Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The chances are if you’ve heard of The Last Express, you’ve either played it and evangelise about it, or have always meant to get a copy. It’s one of those games. I’ve played half of it, but was then interrupted by having to save the world or something. But that was only because I borrowed the original discs from adventure aficionado Richard Cobbett. But now even people who don’t know Richard Cobbett can play this most esoteric and interesting of adventures once more, as it’s been released via DotEmu. The Jordan Mechner game (Prince Of Persia’s creator) is set on the Orient Express, pre World War One, and is packed with so many unique ideas.

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I picked up this snippet from Richard Cobbett’s twitter last week. Oddly, as one of his touchstone games, Cobbett’s got nothing extended written about it I can find, so let’s go with his twitter barrage to explain it: “In case you never played it – and you didn’t – TLE was a really cool real-time adventure set on the Orient Express just before WW1. It had about six actual puzzles, but phenomenal attention to detail, and some really nice bits of design. For instance, if you had to avoid someone, you could just lock yourself in your room and wait for them to leave. It sold about four copies.” He’s right. I’ve never played it. However, as one of the more interesting lost-works from a major designer (Mechner=Prince of Persia), it lingers. And lingers with Mechner too, as he made an attempt at a screenplay for a prequel in 2002.
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Seems Hollywood big boys are taking videogame adaptations seriously these days. First, Bioshock gets a big-name director attached to it, in the form of Gore Verbinski, and now the other driving force behind Pirates of the Caribbean, noisy uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, is dumping a truckload of money on a Prince of Persia silver-screener. It’s due next year and “the producer and Disney hope to turn [it] into a follow-up franchise to “Pirates of the Caribbean”, reckons Variety.
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