As a child, I was a huge fan of science fiction and space in general. No, I didn’t read Clark, Asimov and other sci-fi classics then, but I loved films in which events unfolded in space or on other planets. And it just so happened that this “other planet” was often Mars, which became the object of my fantasies. “Red Planet” by Anthony Hoffman, “The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury … And there were also “Ghosts of Mars” because of which I could not fall asleep later .
But most of all I remember the film “Total Recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I still remember I love it and watch it from time to time. And, of course, like everyone who watched this film (and closed their eyes at the moment when Arnold’s eyes burst out), I was interested in the Chaser game, which our caring localizers stuck with the subtitle “Total Recall”. In this post, I invite you to immerse yourself in the memories of your youth and remember everything about the game Chaser.
Chaser: Total Recall sends us to a near future in which humanity has already colonized Mars. With the nominal goal of terraforming the Red Planet, a group of terrestrial manufacturing companies merged into the MARSCORP Corporation. At first, the locals supported the head of the corporation, Samuel Longwood, hoping that he would make Mars independent of the authorities of the Earth. However, it soon became clear that dreams of a sovereign Mars were just dreams. Samuel was a puppet of the UN.
who were interested in suppressing any antigovernmental protests on Mars, and therefore helped him in every possible way, including financially. . Longwood subjugated all Martian structures and became the sole ruler of the planet. This did not suit all the colonists. Leading the resistance.
Graham Castor waged an underground war against MARSCORP forces, keeping his organization so well under wraps that even tight police oversight could not stop the rebels from moving. And in order to destroy the enemy once and for all, Longwood developed his cunning plan…
Waking up after an operation in the laboratory of the Majestic space station, which is in Earth orbit, the protagonist is faced with severe amnesia to the point that he does not even remember his name. Before he has time to figure out where he is at all, a detachment of commandos in red armor bursts into the station and begins to methodically clean the laboratories from all living things. The hero manages to elude them, get a weapon and fight his way to the escape pod.
right at the moment when the Majestic begins to fall apart, shaken by explosions. The protagonist’s shuttle rushes to Earth, where it makes a hard landing in the slums of Montel City, where it encounters local bandits and a mafia clan, which became the first serious problem on the hero’s path to remember everything… Everyone who meets him calls the hero Chaser though he himself can’t remember who he is. Gradually, memories return to him in fragmentary flashes, from which he finds out that he needs to find a man named Stone. But for this he must find a way to get to Mars.
The plot of Chaser largely overlaps with the film “Total Recall”, and with it the story of Philip Dick “We will remember everything for you”: corporations, Martian rebels, experiments with memory, a hero who is trying to remember everything, even his name Chaser is consonant with Houser, that was the name of the protagonist of the film and the story.
So knowledge of the content of these works could seriously spoil the main plot twists of the game. That’s just the developers threw out the romantic line completely. Usually I advocate that such things in games BE, they give the story a little spice and emotion, but in this case, my impressions were not spoiled in the slightest by their absence.
For a 2003 game in Chaser, a rather interesting and intriguing plot is not made just for show in the background, but on the contrary, a lot of attention is paid to the history in Chaser, this is noticeable by the number and volume of cutscenes. Yes, you can easily predict the main plot twists in advance, but the entire plot action as a whole is built from many mini-plots, and thus.
you cannot know in advance where old Chaser will take you. Sometimes the plot causes bewilderment, sometimes a smile … you definitely can’t call it serious, but, nevertheless, it leaves more good impressions than bad ones, and therefore I won’t scold our today’s guest for this.
There are quite a few characters on the path of Chaser, but hardly any of them were properly developed and distinguished by their character. Yes, it was a pity for grandfather Evgeni, and Kabir turned out to be that other rooster, but it all arose in the absence of fish, at moments of increased attention on my part.
but not thanks to their characters. But the Chaser himself throughout the game made me laugh. As a character, he also turned out to be weak, but how he was voiced! All of his lines sound with Tommy Wiseman-level expression, and his voice gives the impression that the actor who voiced the hero was under the grass or hungover. And this is not our localization, but the original in English! In general, I would like to say “so bad that it’s even good”, but everything is subjective here.
Chaser is an old-school first-person shooter from the early 2000s, and in this respect it was quite typical of the representatives of the genre of that time (with the exception of one detail, which will be discussed a little later). All we had to do was shoot, shoot and shoot… and keep an eye on health and armor points… and sometimes push buttons and levers… and try not to get lost in the labyrinths of locations…
John Chaser’s arsenal of weapons is quite rich, there is where to roam and pick up what you like. A total of 15 barrels are available, among which there are both real and futuristic models. Each has its own tangible differences, whether in damage, spread or recoil, and most of the barrels had three modes of fire: single.
