One of those games that could, with the right push, have become a Movement, a Thing, a Cultural Reset; but it's too bold, too daring, too fucking real, to be able to carry that burden. We absolutely need to bring back FMV games again.
''Now that came in handy as I gauged my progress. While I crawled from Germany to England, my intestines would unravel, such that every three miles I'd have to roll them back up and stuff them back in. It became my benchmark, what I lived for.''
''Now that came in handy as I gauged my progress. While I crawled from Germany to England, my intestines would unravel, such that every three miles I'd have to roll them back up and stuff them back in. It became my benchmark, what I lived for.''
i wish there were more games like harvester. will be recommending this to every twin peaks fan i meet to the point it becomes obnoxious
One of the things that really disturbed me about Harvester as a child was this one scene where a baby is sleeping in a crib and its eyes begin to pop out, and the mother is like "Oh, it's not as bad as it looks. Just pop them back in." and just something about it made me feel incredibly queezy. On the other hand, the scene itself has a strange satirical quality to it - and that's something which is pretty much present throughout the entirety of this game where it combines horror and comedy in a way that's really strange, disturbing but then also weirdly funny in a way.
There's something else about the heavily dated, predominantly FMV styled visuals playing in conjunction with deliberately dated 1950s idealist visuals which feels really memorable - and just something about it feeling so grotesquely dated just adds so much to the alien atmosphere that it creates, like peering into another world and you're just aware of it being strangely artificial and alien - lots of it comes down to how much this game is dependent on really cartoonish satirical caricatures.
It's janky as all hell, and I think some people have dismissed this as downright awful - but then there is a strange appeal to this game's storytelling and weirdly morbid sense of humour in conjunction with the grotesque violence of it, and there's definitely something about it which works. It very much forces you to confront violent content and the implications of it, and there's an explicit satire with cults manifesting themselves in suburbia and the connection that the player has with the game and what they see.
Also, the line "You always were a kidder, Steve." will get stuck in your head. It's repeated ad-nauseum throughout, and there's definitely something funny about Steve's dumb expression when he's watching all of these strange and disturbing events unfold - or when he's killed, for instance, by a legless veteran who mistakes you for a communist and shoots you but also accidentally triggers a nuclear apocalypse in the process.
There's something else about the heavily dated, predominantly FMV styled visuals playing in conjunction with deliberately dated 1950s idealist visuals which feels really memorable - and just something about it feeling so grotesquely dated just adds so much to the alien atmosphere that it creates, like peering into another world and you're just aware of it being strangely artificial and alien - lots of it comes down to how much this game is dependent on really cartoonish satirical caricatures.
It's janky as all hell, and I think some people have dismissed this as downright awful - but then there is a strange appeal to this game's storytelling and weirdly morbid sense of humour in conjunction with the grotesque violence of it, and there's definitely something about it which works. It very much forces you to confront violent content and the implications of it, and there's an explicit satire with cults manifesting themselves in suburbia and the connection that the player has with the game and what they see.
Also, the line "You always were a kidder, Steve." will get stuck in your head. It's repeated ad-nauseum throughout, and there's definitely something funny about Steve's dumb expression when he's watching all of these strange and disturbing events unfold - or when he's killed, for instance, by a legless veteran who mistakes you for a communist and shoots you but also accidentally triggers a nuclear apocalypse in the process.
This review contains spoilers
What an odd, quirky little game this one is. With a FMV presentation, a plot straight out of a fever dream, hyper violence, surprisingly mature sexual themes, all atop a satirical pastiche of the American Dream, it’s like this game was made for me. I can’t decide what I like more, the game or the idea of it. Harvester came out in what I consider to be one of the first virtual Wild Wests of the gaming-sphere. When games were really starting to push the envelope, both in maturity and in complexity of themes.
And that definitely becomes apparent when you see what sticks here and what doesn’t. For anyone out of the loop, I’ll give a quick rundown so we’re up to date on the game’s story. You’re Steve Mason, an 18 year old teenager that has suddenly woken up in Harvest, a small rural town unfamiliar to him. Family, neighbors, and fellow residents are all as equally strange to him as the locale. Giving cryptic answers, seemingly coached responses, and having darkly twisted morals, all given as if perfectly normal. Courtesy of a nasty case of amnesia, you’re tasked with figuring out what’s going on in this strange place, and why everyone is acting so weird. More specifically, you need to enter the city’s “lodge”, a special exclusive group that claims to have answers to your questions. But first you have to perform increasingly immoral tasks around town before they let you in. Along the way you meet Stephanie, another amnesiac teenager who shared your confusion. For this part of the game you have an unlimited amount of freedom to walk around town and talk to the locals. And for that and others reasons, it is the best part of Harvester.
With a population of just 50 people you wouldn’t think claustrophobia would be the name of the game here, but you’d be wrong. Everyone is just so off, and there’s no off-ramp for the insanity. From a sexually depraved mother, to a hyper-violence obsessed brother, to a cannibalistic butcher, there’s all manners of degeneracy represented. What really sets it apart is how well it straddles the line of being genuinely disturbing but also intensely funny at points. The absurdity of characters acting like nuking characters at the drop of a hat is normal, or having a kid who opens fire on you with a piece with ruthless efficiency for not giving him the newspaper that day just hits that sweet spot that every absurdist satire hopes to reach.
Conversely, the underlying themes of torture, cannibalism, incest, and sexual assault are all thoroughly sickening. There were times where I sincerely felt like putting some of these animals down. Altogether I found the juxtaposition of a 50’s era small-town and a band of vile caricatures so damn intriguing. Like I said, free exploration is allowed, which is both a curse and a blessing. You can talk to, bribe, extort, or even fight just about anyone in the game. Be wary because they fight back, sometimes leaving you dead, arrested, or just plain traumatized. My only complaint with this design is how easy it is to make a mistake and have to start over, and how optional some interactions are. For example the wasp lady and nuke guy were entirely plotless interactions who were kill-y than killer. And the nuke guy especially is the embodiment of a hair trigger red scare fanatic. A fun archetype, just ultimately not one that has any bearing on anything.
