Manual Intervention by Spannerworx lives in the comfy realm of "updated classics". As Nova Drift is to Asteroids, so Manual Intervention is to Missile Command, overhauling the basic "shoot down bombs to save cities" concept and bringing it into the 21st century. In honor of this blast-from-the-past framing, I present my impressions of MI as a series of anecdotes from years gone by.
When I was in college, an acquaintance found an ad for some used computer hardware that proclaimed "manuel included". He thought this was hilarious, and embarked on an impromptu--and, in retrospect, quite racist--skit about purchasing this item and receiving with it a helper named Manuel. Manual Intervention makes the reverse typo, basing the pun of its title upon the weird assumption that the name "Immanuel" would be shortened to "Manual". The loading screen even says "Welcome Cadet Manual", as if it's greeting a pamphlet for new recruits. All right, then.
One of my favorite pastimes as a kid was creating games in the venerable text-mode creation engine "MegaZeux". One of the projects I sunk the most time into was a Traffic Department 2192 inspired thing called Beyond Reality. I had somebody try the game and give me feedback, and they couldn't progress past a boss fight I'd designed. It wasn't that hard, I protested! But my beta tester gave me this timeless lesson: if you create a thing and know how it works inside and out, of course it'll be easy for you to solve. Not so for your players, who lack that privileged perspective! I think Manual Intervention could stand to take this lesson to heart. "Normal" difficulty is so chaotic and breakneck-paced that I couldn't so much as guess at how to improve my strategy; I had to switch to Easy (which starts you all over from the beginning, ugh) to tone things down enough to actually learn.
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When the Nintendo 64 came out, I found the controller overwhelming. Too many buttons! Surely the Super Nintendo had enough, why so many more? The game that really drove home the problem for me was Shadows of the Empire, which I did OK at up until I got a jetpack and was expected to use it in a duel against Boba Fett. Trying to jump, jetpack, aim, shoot, dodge, etc. in coordinated fashion was too much; I kept pressing the wrong buttons and jumping to my death or flailing ineffectually while Fett roasted me with a flamethrower. Manual Intervention brought back some of that feeling. By the end I had the hang of it, but some of the button functions and mappings work at cross purposes to you. The same button you hold down to supercharge your missiles for faster intercept also makes your targeting reticle move faster, meaning that exactly when you want precision the most, you lurch around instead. Why can't you interact with anything when the status window is open? And what even is the purpose of having the right stick pull your reticle off center? In my entire playthrough I never once found it useful, especially when there's no button to put it back in the middle of the view.
My verdict: great concept, awkward execution. If you got it in The Bundle, or can spare the $3 to get it on Itch, though, it's worth a try! Putting Missile Command on a three-dimensional globe with power-ups and a storyline is an ambitious idea, and Spannerworx almost gets there.
