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Who remembers Duckman? Anyone? Well, if you haven't seen this adult animated show from the same people behind Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys then your truly missing out. Even if you're a fan of the show (and if you've seen it, you definitely are), you may not have realised that in 1997 there was an adventure game based on the lewd private dick/family man...
Where Duckman: Legend of the Fall is certainly known is amongst classic adventure gaming enthusiasts. It is notoriously one of the most difficult to find games in this genre becoming rare just a few years after release. The cause of such obscurity was pretty much down to the poor release date of May 1997 when the show would soon be permanently off the air after four seasons. As such it was released in limited numbers. A quick search on eBay for a physical copy yields zero results, either as current or completed sales which makes it difficult to assess the going price. I'd suspect that it could easily venture into the hundreds.
The game opens with the monotonously voiced porcine sidekick Cornfed narrating from the trenches of a war zone as if it were some 1940s film noir. He's telling us the story of Duckman and how he completely ignores his duties as a reality TV star (it's going all meta on us) by going on expensive month-long spa visits and prostitute binges. You play as this fowl-mouthed mallard who proudly puts the 'dick' in 'private dick'. It comes as no surprise to everyone else that upon your return to the family home, the studio has replaced you with your exact opposite: the muscular and generous New Duckman.
Your family loves this New Duckman who has taken over your life. Your sons, the dumb yet poetic Ajax and the two-headed Siamese twin geniuses Charles and Mambo all relish the attention and support that was missing from their real father. Even the ever disapproving Aunt Bernice approves of the new muscle man in their home and has therefore requisitioned an electric fence to keep "Old" Duckman out. Can this lazy, self-absorbed bird get his life back? Can he save his TV show from the mundanity of the supportive New Duckman? Does the fact the show was cancelled give away the ending? And why is Cornfed in the trenches? You have to play it to find out.
it won't take you that long to get these answers. The overall game can easily be completed in an afternoon and the puzzles won't cause problems to even the most novice of adventurers. That's not always a bad thing - sometimes I just want to play through a compelling and entertaining story and Duckman is certainly at least one of these things. Much like the cartoon, the comedy is perfectly played helped by the fact that most cast members return to voice their characters. Even the legend that is Tim Curry reprises his role as the arch-villain King Chicken. Alas, Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander doesn't return as the title character but the replacement does such an excellent job you'll barely notice.
Graphically, it looks decent enough. It can't compare with other bigger budget adventures of the time like The Curse of Monkey Island, but it adequately captures the sordid humour and the wonky animation of the show.
It may not test your grey matter, but it will make you laugh your ass off for a hugely entertaining couple of hours. Just don't let you children play it unless you want to have that awkward conversation of why a sex worker would own a donkey.
To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses ScummVM to allow the game to run on modern PCs. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.
19.05.2018 - Version 2 - Now uses PCEm to emulate Windows '95
This fixes the opening video bug.
21.04.2020 - Version 3 - Now uses ScummVM 2.1.0 to play the game
File Size: 410 Mb. Install Size: 557 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ
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Duckman: Legend of the Fall is © Playmates Interactive Entertainment
Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man is © Klasky Csupo
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by meLike this? Try These...
Hi, first off, thanks for this great site! I had a question regarding multiple games for the same platform. I grabbed Duckman which comes bundled with Win95. If I find another game on your blog that runs through Win95 also, do I have to download the entire package again? And how would I alter the Duckman shortcut to boot into Windows instead of start the game automatically? Thanks for any help
ReplyDeleteHi, you do have to install each game separaely to play my versions. I do this because of my ease-of-use mantra, even though it adds about 200Mb to the file size.
DeleteIf you want to boot into windows without the game running, you can edit the win.ini file within the Windows folder of the emulated Window 95. Delete the line after "run=" (depending on the title some titles use the autorun CD feature or don't automatically load at all)
To mount other CDs, edit the dosbox.conf using notepad. Be aware that there may not be enough space to virtually install each game so another virtual hard drive may be needed.
Everything works fine except that the third .avi file in the 'videos' folder (the Duckman series intro) is corrupted and doesn't play along with the others when starting up the game.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know. I'll take a look at it in the week.
Deletehello,thanks for your good work.Lots and lots of adventure games that i couldnt play before.Yesterday i finally played and finished creature crunch! With the lockdown imposed here in Greece this is a joy.I didnt have problem in the past with dosgames but windows 95 and 3.1 games were difficult to handle,so adventure games in those platforms were always in my hunting list.Imagine me discovering this blog,its like a box of cookies! Although regretably i am having problems with this game.While Creature crunch played based on dosbox ran smoothly this game runs poorly,emulation percentange is at 64% and sound is choppy like i can here it repeated in the background 2 times.I fiddled a little with the emulator but with no results.Do you have any ideas?
ReplyDeleteSadly, the low speed is a result of your PC specs. PCEm being a relatively new emulator isn't particularly optimised and requires a very beefy machine to run smoothly, so you might run into the same issues for all games that use it. There are only a few on the site that do, though.
Deleteyeah,i figured it would be the case,emulation is taxing on a computer.Nevertheless thanks for the quick answear.There are a lot of games to play here,I will finally manage to play Nightlong properly.Cheers!
DeleteHey friend! I write to let you know i managed to run the game smoothly.Since this is a fairly low spec game,i played with machine settings and got it.At first i downgraded cpu and memory but that seemed to only give me a boost of 6%.Then i deactivated voodoo graphics,selected vga and put speed at default and that was it game runs 100% and smoothly.I am playing right now!
DeleteGood to know. I never think to to disable some graphics options as it always runs smoothly my end. Nevertheless, DOSBox is my first port of call going forward anyway.
DeleteAnyone else have a problom that Dantes pizza dosent pop up in the game? ive even used a walkthrough to ensure that ive done everything right.
ReplyDeleteI was having the same issues as srnickolas for quite a while but found out that this is now working in ScummVM, or has been since 2019 at least.
ReplyDelete