At its heart Harvester is a deconstruction. Specifically of the increasing prevalence of violence and sexual imagery in media. Ironically enough in a way Harvester is even a commentary critical of itself, echoing worries now long familiar with gamers everywhere. The concept of games corrupting the youth and the moral foundation of society. It does make use of its setting and time period, critiquing a thinly veiled caricature of the Red Ryder mascot just as quickly as it critiques video games and TV shows. Granted that doesn't mean every attempt is seamlessly crafted. Particularly the latter half lays it on reeeeeal thick with the paranoia. Though to be fair it can be hard to tell at times when the game is making fun of the satanic panic or actively supplying arguments it’s advocates would use. Beyond that it’s a take on the very real culture shift that’s taken place over the years. It’s not nuanced, and it’s not complete, but the root point demands some deeper examination, just not here. I mean having to increasingly perform worse and worse tasks to court membership in the lodge and figure out what’s going on provides a good dilemma, even if the consequences are mostly incidental. And having Stephanie as a peer with a sane perspective is a good grounding device. I only wish she played a bigger part in the game, instead of the after-thought she often felt like.
Now let’s skip to the latter half of the game’s narrative, after you’ve gained entry into the lodge. After Stephanie’s apparent murder just before you get accepted you’re all the more desperate to find answers to your questions. And it’s in the lodge where two major changes occur the the formula of the game. One, the game becomes much, much more combat focused. Whereas before you may have killed one or two people at most directly, during this part you’ll become a full-fledged killing machine. With insane humans, fleshly monsters, and eldritch creatures all forcing you to kill or be killed. This is where I’m less sure if I'd call it a good meta-commentary, as you’re not given much of a choice for most of these combat decisions, at least until you get to the trial rooms. And you can’t really make a good argument for sparing these demonic beasts and demons either. On top of that what was before small buildings and clearings has now been replaced by winding hallways, confusing corridors, and an utterly non-Euclidean architectural design pattern. It honestly felt a bit over designed and slightly tedious. Not to mention tough.
These beasts aren’t giving you an easy fight, and you’re far from a natural fighter. Picking up food items, secret weapons, and occasional restarts are all a natural consequence of this design. The trials near the end in the lodge were much more my speed. Short, succinct metaphors for life. Perhaps the most overt instances of parody in the game, these I could tell let the game designers go truly hog-wild with dialogue and horror. The most nonsensical commentaries mind you, but they gave us some cool, dreary vignettes. After all that, once you’ve cleaved and bargained your way to the final confrontation with the sergeant-at-arms, you’re finally given an answer for all the weirdness going on. Plus, you find out Stephanie is actually still alive! Turns out the spine from earlier was just a fake…..or somebody else's? Now, up until this point we understand clearly there’s something beyond a case of the crazies in this small town. Beyond your everyday case of moral degeneration, these FMV people are frequently seen portraying multiple characters. So what’s really going on? I had narrowed my suspicions down to three possibilities, with my prime theory being that the player character Steve was in some sort of coma, imagining people he knew in real life in a bizarre horror world that mirrored his anguish at being locked in his own body. So not too far from the truth.
You’re in a virtual world, created to test if a person can be driven to homicide by a matter of circumstances. Everything had been a test to get you closer and closer to shedding your own morality. The same is true for Stephanie. You two are the only real people in this simulation. And the sergeant-at-arms gives you a final choice. Kill Stephanie and return to the real world, or let yourself be killed with the consolation of experiencing a virtual simulation that makes you feel as though you’ve lived a full life with Stephanie before they pull the plug on you.
So what exactly are the choices here? Rise above your desire for freedom and temptation to shed the sanctity of life, or give in to a primal gratification of the body. This seems like a pretty easy choice, and it is in-game too unless you’re someone who likes to see the crazy endings in video games. It’s not like the player has actually been made deranged by the events in the story, however this does touch on an interesting choice that everyone must make in real life. Not a conscious choice, nor is it so grand and convoluted, but the idea that nurture reigns supreme over nature is still a hotly debated topic, and one that demands inspection. As hard as it is to quantity, it can’t be debated that upbringing and repeated traumatic events can permanently alter your behavior, values, and beliefs. In typical Harvester fashion it dials that up to 11. Good thing I’m not forming serious foundational beliefs from this silly game.
I know some people think the satire is tired and low-hanging fruit, but I can consume this stuff for days. I think the underlying mystery and creepiness is what makes it so captivating to me. On its own I might agree the game is a one-trick pony, and I’ll admit I have an unexplainable soft spot for Harvester, but the bizarre circumstances coupled with the active threats to your life give it a legitimately fun spin to your typical over-the-top fares. It lost me a bit on the tail-end with how it dragged, yet it’s still a fun romp highly accessible despite its age.
And that definitely becomes apparent when you see what sticks here and what doesn’t. For anyone out of the loop, I’ll give a quick rundown so we’re up to date on the game’s story. You’re Steve Mason, an 18 year old teenager that has suddenly woken up in Harvest, a small rural town unfamiliar to him. Family, neighbors, and fellow residents are all as equally strange to him as the locale. Giving cryptic answers, seemingly coached responses, and having darkly twisted morals, all given as if perfectly normal. Courtesy of a nasty case of amnesia, you’re tasked with figuring out what’s going on in this strange place, and why everyone is acting so weird. More specifically, you need to enter the city’s “lodge”, a special exclusive group that claims to have answers to your questions. But first you have to perform increasingly immoral tasks around town before they let you in. Along the way you meet Stephanie, another amnesiac teenager who shared your confusion. For this part of the game you have an unlimited amount of freedom to walk around town and talk to the locals. And for that and others reasons, it is the best part of Harvester.
