Have You Played... Legacy: Dark Shadows?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

Nothing quite says, INSTANT CLASSIC like the pull quote on a game's box coming not from some "review" from the mainstream media, but rather an anonymous comment on a forum. That's the mark of quality. That tells you nearly everything you need to know about Legacy: Dark Shadows. Nearly. Because you also need to hear the incredible audio clips I've got below.

What a thing this game is. If you can find a copy, and it costs you no more than about 3p, I really strongly recommend you check it out. Few games come close to its levels of wild incompetence, completely incoherent story, and voice acting of the likes you'll never have heard before.

This is a game that starts so badly it's completely unclear whether it's taking place on Mars or Earth - they can't even communicate which planet it's presently on. It's something about being a private detective, something about the 1930s, something about Mars, something about the laauoroororreewwer barrier. But the reason I want you to experience it is the voices and theme. I reviewed this for PCG in 2007, where I gave it a generous 16%. It's atrocious. Horrendously, I no longer have my copy of the game because I lent it to Kim "Portal" Swift, and SHE NEVER GAVE IT BACK. Anyway, what I do still have is the clips I recorded, so let's hear the theme now.

I mean: where do you even begin? How? How did this occur? Is this a famous recording artist in Croatia who phoned something in? On a broken phone? I wish I could be bothered to try to find out.

And then comes the voice acting. It's... it's like nothing else. Have a listen:

This clip is by far my favourite. And I do want to stress, this really isn't about the apparent speech impediment sported by one of the actors - goodness knows I desperately wish speech impediments were ever represented by gaming (let alone any other media) - it's about the, well, everything. I adore this. It's one of my favourite things of all time.

Tragically its website has long since been camped upon, and for inexplicable reasons the game isn't available anywhere. Amazingly there ARE copies available on eBay, or you could just ask Kim Swift for mine.