Plan 9 from Outer Space (Gremlin Ireland) - 1992

This review is part of the “Let’s Adventure!” series. See all reviewed games sorted by rating here.

Plan 9 from Outer Space is a point and click adventure game adaptation of the film of the same name. It was developed at the Irish office of Gremlin Graphics for the Amiga and Atari ST, and was released in 1992. The game was published by Gremlin in Europe and by Konami in the United States. A DOS version was also developed, though only released in the US and Europe. Two editions of the game were made available at retail; the more common version was packaged with a VHS copy of the film, while a rarer version contained only the game.

The movie; Plan 9…..the critics hated it. But, the producer of the film has noticed that it’s been stolen by Bela Lugosi’s double. Find him. Track him. For God’s sake - just keep a straight head when you enter this part of the movie lot and town. Some of the most misguided people roam here! Most important…..get the film back!¹

I’ve heard of the movie, and may even have seen it at some point in the past thirty years … but I don’t remember anything about it other than having a legacy of being a terrible movie. This doesn’t really set the stage for a good gaming experience, but here we go anyway.

Since my expectations were extremely low for this game to begin with, I figured I should play the Amiga version as my go-to emulator vAmiga has a handy-dandy fast-forward feature.

The game manual doesn’t really set the stage for the game, and you’re sort of just dropped into a Movie Producer’s office who tells you you need to get the film back … and off you go.

There’s some basic copy protection to kick things off, but I opted for a cracked copy of the game to bypass this. The fine crackers at TKK (only active for a brief period in ‘92 is seems) don’t seem to have included a cracktro, though it seems there are examples of their work if you’re curious.

The game’s interface is reminiscent of the MacVenture games, though in this case the vast majority of the screen is unused (just a static background). You have a small game window, and inventory list to the right of this and your verb list at the bottom right.

As you explore or interact with the world and characters, a summary of these interactions fills the bottom left of the screen. Text sort of just rolls off though and there’s no scroll back so it’s easy to miss details if you’re not paying attention.

I found it a little hard to read the white text on the blue background, and the fact that each new interaction was indented just looked odd, but those are minor annoyances.

The graphics aren’t bad, but they’re nothing to write home about. Almost every male character uses the same model so they kind of blend together, and no one has anything interesting to say. Since I wasn’t sure what to do other than visit each screen, EXAMINE everything and move on it sort of felt like work to plod along this “adventure”.

You’re supposed to find a handful of movie reels spread across various cities, and typically you’ll need to complete some form of fetch quest to gain access to the place where the reel is.

There are multiple locations you’ll need to explore, and these aren’t accessible until you discover them - either by examining something (like a pamphlet for the mall) or by talking to a character (the woman at the bar tells you where Bela Lugosi’s house is).

At each location there may be an opportunity to pick items up for later use, but inventory management is a pretty big gameplay mechanic. You only have limited “weight” you can carry - so you’ll frequently need to drop items in order to pick up new items.

Thankfully when you drop items some little creature picks it up and takes it back to the original location you found it. This makes it easy to backtrack and reacquire items you had to leave behind.

As you find the film reels, you can take them to projection booths scattered throughout the game. Each booth has the same attendant working there that you can give a reel to and he’ll play it for you. I’m assuming these are clips from the original movie - which you can watch on YouTube if you’re curious 👀.

Talking to various characters you meet progresses the “plot”, but you need to be careful which dialogue options you pick as you can softlock the game by choosing the wrong option. For example, you need to ask this woman about the weather so that you can offer her beads and learn about a hippy camp.

If you hit on her first, there doesn’t appear to be a way to reset the conversation and you’re sort of stuck.

Though infrequent, certain scenarios can result in a game over. I was playing this game in fast-forward for the majority of my time with the game as I had to start from scratch a couple times (due to softlocks), and because fast-forward mutes the music.

There’s one track that loops for the duration of the game, and there are very few sound effects. When there ARE sound effects, they tend to be extremely annoying (shrill and loud) - like the sounds in the cab or the bats in the cave.

The first half of the game all takes place in the multiple locations you travel to by cab around the studio. The second half of the game has you flying between Washington, Australia, Rio and Hong Kong. These cities you fly to have a cab outside the airport that will take you to the one location per city you can visit.

These travel options just sort of add padding to the various fetch quests, but that’s about it.

Eventually you’ll be hired by the CIA to go to Cuba to do … something. While you’re there, if you happened to bring the dictionary with you you can get the Cuban guard to give you some cigars and a poster that proves … something.

You’ll ultimately have to also go find some film for a guy in Hong Kong, which after you bring it back he gives you a talisman that you give to some monks - who then lead you to the aliens or something.

I just didn’t get it. I should probably watch the film, but this game is unlikely to add anything to that experience. Maybe if you’re a fan of the original film there’s an enjoyable experience to be had here, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that for fans of the film - the game probably still sucks.

Though I would not recommend this game to anyone, it’s oddly satisfying knowing that the “worst movie ever made” also sort of translates to one of the worst gaming experiences on my list.

Game Information

Game	Plan 9 from Outer Space
Developer	Gremlin Ireland
Publisher	Gremlin Graphics
Release Date	1992
Systems	DOS, Atari ST, Amiga
Game Engine

My Playthrough

How Long To Beat?	3 hours
Version Played	Amiga via vAmiga
Notes	Walkthrough, Manual

Score

See here for a refresher on how we’re scoring these games.

Graphics (15)	4
Sound (10)	2
Plot / Progression (25)	4
Characters / Development (15)	2
Gameplay / Experience (15)	4
Replayability (5)	0
Impact / Impression (10)	2
Bonus / Surprise (5)	0
	18%

Gallery

Footnotes

1. Description from Moby Games ↩