Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist (1993) (Computer game)

A mid-90s adventure game set in the old west. The story concerns the titular character: a former gunslinger who took up pharmacy to escape the shame of having his ear shot off (I think – some of the motivation isn’t astonishingly clear). He finds the town he lives in slowly closing down and moving out and suspects fowl play.

This suffers from the main flaw typical to the 90s adventure game – namely that many of the puzzles feel too obtuse and you need to solve them by either spending hours clicking randomly to see what works or by looking up the solution on the internet (and looking them up often results in feeling “I never would have thought of that”). Being a Sierra game (as opposed to Lucasarts, the other major adventure game maker of the era) it is possible for the player to die, but unlike some Sierra games it isn’t really possible to get yourself into an unsolvable dead end that requires replaying more than the last few minutes.

In terms of the content, the general western feel is pretty good, helped by some nicely drawn graphics and a decent pastiche theme song that fills in the back story. I didn’t feel that it offered a particularly amusing or insightful western parody though: much of the humour came from mild innuendo (which I did enjoy) rather than a good use of the setting and the periodic pharmacy segments were a bit long and restrictive and mostly seemed designed to ensure the player had the manual rather than advance the story or setting.

In summary, this is somewhat restricted by the era and genre of game it was made in, and isn’t really a classic of that format. It isn’t terribly by any means, but also isn’t worth seeking out for anyone who isn’t a fan of 90s adventure games.

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