The Room: The Video Game

I got the results of the test back...I definitely liked this game!

While I have very little patience for bad movies, I love movies that are so bad that its hilarious since the sheer incompetance of people who have no idea how writing and editing are supposed to go is simply hilarious to see on film. Films like Troll 2 and anything featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 are just sheer delight in their utter incompetant making. However none are as iconic to so-bad-its-good fans than Tommy Wiseau's feature film The Room; often called the Citizen Kane of bad films the Room is infamous for the...indescribably bad acting of its ethnically confused lead, and its numerous sub-plots that are brought up and dropped almost immediately with no adequate resolution. One would think that any sort of game based on this movie would be terrible...but the guys on Newgrounds have shown us the exact opposite of what you'd think.

Story
Our hero is Johnny, a lovable banker with a heart of gold who seems to have everything going right for him, he has a nice promotion coming, his birthday is coming up, and is engaged to his live-in girlfriend Lisa. However as the week goes by things began to go a bit downhill and Johnny's very sanity is put to the test as his life begins to crumble around him.

The story if pretty much copy and pasted from the movie, but with a bit of a twist; the designers actually (intentionally) hilariously try to fill in several of the movie's plot holes such as the disappearance of the character named Peter, and the fate of the drug dealer etc. The story is still has hilariously bad as ever and the added plot elements simply enhance the hilarity tenfold. And the ending will have any fan of the movie rolling with laughter.



Art Design
The backgrounds are perfectly pulled from the movie and look great in the very cartoony art style the designers chose. The characters are flawlessly transformed into video game sprite caricatures of their respective actors from the film. They also manage to pull several clips from the movie to play is specific moments such as the infamous "You are tearing me APAAAARRRRT" scene. The music also is pulled from the movie and is perfectly adapted into an 8-bit score with various tracks pulled from the movie to play in the exact moments that it occured in the movie.

Gameplay
The Room is a point and click adventure game similar to games like Sam and Max or King's Quest in that you guide Johnny around with the mouse cursor and find objects to help advance the plot of the game. The game is played entirely from Johnny's point of view, so scenes not including him are not seen in the game. If you've seen the movie then you will definitely know exactly what to do such as buying Lisa a dozen red roses, or buying a tape recorder to record EVERYTHING.

However what I love about this game is when you deviate from the progression of the movie and just explore the surrounding areas, you will find several easter eggs that either attempt to fill in the plot holes from the movie or even add new hilarious elements to the story such as witnessing disturbing moments that you cannot unsee.

This game also offers several side-quests such as reading Denny's diary, getting the tape recorder eary and listening to Lisa's recorded conversations, and tracking down several hidden SPOOOOOOONS! And the best part is that you are rewarding for discovering and completing these various side-missions with various achievements, and hilarious moments.

The game also has several minigames in the form of the more random moments from the actual movie such as an RPG style boss fight with the drug dealer Chris R to rescue Denny, a footrace against Mark, and of course a football-catching and throwing mini-game during the cutscenes. These mini-games while short and relatively simple are fun and incredibly hilarious to play.

The only negative criticism I can give the game is that there are a lot of cutscenes that fans are, of course going to know every line to, so it can drag out for a little while, but fortunately dialogue can be skipped with the S key. Its also relatively short, but what can you expect for a glorified flash game.

Conclusion
For a free game available on Newgrounds this game definitely had a lot of work go into it, showing the love the creators have for Tommy Wiseau's hilarious bad masterpiece. I definitely appreciate the work that the went into it and love what came out. It was a fun experience and now I expect a Birdemic: Shock an Terror game from these guys next! However it is a little M rated though with strong language and a few instances of nudity

Grade
A
For a flash game, it's definitely amazing and exceeds any expectations!


This game is available to play for free at http://www.vulture.com/2010/09/play_the_room_the_video_game.html