Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces is a shooting gallery game developed by Philips POV and
released on the Philips CD-i in 1992.
The Mystic Midway is a haunted amusement park run by Dr. Dearth, who himself appears to
be a ghost.
Rest in Pieces is one of the attractions, which he promptly invites you to play.
The opening sequence shows promise, with a saturated color palette, creepy circus music,
and a boisterous host who over acts, both verbally and physically, in an awesome B-Movie
sort of way.
Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces then just sort of, starts.
The level screen shows how many points each target is worth, along with the total amount
of points needed to progress to the next level.
After pressing a button, the shooting gallery starts.
Targets move along three different paths, while the fourth row nearest you will have
different obstacles obstructing your shots.
The level structure is actually fairly solid, with just 32 bullets available to complete
the stage, and the level only running for a specific length of time.
You cannot simply save your bullets and wait for good shots, because the attraction will
stop.
Additionally, you cannot waste your bullets, or you’ll have little hope in scoring the
requisite number of points to progress.
After breezing through the first stage, our ghostly host will sarcastically offer praise
with some horror-themed puns.
Then the next level screen will be presented.
New targets are added to the mix, along with a significantly higher score goal.
Again, winning the level will have us enduring some more spooky puns.
If you lose however, Dr. Dearth will make fun of
you.
Honestly, this is probably the highlight of Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces.
The FMV capabilities of the CD-i are put to good use and the actor delivers the lines
with far more passion and heart than they probably deserve.
The entire gameplay concept isn’t terrible, and works within the hardware limitations
the CD-i.
In some ways, the game reminds me of an Atari 2600 game.
You can only move left and right, and you shoot at simplistic targets.
Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces should be a lot of fun, but it has a lot problems.
My biggest gripe is with the mouse controls.
They are precise and responsive, except in regards to momentum.
If you move the mouse quickly, your gun actually slows to a crawl.
You are forced to use a slow but steady motion, which often means you cannot quickly move
to the opposite side of the screen to take down a target.
What is really odd is the game seems to be programmed this way on purpose.
On the name entry screen, the faster you move your mouse, the quicker you scan through the
alphabet.
This is absolutely puzzling, and at times, frustrating.
Next, Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces is very random.
While the targets, and their point values, are constant every time you replay a stage,
some of them stay on the screen for a random amount of time.
Sometimes they’ll stay on the screen for a while, allowing you to line up a shot, wait
for an obstacle to get out of the way, and then letting you connect for points.
Other times, they disappear almost immediately.
What’s worse is a lot of the skeletons can only be hit at specific moments; as soon as
they turn their head, you don’t score points for hitting them.
This randomness makes for some extremely uneven games.
Sometimes you’ll breeze through a stage scoring twice as many points as needed.
Other times, you fall short because of pure.
Random.
Luck.
Also random is the frequency targets appear.
Like I mentioned at the beginning, different targets are worth different point values.
One time, the 100 point ball never appeared during level 4.
I spent the level being frugal with bullets, waiting for the target's eventual arrival,
only they never came.
Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces doesn’t feature any retries or continues either, and once
you get game over, you start back at level 1.
While this is annoying, it is probably for the better, as the game has just 10 levels.
That’s right, not only is the game incredibly simple, it’s also incredibly short.
And this is Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces in a nutshell.
The game isn’t horrible or unplayable, but the lack of content, random target behavior,
and wonky mouse controls, add up for an incredibly underwhelming experience.
It’s a shame too because the production values are admirable.
The creepy carnival music is of exceptional quality, and the different sound effects,
especially the voices samples of the various skeletons when you take them down, are crisp
and clear.
The Genesis and SNES would be jealous.
But like many CD-i games, Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces is sadly, below average.
Two, out of five.