The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime

One of the first games I can recall booting up on my Windows 95 computer in the mid-90s was The Journeyman Project Turbo!, and though I never finished it, I still remember it vividly and fondly. Pegasus Prime is and isn't that game. Although it features some assets from the earlier version (itself something of an enhanced port of the Macintosh original), this version has been greatly revamped. Stylistically, it's as I remembered, but it's very clear that they wanted to touch it up and bring it to 1997 standards, and for the most part the upgrades pay off. This is a beautiful game with a dynamic and exciting soundtrack that would make for a decent movie score and good, challenging puzzles.

For those who never played any of the Journeyman titles, it's a 1st-person FMV adventure somewhat similar to Myst. The game places you in several areas through which you explore, pick up items, and solve puzzles. There's a time traveling conceit to the game, and while it could have been used to a greater extent, it allows for several distinct locales. The story isn't anything exceptional, but there are some very cool cut-scenes that hold up quite well graphically, and the various areas are full of little things to see, Also impressive is how prophetic and well-realized this vision of the world can be at times. Sci-fi can get pretty ludicrous quickly. Although it has a different name and the game takes place 100 years from today, who else in the 90s was predicting anything like 3D-printing existing? For the obsessive types, it also features a nice point system, which might make it worth playing multiple times just to see how high you can get your score, and there are certain situations with multiple solutions, and the game rewards you for choosing less violent options.

Over 15 years later, though, it can hardly be called contemporary. The acting may have been acceptable for its time but seems quite poor today, apart from one or two of the performers. Some of the cast is almost on an Ed Wood level. The controls are also far from perfect with the item menu awkwardly being controlled by the '`' key and the enhancement chips via 'backspace'. In the Turbo version, these were accessible through on screen prompts with the mouse, and I can't understand why the remake removed that option. The nature of the puzzles can also be oblique, and despite being relatively small, the areas are rather labyrinthine, and I only encountered one section in which you could use the mapping chip. It's a bit too easy to get lost or miss an important item. Another irk is that the game may require replaying sections several times, but other than the AI helper, you cannot skip cutscenes, and unfortunately, the AI's cutscenes are all too easy to skip as pressing any button will bring her up, and there's little warning as to when she will chime in. These are all little problems, but they do add up.

Overall, playing Journeyman again was like being reunited with an old friend for me. It may not be exactly what I had built up in my head, but I'm quite satisfied and am looking forward to playing the sequels, too. Even if you're not familiar with this series, though, I think this could be enjoyable provided you're accustomed to games in this style. This is cool stuff for what it is.