With a population of just 50 people you wouldn’t think claustrophobia would be the name of the game here, but you’d be wrong. Everyone is just so off, and there’s no off-ramp for the insanity. From a sexually depraved mother, to a hyper-violence obsessed brother, to a cannibalistic butcher, there’s all manners of degeneracy represented. What really sets it apart is how well it straddles the line of being genuinely disturbing but also intensely funny at points. The absurdity of characters acting like nuking characters at the drop of a hat is normal, or having a kid who opens fire on you with a piece with ruthless efficiency for not giving him the newspaper that day just hits that sweet spot that every absurdist satire hopes to reach.
Conversely, the underlying themes of torture, cannibalism, incest, and sexual assault are all thoroughly sickening. There were times where I sincerely felt like putting some of these animals down. Altogether I found the juxtaposition of a 50’s era small-town and a band of vile caricatures so damn intriguing. Like I said, free exploration is allowed, which is both a curse and a blessing. You can talk to, bribe, extort, or even fight just about anyone in the game. Be wary because they fight back, sometimes leaving you dead, arrested, or just plain traumatized. My only complaint with this design is how easy it is to make a mistake and have to start over, and how optional some interactions are. For example the wasp lady and nuke guy were entirely plotless interactions who were kill-y than killer. And the nuke guy especially is the embodiment of a hair trigger red scare fanatic. A fun archetype, just ultimately not one that has any bearing on anything.
At its heart Harvester is a deconstruction. Specifically of the increasing prevalence of violence and sexual imagery in media. Ironically enough in a way Harvester is even a commentary critical of itself, echoing worries now long familiar with gamers everywhere. The concept of games corrupting the youth and the moral foundation of society. It does make use of its setting and time period, critiquing a thinly veiled caricature of the Red Ryder mascot just as quickly as it critiques video games and TV shows. Granted that doesn't mean every attempt is seamlessly crafted. Particularly the latter half lays it on reeeeeal thick with the paranoia. Though to be fair it can be hard to tell at times when the game is making fun of the satanic panic or actively supplying arguments it’s advocates would use. Beyond that it’s a take on the very real culture shift that’s taken place over the years. It’s not nuanced, and it’s not complete, but the root point demands some deeper examination, just not here. I mean having to increasingly perform worse and worse tasks to court membership in the lodge and figure out what’s going on provides a good dilemma, even if the consequences are mostly incidental. And having Stephanie as a peer with a sane perspective is a good grounding device. I only wish she played a bigger part in the game, instead of the after-thought she often felt like.
Now let’s skip to the latter half of the game’s narrative, after you’ve gained entry into the lodge. After Stephanie’s apparent murder just before you get accepted you’re all the more desperate to find answers to your questions. And it’s in the lodge where two major changes occur the the formula of the game. One, the game becomes much, much more combat focused. Whereas before you may have killed one or two people at most directly, during this part you’ll become a full-fledged killing machine. With insane humans, fleshly monsters, and eldritch creatures all forcing you to kill or be killed. This is where I’m less sure if I'd call it a good meta-commentary, as you’re not given much of a choice for most of these combat decisions, at least until you get to the trial rooms. And you can’t really make a good argument for sparing these demonic beasts and demons either. On top of that what was before small buildings and clearings has now been replaced by winding hallways, confusing corridors, and an utterly non-Euclidean architectural design pattern. It honestly felt a bit over designed and slightly tedious. Not to mention tough.
These beasts aren’t giving you an easy fight, and you’re far from a natural fighter. Picking up food items, secret weapons, and occasional restarts are all a natural consequence of this design. The trials near the end in the lodge were much more my speed. Short, succinct metaphors for life. Perhaps the most overt instances of parody in the game, these I could tell let the game designers go truly hog-wild with dialogue and horror. The most nonsensical commentaries mind you, but they gave us some cool, dreary vignettes. After all that, once you’ve cleaved and bargained your way to the final confrontation with the sergeant-at-arms, you’re finally given an answer for all the weirdness going on. Plus, you find out Stephanie is actually still alive! Turns out the spine from earlier was just a fake…..or somebody else's? Now, up until this point we understand clearly there’s something beyond a case of the crazies in this small town. Beyond your everyday case of moral degeneration, these FMV people are frequently seen portraying multiple characters. So what’s really going on? I had narrowed my suspicions down to three possibilities, with my prime theory being that the player character Steve was in some sort of coma, imagining people he knew in real life in a bizarre horror world that mirrored his anguish at being locked in his own body. So not too far from the truth.
You’re in a virtual world, created to test if a person can be driven to homicide by a matter of circumstances. Everything had been a test to get you closer and closer to shedding your own morality. The same is true for Stephanie. You two are the only real people in this simulation. And the sergeant-at-arms gives you a final choice. Kill Stephanie and return to the real world, or let yourself be killed with the consolation of experiencing a virtual simulation that makes you feel as though you’ve lived a full life with Stephanie before they pull the plug on you.
So what exactly are the choices here? Rise above your desire for freedom and temptation to shed the sanctity of life, or give in to a primal gratification of the body. This seems like a pretty easy choice, and it is in-game too unless you’re someone who likes to see the crazy endings in video games. It’s not like the player has actually been made deranged by the events in the story, however this does touch on an interesting choice that everyone must make in real life. Not a conscious choice, nor is it so grand and convoluted, but the idea that nurture reigns supreme over nature is still a hotly debated topic, and one that demands inspection. As hard as it is to quantity, it can’t be debated that upbringing and repeated traumatic events can permanently alter your behavior, values, and beliefs. In typical Harvester fashion it dials that up to 11. Good thing I’m not forming serious foundational beliefs from this silly game.
I know some people think the satire is tired and low-hanging fruit, but I can consume this stuff for days. I think the underlying mystery and creepiness is what makes it so captivating to me. On its own I might agree the game is a one-trick pony, and I’ll admit I have an unexplainable soft spot for Harvester, but the bizarre circumstances coupled with the active threats to your life give it a legitimately fun spin to your typical over-the-top fares. It lost me a bit on the tail-end with how it dragged, yet it’s still a fun romp highly accessible despite its age.
