Franchises can be odd on a personal level. How huge pieces of fiction can exist right under your nose for years in obscurity, without you ever noticing them, even if the genre fits your taste. Largo Winch is one of those franchises to me. Before Largo Winch – Empire Under Threat, I had never heard about this anti-corruption-fighting billionaire. It’s a name that has spawned both movies and games (as you can tell), from its humble beginnings as a comic from Belgium. So, what is it, and is it any good? Well, good might be stretching it, but I found the title charming. However, you must have a fondness for puzzles and point-and-click adventure gaming, even if the game includes combat segments. Let’s get into it.
The playboy life
You play as Largo Winch, a billionaire playboy recently inheriting the Winch consortium after his father’s death. As it is, the Winch family has a conscious and is actively involved in charitable work of different kinds, beyond the normal corporate stuff. Regardless, business is good, and when the game starts the Winch organization is about to launch a ship with humanitarian aid to the war-torn country of Drinavia. During the gala presenting the charity, the convention comes under attack by someone calling in a bomb threat and locking the doors. This starts the adventure for real, and Largo’s double O Seven shenanigans. The attack quickly evolves into a deep rabbit hole of conspiracies, murder, and corporate espionage.
In a very classic way, Largo Winch – Empire Under Threat is a globe-trotting adventure that will take you all over our dear round blue earth, but since you are a billionaire many of the places you will be visiting are actually owned by you, which adds a nice little twist to the usual spy formula. The people you will have to deal with are many times employees under you and will respond to you as such.
Largo by himself is a pretty nice guy, very down to earth, and courteous, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t indulge in the rich playboy life, as you will participate in soon enough. The characterization isn’t very deep, or anything like that, but I found the protagonist pretty good, and it fit the setting snugly. As I said in the opening, it’s a charming game, however, I think much of this comes from Largo being how he is – so, I’m glad they didn’t make him arrogant, chronically sarcastic, or overly domineering as the typical rich guy portrayal goes. His companions are pleasant too, and they all come with their own little specialization. Joy is the female security expert, and is good at fighting. Simon is the thief gigolo type of guy who knows how to sweet-talk himself into places. And then we have Kaspersky, which is the IT security and hacker guy. Like I said, the characterization isn’t deep for anyone involved in the story, but what is there works. The different roles they have, and their personality comes across very easily.
The main story by itself isn’t bad. However, I had some trouble following it at the beginning of the game. It was clear to me what happened, and who and why we had to investigate, but to me most of the plot felt a bit clouded until the final parts of the game. That’s not to say I wasn’t invested, I’m just a bit slow on the uptake, I guess. The narrative all comes together at the end, even if it might become a bit too comic book villain, considering how it starts (fairly low-key and “realistic”). But then again, the origins of Largo Winch are comic books. All in all, I enjoyed the story!
Mix and match approach
The main thing you will be doing in Largo Winch – Empire Under Threat is adventure-type stuff, picking up and combining items, for then to use these objects at appropriate places. Very traditional, and most of the adventure game logic is sound, but there are a few obscure solutions that had me scratching my head in bewilderment. Like when I had to lure a guard to walk over a trapdoor – that one just didn’t want to come to me. The game has a lot more to it, it has combat and a few mini-games too, that might or might not drive you a little crazy.
If we start with the combat, it’s turn-based and very JRPG-esque having you alone or with partners standing on each side of a rectangle battle arena facing each other down. When these confrontations happen, it will always be scripted to do so. There is no grinding or anything like that, and for the most part, these conflicts are fairly easy, but in the later parts of the game, they turned more into puzzles to up the challenge. With that I mean, you have to use provided combat “items” in a certain order to stand a chance. These fights are not very intriguing by themselves, yet, they break up the gameplay well. More adventure games could use something like this If I’m being honest.
Now, the mini-games are a different beast and a time consumer. With that said, they are not badly done, but the hacking mini-game might come a little too often, and at certain parts of the game it feels like padding since the game is pretty short beyond the added mini-games. The hacking is hard to explain, but you have to move your little abstract hacker guy over a board to unlock critical information, and then make it out with the information. It’s turn-based, and each spot has its own security nodes, that can go from 1 to 4. A full 4 nodes will take 4 turns to complete, and that goes for the viruses that chase you as well. The basics are; taking the fastest route to the information you need while luring the viruses to take the longest. You can also fortify nodes, which I found was the best approach overall. Take it slow, building up nodes, and then when you feel safe enough that the viruses will get trapped you move out and collect the information you need and escape. The problem with this mini-game is how often it appears, you will be hacking everything from doors to FBI servers. They take a long time to complete, and if you are caught you will to start all over. No mercy for failure is shown here.
There are other mini-games too, but they are the one-note kind – they do take a long time to finish though (depending on how good you are at this kind of stuff, of course). You will have to play poker and win at one point, and complete my nemesis of everything adventure gaming; the dreaded slider-puzzle. Holy Jesus, this one took a good while, and the low muddy textures didn’t help with this task. As with the hacker mini-game, these are not bad per se, and they do break off the adventure game meandering, but man, if they show up when you are not feeling it, these things might break the title – at least from a session-based perspective. Gamer rage here I come!
Visuals & sound
Even by PS2 standards, textures, models, and animations are pretty low. I did find the overall presentation pleasing in a retro kind of way, at least from a visual standpoint. The voice acting is not the greatest, but they work and it has its early 2000 euro charm, if you will. Background sounds fall short though, since the looping and random sounds to indicate a “living place” are pathetic and a bit funny in a sad way. Be sure to notice the short 2-second police siren when you are at Winch HQ. It’s like a police car is circling your building on a 30-second interval 100 stories into the air.
The music is surprisingly good and fits the theme. It has this spy, corporate espionage style to it, and enhances the tone of the game. On a technical level, there is a ton of loading required, which will get annoying when you have to walk from scene to scene to try different puzzle solutions. When it comes to the emulation part, the game seems to run well under Vulcan, anything else except software seems to create broken and weird-looking shadows on PCSX2. It ran well throughout and I only had one lockup at the end of the game that was easily fixed by a quick restart.
In conclusion
Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat is not a great game by any means, but its presentation, and the somewhat unique adventure game mechanics, aka the combat and the mini-games made this title a charming and pleasing winter gaming session. It does not overstay its welcome, and at large, the story is well-told, even if a little simple when it comes to the villain at the end. I enjoyed it, and I never at any point felt bored from a narrative standpoint – I felt intrigued and wanted to know where it would take me. One comparison I should make, not from a gameplay perspective, but from style, and visuals is Mirror’s Edge of all games. It has this similar sleek high-tech approach to it, all presented under a sunny pure blue sky. Somehow that simple blue sky speaks to me, while streamlined buildings can be barely noted in the background. It soothes me and makes me feel nostalgic for an unknown reason.
I recommend the game to anyone wanting a fun and a little bit obscure adventure title that embraces its espionage billionaire theme fully, while also going outside the norm of by including combat. You will find everything you need at Vimm’s Lair to emulate and play the game.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Blog 