Questprobe 3: Featuring The Human Torch and The Thing

Questprobe: Featuring The Human Torch and The Thing is the third and final game in the Questprobe series in which you - attention - have to play for two members of the legendary Fantastic Four team. This thing is interesting for two reasons: firstly, this is the first and only appearance of FF on PC until 2005, and secondly, the gameplay is more or less different from the first two parts in the series.

Future members of the Fantastic Four: scientist Reed Richards, his wife Susan Storm, her younger brother Johnny and pilot Ben Grim went into space (the comic was invented in 1961, when the Americans were very worried about the defeat in the next stage of the space race with the USSR), but the ship fell into a stream of strange radiation and crashed to Earth. All the heroes survived, but got superpowers: Reed was able to change the molecular structure of his body, stretch and change his shape in every way, Sue got the opportunity to become invisible and surround herself with a powerful force field, which also gives her telekinetic abilities, Johnny - ignite without harm to himself to generate fire and control it, as well as fly, Ben turned into a huge humanoid monster with incredible strength and endurance, whose skin began to resemble brown cobbles. Having decided to become superheroes in the service of the government, all four rented a Baxter skyscraper, formed the Fantastic Four and chose the appropriate pseudonyms: Mr. Fantastic (Reed), The Invisible Lady (Sue), Human Torch (Johnny) and Creature (Ben). In this game, as the name implies, they will only play for the last two - but this is not bad either!

The plot is no longer associated either with the Supreme Examiner, or with the collection of the notorious gems to increase the score, since there is simply no such moment. The plot is more reminiscent of the traditional edition of the original comic book: Alicia Masters, the blind girl-sculptor and lover Ben Grima, was kidnapped by Dr. Rock, the main enemy of the Fantastic Four, a brilliant scientist and wizard, a former colleague of Reed, whom he accuses of exploding in a laboratory that mutilated his face, as a result, Rock is forced to wear an iron mask [to readers: sorry for these clarifications, but necessary]. There are two main characters this time - and for passing you will have to alternately control them, using the superpowers of both. In some cases, the game even seems to be limited in time: for example, at the very beginning of the game, when Ben drowns in a tub of tar, and you have to save him in the role of the Human Torch.

The general principles and visual style remained without significant changes. The majority of the screen is still occupied by the picture in the CGA palette that illustrates the current location and does not have real value (sometimes now a specific location is shown to you from several sides at once in the form of an image divided into parts: for example, different walls of one room); management is carried out by entering simple commands in the form of action verbs and (or) nouns, and sometimes full sentences, and now also using adverbs; the texts are short and poorly developed, but in general the command syntax is complicated and expanded. To move, as before, are commands in the form of the first letters of the names of the cardinal points; an important new team - "Switch": it allows you to automatically switch from one hero to another. What is most interesting in terms of commands is that you will be allowed to control the power of the flame emitted by Johnny: there are four options available. The ability to open inventory, communicate with NPCs (which will also be), inspect and select items, and so on in place; The ability to save the game has not gone away, and, as in the first part, The Hulk, you again have four slots available, and not one, as in Spider-Man. The complexity of the process as such - in terms of solving puzzles - perhaps only intensified; the most important complication is the death of the heroes (at least one of them): there is no Limb anymore, which means there is also the possibility of automatically returning to the game on the screen until death: if you die, you either have to load the save or start over.

The verdict is even more interesting than the first parts, even more difficult, with heroes who have long been waiting for and still waiting on the monitor screens, and besides - with finally real innovations and differences in the gameplay, but with full preservation " spirit "series. Unfortunately, this series turned out to be very short - one can only wonder why during the heyday of the (sub) genre of IF new parts were no longer followed. If you liked Hulk and Spider-Man, then by no means pass the adventures of Johnny and Ben.