Ugly duckling is a series of posts talking about games that could’ve been great, but were not.
Occasionally I stumble across games I really wish I could like. Ones, that seem to deserve to be remembered, respected and loved. But they’re not. And for a good reason. Not that they’re bad, but something clearly went wrong during development and it resulted in a mess. Mess that could only be saved by a proper remake. But instead, they usually end up being forgotten and lost to time. Ugly ducklings that never had a chance to develop into beautiful swans. Mulder and Scully from the PS2 The X-files: Resist or Serve are the ducklings I will talk about today.
I bet that every gamer who’s also a fan of the X-Files series wanted to get a game in that universe. And the first chance at that was the weird FMV adventure title called The X-Files Game from 1998 on PC (and 99 on PS1). Due to how FMV games used to work back then, I doubt many people enjoyed playing that game. Some might’ve not even been ready to deal with 7 (!!!) CDs the game was released on. And if we’re being honest, the actors weren’t doing a good job and the main character was just some dude with no personality, who had no relation to the main series.
But at the same time, what other genre but adventure games could make for a good X-Files game? Well, as Resist or Serve developers decided, survival horror is fine too. And, thinking about it now, this could work. X-files has action, adventure and horror, so if you play everything right, the game could be great. Guess what, things didn’t go so well.
Visually, the game was pretty ugly. Despite (or because of) the use of the music from the show, the soundtrack never feels fitting. Even using the actors from the show didn’t help. Voice acting constantly feels like actors phoning it in and not taking the work seriously.
But it could’ve been great. Story-wise, it works as three episodes, each episode having a commercial break-like cut. You visit locations from the show. There are countless cute little references. Mulder’s love for porn, sunflower seeds (that work as a healing item) and lots of other easter eggs. And conceptually, the story is pretty fun. It just doesn’t work the way it was done.
If you put everything the game wants to do on paper, every mechanic, every idea, every reference – you’d have an easy time believing this is the perfect X-files game and just, in general, a solid fun title. But as you play the game, you realize just how easy it is to kill a fantastic concept with bad execution. What this game needs is a proper remake, made by a good developer with a solid budget… I want to believe.
P.S. Since I couldn’t take screenshots from the game, I used the ones available on the game page on Mobygames.