Author: Gem Wheeler

Retro Gamer 260: The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes

Gem WheelerLeave a comment

I’m in this month’s Retro Gamer with a six-page feature on Electronic Arts’ Lost Files series. EA aren’t exactly renowned for graphic adventures, but their two Holmes games – 1992’s The Case of the Serrated Scalpel and 1996’s The Case of the Rose Tattoo – are well worth checking out. Sadly, neither is available on GOG or Steam, but if you can get hold of them, they’re easy to get to run via ScummVM.

Serrated Scalpel is hugely entertaining, and Rose Tattoo is another treat; the writing of Holmes in particular is a delight, as is the period detail. I really enjoyed chatting to writer Eric Lindstrom via email about how he and RJ Berg crafted the mysteries at the heart of each case, which the very modest Eric makes sound a lot easier than it must have been. For fans of Sherlock in general and point-and-click adventures in particular, these games are unmissable.

Fallout

Gem WheelerLeave a comment

With Amazon Prime’s new Fallout TV show winning plaudits for its rich world-building, loving nods to series lore and dark humour, it might just be safe to admit that video-game classics can, after all, be successfully adapted for the screen. Not sure I can handle the ultraviolence, to be honest – I know, I know, but pixelated fountains of gore just aren’t the same…

Unpopular opinion time: I love Fallout 4. Yes, even building the settlements. It was a game I sank plenty of hours into during lockdown, when its oddly optimistic view of life post-apocalypse really resonated. I wrote about it for Whynow back in 2021 and had a lot of fun tying together Ray Bradbury and Anglo-Saxon poetry about the lost glories of the Roman Empire. Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.

A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot 249

Gem WheelerLeave a comment

Another year, another festive ghost story – well, sort of. As it turned out, Mark Gatiss gave us mummies for 2023. Not very Jamesian, what?

Never fear, old chap, for ‘Lot 249’ is actually drawn from a lesser-known short story by none other than Arthur Conan Doyle. A great opportunity for the Sherlock writer to sneak in both a cheeky cameo appearance by a certain pipe-smoking future inhabitant of 221B Baker Street and some Hammer-referencing revenants…

Adam Scovell’s excellent interview with Gatiss digs into the source material and the longer Ghost Stories TV tradition. Adam also recently shared a link to this astonishing recording of Doyle from 1927: itself something of a communion with the dead at this remove, which couldn’t be more fitting for ACD, a Spiritualist.

I’ve enjoyed James superfan Gatiss’s layered takes on ol’ Monty’s spectral tales (2021’s ‘The Mezzotint’ was a particularly pleasing take on a story I’d have thought unfilmable – I said the same about ‘Two Doctors’ in this piece for Den of Geek back in 2016, so fingers crossed…). That said, it was nice to see him on different terrain this time round. Kit Harington and a rakish Freddie Fox both had fun with the end-of-Empire setting; beneath the starched-collar surface, though, there’s a subtle critique of colonial rapacity and nineteenth-century homophobia.

The lessons here? If Sherlock Holmes invites you to share a flat with him, don’t turn him down. Oh, and always keep an eye out for any back-up mummies. Happy Christmas!

Retro Gamer 252: Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon

Gem WheelerLeave a comment
Retro Gamer 252

I’m in Retro Gamer issue 252 with a four-page deep dive into Josh Mandel’s unsung classic adventure, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon. It’s a unique game, drawn from the world (or should that be universe?) created by sci-fi writer Spider Robinson: pick up a quest from the motley crew of regulars in Mike Callahan’s bar and leave New Jersey for outer space, Transylvania and the future, among other locales.

Laden with puns, pathos and pure adventure-gaming goodness, Josh’s only outing for Legend Entertainment following his departure from Sierra On-Line is absolutely worth searching out – it’s not on GOG.com or Steam, but you can run it fairly easily yourself via DOSBox.

After The Last Jedi: Rewriting the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Gem WheelerLeave a comment
Black-and-white photos of Rose Tico, Rey, Kylo Ren and Finn from the Star Wars sequel trilogy, inset as panels against a deep purple background.

Just in time for Star Wars Day, I went down a few of the alternative paths that could have been taken by the sequel trilogy’s characters over at The Companion. With the announcement of a new film featuring Rey, it’s a good time to look back at these movies’ abundant potential for the new characters, most of which was squandered by The Rise of Skywalker.

I loved The Last Jedi when I first saw it in 2017, but it’s hard to revisit now after the mess made by TRoS. Still, with a little help from Colin Trevorrow’s leaked draft of his Episode IX – not to mention the stunning concept art that popped up in early 2020, as the dust settled – it’s fun to speculate about where we could have gone.

The Stone Tape at 50

Gem WheelerLeave a comment
Researcher Jill Greeley, played by Jane Asher, stands in front of a group of her colleagues outside the Taskerlands research facility in a promotional image from the 1972 BBC ghost story, The Stone Tape.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Nigel Kneale’s classic – if creaky – ghost story, I looked into its themes and legacy for The Companion, in the company of writer Adam Scovell. There are some very scary moments in The Stone Tape, including Michael Bryant’s attempt at an Irish accent, but that’s only the surface layer.

Delve deeper, and you’ve one of the most fascinatingly bleak premises in the genre. Do we really leave anything conscious behind us, or are our spirits just “dead mechanisms”, doomed to repeat our dying moments forever? Not really feeling either of those concepts, myself…

The scientists in this are an unpleasant bunch, with lots of ‘70s sexism and wince-inducing jibes about their Japanese competitors, but that’s deliberate on Kneale’s part. There’s a really interesting subtext here about cruelty, sacrifice and power, and it’s aged far better than the production values.

All together, now: “It’s in the computer!!!”

Retro Gamer: The Story of Leisure Suit Larry

Gem WheelerLeave a comment

I’m in this month’s Retro Gamer with an eight-page deep dive into the legendary Leisure Suit Larry series. Creator Al Lowe and artist Karin Nestor told me all about the prince of polyester and his origin story. As Al puts it, the sexiest thing about those games was always the box. After all, if you want real eroticism in a Sierra title, play the Gabriel Knight games. That fake moustache puzzle was a bit of a passion killer, though.

Al is hilarious and has a lot to say about the depressing last days of Sierra On-Line, while Karin’s brilliant animation still shines even in screenshots. Plus, there’s the real story behind the never-released Larry 4…

My favourites in the series? The VGA remake of Larry 1 and Larry 7 are the entries I had the most fun with, though Larry III has its moments (and a Roman numeral to boot, which is always a plus).