Fade To Black

Fade to Black - CoverIn 1995, a year before Lara Croft’s perky assets graced the videogame world and heralded a ‘new’ perspective on gaming, Delphine went 3rd-person and mobile with their sequel to the brilliant action-adventure -Flashback.  Considering the relative ubiquity of the 3rd-person, over-the-shoulder viewpoint in contemporary games, it’s interesting looking back and realising that this was one of the first to use it.  Reviewing it at the time I described it as a “sort of an out-of-body Doom“, because although games had been viewed in the 3rd-person for years, 3D had not been speedy enough to keep up with a ‘floating’ camera.  Its peers at the time were games like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil and Bioforge but all of these games used a fixed camera, making Fade to Black a great deal more revolutionary than it was credited for at the time and a whole heap more action-packed too!  With a mobile camera, and generated levels, Conrad could sprint around corners, charge through doorways and engage multiple enemies both in front and behind without having to wait for screens to load.

The game is set in the year 2190 and Conrad, after escaping from the Morphs at the climax of Flashback: The Quest for Identity, has been cryogenically sleeping for fifty years. Your ship is discovered by the Morphs who by now have taken control of the galaxy and you are sent to the New Alcatraz.

Gaining the trust of a mysterious race known as the Ancients you must once again defeat the Morphs.

The original Flashback was hugely successful for Delphine, both in terms of sales and critical praise and it was a brave move not to create  another adventure using the same 2D platform ‘engine’.  The move to 3D with its ‘floating’ camera initially confused many gamers and combined with the exceptional difficulty level of the game left many gamers feeling frustrated.  Sales were not as expected.

Fade to Black was released for Playstation, Saturn & PC.

Fade to Black Solution

Fade to Black - Conrad - Surrounded! Fade to Black - Conrad faces a human guard - or is he? Fade to Black's shoot-em-up sections Fade to Black - The Temple level Fade to Black also allowed the player to 'peek' around corners, something else that took a long time to catch on.