Duckman - Review


Duckman Release date: 1997 Developer: Illusions Publisher: Funsoft Boxshots USK: 12 years and up A review by André 26th January 2003 After I had installed Duckman and played the first sequences, my first impression was that this adventure game cannot deny a certain greasiness. Because Duckman contains the kind of slippery humor, which also characterizes the Leisure Suit Larry-series, paired with a twist of splatter. Like in the Larry-series, all is presented in comic style and 3rd-person-perspective. But the longer I played Duckman, I had to realise that it has to offer substantially more than tawdry sex jokes.

Story Yes, there is a story and it's not that bad at all: Duckman is a superhero and his TV shows are broadcasted with big success. Suddenly he is faced with ruin, because he must watch the New Duckman - King Chicken - taking over his role and destroying his life. His family leaves him, even doesn't let him enter his own house. Besides he loses his job. But which bad machinations are at the bottom of it all? Duckman doesn't give up so fast and now it's his - or better our - task to uncover the plot against him, to expose King Chicken and his backers and reconquer his family. The craziest tasks result from the many small story strands. And those are to a large extent really inventive. I must say, the story is indeed solid. Would there not always be those permanent slippery jokes: Duckman meets the cute Teletubbies-like beings Fluffy and Uranus in their house and masturbates during phone calls on a sexline in front of their eyes (sorry, I can't formulate it more elegantly). Also a question I cannot answer, why he again and again has to put the little creatures into the mixer, the microwave and some other gadgetry, as this actions aren't really relevant for the story. Many other jokes refer to American actors, who are at least not known to me. Sometimes the humor and names of the actors are not changed in the German translation, others were partly modified. So you can find backbiting on Marie Luise Marian for example. As said, some jokes in the dialogues are nice, many are however simply only sexist and/or crude. I assume that the German translation contributed its part here too. Puzzles Fortunately the tasks and puzzles are not as clumsy as the jokes. Puzzles and solutions are imaginative and funny. Particularly funny e.g. the puzzles with the tail-lift, with the fire-department car or with the Chinese plumber and the fortune cookie sayings. More won't be betrayed here... There are almost exclusively object-oriented puzzles to solve. The degree of difficulty keeps within limits and actually one can nearly solve each puzzle, even if one must experiment a bit and sometimes has to use apparently mismatching objects. I liked that Duckman wherever he appears, regularly turns everything in debris and ashes. The degree of difficulty rises a little towards the end. Though the final is rapid, it's nevertheless not really difficult. Dead ends are not known to me. There are also no mazes. You can also not die in the actual sense. Towards the end you can make deadly errors a few times, but there is no Game Over and you can try again at once. Regarding the puzzles, Duckman possesses all qualities, which make a beautiful comic adventure. Graphics Copyright 1997 is written on the box. I don't know exactly, which comic adventures were released in 1997 together, but it seems that Duckman lags behind graphically two years or so. The game looks very pixeled, compared for example with Discworld 2 (which was at that time and almost today graphically perfect). But that doesn't matter to me at all, because I have Duckman purchased recently in an auction in 2002 and so I don't care if the game was at its time somewhat outdated, as long as the funfactor today is right. I hope that people will see this the same way in a few years with Simon 3D too, which because of the outdated graphics was often more poorly rated. However, the graphics nevertheless are solidly designed. The same applies to the really beautiful and quite rapid intermediate sequences. Sound Each time you open the inventory you hear a belch, if you close it a fart, pardon me, a sound of flatulence. Fortunately this are the only two objections concerning the sound. Besides and first of all I was surprised by the beautiful music. Because there are mainly - another similarity with Larry (at least with the 7th part, which I played) - relaxed jazz and easy-listening-sounds in good quality. The same applies to the neat and professionally spoken English dialogues, as Duckman has only German subtitles. The dialogues are loud and mewling, but that do fit with this kind of comic adventures with sledgehammer-humor. Handling There are nearly no objections concerning the handling. Duckman is totally mouse-controlled as most adventure gamers like it the most, but what is missing in many games of today. The cursor has the shape of a duck head. With one right-click you can change it from a normal to an aggressive Duckman. If you use the normal Duckman with the left mouse button, you get information about objects or address other characters nicely - as far as possible. With the aggressive Duckman one does not talk very nice to others or one can use an object. If you click on our hero, the inventory opens. I've rarely combined two items within the inventory. Unfortunately there are only ten save slots where you can't add your own texts. Besides the menu is just as practical and innovative as the controls. With the ESC-key and one or two more clicks one can adjust the options, as sub-title-speed (which is always important I would say), the volume of music, sound effects and speech as well as start, save, load, continue and exit the game). That sounds very simple and and it is indeed that simple. Installation Duckman was conceived for Windows 95 and could be installed and played problem-free under Windows 98. There were no crashes or other technical problems. Length Duckman is surely not the longest game and I'd like to indicate here wonderfully inaccurate approximately 4 medium gaming nights, since I didn't stop the time. Result On the whole Duckman became a classic however very original adventure game and attends on us with several surprises, even if those surprises concerning the awkward sexist allusions not always positively surprised me. This is probably the largest deficiency of the game. Opposite stand however many successful ideas, funny and original puzzles as well as a simple however rapid storyline. In addition Duckman has innovative and comfortable controls. A good comic adventure hasn't to offer more. Remains to say, that Duckman is not a perfect adventure game and a very high rating would be wrong, but the fun-factor was indeed more than average. And I must admit that I simply liked the game despite its doubtful humor, turn both eyes blind and give the following Rating: 81 % Adventure-Archiv-rating system: 80% - 100% excellent game, very recommendable 70% - 79% good game, recommendable 60% - 69% satisfactory, restricted recommendable 50% - 59% sufficient (not very recommendable) 40% - 49% rather deficient (not to be recommended - for Hardcore-Adventure-Freaks and collectors only) 0% - 39% worst (don't put your fingers on it) Minimal system requirements: IBM compatible 486DX or higher (Pentium recommended) Windows 95 8 MB RAM 22 MB free hard disk space 2x CDROM-drive SVGA graphic card with VESA support and 640 x 480 resolution Mouse Keyboard Played with: Win 98 Pentium III 64 MB RAM Soundblaster Pro 40x CDROM-Laufwerk		More screenshots