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Friday 25 August 2017

9: THE LAST RESORT


What do you get when Robert de Niro, Aerosmith, Superman, Jim Belushi and Cher collaborate with the twisted art of Mark Rydan to make a point-n-click adventure? The answer is one of gaming history's most notorious financial bombs. Nevertheless 9: The Last Resort (1996, Tribeca Interactive) is still a fascinating surreal head-trip of a game.

You play a nameless heir to this mysterious mansion built by the late explorer Thurston Last (voiced by Christopher Reeve, cinema's best Superman). Located on a small jungle island, the mansion was built to celebrate the oddities collected by the intrepid adventurer. After a long disappearance, Mr Last was found dead and some chaotic beings known as the Toxic Twins took over. Their name has a bit of a double meaning as they share it with that of the voice actors. Played by Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, they were given this moniker for their wild partying and drug use.

They're not the only rock-star legends to play a role in the game. Cher plays Isadora, a mechanical fortune teller that acts as the game's main menu. She will offer cryptic clues for a small fee however spare change is hard to come by. She's one of the 9 muses that inhabit the building and one of the few that will help you restore balance.

The one character you'll spend most of your time with is the most annoying. Played by James Belushi, he guides you through the game occasionally offering advice. Rather bizarrely, this cigar chomping lothario gets around by piloting a tiny biplane. His loud, brash voice is just as grating as the engine noise.

My first encounter with 9: The Last Resort was with a budget release at the turn of the millennium. It came with no extras or manuals - digital or otherwise - which is actually necessary for this game. Before you can enter the resort, a copy protection of sorts needs to be entered into the phone. This code is found of Thurston Last's will of which a physical copy was packaged with the original game. Needless to say, I could get no further and didn't pick it up again until recently when I found a pdf of everything I needed. In case you're wondering that code was 0821-1996-A92C. It's best to keep repeating it.

Now that I can enter, the sights before me are something to behold. Every wall is covered with artwork and other oddities, most of which can be zoomed in for a closer look. Mark Rydan has gathered a bit of a reputation in the art world for his weird paintings, a lot of which is found in the game. His style is also found in the mansion's decor giving the whole game a unique look that's stunningly beautiful and disturbingly grotesque all at the same time. Skeleton dogs are housed in fish tank displays, strange glistening creatures swell and contort on the pikes they've been placed on and a scattering of disembodied eyes seem to follow your every move. Even your allies have a distorted circus vibe to them. If you fancy delving further into his strange art - and I highly recommend it - you can visit his site here.

Rydan's art is framed on many of the mansion's walls,
as is some of his crazy album art for fake bands.

The game itself plays in a similar way to Myst. Screens are static with brief transitions between points. The puzzles also take a leaf out of Cyan's seminal work too. They are cryptic, confounding and all too often confusing. It doesn't help that the most difficult of them revolve around sound and music. Early on you'll be confronted with a game of pairs but instead of images or icons, it's sounds. You'd think it would be fairly easy but with several dozen pairs that need to be found, it becomes a test of patience.

I did find myself getting stuck several times which resulted in a lot of backtracking to get it right. Many answers to a puzzle - particularly the organ puzzles of which there are several - are found at opposite ends of the building. Make sure you keep a notepad handy and write everything down, whether it turns out to be a clue or not. You can only carry one item at a time too, so if you need several parts to complete a puzzle there's more backtracking for you. Keep a track of strange items on that notepad too so you can find them later. You'll thank me later as you wander the halls for the umpteenth time.

Upon release, 9: The Last Resort got a lot of mixed reviews. The art direction and production values were highly praised, but the obtuse puzzle design and high technical requirements were heavily criticised. As a result, it bombed heavily and Tribeca Interactive, Robert de Niro's production company, never produced another game.

Once I got into the groove, I really enjoyed 9: The Last Resort. The game itself is as schizophrenic as its art but if anything it's proof that an interesting style can be enough to keep you playing through those frustrating moments.


To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses DOSBox running Microsoft Windows 3.1 to get the game working on modern systems. Manual, Brochure, Postcard and Last's Will included. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 487 Mb.  Install Size: 813 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download


9: The Last Resort is © Tribeca Interactive
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me


Like this? Try These...

Residents - Freak Show  CarnEvil  Shivers

14 comments:

  1. I really think that I would have given this bizarrely beautiful creation its well-deserved chance back in 1996, but my PC (486-33, in combination with a rather weak SVGA graphics card) was, yeah, way too old and besides, I already heavily flirted with game consoles of that time, like Sega Saturn and Sony PSX (followed by N64, Dreamcast and PS2 later), which then again had been my 100% player's choice for more than 10 years in total, my personally golden age of gaming.

