Space Station Silicon Valley

N64, Space Station Silicon Valley (1998) game

Never having played this back in the day I didn't have any nostalgia to help me through this game's flaws, and consequently, playing it now, my overriding experience was one of frustration, to say the least! I didn't have a problem with the simple graphics, and even though the tunes were repetitive and borderline annoying, they were also merry - I liked the ideas behind some of the uniquer aspects, such as the music rising and falling in volume as you moved around the in-game speakers, or the option to destroy said speakers and have no music if you wanted to go to all that trouble. The puzzles could even be satisfying to solve, especially as they were sometimes hard to fathom. The implementation was what caused my irritation - it wasn't a forgiving control method or environment: the camera hideously designed so you weren't be in complete control of your vision, and if you were close to walls or objects you'd be restricted in where the camera could be positioned, and the biggest crime of all, there was no function to look around from your character's perspective, so you were stymied if you wanted to examine the environment from ground level, and in a three-dimensional game which uses height and space, it was one more thing that told you this game doesn't like you. I can't even describe it as cruel, it simply didn't care about the player! When you add to this the incredibly slow speed of movement that so many of your vessels (used to convey your microchip around), were restricted to, it required great stores of patience to keep going.

I'm not an impatient person, and I was raised on tougher games than this (most of the games I played on Commodore 64 and Amiga remained uncompleted), but the pace of play, the lack of control to see where you were going, and some tough, you might even say unfair, puzzles, all came together to make this an annoying, sometimes infuriating gameplay experience. It was also very old-fashioned (even for its day), in that you had to achieve everything on your checklist in one sitting, and you could easily spend half an hour or more wandering the landscape, working out where all the Power Cells in a zone were, trying to find even a hint of how to track down the unattainable Souvenirs, only to die and have to start right back at the beginning of the level! When you think of 'Super Mario 64,' which came out before this, but had a similar format of specific levels where you would have a series of tasks to accomplish to get all the Stars, it made you feel empowered, it was a joy to explore, and most importantly you only had to succeed at one task each time. It may be harsh to compare any 3D platform game to the Daddy of them all, but they were contemporaries, and while this was more puzzle-oriented than action-based, it's all about constraint, blocking the player's freedom.

I didn't feel that way to begin with. Not really knowing anything about the game in terms of how it played or the story, it was fun to start a jolly old romp as it seemed, one of the few N64 games I had an interest in that I'd never played at all. The opening levels, while not a total breeze, introduce the mechanics quite well: you play a microchip that, in order to progress through the zones, must inhabit robotic animals and use their individual skills to switch switches, reach the hard to reach places, and generally fulfil the criteria that your lazy human master sets you from the comfort of his spaceship's cockpit. And it is fun to be able to attack these various creatures until they're powered down, then using them to explore further. There are quite a number of animals to use across the four themed sections of the space station, and I tended to prefer the visual style of Euro Eden, the grassy greenlands, to the ice, swamps and sand of Arctic Kingdom, Jungle Safari and Desert Adventure. There was also a sense of anticipation as you wondered what this new zone would look like and what creatures you would be able to take over. But, although some characters had a pleasing turn of speed, too many were bogged down in that regard and when you had to repeatedly perform the same tasks over and over again, it became tiresome and definitely not fun. The joy of exploration was hampered, you were constantly punished for trying things (for example, some animals didn't like water, so if you jumped in a river they'd start to lose energy), and instant death was scattered all around like an ancient 2D platformer.

Crawling around a level at snail's pace, dying and restarting, weren't the only challenges to patience, as the game itself was against you: it was pretty buggy, almost unforgivably so, with crashes, or the game not recognising something you'd done. For example, in one of the desert levels you had to get a kangaroo, but if you didn't do it exactly right for whatever reason, the game was easily confused, wouldn't tick off the mission brief, and you'd have to start again and do everything up to that point repeatedly until the game was able to cope and it recognised you'd fulfilled the objective. So not only was the game difficult, it was downright unfriendly, as if they'd hurried the release. This lack of care was most evident in something unforgivable: due to a fault in the programming you couldn't complete the game one hundred percent by finding all the Souvenirs! Originally, I planned not to go back and replay levels to root out any of the trophies I hadn't found, simply because I'd become tired with the game and it didn't inspire me to persevere, so although I was determined to get to the end, I could live without the satisfaction a true completist has - too many games to play and not enough time to waste on the unforgiving.

Somewhere along the way, something clicked and I began to see the patterns or the style of puzzles that were in the game, and in the desert zones I actually rather enjoyed it, as I had at the beginning! The best animals were in this area, the kangaroo being my favourite as you actually had weight, strength and, for once, an impression of power and control. Having become attuned to the game, finally on its wavelength, and partly because the desert zones seemed slightly easier and I had no trouble locating each and every Souvenir first time round, I decided to go back and get the others. Bad idea. It was very satisfying and rewarding to conquer such a tough game, but each and every Souvenir puzzle was eventually beaten, with the swamp level in which you had to get a hyena, then a bear, proving to be the last elusive victory I needed. Unfortunately, the one in an earlier level, Fat Bear Mountain, proved impossible to pick up, literally, the collision detection absent! I'd remembered something about a problem from reading old issues of N64 Magazine back in the day (this may have been one reason why I never bought it back then, as I do like to be able to complete a game absolutely), but it was still a great disappointment, even though it was possible to input a cheat that would unlock the bonus level. Somehow, that didn't make it up to me, so the feeling I was left with was a game that promised a lot, was ingenious and unique, but also greatly flawed in execution.

It wasn't even all that logical: in Hoppa Choppa you're supposed to kill the huskies and take out guns to save the cute bunnies, yet to retrieve the Souvenir from that zone you have to kill the bunnies! On the other hand, there was a nice sense of humour to proceedings (such as Walrace 64, a nod to 'Wave Race 64'), and you could see the heritage of creators, DMA Design, their 'Lemmings' a clear inspiration, with the same cunning design and huge irritation as that classic 2D puzzler. The idea of transferring between different characters via a microchip was quite original (although Amiga game 'Beneath A Steel Sky' featured that idea, too), and may have been an influence on later games, such as 'Geist.' DMA's other original game of the period, 'Body Harvest,' shares a lot with this: basic visuals, jumping between various vehicles, only that was much more absorbing and fun, unlike 'Silicon Valley' you had a vast canvas to explore and experiment in, an early version of a sandbox game with freedom to take and use any vehicle (something they explored further in 'Grand Theft Auto').

The game took a turn for the predictable, opting for a boss fight to end it all (kangaroo boxing, preceding the final battle of 'Donkey Kong 64' by a year or so), flying and battling sections like 'Diddy Kong Racing' (though again, you have to fly through all the hoops every time you die, before the battle begins!), and a final final showdown in a cityscape that must have been quite impressive for its time, calling to mind 'Blast Corps' where you're called to defend against the marauding animals of the station. Even the corridor sections of certain levels recalled the annoying maze-like arenas of 'Banjo-Tooie.' So it had influences and may have been an influence, and it was certainly a game worth learning about first hand, if only for historical perspective. It was so close to turning around and becoming a solid, good game in the last zone theme, for me, but I had to take it on aggregate and rate it accordingly. I can't imagine ever wanting to revisit it, no matter how rewarding completion of such a difficult game was. I might have a go at the bonus game at some point, but overall it wasn't a positive enough experience, and though it does seem harsh to give it only two stars, it's not the time it was made that was the problem, but the lack of polishing and bug-testing. I applaud the approach of originality, but gameplay is just as important, and in this case, lets the side down in its realisation.

**