Video games - It Came From the Desert

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	Video games - It Came From the Desert

It Came From the Desert is a 1989 adventure/first-person shooter game by Cinemaware. It was originally released for the Amiga.

Like most of Cinemaware's titles, It Came From the Desert takes its inspiration from Hollywood. This game is undoubtedly inspired by dozens of 1950s "B" movies, especially the 1954 mutant-ant classic "Them!", It Came From the Desert is one of Cinemaware's most innovative creations.

Description

The rural town of Lizard Breath witnessed a meteor fall, and the player, the town's resident geologist, has to discover the source of some strange occurrences. Gameplay centers on the player choosing what they want to do by selecting an option on the multiple choice screens that pop up. There are several buildings in town, as well as farms, mines, an airport, and even a drive-in theater. Since time ticks away quickly at one minute per second of real time, quick decision is key to success.

Once the investigation begins, the player soon realizes there are large, mutant ants roaming around the outskirts of town. These ants are dangerous, and to survive the player must fight them with a handgun, an apparently infinite number of grenades, and bug spray used in airborne attack.

This game put the gamer in a "movie" years before it became popular in the Resident Evil series. It also featured "stealth" gameplay and a first person shooter part that appeared in this game years before Doom
(however, without scenery animation). The game also featured an engaging soundtrack.

Trivia

It Came From the Desert was parodied in a Space Quest IV reference: the player can find the box of the game He came for the Dessert in a store, where the woman holds a cake, and a fat man replaces the ant.

Ports

It Came From the Desert was ported to several other popular systems of the era.

As a last attempt to stay in business Level 9 Computing ported this game to the PC platform in early 1991. However, this was not enough and the firm closed in June of that year.

Other ports was for Atari ST and Sega Genesis/Megadrive in 1990. In 1992 it was released for the Turbo Grafx 16.

Legacy

It Came From the Desert was followed by a sequel Antheads in 1990.

It Came From the Desert was considered "abandonware" for some time and distributed by web sites like Home of the Underdogs, but versions for all three platforms are now freely available from the revivived Cinemaware's web site.

Trivia

A spinoff of this appeared in Command & Conquer: Red Alert
as a secret mission named "It came from Red Alert". During these four missions with a Command and Conquer twist, you needed to combat ants.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for It Came From the Desert ]

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Video games - It Came From the Desert

Description

Trivia

Ports

Legacy

Trivia

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