Review: Insecticide
A noir detective story featuring a cast of cockroaches, surprisingly good writing, and an interesting mix of platforming and adventure should be reason enough to get excited about Insecticide, but poor execution mars an otherwise ambitious concept.
Bugging Out
Insecticide is a game heavy on text and clever puns, and the presentation is solid though a bit uninspired. The game is essentially divided into two distinct parts, which unfortunately defeats the purpose of the cross genre experiment that Crackpot Entertainment was clearly striving for. The platforming elements of the game are serviceable, functional, and frequently fun. Unfortunately, there is no innovation to be found in the game; there is nothing interesting or distinguishing enough to make the platforming stand out from what we have seen in numerous handheld games over the years.
The adventure elements fare much better. It brings to mind the classic LucasArt adventure games that ruled the PC a long time ago. Unfortunately, many of the flaws that plagued the old-school genre are present in Insecticide. What should have been an entertaining counter-point to the platforming sequences devolve instead into an exercise in frustration.
Puzzling Developments
While the puzzles themselves are well conceived and laid out, it's often difficult to make out specific objects on the screen, which makes detective work more of a chore than it should be. Worse, there is no way to know what item on screen might actually be useful, or heaven forbid, pertinent to advancing the plot and moving on to the next puzzle. You're constantly forced to click on each object just to determine whether or not it might be of any use. This makes it difficult to actually solve puzzles the right way and far too often forces you to rely on trial and error.
Insecticide is an interesting, ambitious experiment that works far better in theory than it does in practice. The writing is solid and engaging and the setting is fun and different but the adventure and platforming elements are completely average. It's too bad, really, because the title had a lot of potential, especially considering its unique setting and intriguing cast of characters
Cons: ...the adventure and platforming elements are anything but.
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