created not only a planetship, but a brand new verb. On this planet, you're not fucked, you're "fornaxed". Almost every conversation allows you at least three chances to pick the wrong option and fornax yourself. I can't believe that "Go fornax yourself" never caught on. Even an innocent space whore with a sweet country drawl isn't what she seems in this place; give her money, and she will start whipping you, but your strength decreases? There are no gentle space whores on Fornax. Also, the casino is about 1/20 of the planetship, the rest being large, confusing areas with things written on the walls, where you can talk to crack whores, aliens, and the gay guy up there who was talking about opening that chick's hatch. Yes, he comes on to you before that. |
| WOO: If you don't hate the game yet, this is the "talking animal" planet, where creatures made out of clay that couldn't be made to look human all try to kill you or ask for yo-yos. Even better, they all have :cough: clever names, like Ma Dil-oh the armadillo who sounds like Cheech Marin. That's worse than my enemy name from Kid Niki 2. In fairness, the names are no better on other planets. Pretty much everything here wants to eat you, so you'd best hurry and collect flowers to help the country bears make their magic elixir. Hey, it's been a year since I went through this thing, I'm amazed I remember that much. I think you only need to go here once or twice, which is good because this planet has no Transformer rejects or conveyor belts. |  |
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TEKTON: This is an all-robot planet similar to the one in that episode of Futurama, except without any redeeming entertainment value whatsoever, and any instances of robot porn are merely implied. The robots aren't quite as hostile, although some will politely ask you to relinquish your organs. The main thing here is to cure the head robot of a robo-headache (using "Skullthrobium" ...ech), and fix all of the other robots. I'm pretty sure the end result is one of them giving you a jetpack. Although not saying much, this is probably the best-looking level, as it looks like a giant robot in the sky just kind of dumped his colorful scrap metal and spare legos onto a barren planet and gave it life. There's something to that. |
| HIVE: You can't enter this level until you have the jetpack, and you can't do too much without the laser (yes! a laser!) weapon you assemble on one of the earlier planets. This is the most action-oriented planet, consisting mainly of you flying around doing some good old-fashioned bug-zapping. There's also a quest to get some royal jelly from the Queen, but I don't think any of us want me to go into very much detail on that one. |  |
The last planet is Ravanna, where Sarpedon and his evil gang live in a drab, grey maze, but I've been prohibited from discussing it any further under penalty of having my luxor fornaxed. ...Oh, fine, one screenshot:
There's a lot more to it than what you've seen here. Tons of items and messages you have to use, collect and put together across the different planets.
Perhaps one day, when I'm feeling a lot braver, I'll do a massive review for this game that will no doubt become one of the worst things ever posted on the Internet. I can't begin to describe the horrors I've left unsaid in this small inkling of what you'll find in Laser Lords. But Polas isn't one to leave you hanging, so for now, enjoy this video that'll fornaxicate you six times before you knew what hit you.
