Feb 10, 2011

9 Hours to Live

Today, instead of talking about my usual multi-player gaming, I'm going to talk about a game for my DS I've been playing the shit out of.  It's called 999: 9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors, and it's a puzzle text adventure game.  I may accidently drop a spoiler so if you're at all interested in the game, you make want to stop reading.

The basic premise of the game is that you wake up on a ship in a room and suddenly you are in a fight for your life.  You find 8 others and you are all forced to play the Nonary game.  This game throws several twists but it becomes very apparent that not everyone is going to make it out alive.  The best thing I can compare this game is to is one of those "choose your adventure" Goosebumps books.  You make decisions, these decisions change the outcome of the story.

Now I've put in about 7 hours and I have unlocked 2 of the 6 endings.  One of those endings was one of the most disturbing pieces of writing I have read in a long time and left me wanting to start over and get right back into the Nonary game.  I have still yet to make it through the game alive, but I will make it out one of these times.  This really shows you have humans react in a life or death situation.

That being said, it does have its downsides.  Some of the puzzles have really obtuse answers, the counter arguement to this is that if you get stuck, the game will keep dropping bigger and bigger hints until it becomes pretty damn apparent what exactly they want you to do.  Also the decisions you make feel like they should have bigger impacts.  It really annoys me that no matter what, I can't save one of the characters even though I know exactly where and how he will die.  That being said, if that character lived, then the anxiety and hatred in the ship would be so much less, which fuels some great twists later on and playing without that would be boring.

If you like reading, I'd say give this a looksie, it definitely grabbed my attention, but I'm a sucker for a good story.  Read some professional reviews as I'm probably extremely biased and decide for yourself.

13 comments:

  1. hmm i think i have to check this out

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was wondering what this game was going to be like. It sounds like it may be worth a try though. Love the Goosebumps reference though, those books were my child hood :P

    ReplyDelete
  3. Seems great. I need to buy a DS.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i havent had a handheld in years

    ReplyDelete
  5. Definitely cracking my DS open in the morning... Goosebumps books, what a nostalgic rush that was!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sounds like this game is the reason I have been looking for to get a DS! Going to have to check out the other game options before i drop the money but I really like the concept of this game!

    ReplyDelete
  7. i have heard of it before but never tried to look into it very much thanks for sharing your thoughts on it might check it out...if I ever get a DS that is lol.

    ReplyDelete