Marine Raider is a rock solid interactive fiction game that deploys you right in the middle of some good old-fashioned WW2 style warfare. The best part is, you don’t even have to be a patriot to enjoy this because the author refrains from shoving it down your throat to the point where you find yourself asphyxiated. The setting is described very nicely as well as the action without becoming a tedious wall of text to sort through, it makes my eyes bleed when people do that with these types of games. You will be in charge of leading your platoon into enemy lines and hopefully bringing them all back home safely.
Alright so maybe I am a sucker for war movies that take place around this time period which might make this review a little bit biased but I am fair. The flaw here is that the game is too short but I happen to know how time consuming these games take using a scripting language called Choicescript. There aren’t many typos to worry about in this one which is always nice with these games considering the only graphics included is a loading gif and an ad or two. The controls are similarly simplistic being that the primary button is the one that says “Next” or the status display button at the top of the screen. Although this might turn some people off I see it as a great opportunity for players to take their imaginations and make the best of the situations presented. You don’t have to be an insanely avid reader to enjoy what ultimately is just a video-game.
What sets Marine Raider apart from other games in its category is the fact that it is well written and approachable. It’s also a completed game which to fans of interactive-fiction titles is a pretty big deal because there is nothing worse than a cliffhanger. Except I don’t know, we don’t complain about bad endings much because if it sucks, it sucks you know? That is besides the point though, I’m basically saying that if the game was bad you would know well before you beat it.
It is free and runs on just about anything that can render “Duck Hunter”or something. Of course if you do not like free you can always go buy a Kairosoft game or something instead of that box of cigarettes you smoke on weekends. You know if you are WW2 veteran I would suggest something like an old Medal of Honor instead but you know how it is when you get tricked into believing propaganda. Marine Raider brings you right up close to the situation in a display of excellent pensmenship and game design. It is true that the niche is filled to the brim with games flashing fancy graphics with teams of 100+ people on the job but Marine Raider honestly makes it look easy to do otherwise. I’m not saying that interactive-fiction is weird or anything, I’m just saying that it is way cooler when it doesn’t suck.
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