Koala
Lumpur: Journey to the Edge
1997 – Broderbund
W95/W98 – 1st person point and click
1997 – my lunch hour - spent as usual pursuing the adventure game isles
(yes people I said isles) looking for a new game. After starting with the
A’s and not finding anything I didn’t already have I finally made it to
the Ks and what should my eyes fall upon but a box with a cute little
koala smashed on the road. Well of course I had to buy it. I took it home
– loaded the game in (this was back in the days when I actually played
most of the games I bought) and got lost in the humorous world of Koala
Lumpur.
Fast forward to October 2002 – I replayed Koala this weekend so I could
refresh my memory of the game for this review – and you know what? I had
as much fun playing it this time around as I did the first time (except
for a certain laser beam puzzle, but more on that later).
Koala Lumpur is a fez wearing, magic carpet riding mystic, who is looking
for enlightenment. Unfortunately this venture almost brings disaster to
the world. Koala is suffering from a tummy ache and checks his fez for
some medicine. Instead he finds a scroll. Being the inquisitive marsupial
that he is, he naturally reads it – oops big mistake. Seems this
particular scroll has the potential of releasing an evil deed doer by the
name of Mucho Danada and the only way he can be stopped from unleashing
the Cartoon Apocalypse is for you to find the 2nd scroll that has been
torn asunder and scattered across different worlds (isn’t that the way it
always is with 2nd scrolls? They always seem to get themselves torn
asunder and scattered about worlds). Along with finding this 2nd scroll
you are also promised to receive total enlightenment. Well how can you
refuse? So off you go, but first you conjure up a familiar (a fly in this
case that is also the cursor) to help you in your travels and then you and
fly are off to find Dingo Tu Far – your partner in crime. And that is your
first challenge – to free Dingo (who somehow has gotten himself locked in
his file cabinet.)
The game is remarkably easy to play and you cannot die – you get fried and
zapped a lot but miracles upon miracles you bounce right back right as
rain. Your cursor (hence you) is a fly – you move fly and Koala and Dingo
follow you around. The game pans 360 degrees in any direction and moving
around is a snap. Fly also picks up and uses things in inventory, which is
conveniently stored in Koala’s fez. You visit four worlds – Dingo’s
Hideout, The Land of Lost Things which you travel around via a pipe maze
and you have to learn “dog speak” in order to escape, Stream of
Consciousness which is traveled by train and you get to spend time in
Dingo’s brain doing word association games and Eye in the Sky which has
the dreaded and most annoying laser beam arcade puzzle (you have to dodge
laser beams in order to get down a hallway so you can deactivate it and
you have to do this three different times and each sequence pattern is
different arrrgggghhh). But guess who now has saves after each one??? <g>
I have to admit that this game is not for everyone, but if you’re in the
mood for a light romp with a sarcastic Aussie - try Koala Lumpur.
copyright © 2002
GameBoomers