Almost impossible to complete without a guide, the puzzles are meaningless. And at the end for some reason it has a very long combat sequence without healing items, but it's really worth playing. Lasts about 4h.
Laughed out loud several times. Shitposting in game form.
Laughed out loud several times. Shitposting in game form.
dont google what happened to steves actor
I have a weird love hate relationship with games that pride themselves on being "subversive".
On the one hand I have no problem with media that wants to break social norms and taboos so long as what their making as an overall point to it and isn't just "lol isn't this fucked up, crazy right.". If done right you can get masterpieces of subversive media like A Clockwork Orange, Funny Games, Pink Flamingos and Freddy Got Fingered, unfortunately I can count on one hand the amount of video games I've personally seen that've tried and failed at tackling subversive media. When most games set out to tackle this level of writing and story tell it can either go two ways, It's either by a group of creative individuals who have a strong view of what their game is trying say along with having strong narrative themes that intertwine with the gameplay and narrative, games like Undertale, Cruelty Squad, Death Stranding, Hotline Miami 2, Spec Ops The Line, and Conker's Bad Fur Day. On the other side of the coin you have games that say they have a strong message and a subversive narrative but either fail from sheer incompetence of storytelling and thematic elements and tone deafness; even if they did try to incorporate the gameplay by tying it in with the game’s overall point it can still fail by not having a strong enough concrete vision of their game causing the rest of the game to fall apart in the process, game like Hatred, Twelve Minutes, Postal, Bioshock Infinite, Last of Us 2, Mafia 3, and Saints Row 3.
The real question here is what camp does Harvester fall into.
Harvester is a tough sell for me because while I really love the late 90’s early CG visuals and the use of crunchy FMV for their character sprites and cutscenes; and the acting is………camp, very……very camp. Unfortunately for all the elements of the game I really liked it’s weighed down by the biggest problem with the game being that it’s not a very good game to play plus I don’t respect what the game is trying to say.
As a point and click game it’s way to linear, almost railroading you down one single path with almost no diverging pathways for puzzles unlike other much more simpler point and click games, even better though during the last hour the game changes ganreas from point and click to dungeon crawler. And it has some of the absolute worst combat I've ever played, I’d respect the idea and change if it didn’t feel so half baked and poorly thought out. You also get a wide variety of dialogue options for NPCs even for ones that have no real use in the overall game, but besides a handful of character a lot of them just feel like flavor text and don’t add anything besides giving the town the game takes place feeling a lot more empty; it probably also doesn't help that a lot of the areas in the game only really matter to one puzzle and that’s it or other times some areas will have almost no point at all and are just there for a joke or “irreverence social commentary”, like the towns nuclear missile station run by a PTSD riddled commie heating Vietnam veteran who had entire torso blown and now stand guard and will blow you head off if you enter a conversation with him and mention anything that isn’t wholesome a-ok american pride, and if he does shot you he accidentally falls over and launches the nukes killing every in the town giving you a game over and sending you back to your last save. It’s funny ... .for like the first time but after awhile it just gets tiresome and that can be said for a lot of the games “irreverence social commentary”.
The main games overall message and themes are…I think “violent media does not create violent individuals but rather the people around them create monsters through the act of allowing disgusting degenerate behavior influence their actions”. The game is very much a response to the violent games panic of the 90s and while I do think they did a decent job tying the game’s message and themes into the world of the game and the game itself it still left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It might be because of the really lame twist at the end but I think a large part of it mostly comes from how much of a strawman argument this game feels like at times. Pretty much every other character in the game are inherent violence sociopath with a lot of them either having vices of porn, murder, arson, being racist, incest, child kidnapping, child murder, grooming, being gay?, and since the game takes a page from Blue Velvet where it portrays quiet suburban middle america but under that thin vale it’s a seedy underbelly of degeneracy. But here it’s trying to do its message with the most tone deaf straw man character I’ve seen since Postal and overall it just kinda leaves me feeling like a big fat load of nothing. Don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to disagree with the game’s overall intent I just don’t like how they went about executing the set ideas in the most late 90’s way possible, lude, dumb and somehow racist.
I think my overall take away from Harvester is it’s a game I really wanted to like and still do like from a purely visual perspective, but on almost every other side I either just don’t vibe with parts of the game or actively dislike other parts that are very important parts of the game. I know this game had a really rushed development and as a result the late game feels very unfinished but I don’t know I feel like even if I lived in a timeline where it was fully released like the studio wanted I still don’t think I’d really vibe with it. Maybe I’m just getting older and find the absurdist and counter cultural way of telling a story and delivering a message frustrating and annoying………………………..naa I still like Freddy Got Fingered, it’s probably the games fault.
On the one hand I have no problem with media that wants to break social norms and taboos so long as what their making as an overall point to it and isn't just "lol isn't this fucked up, crazy right.". If done right you can get masterpieces of subversive media like A Clockwork Orange, Funny Games, Pink Flamingos and Freddy Got Fingered, unfortunately I can count on one hand the amount of video games I've personally seen that've tried and failed at tackling subversive media. When most games set out to tackle this level of writing and story tell it can either go two ways, It's either by a group of creative individuals who have a strong view of what their game is trying say along with having strong narrative themes that intertwine with the gameplay and narrative, games like Undertale, Cruelty Squad, Death Stranding, Hotline Miami 2, Spec Ops The Line, and Conker's Bad Fur Day. On the other side of the coin you have games that say they have a strong message and a subversive narrative but either fail from sheer incompetence of storytelling and thematic elements and tone deafness; even if they did try to incorporate the gameplay by tying it in with the game’s overall point it can still fail by not having a strong enough concrete vision of their game causing the rest of the game to fall apart in the process, game like Hatred, Twelve Minutes, Postal, Bioshock Infinite, Last of Us 2, Mafia 3, and Saints Row 3.
The real question here is what camp does Harvester fall into.
