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Burn:Cycle

Then the game pissed me off. "Burn:Cycle" is an "action-adventure" game, which means you go back and forth between arcade eye-hand coordination and puzzles. I got through the second action sequence in a couple of tries, but I didn't save the game. When I got killed and had to replay the action sequence (involving shooting down things that look like asteroids) I couldn't get through it. I played the same damn sequence literally 50 times, watching the same opening movie and the same filmed explosion over and over and over. And I swear I was hitting those things just right and getting blown up anyway! If I hadn't solved it once I might have though it was impossible and given up right there and then. But that would have been a mistake.

Because except for this annoying action sequence (which, God help me, they make you do again a little later in the game) and another rather aggravating one, this is a compelling game, a gritty, interactive movie with interesting, well-integrated puzzles and only a few annoying though equally well-integrated action sequences.

This is a short game, I played it straight through in five or six hours, but I was happy about that, because playing this game over a series of days would be like watching an episode of Max Headroom in 20 minute sections. With it's fast-paced story, engaging acting, poetic dialogue and cyber-ambience this is something that should be experienced in one sitting.

Of course, it wouldn't be possible to finish a game that quickly unless the puzzles were pretty easy, and that's what we have here. These are figure-out-the-rules-and-solve-it puzzles along the lines of Shivers, simple little puzzles involving aligning, matching, connecting and the like. Puzzles that you have to think about for a bit, or that require some trial and error, but nothing that's going to keep you up all night. I blazed through this game without cheating, and if the mouse had responded properly in the arcade sequences I think they would have been pretty easy too.

But like The Last Express, "Burn:Cycle" is more about story than about gameplay. With it's gory, cartoonish violence, scantily dressed women, sleazy clubs, moody score, noirish look and a plot that hurtles forward in a confusing but compelling manner, this is a game that can truly be described as "interactive fiction."

I didn't always understand what was going on. I wasn't clear on who one of the main characters in the game was. And although I solved all the puzzles, I'm not sure I really understood the logic behind some of them. But none of it mattered, because I was kept on the edge of my seat trying to keep Cutter's brain from exploding.

-- Charles Herold -2000