Project Firestart
| Project Firestart | |
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Cover art
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| Developer(s) | Dynamix |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Platform(s) | Commodore 64 |
| Release | 1989 |
| Genre(s) | Survival horror |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Project Firestart is a cinematic action/adventure game for the Commodore 64 computer system. It was designed by Jeff Tunnell and Damon Slye and published by Electronic Arts in 1989. The game features strong survival horror elements and a story with multiple paths and endings.
IGN has called it the first "fully formed vision of survival horror as we know it today," citing its balance of action and adventure, limited ammunition, weak weaponry, vulnerable main character, feeling of isolation, storytelling through journals, graphic violence, open exploration, cut-scenes, multiple endings and use of dynamically triggered music—all of which were characteristic elements of later games in the survival horror genre.Penny Arcade has similarly described it as "the Survival Horror template in its entirety".
In 2061, agent Jon Hawking of the United System States is sent to the research ship Prometheus, in orbit around Titan. Hawking's mission is to make contact with the members of Project Firestart, an initiative of the System Science Foundation, who have recently dropped out of communication with their superiors on Earth. Hawking is further instructed to retrieve all of the scientific data on board the Prometheus and then to destroy the ship, based on the USS' belief that Project Firestart has been compromised and could potentially pose a threat to Earth. Should Hawking fail in his mission, the USS will remotely activate the Prometheus' self destruct sequence on the assumption that Hawking himself has been killed.
On board the Prometheus, Hawking discovers the entire crew brutally murdered and the ship infested with large, hostile creatures. Retrieving the ship's science logs, Hawking discovers that Project Firestart was a genetic engineering program that sought to create a mining species resistant to extreme cold and low oxygen levels by combining the DNA of oxen with a new species of fungi discovered in asteroids around Titan. Hawking further learns that one of the scientists on the project, Dr. Annar, secretly altered the DNA of the mining creatures in an attempt to create a race of super soldiers. The plan backfired, as Annar's creations proved to be mindlessly hostile and capable of asexual reproduction. Unable to contain the monsters, the crew of the Prometheus was slaughtered. Annar himself survived by placing himself in cryosleep; upon Hawking's arrival on the Prometheus, he awakens. Also in cryosleep is Mary, another Firestart scientist who survived the massacre because she was placed in suspended animation after suffering a minor injury.
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Wikipedia