FREE D.C!

Robot overlords keep watch over the last survivors of the human race in a zoo amid the overgrown ruins on Washington D.C.

MANKIND TRAPPED IN CAPTIVITY!

It's just another day at the Human Zoo. A gal named Johnnie told her Atom Guard to stomp on your face, Harry the Subhuman tried to feed you to a monster in the radioactive slime river, and the robots who run the joint are sending out Death Poodles with your name stenciled on their teeth.

In this new Cineplay adventure, you'll battle dangerous robots, laugh at the antics of your sidekick Wattson and comb the jungle for a mysterious gadget that holds the key to the survival of the last eight humans on Earth.

A NEW GENRE OF CINEMATIC ADVENTURE

Free D.C! is a game of complex relationships. Winning depends on your mastery of motive and your sense of humor. Will your response to the clever dialogue be skeptical, witty or angry? The attitude you choose will effect the outcome.

• Lifelike cinematic images and original stereo soundtrack.
• Action-packed story by a professional screenwriter features intriguing personalities who think and speak for themselves.
• Live actors and Claymation characters from the creator of the California Raisins make the story come alive.
• Point-and-click control allows you to play without typing.

~ from the back of the box

After spending an obscene amount of money creating an upgraded TurboGrafx port of It Came From the Desert, Cinemaware, the famed developers of Defender of the Crown, went under in 1991. This is when a bunch of ex-employees got together to form the company's spiritual successor; Cineplay Interactive. Their first game, Free D.C!, was a huge failure leaving the company only one other title - Power Politics - before they too went extinct. It marketed itself as a "new genre of cinematic adventure" and in doing so removed almost everything that the genre's enthusiasts were looking for in a game.

Released in 1991, Free D.C! is one strange adventure. There are no puzzles, no inventory or interactive hotspots that are clickable on the main screen. If you're expecting the contemporary likes of Monkey Island 2 or Lure of the Temptress you're in for a big shock. Instead, this post-apocalyptic tale acts more like a modern consequence-driven adventure with a fully explorable open world.

The robots overlords have left Washington D.C. in a terrible state (left).

Although a rusty tour guide bot still hangs around the deserted rooms of the White House (right).

Robots have overtaken our future, and humanity has diminished to just seven people all of whom have been caged off in an open-air safari park comprised of the entirety of Washington D.C! Now crumbling and overgrown, it is still a destination for the sentient droids as something of a human zoo. Recently, one of the captives calling himself Dr. Valerion has developed a machine that can kill any machinery within a certain distance of him. So far, he's racked up an impressive total of 64 robotic deaths. What's an artificial civilization to do? Their answer; go back in time to steal a rambunctious human, embed an explosive chip in his neck and force him get near the rogue doctor and take him out. Failure equals death. And the person they chose is the sardonic Avery Zedd.

Promotional material proclaimed this to be the first entry in the Avery Zedd Detectron Series. Alas, the poor sales put the kibosh on this idea but after a playthrough I do think there's something here, even if the final execution leaves a lot to be desired. We begin with Zedd arriving at the capital along with a dinosaur-like robot called Wattson. He acts as the advisor and exposition-giver and is remarkably genial considering the society he is a part of. Talking to him will give hints on where to go next or fill in more of the rather intriguing plot. You can also ride him like a horse by clicking the Use button. This makes traversal much faster and is essential when traveling from one side of the city to the other and running away from attacking Red Knight droids and Death Poodles (yes, you read that right).

The three main options of Use; select gun, mount or unmount Wattson & look at map (left).

The map will appear on the lower screen is useful to navigate where to go next (right).

While running away from enemies is your best bet most of the time, you're also not entirely helpless. From the beginning you are equipped with a basic stun gun with better arsenal to be collected throughout the game. Clicking Use, then Gun will allow you to select which weapon you have to hand, the clicking Stun will attack at the nearest target on any given screen. Their health is represented by the blue figure on the left-hand-side of the HUD while your own is displayed in red on the other side. The combat isn't exactly deep, consisting more of ammo management and matching the most efficient weapon for each foe. That being said, you can die. Quite easily in fact. Pretty much the entire map is open to you from the off so it's easy to stumble into an area where a strong enemy is placed. Sure, you can run back the way you came in an instant, but on my first time playing I engaged in an attack and instantly died. You will then get a pithy line of dialogue before being booted out of the game. Quite a harsh punishment for exploration if you ask me.

As you can probably gather from my previous explanations, the control method is rather limited. Outside of movement, which use the arrow keys or the mouse by clicking directly on the main screen, all other actions are accessed via the three red buttons in the middle of the game screen. The basic options are Use and Talk with Stun also appearing if you have equipped a weapon and a target is on screen. You will be using Use the most as it lets you look at the area map, ride Wattson or equip a weapon. Talking takes up the rest of the game, and selecting it will automatically begin a conversation with whoever is in the room. At various points, you will get the option of three different responses whether it will be an emotional response like Mean or Joke, or a specific subject to ask about. Unlike many other games of this era where dialogue trees can be exhausted and every retort be told, the chosen route is locked in stone and cannot be taken back (unless you load up a saved game that is) resulting in wildly different outcomes. In many respects, it feels more like a consequence-driven adventure game that would define the likes of Telltale or Supermassive Games.

Using your weapons to attack or stun enemy robots such as this devastating Death Poodle (left).

Your response in conversations have far-reaching consequences (right).

Coming from a company called Cineplay, the production and design is very cinematic. Some of the dialogue has voice acting which, while necessarily scratchy and low-quality to fit on the three floppy disks, are actually quite decently scripted and acted. The physical box contained an advert for an addon that adds voices to the remaining text, but I couldn't find a copy anywhere. Considering the poor reception I suspect it was quietly cancelled like the strategy guide book promoted alongside it. 

But beyond the audio, the graphics also have some care put into them. Will Vinton's animation studio - the folks behind the California Raisins and The Adventures of Mark Twain - provided the claymation frames used to create the graphics. Not much of this is visible in the actual game thanks to the low resolution. And the repeated backgrounds - often lacking anything of interest - do it no favours either. The result is a game that looks worse than a lot of its contemporaries. Where it does shine is in the character portraits that selectively appear during conversations, but that's little compensation.

As a whole, Free D.C! is a frustratingly mixed bag. On the one hand, you can get super involved in the branching storylines that entice multiple playthroughs. On the other, we have finicky combat, slow loading times, uninteresting visuals and a complete lack of puzzles which makes it a rather passive and directionless experience. It's a game that deserves a better reputation than it has, but still one whose noticeably flaws overshadow any promising elements teetering underneath.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox to bring the game to modern systems. Manual, Map, Quick Reference Card and Advertisement included. X-Input (X-Box) and select other controllers supported. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 31.6 Mb.  Install Size: 67.4 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Free D.C! is © Cineplay Interactive
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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