Harvester is a tough sell for me because while I really love the late 90’s early CG visuals and the use of crunchy FMV for their character sprites and cutscenes; and the acting is………camp, very……very camp. Unfortunately for all the elements of the game I really liked it’s weighed down by the biggest problem with the game being that it’s not a very good game to play plus I don’t respect what the game is trying to say.
As a point and click game it’s way to linear, almost railroading you down one single path with almost no diverging pathways for puzzles unlike other much more simpler point and click games, even better though during the last hour the game changes ganreas from point and click to dungeon crawler. And it has some of the absolute worst combat I've ever played, I’d respect the idea and change if it didn’t feel so half baked and poorly thought out. You also get a wide variety of dialogue options for NPCs even for ones that have no real use in the overall game, but besides a handful of character a lot of them just feel like flavor text and don’t add anything besides giving the town the game takes place feeling a lot more empty; it probably also doesn't help that a lot of the areas in the game only really matter to one puzzle and that’s it or other times some areas will have almost no point at all and are just there for a joke or “irreverence social commentary”, like the towns nuclear missile station run by a PTSD riddled commie heating Vietnam veteran who had entire torso blown and now stand guard and will blow you head off if you enter a conversation with him and mention anything that isn’t wholesome a-ok american pride, and if he does shot you he accidentally falls over and launches the nukes killing every in the town giving you a game over and sending you back to your last save. It’s funny ... .for like the first time but after awhile it just gets tiresome and that can be said for a lot of the games “irreverence social commentary”.
The main games overall message and themes are…I think “violent media does not create violent individuals but rather the people around them create monsters through the act of allowing disgusting degenerate behavior influence their actions”. The game is very much a response to the violent games panic of the 90s and while I do think they did a decent job tying the game’s message and themes into the world of the game and the game itself it still left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It might be because of the really lame twist at the end but I think a large part of it mostly comes from how much of a strawman argument this game feels like at times. Pretty much every other character in the game are inherent violence sociopath with a lot of them either having vices of porn, murder, arson, being racist, incest, child kidnapping, child murder, grooming, being gay?, and since the game takes a page from Blue Velvet where it portrays quiet suburban middle america but under that thin vale it’s a seedy underbelly of degeneracy. But here it’s trying to do its message with the most tone deaf straw man character I’ve seen since Postal and overall it just kinda leaves me feeling like a big fat load of nothing. Don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to disagree with the game’s overall intent I just don’t like how they went about executing the set ideas in the most late 90’s way possible, lude, dumb and somehow racist.
I think my overall take away from Harvester is it’s a game I really wanted to like and still do like from a purely visual perspective, but on almost every other side I either just don’t vibe with parts of the game or actively dislike other parts that are very important parts of the game. I know this game had a really rushed development and as a result the late game feels very unfinished but I don’t know I feel like even if I lived in a timeline where it was fully released like the studio wanted I still don’t think I’d really vibe with it. Maybe I’m just getting older and find the absurdist and counter cultural way of telling a story and delivering a message frustrating and annoying………………………..naa I still like Freddy Got Fingered, it’s probably the games fault.
absolutely nothing about this game is "good" -- it's obtuse like most games of its kind and it invites you to softlock yourself. the last act is also hideously awful.
but i still replay it probably once a year. the tasteless gen x humor and cynical outlook on the world is just a car wreck i can't look away from. play this if you want to watch a schlocky horror movie with puzzles
but i still replay it probably once a year. the tasteless gen x humor and cynical outlook on the world is just a car wreck i can't look away from. play this if you want to watch a schlocky horror movie with puzzles
I unironically love this game. It's so unapologetic in its schizophrenic and chaotic attitude.
While I have a penchant for quirky and absurdist games, I tend to appreciate them more when they convey an ideal or purpose that tends to be deeper than shock value, so this game was a letdown not only on the gameplay and design, which are as poor as it can get, but even the execution of what could be an interesting project, leaves too much to be desired
What is Harvester? Harvester is a huge piece of sh¡t. Seriously! what's up with people pretending some of these kusoges are actually "underrated" gems? This barely passed as a game when it was released and it sure as hell does not meet the standards today.
The story is non-sensensical, it keeps adding stuff as it goes on to pretend being "mysterious" when it's actually the laziest writing you can come across. The NPCs are quirky and kinda interesting but most don't have any real weight in the story and the funny factor wears out after 10 minutes of roaming around with this game's ugly controls. Some people say the game is strong until you get access to the endgame but that's bullsh*t, the game is crap since you press play on the Steam app.
Visually this is repulsive. Not only it features bad FMV and hilariously noticeable green-screens, also all the scenarios are flat and you can barely tell what's interactive and what's decorative, not to mention the cursor's area of effect is so small you sometimes have to be pixel perfect while clicking to activate or grab something.
To top it off this game has combat, which mostly revolves around being lucky with the horrible hit detection and landing more blows than the enemies. Sometimes you can be hit while being away from whoever is attacking you at the moment, which can trigger frustration levels you never thought possible.
If you're a real masochist (like me) or have real interest in edgy games that tried to push some boundaries while drowning themselves in their own liquid farts, suit yourself. Otherwise don't waste your money.
The story is non-sensensical, it keeps adding stuff as it goes on to pretend being "mysterious" when it's actually the laziest writing you can come across. The NPCs are quirky and kinda interesting but most don't have any real weight in the story and the funny factor wears out after 10 minutes of roaming around with this game's ugly controls. Some people say the game is strong until you get access to the endgame but that's bullsh*t, the game is crap since you press play on the Steam app.
Visually this is repulsive. Not only it features bad FMV and hilariously noticeable green-screens, also all the scenarios are flat and you can barely tell what's interactive and what's decorative, not to mention the cursor's area of effect is so small you sometimes have to be pixel perfect while clicking to activate or grab something.
To top it off this game has combat, which mostly revolves around being lucky with the horrible hit detection and landing more blows than the enemies. Sometimes you can be hit while being away from whoever is attacking you at the moment, which can trigger frustration levels you never thought possible.
