While I was a bit let down with Realms of the Haunting (I still can’t get over that title), I was really into its 2.5D engine. Real slick. Real crunchy. And when I looked into it, I discovered that the engine was created for another game by Gremlin, the one which the engine was designed for: Normality. Looking at the screenshots, I was grabbed by the environments. Real slick. Real crunchy. Real ‘90s.

And then I looked into it further, and apparently the North American version prominently features the voice of Corey Feldman. I have no real connection with Feldman, aside from having watched The Goonies and Stand by Me. And I don’t even remember which kid he was. Oh, I just looked him up, and I guess he’s a little… uneven. Which is maybe to be expected from a child star. But fans of Normality swear that he was amazing in it, but what they mean by “amazing,” I wasn’t sure.

Now I’m sure, and he’s pretty amazing in Normality.

CHYA! AS IF!

An important note: Normality has different voice-overs for the UK and US versions. GOG and Steam only sell the Feldman-less UK version (possibly for licensing reasons), but fans have put together a patch that allows you to switch to Feldman. I’ve listened to the UK version, and Feldman’s way better.

He’s doing this ‘90s Californian surfer voice. Absolutely pushing it like you wouldn’t believe. Everything he says has an unbelievable amount of over-acting, and it’s just incredible. The only issue is that the inflection is so pronounced, that hearing the same lines repeatedly is instantly aggravating. I’ve been hearing “It just doesn’t want to open” in my sleep.

Anyway, Normality is a first-person adventure game. Almost like Realms of the Haunting, but without the shooting parts. So, instead of gratuitous violence, you instead get a weird sense of humour, and it’s a reasonable trade-off.

IT JUST DOESN’T WANT TO OPEN

You play as Kent Knutson, who, as mentioned, is an exaggerated party animal stereotype. Sort of vacuous, sometimes well-meaning, and sometimes not. Most importantly, he’s someone who has a personality in a city where having a personality is illegal.

Now, right there, it’s a bit perplexing. Clearly, Kent is not the only person with a demonstrable personality. Everyone you meet has one. The hapless jerk at the supermarket has a personality. The city leader behind the whole neutrality in Neutropolis has a definable personality. The police officers who push you around have individual personalities. You would expect that the population would feel very cult-like, but no, and it’s very confusing.

It bothers me, honestly. Like, the second section of the game is basically just a series of fat jokes, and in order to depict overweight people in an insensitive, comical way, they have to have stereotypical personality traits like slothfulness and food obsession. Normality really doesn’t do a good job of depicting a society where free thought has been suppressed. Gosh.

Whatever. All things considered, it’s not a big complaint. In general, the storytelling and dialogue are well done. It’s just… Yeah, can’t quite get over it.

Anyway, the solution is to vandalize some stuff, play some rock music for the masses, and then things get a bit more complicated. Typical story about the value of individuality. It’s becoming disturbingly prescient again these days.

GOOD FOR ME!

There’s this episode of Freakazoid (a ‘90s cartoon, children) where the titular character gets caught in a video game. That’s a plotline that practically every cartoon hits eventually, but the difference here is that it feels like the writer has actually played an adventure game before. Freakazoid is running around and collecting seemingly random items. He grabs a non-descript bowl just conspicuously sitting on a sconce and shouts, “A bowl! I got a bowl! Good for me!” And I always remember that line while playing adventure games when I’m stuffing my pockets with immediately impractical or arbitrary items, knowing that I’ll need them later. And Normality is full of the most arbitrary stuff for you to fill your inventory with. You’ll leave the first room with your pockets crammed full of junk. I’m almost certain that I didn’t use a lot of it.

I think part of that is because Normality maybe has branching paths through the game. I had to consult a guide a few times (more on that in a moment), and one section diverged heavily from what I encountered. I checked a playthrough video and saw someone doing an extra step in one section, so… some of it actually is arbitrary, I guess.

Anyway, for a lot of Normality, I was zooming through without any issue. Eventually I hit a block and had no idea how to bypass it. So, I checked a guide, and the solution was absolutely something I would never have guessed. And this came up a few times throughout the game. Everything follows a reasonable logic where you encounter an obstacle and can figure out what it is in your inventory that you need at that moment. Then, suddenly, you need to use a pipe on a vent that’s several feet in the air and doesn’t even look interactive.

I consider it to be a mark of a good adventure game if the puzzles require creative thinking, but can be overcome simply by taking a closer look or a step back. So, by that metric, Normality fails, but only, like, occasionally. Considering how weird it gets, and how much extra complexity gets added by a first-person perspective, that can probably be commended.

PLAYING WITH FELDMAN

What does unambiguously suck is the interface. Kent holds up this action figure with various actions like look, use, pick up, talk, open. You pick one and then click on what you want to use that interaction with. There are quick-keys for these actions, but typical for the time period, they’re bound to scattered buttons across the keyboard and you can’t re-map them. I’m pretty sure use, pick up, talk, and open could have been one function. So, like, right-click to look at something, left-click to interact. Anyway, we’re stuck with the doll. 

Nonetheless, I really dig Normality, but it’s a bit difficult to really place my finger on why. I think it’s because early-3D first-person games were almost always violent. Their levels were often abstract and designed specifically for heroic murder. Normality makes use of the then-new tech for a comical, cartoonish game. Its set-pieces are still carefully designed to feel like real-ish places, but you’re not blasting through it with a rocket launcher.

As an adventure game, it’s not the worst I’ve played, but it’s no Monkey Island. It’s not even Sam & Max: Hit the Road. But it’s not bad and it has its charm. It feels unique. It feels cozy. Then, if you install Corey Feldman, you get a dose of ‘90s vapidity, and that’s just sweet.

7/10

This review was conducted using a digital version of the game purchased via GOG. Minor modification was made to implement the US voice acting. It was paid for by the author.