The Day I saved Elvis

‘The Day I hugged Ghandi’ ended with an explicit sequel hook, and here’s the sequel. We follow Alex and Paul on their continuing adventures, this time on Voodoo Island. Paul gets kidnapped, and it’s up to you to rescue him.

As is usual for this series (and for Speed-IFs in general), this game is severely under-implemented. Almost none of the objects mentioned in the location descriptions are actually implemented (‘x object’ typically returns ‘You can’t see any such thing’), and there are lots of ‘guess the verb’ situations. One might have an idea about what to do, but the game only accepts one specific verb/syntax – and typically not the most obvious one. Some synonyms would have made the gameplay much smoother.

Luckily, there are less spelling and grammar mistakes than in the prequels. But still, the text could have used some more proof-reading. For example, at one point it mixes up the two main characters!

Along with The Day I stabbed Stalin, this is one of the weaker games in the serious so far. The puzzles aren’t very clever, too much action takes place in info dumps, and while the humour is still there, the game just isn’t as funny as the previous ones. And some of the humour is based on breaking the fourth wall, which IMHO distracts from the story.

Still, I sort of like the Alex and Paul series. And if you’ve played the previous games, you almost have to play this one too – if only because the previous game ended on such a cliffhanger. And this one too ends with a ‘To be continued…’.