If you're a real masochist (like me) or have real interest in edgy games that tried to push some boundaries while drowning themselves in their own liquid farts, suit yourself. Otherwise don't waste your money.
Definitiv ein FMV-Horror-Klassiker, der einiges an Gore bietet, dabei aber keine klassischen Horror-Elemente hat.
Zum Großteil waren die Zwischenszenen extrem kurz und hatten oft nur mittelmäßig gute Effekte, der "Wille" war jedoch vorhanden. Das Echtzeit-Kampfsystem war für ein Spiel dieser Art überraschend gut umgesetzt und es gab viele Waffen zu finden.
Wenn man auf Full-Motion-Video-Spiele à la Phantasmagoria steht, empfehle ich dieses Spiel auf jeden Fall, wobei hier mehr Gore, aber leider weniger Qualität zu sehen ist.
Nachtrag: Das Spiel nimmt sich außerdem nicht immer ernst, wofür möglicherweise der wirklich hanebüchene Plot verantwortlich ist. Einen zweiten Teil würde ich der Absurdität und des Twists am Ende wegen jedoch sehr begrüßen, wobei es wohl nie dazu kommen wird. Interesse hat bei mir zuerst nur die Indizierung des Titels geweckt, also vielen Dank, liebe BPjS!
Zum Großteil waren die Zwischenszenen extrem kurz und hatten oft nur mittelmäßig gute Effekte, der "Wille" war jedoch vorhanden. Das Echtzeit-Kampfsystem war für ein Spiel dieser Art überraschend gut umgesetzt und es gab viele Waffen zu finden.
Wenn man auf Full-Motion-Video-Spiele à la Phantasmagoria steht, empfehle ich dieses Spiel auf jeden Fall, wobei hier mehr Gore, aber leider weniger Qualität zu sehen ist.
Nachtrag: Das Spiel nimmt sich außerdem nicht immer ernst, wofür möglicherweise der wirklich hanebüchene Plot verantwortlich ist. Einen zweiten Teil würde ich der Absurdität und des Twists am Ende wegen jedoch sehr begrüßen, wobei es wohl nie dazu kommen wird. Interesse hat bei mir zuerst nur die Indizierung des Titels geweckt, also vielen Dank, liebe BPjS!
I love this game so much but also I absolutely hate this game, everyone should play it so it'll spread like an STI.
Kino.
Disclaimer: I streamed the GOG version of this so if you see this review on other sites, assume that is the one I'm talking about.
My first part of the stream here
Entering this game with as little knowledge as possible, (which is generally how I try to enter all games before playing them on stream) I only knew that this game has a history of being disturbing and even controversial, but luckily for me, I don't have any triggers so I was able to play it without taking a lot of mental harm. That said, this certainly isn't a game for everyone and is not for those with a weak stomach or are easily offended since the time-period being depicted people have choice opinions of others from different marginalised groups.
That said, the story itself is one that starts with intrigue where you play as Steve, who wakes up with amnesia and is surrounded by his "family" and has memories of things that don't exist like such as a remote control, but when he tried to conjure that memory up it was a struggle. Ontop of the amnesia, he is also meant to be getting married and as you investigate the town you find that the people in this town are a either strange, twisted, psychopaths, outrageous or any mixture of the above.
At times this game felt like it has content in this to just be a shocking game, however there is some real substance in this in regard to the mystery, the secret society inside the lodge, plot-twists and the ending which allows everything to make sense! I have more to discuss in regards to my own theories of the ending and the world, however, I do not wish to drop off any spoilers.
It's one of those games that if you are curious, you should most certainly experience it as it should certainly belong in video game history as one of those missing gems. Especially with the acting in regards to the FMV footage in game.
My first part of the stream here
Entering this game with as little knowledge as possible, (which is generally how I try to enter all games before playing them on stream) I only knew that this game has a history of being disturbing and even controversial, but luckily for me, I don't have any triggers so I was able to play it without taking a lot of mental harm. That said, this certainly isn't a game for everyone and is not for those with a weak stomach or are easily offended since the time-period being depicted people have choice opinions of others from different marginalised groups.
That said, the story itself is one that starts with intrigue where you play as Steve, who wakes up with amnesia and is surrounded by his "family" and has memories of things that don't exist like such as a remote control, but when he tried to conjure that memory up it was a struggle. Ontop of the amnesia, he is also meant to be getting married and as you investigate the town you find that the people in this town are a either strange, twisted, psychopaths, outrageous or any mixture of the above.
At times this game felt like it has content in this to just be a shocking game, however there is some real substance in this in regard to the mystery, the secret society inside the lodge, plot-twists and the ending which allows everything to make sense! I have more to discuss in regards to my own theories of the ending and the world, however, I do not wish to drop off any spoilers.
It's one of those games that if you are curious, you should most certainly experience it as it should certainly belong in video game history as one of those missing gems. Especially with the acting in regards to the FMV footage in game.
you always were a kidder steve
Harvester is Insane. Genuinely a work of punk art that wants to break every societal taboo that exists and than does. Does it succed: Kinda of not really, maybe 50% of the time. I do think the first half is a good adventure game. I love exploring the weirdness of Harvest and its insane citizens. The puzzles arent too bad, possing not much of a challenge if you pay attention. The backhalf is where Harvester starts to collaps and there no way around it: Break out a guide. Youll still experience the most insane stuff in any Video Game, but it will keep you from wanting to punch through a wall.
Okay, I can’t in good conscience claim that Harvester has aged all that well — especially compared to some of its 90s adventure game contemporaries — but man, does it truly do a lot for a game from 1995. To me it’s loosely the true definition of a guilty pleasure: something I legitimately like and will defend, as opposed to, say, something I like ironically or something I like for how bad it is. It mostly just comes down to how Harvester feels like… honestly like nothing else I’ve played before. It’s prone to misfiring on some of its ideas, and there are major aspects of gameplay that… I’ll get to later, but as a whole it’s an absolutely fascinating game that, for an early adventure game, does feel ahead of its time in certain aspects and doesn’t have any other particular comparison point today.
