Hopkins FBI is a 1998 point-and-click adventure game from MP Entertainment, most famous for very large (at the time) amounts of gore.[1][2] A sequel titled Hopkins FBI 2: Don't Cry, Baby,[3] involving Hopkins having to rescue the President's daughter, was announced but never released.

Hopkins FBI
Developer(s)MP Entertainment
Publisher(s)PolyEx Software
Cryo Interactive
Platform(s)BeOS, Linux, OS/2 Warp, Windows
ReleaseJuly 16, 1998
Genre(s)Adventure game
Mode(s)Single-player

Plot edit

Players assume the role of FBI agent Hopkins, who is on the trail of a criminal mastermind named Bernie Berckson. The pursuit takes the player through a variety of locations, including the FBI headquarters in a modern fictional city, a tropical island, and a submarine base.

Development and release edit

The game's highly stylized artwork was created by cartoonists, among them French artist Thierry Ségur.[4] The artists drew each scene frame by frame, then they were scanned into the computer and retouched to produce the finished scenes.[5] Quandary felt that the game was specifically designed for the male teen/pre-teen demographic due to being populated by "available/naked women and mostly bloody, grotesque men".[6]

The soundtrack of the game included licensed songs from the 60's rock band The Troggs ("I Can't Control Myself" and "Lost Girl"), Blue Magoos ("Tobacco Road"), Rare Earth ("Feelin' Alright") and an original game score.[7] The game features a short first-person shooter segment reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D.[8]

Hopkins FBI was originally released on July 16, 1998.[9] PolyEx Software, Inc. released it for BeOS and OS/2 Warp. The OS/2 beta release was in French. The small OS/2 market share necessitated cross platform development. Ports to Mac OS and Rhapsody were planned but never released.[10] The game is known to be one of the first commercial games to be available for Linux, alongside the ports of Doom, Quake and Quake II by id Software, Abuse by Crack dot com, Inner Worlds, and Loki Software's first port, Civilization: Call to Power, which was released in 1999. The Spanish version was distributed by Friendware, the French version by Cryo Interactive, and the Polish version by CD Projekt.[11] Just Adventure described it as a "very strange" little game from England that was virtually unknown in North America.[12]

Reception edit

PC Gamer panned the game as "cack-handed", "misogynistic", and "mean-spirited".[13] Adventure Gamers thought it was a twisted game that would be a guilty pleasure for some players.[14] Adventure-archiv disliked the small amount of game saves, and the clumsy inventory system.[15] Adventure-Treff thought the player would be frustrated by illogical puzzles and dead ends.[16] Classic Adventure Games deemed it "a true British game".[17]

References edit

  1. ^ Linux Online - Commercial Linux Game Resources[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ Hopkins FBI Review - Adventure Gamers Archived 2010-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Hopkins FBI for Linux". 2000-01-29. Archived from the original on 2000-01-29. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. ^ Hopkins FBI for Linux - Little Igloo Archived 2010-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "Hopkins FBI Official Web Site". 1999-02-03. Archived from the original on 1999-02-03. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  6. ^ "Hopkins FBI Review by Quandary". 2004-08-04. Archived from the original on 2004-08-04. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  7. ^ Hopkins FBI - Linux.com Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Bevilacqua, Alex (2023-01-16). "Hopkins FBI (MP Entertainment) - 1998". Retrieved 2023-03-18. My playthrough used ScummVM, which didn't implement the Wolfenstein 3D styled maze/shooter in the underwater base during the final chapter.
  9. ^ "Hopkins FBI (PC)". Gry Online (in Polish). Retrieved November 11, 2019.
  10. ^ "Hopkins: FBI Main Page". Archived from the original on 1998-01-14.
  11. ^ "Spam Check". 1999-10-13. Archived from the original on 1999-10-13. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  12. ^ "Hopkins FBI Review - Just Adventure +". 2005-04-08. Archived from the original on 2005-04-08. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  13. ^ "Crap Shoot: Hopkins FBI". pcgamer. Archived from the original on 2017-12-27. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  14. ^ "Hopkins FBI Review". Adventure Gamers. 19 May 2002. Archived from the original on 2017-12-27. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  15. ^ "Hopkins FBI - Review - english". 2016-08-10. Archived from the original on 2016-08-10. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  16. ^ "Adventure-Treff - Klassiker: Hopkins FBI". 2015-10-21. Archived from the original on 2015-10-21. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  17. ^ "HOPKINS : FBI - Windows CD". 2003-10-04. Archived from the original on 2003-10-04. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

External links edit