The Dame Was Loaded

The Dame Was Loaded is a decent adventure game and a particularly nice example of FMV done right. What we have here is a classic hard-boiled detective story filled with wisecracking mooks and dames in snappy dress with even snappier comebacks. If you're thinking Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, you're on the right track in terms of what The Dame Was Loaded is going for. And to that end it's pretty effective! In terms of the bar set by most FMV games from this era, the acting in this title is actually quite good! This isn't to say that we're dealing with any Oscar winning performances either, but for the most part the actors here perform well enough. The dialogue is also well written and snappy which goes a long way towards triaging any occasionally middling delivery. In reading up on this game, I've seen several sources citing it as the 'largest multimedia project produced in Australia' at the time of its release. I'm not entirely certain of the original source of this rather vague statistic, and equally I'm not certain what metric was applied to conclude that it was in fact 'the largest' (By budget? By volume of content? Number of cast and crew? Size on disc? … this reviewer has questions). Unfortunately the sources I've seen never seem to explain it any further than that. But despite some fuzzy data collection, I suppose that this is noteworthy trivia about the game, especially considering the number of sources which seem to cite it as a statistic. So this is a point & click adventure game of the sort that was very common among games from this era which utilized FMV for the explicit purpose of interactive fiction. Although where many FMV games from this era utilized QTEs as means of (or perhaps as a replacement for) pacing, The Dame Was Loaded really does owe more of its gameplay to classic point & click games (albeit first person in this particular case). So having a keen eye for on-screen details, prudent inventory management, and clever usage of items (occasionally in combination with other items) will all serve you well here. As you progress further along in this convoluted case of missing persons by way of a diamond heist gone wrong you may even find it prudent to take some notes, another hallmark from the golden age of adventure games. In terms of modern 'quality of life' improvements this game might have benefited from an automatic memo pad tracking any pertinent details of the case you've encountered. You'll find that in your various interactions with people you'll only be able to ask about any given topic/person of interest once, unless further discoveries are made in the meantime at which point the interviewee will respond with information about the more recent discoveries rather than repeating any of the previous details they may have revealed. As the case grows more convoluted, I'd say that having case notes on hand will be extremely beneficial. Sometimes your protagonist (Scott Anger) will make connections explicitly by way of spoken inner monologue, "… didn't <so-and-so> mention a brown jacket like this?", but often it will be up to you the player to connect the dots in order to truly crack the case. So if you're on top of your investigations, most aspects of the game should be fairly straight forward. That's not to say the game isn't without some elements of moon logic though, and I'll freely admit that I looked up clues in a couple of instances. I'm sure I missed some things along the way, but bottom line, don't expect this game to always serve up easily identifiable solutions. The obtuse nature of the case is somewhat compounded by an arbitrary time limit set at the beginning of the game in which you're given a certain number of days to solve the case. At one point in the game this timeframe gets extended a bit, but it continues to be mentioned and loom like a shadow over the proceedings. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I'm sure it's intended as a means of establishing replay value (as well as increasing tension), but on the other hand and more crucially for me, "Hurry up and explore!" is just such a weird directive to have in an adventure game. It's entirely possible to miss a lot of the flavor text and fun little additions when you're rushing to meet this looming deadline. I find that some of the fun in adventure games is experimenting with the environment and environmental parameters, but this requires a more relaxed approach to gameplay. Still, any quibbles I can find with The Dame Was Loaded are fairly minor. I didn't have a lot of high expectations from this era of FMV gaming, but The Dame Was Loaded exceeded them in most regards. Recommended for adventure game fanatics; especially so if you have love for this classic era of detective stories as torn from the pages of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

The Dame Was Loaded is a point & click, FMV adventure. As a private-eye, you'll be hired to find a man by his sister, but you'll get involved into something bigger, as you find out that the man you are looking for isn't who he seemed to be at first... The game has a decent story, plenty of epic one-liners (but spotty acting and no subtitles, sadly), and some very interesting environmental puzzles, with multiple solutions. Unfortunately, the gameplay is a chore to go through, partly because of interface issues, partly because of stupid design decisions. For the UI, we have accessing the inventory by clicking both left and right mouse button (it's a bit unresponsive), windows for items/dialogues that immediately disappear should you move slightly outside their boundaries, hit detection which can make pixel-hunting a chore, a cursor that doesn't always refresh properly, and clunky mechanics to move items between the inventory and containers (more on this later). As for game design, we have the dumb decision of allowing to save/load/access the menu only from your office. A game where you are on a timer, and every action consumes time (so going back to save is actually something that can hinder you), with an inventory limited to 15 items (and believe me, you'll be swimming with items), being allowed to only move 1 item in and out of inventory/containers at a time, sometimes with delays like sound and FMV as you move said items, people that get easily offended by your actions AND time sensitive periods where you can get caught snooping around. What this translates to, is a game where you are CONSTANTLY forced to replay entire sections of the game, just because you stepped on a landmine while experimenting with the game mechanics. It also has very repetitive sections (you steal info and evidence from the police almost everyday). It's a pity, because there is something good buried under all the issues, but I can't recommend it (watch a youtube playthrough, maybe).

This is a FMW game not many people got to experience in '96 and I may dare say is an adventure every point-and-click enthusiast needs to play. A fantastic detective noir set in 1940's L.A. with multiple endings, interesting puzzles with various solutions, cheezy but fun acting....one of the best uses of FMW in a PC game ever in my opinion (being bias of course having grown up with the game). The $5.99 is a very fair price as that's what i paid for it back in '97 out of the bargin bin. One frustrating thing is the save feature can only be accessed in your home office so it can be a pain to back track.

I'm a big time adventure game fan, and I love film noir and detective fiction, but this game missed the mark for me. It was fine as a film noir game; it was fine as detective fiction; but it was not a great adventure game, mostly for the following reasons: - it has a very strict timeline that sometimes doesn't become apparent until the end of the game when it's too late - the game play is occasionally tedious and at times too repetitive - certain controls, especially accessing the game menu, are cumbersome - the player ends up with useless inventory items taking up slots in the character's limited inventory space - for a full motion video game, I would have preferred more recorded video character dialogue instead of an uneven-feeling mix of video dialogue and audio-only dialogue - there are character profile details that add no depth That being said, it is not a bad game, it just had some rather poor flaws in game play and design. I loved the game title, the opening story wasn't bad, and it does have some nice old-school detective elements.