You play as an (alleged) teenager who wakes up with absolutely no memory of who or where he is. Through interacting with your NPC family and following where they lead you, you get filled in — your name is Steve, you live in the beautiful small town of Harvest, and you’re scheduled to get married to your sweetheart Stephanie next week. However, upon visiting the bride-to-be, you find out that, like you, Stephanie is also an amnesiac, and the two of you realize that there is something deeply up with the town of Harvest. To try and solve its mysteries, and to try and find a way out for you and Stephanie, you decide to investigate The Order of the Harvest Moon: an exclusive club that the town of Harvest seems to revolve around, and, as you attempt to join so you can enter the building, Steve finds himself participating in trials built to tear the town apart, and test just how far he can go over the edge.
And I’d just love to state how immensely I love this game’s vibe. Nearly every NPC you meet gives off the aura, of, like, some person who sits next to you on the bus who won’t stop talking about the weirdest shit who you wanna try and humour at first even though you’re a bit uncomfortable but who rapidly brings the conversation to bad territory to the point where you wanna get away from them as soon as possible and it really helps to give this game this surreal, disturbing… but also fun vibe, in a black-comedy sort of way. There are people who come off more relatively normal… but your actions either drive them away or show them to be as off-kilter as the rest of the town — which does an excellent job at making things escalate through the game and showing the effect of what you’re doing. This all seems to have an end goal of satirizing 50s small-town America and exposing what's beneath the idyllic exterior, and to that end, I think it works. While there are beats that I wish had more thought put into them (I preferred stuff like the firefighters over ‘all the natives are drunk and homeless’) I… genuinely liked figuring out what the game was going for thematically, and combined with generally sharp and fun writing nearly across the board, this game… very much delivers, story wise.
And for an adventure game released in the 90s, it’s also surprisingly functional! It manages to avoid a lot of the general trappings of the time (ways to render the game unbeatable, puzzles working on insane trains of logic, more items than you actually ever use) to create a functional and enjoyable experience based more on interaction and exploration than anything else. I also like how typical RPG/adventure game conventions get subverted — instead of doing quests to make others happy and make the town a better place, what you do in Harvester instead has adverse effects, harming people and tearing the town apart at an escalating level that directly calls into question what exactly it is you’re doing. There’s also combat! It’s… exactly as clunky and rough as you would expect for combat in a 90s adventure game, but it’s… at least kind of funny in its application and it’s only ever required once or twice so I could kind of shrug it aside as something that contributed to the game’s charm…
…Until you reach the Lodge — the base of the Order of the Harvest Moon, and where you spend the last third-ish of the game. It’s… honestly one of the worst things I've ever had to endure? The once thankfully-infrequent combat is now constant, with the final challenge before the ending putting you through ten arduous and clunky combat encounters back to back without any sort of break or ability to recoup. There’s now an element of resource management in play in terms of healing and ammo… but the game doesn’t give you nearly enough to deal with what it dishes out and you have absolutely no sense of when, exactly, you’re going to get more or when you’re actually reaching the end of the trek. The writing also takes a dip here: the game loses its ability to teeter the line between vaguely-possible-person and insane mouthpiece as constant new characters appear on the spot to monologue about the ills of society before trying to shoot you. This all leads up to a final reveal which… discards the narrative the game was pushing towards all for a whole new narrative which doesn’t really link up with what was going on before. There’s… a certain sense of amusement to be had in wondering what weird thing you’re going to see next, but it feels so… slapdash compared to what the game had been going for earlier, and gameplay-wise it’s just so unpleasant that it’s hard to glean any sort of fun out of it. The first time I played through I was caught completely unprepared and was just so shocked at how hard a drop it was compared to everything before it — and while I was able to go through it a lot more smoothly this time since I knew what was happening… god, what a miserable way to end the game.
But I still, at least, really like most everything that happens up until that point. Even with the presence of really bad, awful combat, and even with the spectre of The Lodge tainting the last third of the game… I still think Harvester’s a fun time! With fun, snappy writing that truly runs right up to the line between horror and black comedy, and with some… simple but fun adventure game design that turns the structure of ‘do puzzles and quests to make everything better’ completely on its head, Harvester is a guilty pleasure that despite… many issues I think holds up and is still somewhat incomparable today. 7/10.
You play as an (alleged) teenager who wakes up with absolutely no memory of who or where he is. Through interacting with your NPC family and following where they lead you, you get filled in — your name is Steve, you live in the beautiful small town of Harvest, and you’re scheduled to get married to your sweetheart Stephanie next week. However, upon visiting the bride-to-be, you find out that, like you, Stephanie is also an amnesiac, and the two of you realize that there is something deeply up with the town of Harvest. To try and solve its mysteries, and to try and find a way out for you and Stephanie, you decide to investigate The Order of the Harvest Moon: an exclusive club that the town of Harvest seems to revolve around, and, as you attempt to join so you can enter the building, Steve finds himself participating in trials built to tear the town apart, and test just how far he can go over the edge.
And I’d just love to state how immensely I love this game’s vibe. Nearly every NPC you meet gives off the aura, of, like, some person who sits next to you on the bus who won’t stop talking about the weirdest shit who you wanna try and humour at first even though you’re a bit uncomfortable but who rapidly brings the conversation to bad territory to the point where you wanna get away from them as soon as possible and it really helps to give this game this surreal, disturbing… but also fun vibe, in a black-comedy sort of way. There are people who come off more relatively normal… but your actions either drive them away or show them to be as off-kilter as the rest of the town — which does an excellent job at making things escalate through the game and showing the effect of what you’re doing. This all seems to have an end goal of satirizing 50s small-town America and exposing what's beneath the idyllic exterior, and to that end, I think it works. While there are beats that I wish had more thought put into them (I preferred stuff like the firefighters over ‘all the natives are drunk and homeless’) I… genuinely liked figuring out what the game was going for thematically, and combined with generally sharp and fun writing nearly across the board, this game… very much delivers, story wise.
