Alright, I'm feeling excited about this. No, really. There aren't a ton of games based on The X-Files. There's a PlayStation/PC game that's good, a PlayStation 2 game that's way overpriced, and a J2ME game that I can't find. I don't know what to expect from these DVD games.
Right away there's a problem. Shockwave is required but not included on the DVD. The URL it's looking for is long gone.
This is not a crisis though as everything is on archive.org. I would not install something from archive.org on a PC I cared about but this is a virtual machine.
The loading screen, which I suspect isn't loading anything at all, has a book ad. The X-Files was lacking in video games but definitely not in books about the lore or episode guides.
At the beginning you need to register a name. I don't think anything you enter here matters.
I found the interface confusing. You land on a map with this PDA device on the right. None of the buttons on it go anywhere that makes sense. I think clicking on the blinking red dot is the right way to start.
OK, getting somewhere.. that goes to a screen with some case files to review and an obvious link to follow.
This leads to a quiz screen. I looked up this answer on the internet, on the internet I tell you, and it was wrong. Maybe multiple dates were given throughout the run of the show and the internet only has a "canon" answer that is different than the "canon" answer when this DVD was produced. No worries though because clicking the submit link enough times eventually advances the game.
Next there are some autopsy reports to review. It turns out you need to because there are trivia questions about them later. See that little puzzle piece in the corner... every time one appears it needs to be dragged into the black box on the PDA. This stores it for later use.
A few more reports to read through and we'll be on to the first puzzle.
Before that - a quiz about something in the autopsy reports. There are a couple different questions but they are all easy like this.
The first puzzle involves decoding words inscribed in code on the infamous metal implants. It starts with one example translation.
Clicking on the letter grid shows a second example. Neat, also helpful.
OK, the book tie-in is coming together now. The solutions are all references to things in episode scripts. All the episode transcripts can be found online now, hosted by a page owned by the same corporate overlord that owns GameFAQs.
After solving a puzzle, the names need to be dragged over to the empty box on the PDA thing. They then appear in the evidence bin.
With those strings decoded, it's time to move on to the next case.
A new map destination can now be reached. It's possible to return to the previous case if (like me) you missed a puzzle piece.
On the second quiz I found it is a little picky about how answers are worded.
This leads to the second set of case files.
I don't know what's going on here. The map now has all kinds of points. The red ones are travel locations and the orange ones are.. uh, I guess links to episode recaps?
Choosing the next map destination leads to another quiz.
This next game is difficult and likely would have been a nightmare on a Windows 98 PC. I was only able to solve it through the magic of screenshots, resizing, and color adjustments. All those could be done on Windows 98, it's just a lot easier 25 years later.
The audio itself is just static. The goal is to find hidden words in the audio analysis. A colorblind person could not handle this puzzle. I had to capture and enhance the image to find it.
Solving it creates another piece of evidence. It's also clear at this point that these solutions will be keywords from episodes.
Seriously, how are you supposed to see this?
This one doesn't even enhance well. It looks like "MOW SIGMAI" to me.
The next one is at least easy to make out if you mess around with the colors.
Here are all the solutions so you don't have to figure them out if you ever play this.
OK, on to the next case file.
Time for another trivia question.
There are some new photos to review.
And one more trivia question.
This puzzle can... well, I'll try to keep this site as clean as I can. Let's say this is a no good puzzle that I don't care for. It involves decoding a message inscribed on a tissue sample.
After staring at it a while, I decided to start at the root node and go left for a 0 and right for a 1. When it hits a terminating node that means we've found the letter.
Alright, that produced a name which is good. Since I'm so nice, here's a list of all the letters:
=00
A=0100
B=010100
C=010101
D=01011
E=0110
F=011100
G=011101
H=01111
I=1000
J=1001000
K=1001001
L=100101
M=10011
N=1010
O=1011
P=110000
Q=110001
R=11001
S=1101
T=1110
U=111100
V=111101
W=111110
X=11111100
Y=11111101
Z=1111111
This approach did not pan out for the other two codes.
Luckily, once you solve the first you can assume what the other names might be based on the episode it's referencing.
Now we have a whole bunch of evidence. It turns out none of it really matters. Solving the game just requires finding all the puzzle pieces.
While clicking through everything again to find puzzle pieces I missed, I ran into another trivia question.
Once you have all the puzzle pieces you go to the clueboard and assemble them.
So this looks totally finished to me.
The game disagreed though and said I only had 34 of 35 pieces.
After taking every piece off.. and clicking the submit button after re-adding each piece to make sure the count incremented.. the game is over.
Those were some obtuse puzzles. Not the worst ever, just kind of mildly confusing. I wonder if this improves in the later games...
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