Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender is a point and click adventure game from 1992. This is important because at the time, this game improved the genre from where they used to type in the commands and hoping it works, and instead getting menu options. But unfortunately the mechanics presented don't help the already meh story. Some of the bad mechanics which was acceptable at the time such as pixel hunting, screwing up a terminal location that takes you to other locations (the car in the city about half way through the game) where you can't just click on the map, and the DRM which requires you to look up words in the manual (if you re-release games like this remove this kind of DRM for **** sakes). The story is in a similar situation, where they play to 50-70s B grade science fiction tropes. Interestingly enough it even has the bait and switch with sex appeal in the advertisements, even know there is very little sex in the game. Unfortunately the game is not funny enough to make the story work (this can work very well if done right), instead using gender stereotypes as a replacement for humor. Overall it is a 6.5/10, would not recommend.

Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender takes me back to the good old days of DOS PC games. It is billed as a graphic adventure game, and while it is that, the storyline is kind of flimsy. There is no real questing, just puzzles and obstacles to overcome as you travel from one place to the next. Slowly you learn what has happened on the planet you crashed into. I prefer playing games on the hardest settings, and with Rex Nebular, the hardest settings mean the most amount of puzzles and obstacles to resolve, as well as the most amount of death encounters. There are a lot of ways to die. If you want a good idea of how this game is and are familiar with the NES, the original Shadowgate is a decent comparison for how this game works. It surprised me as being not that bad of a game and in the early 90's there were A LOT of bad games, though I'm not sure what kind of price tag I would put on it. Since it is a DOS game, you can probably find a freeware version somewhere. The graphics look like crap, but it's 23 years old, so what do you expect. Personally, save your money and find a shareware or freeware version somewhere. Nothing against the game itself, I think it's mediocre as a game, but I don't think it is worth paying money for in 2015.

https://youtu.be/QgqBHOwTaJo

Nearly 30 years old this game's humor feels even more dated than the mechanics. Most of what was considered 'naughty' by the game's definition is completely flat in a modern view.

Mediocre adventure game that has aged poorly. I played it to completion a couple years ago, before it came out on Steam, hence my low playtime. The story isn't very interesting, the puzzles are tedious and often the solutions make no sense. Putting in the effort just wasn't paying off, so I gave up and followed a walkthrough for most of the game.

If you're looking for an oldschool adventure game, look elsewhere. I'd suggest the LucasArts SCUMM games like Loom and The Dig.

Tags: Adventure - P&C - Point&Click
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: Decades old sierra style Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry hybrid that requires a guide and a lot of patience to beat. Dated looking. Hard puzzles. No nostalgia for me. Would rather skip.

The name seemed funny ... the game is crap though.

I hated this, so much. If you like point and click games with horrid sound editing that pierces your poor little eardrums from time to time, this is the game for you. For many people the nostalgia factor will be the selling point, but for me it was overshadowed by how annoying the game was to play. It didn't bring me back to good times... It brought me back to a time when finding a good game was difficult and piles of crap like this were rampant. If you're super into pixel tits, I'm sure you'll love it.

I'm not saying that there isn't a target audience for this game, but I am definitely saying that I am not part of that target audience. I wanted to like the game. It looked funny. I didn't like it. It was annoying. I have no idea what sale I got this on, but I can't recommend it at full price.

Great game. Horrible copy-protection.

The protection requires you to navigate to the installation directory, find the correct pdf and enter word X from line Y on page Z. The process is non-intuitive, cumbersome, not documented in any way, and support took over a week.

Just gonna throw this out there: buy NOTHING on Steam involving the words "gender bender". This game has aged real poorly, from that era of design where you need to grab everything and hope you figure out what to do with it later.

Also it's just not that funny now that I'm not 12. If your game is based around humor, and that humor is straight out of the 80s, do not re-release it in 2014.

TL:DR -- This classic point and click with 1990s-era graphics and humor that might have been funny back then is a historical footnote on 1990s-era games and mores. Most people will want to look elsewhere for a classic point-and-click.

Warning: Any game entitled "Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender-Bender" is liable to be filled with humor that most people would consider with crude and sexist. This game certainly is, even by the 90s-era standards. The game premise is a satire of a bad 50s-era Science Fiction B-movie, where the male protagonist gets trapped on a planet of women (you can probably see where this is going....) Some people will find it incredibly funny, many others won't.

There's rotoscoping animation of the characters (high-tech for 25 years ago) which is interesting to see in action, and the verb menu system was cutting edge for its time. You can also get killed in many places in the game (even at the beginning), just like quite a few other games of the era. And it was a game from the "golden era" of the point-and-click. So there is some historical value.

If you can tolerate the humor and are nostalgic for Microprose games, then at least wait for this one to be on sale.