Harvester

Bought this the day I read the review in PC Gamer (they gave it an 82). I still have it in the box form, but this version on GOG was a must buy for me, much like SS2 was. I envy those of you who have never played it and are about to try it out. The comparisons to a Lynch film, are as appropriate as they are numerous in the reviews of this game. Still, not for the squeamish or easily offended, and definitely not for kids (except perhaps those who are very mature for their age...you know the ones...like Steve's little brother or the paperboy)

You always were a kidder, Steve.

This game is very good! and Violent! Also was very hard to run on DOSBOX. Now it's on GOG everything is a great install. Highly recommend this controversial game!

This Game really did not age well. The clunky controls and bad Point&Click Mechanics ruined it for me. You will spend so much time trying to figure out stuff that I chose to just watch a complete longplay on YouTube.

When shown for the first time at the CES trade show in 1994, people couldn't believe their eyest. Many of them were probably stunned when they found out who had written the game. Gil Austin had previously penned parts of the Wing commander series but now he wanted to make a statement in the ongoing debate about violence in movies and games that had reached its peak at this period in time. Gil allegedly decided he had had enough when he found out that explosions and weapons had been removed from classic Warner brothers cartoons. So Harvester became his own critism to this and he put in every bit of violence he could think of to try to make his point clear. Harvester is presented as a classic point & click adventure game with digitized characters and nice, detailed backgrounds. You're playing Steve who one day wakes up in the small town of Harvest and don't recognise anything. You then start walking around town, talking to the inhabitants and picking up objects. When you talk to the right people and/or pick up the right object you trigger the night phase. During the night you're supposed to perform some evil mission for the Lodge, a secret and strange society whose headquarters is in a big castle in the middle of the town. The way out of Harvest and away from all the madness seems to go through the Lodge. Judging purely from the puzzles, Harvester is a fairly decent adventure game. Gils story is interesting (but hard to understand until you reach the end) but all this is encapsulated in a horribly bad production. Even today, Harvester has some shock value, but unfortunately a badly designed game will likely wear you down before you can experience the whole game. You can read my full review of Harvester in Swedish (Google translate is your friend) at: http://www.retroguiden.se/harvester/