Post by oneinathousand on Aug 19, 2022 18:59:04 GMT
For those of you who don't know what Gadget is, it's a series of point-and-click adventure games from the 90's consisting of the original game Invention, Travel, and Adventure in 1993 and the remake Past As Future in 1997, and it's the latter which is considered the definitive version since it has improved graphics and an expanded narrative. The "plot" (which is hard to describe since it's rather like an arthouse movie with how ambiguous it is) takes place in a dingy Art-Deco retrofuturist Empire, and the player is a government agent hired to investigate a group of scientists who claim the world is going to end from an approaching comet. Much confusion ensues as you question how much is real and who is lying to you.
Side note, there was a tie-in novel for the game called The Third Force which was written by Marc Laidlaw, who would go on to become one of the main original writers for Half-Life, and he has said The Third Force actually inspired quite a few elements in Half-Life such as the G-Man, Alyx Vance, the Resistance, and the world of Xen.
Anyway, the Gadget series went into dormancy until 2011 when a remaster for Past As Future called "iGADGET" was released for the iPhone and iPad, but it seems like it was taken down shortly thereafter because there's hardly any sign of it left besides one Youtube promo here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2czE8RmufI and an archived screenshot of the original website page dedicated to it here: web.archive.org/web/20110405074350/http://game.goo.ne.jp/igadget/index.html Finally, there's one review talking about it on the website iFanzine: ifanzine.com/igadget-in-depth-review/
From the screenshots of the in-game graphics that are available, it mostly looks like your standard minor graphical update port, and normally I wouldn't really care about those, except that the Youtube promo and the archived web page state that there were remade cutscenes and a new hint system to help understand the world better, and if the opening short scene of the character Slowslop in the hotel bathroom isn't just a promo-specific clip, then it might be that there were new scenes exclusive to this remaster, which interests me because I do enjoy the game's setting and would like to see more of it, plus the cutscenes were supposed to be re-constructed in HD on iPad which might have been nice to look at.
I have no idea why the remaster was taken down. The ads touted the involvement of the series' original creator, Haruhiko Shono, and said he was involved in the cutscene reconstruction, so I have to imagine it had something to do with rights issues. Since it was taken down 10 years ago at this point and pretty soon after it was first put up, I doubt anyone still has it on one of their old phones, at least not in the West, but I thought I'd throw it out there cause I find it mildly interesting. I'd genuinely be interested in a new installment in the Gadget franchise, whether by a more accessible re-release of the older games or a full-on remake, and it would be a shame if the last we'd see of it is a lost remaster.
Side note, there was a tie-in novel for the game called The Third Force which was written by Marc Laidlaw, who would go on to become one of the main original writers for Half-Life, and he has said The Third Force actually inspired quite a few elements in Half-Life such as the G-Man, Alyx Vance, the Resistance, and the world of Xen.
Anyway, the Gadget series went into dormancy until 2011 when a remaster for Past As Future called "iGADGET" was released for the iPhone and iPad, but it seems like it was taken down shortly thereafter because there's hardly any sign of it left besides one Youtube promo here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2czE8RmufI and an archived screenshot of the original website page dedicated to it here: web.archive.org/web/20110405074350/http://game.goo.ne.jp/igadget/index.html Finally, there's one review talking about it on the website iFanzine: ifanzine.com/igadget-in-depth-review/
From the screenshots of the in-game graphics that are available, it mostly looks like your standard minor graphical update port, and normally I wouldn't really care about those, except that the Youtube promo and the archived web page state that there were remade cutscenes and a new hint system to help understand the world better, and if the opening short scene of the character Slowslop in the hotel bathroom isn't just a promo-specific clip, then it might be that there were new scenes exclusive to this remaster, which interests me because I do enjoy the game's setting and would like to see more of it, plus the cutscenes were supposed to be re-constructed in HD on iPad which might have been nice to look at.
I have no idea why the remaster was taken down. The ads touted the involvement of the series' original creator, Haruhiko Shono, and said he was involved in the cutscene reconstruction, so I have to imagine it had something to do with rights issues. Since it was taken down 10 years ago at this point and pretty soon after it was first put up, I doubt anyone still has it on one of their old phones, at least not in the West, but I thought I'd throw it out there cause I find it mildly interesting. I'd genuinely be interested in a new installment in the Gadget franchise, whether by a more accessible re-release of the older games or a full-on remake, and it would be a shame if the last we'd see of it is a lost remaster.
