Road 96 🛣️

An extremely uneven game that fell short of my high expectations. There is an interesting concept and some good ideas here that are being pulled down by mostly terrible voice acting and subpar writing. John and Jarod are the two notable exceptions, the latter being voice by Mikee Goodman of Disco Elysium fame. Although he has less stellar material to work with here. The minigames and puzzles also range from "filler" to dragged-out garbage (the acid trip sucks and lasts three minutes too long). There *are* positive qualities here, and despite my overall thumbs down it might still be worth trying if you can find it for very cheap. The art style is great. Music is also good, with a variety of genres that all fit the mood of their context. And the road trip *vibe* is often there, at least in the first half of the game. Certain individual scenes and moments show a glimmer of something that could have been greater, even in a sea of mostly rougher material. Gradually telling the stories of the cast via repeated encounters through the eyes of a bunch of nameless and faceless teenagers trying to cross the border is a new and interesting idea. I played the game for that reason, and I don't regret paying $3 for it even though most of it was a disappointment. They tried something here, even if it didn't always come off. The game has a certain charm to it, and combined with the unique concept that is worth a couple of bucks for me to try. If only the whole game was written and acted as well as the John character, we could have had something great here.