Original Release: ICE Inc., 1993, PC
A sci-fi “interactive comic” for the grown-ups … or at least a teaser demo of one
Pangea: Return to Planet Earth (PC, ICE, 1993)
Where to Buy: No longer commercially available, download at Internet Archive
How to Emulate: MS-DOS Emulation Guide
Review by: Master-B
An interactive comic with an interesting setting, Pangea unfortunately disappoints with an unwieldy interface and essentially being the length of a demo that cuts off right when things are getting interesting.
The setting is about 450 years in the future and the “Pangea” refers to the fact that Earth is now under a one-world government with the concept of nations outmoded. Humans have basically been separated into “civilized” and “goon” with the goons banished to older decrepit cities surrounded by security tech to keep them from getting out. And then you got your rebel faction of Dennis Leary sewer people who are row row fightin’ the power in an underground beneath civilization, etc.
This setting really had some promise if there was to be a nuanced exploration of forcibly segregating People Who Can Behave from People Who Can’t, but unfortunately it doesn’t go in that direction. Instead it’s generic Rowdy Rebels take on Evil Empire, the underground tries to forge an alliance with the gangs out in the wasteland to overthrow the snobs of civilization or whatever.
But you really don’t even get that far into it, as it really has only a couple minutes worth of pages total to read. The only thing that makes it longer is that everything moves incredibly sloooow in its “natural” state, you have to really crank the ol’ DOSBox cycles to get it moving at an acceptable rate. The panels only feature occasional little bits of simple animation, and there seems to be no sound or music of any kind.
One of the big selling points is “three story branches” that you can move between at any time, but the game makes this sound more complex than it actually is. Really, there’s just one main story branch, and moving to either of the other “branches” just shows a few alternate scenes from another character’s perspective.
The other selling point is violence and sexo. It’s definitely an “adult” comic with a lot of blood and graphic killings, and there’s a gratuitous nudity/softcore scene tossed in the middle there to drum up those sales.
I can’t find any good info on whether this was offered for sale back in the day, but it really seems more like a free teaser demo to get you hooked in to buying more episodes … the story cuts off just as it’s getting to the more lurid and interesting “Badlands” portion. Doesn’t seem like it got any further entries though, and with the slow interface it’s probably better to just skim through on YouTube if you have any interest whatsoever. I would have felt really ripped off if I had paid money for this back in the day.
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