The Last Express

Infobox VG| title = The Last Express


developer = Smoking Car Productions
publisher = Brøderbund, Interplay
designer = Jordan Mechner (game director, game designer, writer)
Tomi Pierce (writer)
engine =
released = 1997
genre = Adventure game
modes = Single player
ratings = ESRB: T
OFLC: M15+
USK: 12
platforms = Windows, Mac OS, DOS
media = CD-ROM (3)
requirements =
input = Mouse

"The Last Express" is a video game created by Jordan Mechner and Smoking Car Productions, published in 1997. It is an adventure game that takes place on the Orient Express, days before the start of World War I. It is noted as being one of the few video games that attempts to realistically simulate real-time, and also as one of the largest commercial failures in the history of video games (with a reported six million dollars in development costs) despite many rave reviews and an impressive pre-release response.

Story

Set on the Orient Express in 1914, the player takes on the role of Robert Cath, an American doctor on the train's final journey from Paris to Constantinople (nowadays İstanbul) before World War I. Cath, already wanted by French police as he is suspected of the murder of an Irish police officer, is contacted urgently by his old friend Tyler Whitney, to join him on the Orient Express, gateway to the East, and a possible exit from all his troubles. Cath boards the train via a motorcycle and looks for Whitney, who is already on board (seen during the introduction). But as soon as he steps onto this luxurious train, Cath becomes involved in a maelstrom of treachery, lies, political conspiracies, personal interests, romance and murder.

The game has 30 characters representing a cross-section of European forces at the time, including Serbian freedom fighters, a German arms dealer, a Russian anarchist, a suspicious Austrian concert violinist, an Egyptian pasha and his private harem, a mysterious art collector and others. As the train races east, the player must stay alive while interacting with these characters, which includes eavesdropping on conversations, sneaking into compartments and defusing a bomb. The story is non-linear, with the player's actions (and failures to act) determining the course of the story; as a result, the game's script is an extraordinary 800 pages long.

Real-time

"The Last Express" is a unique game in that it takes place in almost complete real-time (e.g. thirty minutes of real-life time translates into thirty minutes of game time). The game begins at 7:14 p.m. on July 24, 1914, and ends at 7:30 p.m. on July 26 (if the player has made it all the way to the proper ending). The only time that the game does not take place in real-time is when Cath sleeps, or is knocked unconscious, as well as in a few cutscenes. One of the game's most notable uses of this technique is in the concert portion, in which two of the non-player characters perform a piano/violin duet that lasts approximately twenty minutes of real-time, during which the player is free to sit down and enjoy the music, or move as he pleases. The game's some thirty characters are all semi-intelligent and each have their own agendas, moving around on their own, or changing their plans due to player intervention. In this way, the game has great replay value, as the branching paths this creates makes no two plays of the game alike. In addition, the game has multiple endings, most (about thirty) being "fatal", meaning that the player is either killed or arrested. There are four "non-fatal" endings, of which only one is considered to be the proper ending.

Production

The game is notable for its unique art style, with characters illustrated in the "art nouveau" style popularized by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec that was in style in 1914, the year the game's events take place. Since illustrating a game of this magnitude by hand would most likely take an exorbitant amount of time, the look was achieved by using rotoscoping, a process that Mechner had used to a lesser extent in his earlier games. During a 22-day long live-action video shoot, every action by every character in the game was photographed by actors wearing distinctive makeup and costumes against a bluescreen on 16mm film and digitized. From this, a limited number of frames were selected and put through a patented process developed in house, where the frames first had all colour removed. Then, a powerful computer program created black-and-white line drawings of the frames, which were then coloured in by hand. [Barba, Rick: The Last Express: The Official Strategy Guide, page 194, Prima Press, 1997] [The Making of The Last Express (short film), 1997. Viewable [http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~tharpold/resources/last_express/making_of.html here] ] The finished product has 40,000 frames in total. [Back of box, Brøderbund release of The Last Express, 1997]

Publishing

After five years of development, the game was released on a multi-platform 3 CD set that covered Windows, Mac OS, and DOS. Following a bidding war between several major game publishers, Brøderbund, SoftBank, and GameBank split the worldwide distribution rights for the game. Dubbed versions of the game were released in French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.

Soundtrack

Running thirty-nine minutes, the soundtrack for "The Last Express" was published by Intrada in 2000 and is still in print. It was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Czech composer Elia Cmiral, who later composed the scores for "Ronin" and "Stigmata". Consisting of a mix of dominant synth instruments and occasional solo violin, the score was recorded at Forte Muzika Studios in Los Angeles. The lone exception is the "Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major" by César Franck featured in the game's concert scene.

Release

"The Last Express" received rave reviews both in print and online. Newsweek called it "exquisite" and "thrilling" and MSNBC said "the mystery and characters are very fascinating" and "this game is definitely for everyone". Games magazine declared it the Best New Adventure and Role Playing Game, and it received Editor's Choice awards from PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Next Generation, and dozens of game websites, including a gold medal from GamesDomain.

However, the game only remained in stores for a few months. Brøderbund's marketing department quit just weeks before the game was released, resulting in virtually no advertising for it. Softbank pulled out of the game market, dissolving its subsidiary GameBank and canceling several dozen titles in development, including the nearly finished PlayStation port of "The Last Express". As a final blow, Brøderbund was acquired by The Learning Company, which was only interested in their educational and home productivity software. "The Last Express" was out of print long before its first Christmas season and nearly a million units shy of breaking even.

Re-release

In 2000, the game publisher Interplay bought the lapsed rights and began quietly selling the game as a budget title. A short time later, Interplay went bankrupt, so the game is once again out of print. The game can, however, still be found on various online stores.

In 2006, the American subscription-based game service GameTap began offering the game on its network.

Notes and references

External links

* [http://lastexpress.markmoran.net Official game website (1997)] (mirror) - includes a [http://lastexpress.markmoran.net/demo.html downloadable demo] of the game
*
*
* [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_42/254-Gaming-on-the-Orient-Express Nick Bousfield's review of "The Last Express" nine years later (2006)]
* [http://personal.markmoran.net/Programming/GamesDomainInterview.html Games Domain interview with Mark Moran (1997)]
* [http://personal.markmoran.net/Programming/LastExpress.html Mark Moran's history of The Last Express and Smoking Car]
* [http://www.destructoid.com/games-time-forgot-last-express The Games That Time Forgot: The Last Express] - Review by Destructoid site