And for an adventure game released in the 90s, it’s also surprisingly functional! It manages to avoid a lot of the general trappings of the time (ways to render the game unbeatable, puzzles working on insane trains of logic, more items than you actually ever use) to create a functional and enjoyable experience based more on interaction and exploration than anything else. I also like how typical RPG/adventure game conventions get subverted — instead of doing quests to make others happy and make the town a better place, what you do in Harvester instead has adverse effects, harming people and tearing the town apart at an escalating level that directly calls into question what exactly it is you’re doing. There’s also combat! It’s… exactly as clunky and rough as you would expect for combat in a 90s adventure game, but it’s… at least kind of funny in its application and it’s only ever required once or twice so I could kind of shrug it aside as something that contributed to the game’s charm…
…Until you reach the Lodge — the base of the Order of the Harvest Moon, and where you spend the last third-ish of the game. It’s… honestly one of the worst things I've ever had to endure? The once thankfully-infrequent combat is now constant, with the final challenge before the ending putting you through ten arduous and clunky combat encounters back to back without any sort of break or ability to recoup. There’s now an element of resource management in play in terms of healing and ammo… but the game doesn’t give you nearly enough to deal with what it dishes out and you have absolutely no sense of when, exactly, you’re going to get more or when you’re actually reaching the end of the trek. The writing also takes a dip here: the game loses its ability to teeter the line between vaguely-possible-person and insane mouthpiece as constant new characters appear on the spot to monologue about the ills of society before trying to shoot you. This all leads up to a final reveal which… discards the narrative the game was pushing towards all for a whole new narrative which doesn’t really link up with what was going on before. There’s… a certain sense of amusement to be had in wondering what weird thing you’re going to see next, but it feels so… slapdash compared to what the game had been going for earlier, and gameplay-wise it’s just so unpleasant that it’s hard to glean any sort of fun out of it. The first time I played through I was caught completely unprepared and was just so shocked at how hard a drop it was compared to everything before it — and while I was able to go through it a lot more smoothly this time since I knew what was happening… god, what a miserable way to end the game.
But I still, at least, really like most everything that happens up until that point. Even with the presence of really bad, awful combat, and even with the spectre of The Lodge tainting the last third of the game… I still think Harvester’s a fun time! With fun, snappy writing that truly runs right up to the line between horror and black comedy, and with some… simple but fun adventure game design that turns the structure of ‘do puzzles and quests to make everything better’ completely on its head, Harvester is a guilty pleasure that despite… many issues I think holds up and is still somewhat incomparable today. 7/10.
if I played this when I was 16 it wouldve been in my top 5
The game every Japanese twin peaks rip off wishes it could be.
First disc is five star material but once enter the lodge it all goes downhill real fast and never recovers. That completely ruins the game from being anything but average at best imo
Had Harvester come out today, it'd be another indie game trying to be weird for the sake of being weird and I'd ignore it without another thought, but having come out in the mid-90s adds another layer of weird that's probably the biggest curiosity the game has to offer.
As a game and not a relic from the 90s, Harvester is not very good. The puzzles aren't great, the things you do to advance the plot don't make sense even in the game's context and the last third just drags on unnecessarily. The individual characters, the voice acting and FMVs are entertaining, but that's about it.
As a game and not a relic from the 90s, Harvester is not very good. The puzzles aren't great, the things you do to advance the plot don't make sense even in the game's context and the last third just drags on unnecessarily. The individual characters, the voice acting and FMVs are entertaining, but that's about it.
BRAZIL MENTIONED =)
[ Story: 7/10 | Gameplay: 6/10 | OST: 8/10 ]
"ViDeO GaMeS ArE ViOlEnT AnD pRoMoTe My cHiLd To KILL!!!" Looking back on that old ass ideology is real damn goofy in hindsight. This game's really fucking weird and janky as shit, but there's also a lot of charm and DAMN good writing at times too.
"ViDeO GaMeS ArE ViOlEnT AnD pRoMoTe My cHiLd To KILL!!!" Looking back on that old ass ideology is real damn goofy in hindsight. This game's really fucking weird and janky as shit, but there's also a lot of charm and DAMN good writing at times too.
A direct response to the moral panic around violent video games, Harvester pulls no punches in asserting that the violence being blames on the games was, and is, endemic to American culture. Not even close to a perfect expression of that idea but the audacity of making this in the 90s is great. Also it's hilarious just watch a video or whatever
A escrita é boa?
Não muito?
Personagens bem desenvolvidos?
Não
Os efeitos especiais são bem feitos?
Nem um pouco
Eu gostei?
Demais
Único defeito que afetou realmente meu divertimento enquanto jogava, foi na reta final do jogo dentro do lodge o jogo acabar dando um foco grande demais pro combate merda dele.
Mas a atmosfera do jogo realmente é o que fez eu gostar tanto, mas eu também gosto de uma porrada de slasher merdão então talvez eu que tenha mal gosto?
Não muito?
Personagens bem desenvolvidos?
Não
Os efeitos especiais são bem feitos?
Nem um pouco
Eu gostei?
Demais
Único defeito que afetou realmente meu divertimento enquanto jogava, foi na reta final do jogo dentro do lodge o jogo acabar dando um foco grande demais pro combate merda dele.
Mas a atmosfera do jogo realmente é o que fez eu gostar tanto, mas eu também gosto de uma porrada de slasher merdão então talvez eu que tenha mal gosto?
I don't think I'll ever actually finish this game myself, but from what I've played and what I've watched, it's absolute gold. Highly recommend watching a blind playthrough of this game.
Also, anytime I hear the word "meat" I can't help but imagine the way the damn girlfriend's father says it.
Also, anytime I hear the word "meat" I can't help but imagine the way the damn girlfriend's father says it.
I actually can't believe this game got made. Some of the moments in the Lodge are disturbing enough to keep you up at night
You always were a kiddie fiddler, weren't you Steve?
if you like twin peaks, but thought it needed more blood, play this game