Rex Nebular and the cosmic genderbender
The late 80’s and early 90’s were the golden years of adventure games on the PC format. The biggest en most popular games came from Lucasarts and Sierra, naturally some other companies wanted in on the deal. Rex Nebular and the cosmic genderbender seems to be modelled after the space quest series, with Rex the main character being a lone space privateer. The intro shows Rex returning from a mission, to get back a precious vase for a rich guy, and after talking a bit Rex tells the story how exactly he got it and how hard it was.
Rex’s mission is indeed difficult because the vase is located on a planet where the women have something against men and so there are none left there. You are shot down in sight of the planet but luckily you survive and crashland in the water where your quest begins. The first thing you see is a topless woman on the beach but unfortunately your scanner dies on you at the wrong moment. You can pick up some items from your ship before you go out into the water but you’re still being shot at so you have to get away quickly. After getting out of the water you will have to start looking for the vase which can be difficult, being the only man on the planet the women will give you special attention. Not all of it good though some will actually eat you or just plain shoot you on site. Later on your quest will involve the gender bender which is a device that will change the gender of the females temporarely in order for their species to survive and in fact you get to use it as well.
The interface is pretty standard fare with options such as take, throw etc. and an inventory made up of text with picture to accompany them. Each item you pick up is described in detail which is a good thing considering some adventures are really unclear about items. You’ll have to do some pixelhunting though like so many other games to get all the items you need. The intro has speech but the rest of the game doesn’t, not a big shame though since I don’t really like the voices. The graphics are ok but definately not up to the standard of Lucasart or Sierra games, they look a bit washed out and missing some detail. There are some nice touches like animated inventory items and background which you can turn of if your system can’t handle it.
Altough I like adventure games and Rex Nebular isn’t a bad game I don’t like the socalled naughty bits and that sort of humor, it’s usually to cover up for some bad gameplay. Luckily you can turn it off if you want in the setup program. There are some good bits like three difficulty settings which will solve some puzzles for you if you are playing the easier ones. If you don’t mind the cheeky bits this game is good for a laugh or two.
Overal rating: 7/10
This game was released for two different systems here are some notes:
| DOS | Released in 1992. Dosbox works fine, be sure to run install.exe so you can change options like animated inventory items and the naughty/nice option. |
| Others | This version is not available. Mac released in 1993. |
| Date added | Oct-27-2007 00:07 |
| Name | Rex Nebular and the cosmic genderbender |
| Developer | Microprose |
| Publisher | Microprose |
| First released | 1992 |
| Genre | Adventure |
