Mentula Macanus: Apocolocyntosis

Well, I thought the game was fantastic. I started on it somewhat doubtfully. I played a Mystery Science Theater 3000 text adventure based on the game, Detective, on this site earlier and thought it was hilarious and went about looking for more. The second Mystery Science Theater game lampooned a game called Stiffy Makane and than brought me to this.

I wasn't sure I was going to play this for more than five minutes when I started out. The business with references and footnotes felt very awkward and none of them were very interesting, but when I stumbled upon Julia and talk about her nose, I knew I had to play the entire game simply because I read Latin per se illustrata by Orberg. I just love the kinds of things this game lampoons and I like that having sex with characters isn't the reward for completing a puzzle. Most characters just want to have sex with you. Isn't that a better fantasy than in things like Leisure Suit Larry?

I will say that the best material in the game is frontloaded. I quite liked traveling around the Roman world and interacting with celebrities. The section in Judea was actually my favorite--and frankly the false ending there is actually the best ending. After you acquire the banana things slow down a bit. Hell wasn't very interesting to me which was disappointing even though I suppose that bit had the best puzzles. Maybe it's because it was inspired by the Wasteland which I read in school but made no impression on me. Then the Vergil section simply felt unnecessary and not very much interesting happened in it, although I suppose the duck was fun (despite the fact that I've never read Henry Miller so I didn't catch that reference at all, but I guess I put two and two together...?) But then I forgave the game slowing down in those parts because the end was fantastic again, one of the best endings of all games.

So, yeah, I think this is easily one of the best text adventures I've played. Well worth it's high rating. Strong story, lots of jokes, a couple of passages like the one with the barbarian are even passably erotic.