Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces

Mystic Midway Rest in Pieces is the sequel to Mystic Midway Phantom Express, for those of you keeping tabs on crappy, obscure games that no one else cares about. While the first entry in the series was a depressing journey though life as seen through a carnival ride, the second game is a shooting gallery at the same eerie run-down carnival. While the two are strikingly different, neither succeeds in giving the CD-i any sort of notoriety, besides having needlessly long titles.

Rest in Pieces is a shooting gallery, plain and simple. The need for any arcade-style action on the CD-i was apparent, and this title helped slightly ... maybe. Of course, instead of opting for a creepy pre-rendered cut-scene showing the dilapidated carnival and the attraction in question, Philips chose to pepper the game with boring, corny FMV; again. The beginning of the game showcases a weird carnival barker yelling un-inspired insults at you for a very long period of time. I eventually skipped his soliloquy, lest I find myself to un-interested to actually play the game. Not exactly the sentiment Philips had envisioned; I hope.

Once the actual game part of the game begins, it's you and a gun against the undead hordes employed by Mystic Midway. The action is viewed from a top-down perspective, with your cursor at the bottom of the screen shooting upwards at the creeps that materialize. The usual "Halloween decoration" assortment is here; bats, ghosts, skulls and skeletons, etc, etc, etc. Some of the enemies de-materialize in a cool way; some even have an accompanying sound byte. At times, tombstones will impede your path to turn up the difficulty a tad.

There is very little to get excited about with this game. Philips could have easily thrown together several mediocre carnival midway games in the same package, but perhaps felt the effort would have overwhelmed the rest of their poor library. If you enjoy hokey carnival-esque games, look no further; unless you enjoy a different hokey carnival-esque game. In that case, keep looking.