    But thanks to your brandnew entry, Biff, I'm finally able now going back to the roots, so to speak, with my Dual Core PC (since 2009), taking my chance better late than never with the ceremoniously presented 9: The Last Resort that temptingly combines some persons, art and game mechanics I heartily appreciate. May it be the illustrious guard of well-known, established actors and music stars (including Aerosmith's Steven "Revolution X" Tyler), the game's matured dark n' creepy comic graphics style (which feels to me a bit as if Konami's CarnEvil had a baby), or the "Myst-ic" gameplay of which mechanism I'm still a fan. Eventually, 9: The Last Resort seems to have a lot of appeal and whose world makes me really curious to experience it in full detail.

    So, it's due to you once more, Biff, who's recalling a pretty past again by celebrating a now no longer forgotten charming piece of game software. Thanks so much!

    Bye for now,
    Thomas

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    1. Cheers Thomas! This certainly is a weird one.

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  2. I took my first steps within the game, and up to now I'm rather fascinated how weirdly well everything works together after all (given that you're still a fan of the Myst genre). The environments (providing a slightly eerie funfair meets abandoned mansion setting), the overall voice acting (James Belushi as "flying ace" Salty, for instance, is so gloriously over the top, you can't help yourself but laughing out loud!), combined with all those funny and at the same time cool details the developers put into this little gem (among others, I love the stylish rock guitars and the several crazy music awards hanging on various walls - even though I'm still wondering if all of that actually makes sense, haha, but that's part of the 9: The Last Resort fascination, I guess), this game has my sympathy for sure. Plus, it's got Aerosmith in it! Well, in a broader sense. :-)

    Moreover, I have a technical question for you, Biff: What exactly was/were the reason(s) you chose Windows 3.1 over Windows 95 as the preferred OS to get the game running? Although it works well under your Win 3.1 interface, maybe it would do even better with Win 95(?). Hmm, I don't know precisely, so that's why I'm asking.

    Shame On Me #1: It was of course Midway Games - and not Konami, as I mistakenly said before -, which released the one of a kind Rail Shooter CarnEvil in the video arcades back in 1998. (And to be found also here at Biff's Marvelous Collection Chamber).

    Bye for now,
    Thomas

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If it's compatable and runs well, I will choose Windows 3.1 over 95. Partly because it's easier, partly because it takes a lot less space but mostly because it's a lot stabler and doesn't require as high system requirements. Win 3.1 is supported by the official DOSBox where Win 95 isn't.

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    2. For sure I do respect your adequate explanation, dear Biff, but nonetheless I'd like to tell you a different story I came upon not long time ago...

      And thus it happened one day that I wanted to find out how well the PC version of Philip's FMV Cyberpunk Action Adventure Burn: Cycle would actually hold up these days (for me not as much as I had hoped for), so I was slightly altering two of your DOSBox Installations that both make good use of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, to use each of them for the game. The result was that the DOSBox using Windows 95 handled Burn: Cycle more efficiently by providing a smoother presentation of its video graphics engine most parts of the game are based on; which then again ensured a better mouse control in comparison to the Win 3.1 setup as well. All in all, the Win 95 interface felt to me like an overall more powerful experience.

      By the way, is it actually not the case that DOSBox capacities are more limited to their own program code, rather than to those of your computer, if you've got - like me - at least a Dual Core machine? I'm just wondering. :-)

      Bye for now,
      Thomas

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  3. Thanks!

    By the way, is it possible to add earlier Istvan Pely adventures to your library? Majestic Part I: Alien Encounter, Symbiocom and Zero Critical.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have them and really want to add them. I played Zero Critical back in the day, but I've not attempted them since.

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  4. Miguel_Branquinho31 October 2020 at 13:33

    Hey, the installer is getting to 73% and always crashing :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not crashing,it's unpacking a large file. Read the FAQ for more info.

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  5. I want to play this, but dosbox frame tearing is awful and I have 0 knowledge on how to make one of these custom dosbox(that support vsync, like svn daum or X) load the games and I am not sure they can fix the frame tearing problem in the first place, as PCEm vsync isn't perfect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Old games weren't really programmed with v-sync in mind, even though all versions of DOSBox itself have it. That's why tearing may differ between machines. With 9, I've just done a test and I'm not getting any screen tearing so the likelyhood could be with your graphics card or monitor set up. The only internal DOSBox configuration that may help would be setting fulldouble to true in the dosbox.conf.

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    2. I think it may be my monitor then, I will test it on a different monitor later and see if it helps. Thanks.

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  6. Hey, having problems installing. It says that file CD\9LR.bin is corrupt. Any tips?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello. Read the info in the FAQ. All the files need to be downloaded and in the same folder before you run the installer. Enjoy!

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