The Vampire Jeff Goldblum PC Adventure Game [Livestream Archive]

By BlazeHedgehog October 21, 2012 1 Comments

  

  
I had intended to tell you guys before it actually happened but when it comes to promoting my own livestreams,  I make the really bad habit of forgetting where all to promote it. I tried posting it on places like Reddit, but it was my first and so far only post there, so it dropped like a rock and did not get a single upvote. It probably didn't help that I inexplicably chose the one day where it seemed like literally the whole entire internet was doing a livestream - I did not intend for it to overlap the Extra Life Charity stream, but that's just kind of what ended up happening and by the time I knew it was happening, it was too late for me to reschedule.
 
As such, I did not end up getting a downpour of viewers, but I did get more than a dozen, which given that I usually just stream for a few friends, is above average for me. It's a shame I didn't get more, though - the game I was streaming ( Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland) was probably the perfect length for such an endeavor. Coming in at two CDs in length, it is absolutely overflowing with live-action FMV, plenty of green screen antics, and stupid costumes. As a whole, the game lasted almost two and a half hours, making it ideal for finishing in a single sitting. Of course, I had a FAQ on another monitor for when I got stuck, so if you were playing this old-school-style, it might've lasted you significantly longer. That's in part because it totally does the 90's Adventure Game thing where there are items you have to pick up at the beginning of the game and carry with you all the way to the ending, basically. After a certain point you are not allowed any way to go back and get them if you do not already have them, meaning you'll very likely get to a point where you need them, do not have them, and cannot backtrack to where they are. 
 
Besides that, though, this game moves. You're never really in any one location for too long, and unlike something like say, Sam & Max or whatever, there's not much in the way of NPCs to hold conversations with - you play the mute 4th friend in a group of kids who get sucked in to Horrorland, a demonic amusement park full of monsters. What ensues is something like 7th Guest for kids, where you run in to werewolves, mummies, and vampires. Speaking of vampires... 

In what can be best described as having lost a bet, Jeff Goldblum shows up near the end of the game as none other than Count Dracula himself. He hams it up with the best of them, while simultaneously looking as though he's struggling not to gag on his prosthetic fangsall while trying to seduce a 12 year old. No, seriously. Reportedly Steven Spielberg was involved in the creation of this Goosebumps game, and by relation that's how Goldblum signed on. It's a shame the plot itself isn't better - the game just kind of “ends”. Maybe there’s multiple endings for getting all of the trading cards or whatever, but the build up to and conclusion of the finale feels super convenient. One of the characters even basically says, “I don’t know how I did this, but I’m doing it!” as he saves the day and almost kinda winks at the camera as he says it.
 
But hey, at two hours long, I don't know how much I can complain. There's usually some station airing the Goosebumps TV series around Halloween and I've seen enough of that to know "conveniently everybody lives and then maybe something horrible happens at the last second but we never know for sure" is par for the course. It's breezy and silly enough that it's right up my alley for Halloween, and I can see myself going back to it every year (or two, probably).

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