"How the West was Won: Through Medicine and Vague Illusions to Sex "
by Stuart Newsom

Remember way back when in my CMI/EMI (because acronyms are cool!) review when I mentioned that “Monkey Island is one of the first video games I actively remember playing – or, at least watching my mom play while I helped solve puzzles.”? Well, Monkey Island wasn’t the only game my mom and I cooperated on. My mom, the smart one she is, was a big fan of adventure games of the late 80s and early 90s and, though enjoyed the Monkey Island series, was an even bigger fan of the games coming out of adventure game super publisher Sierra. We had every Kings Quest game (which I don’t plan on reviewing every single one…but maybe one or two in particular); both of Roberta Williams’ Laura Bow Mysteries; The Colonel’s Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra, and I totally ROCKED Roberta Williams’ Mixed-Up Mother Goose ALL BY MY SELF! However, one of the classic Sierra line up we did not have was Leisure Suit Larry mainly because there was a young child in the house i.e. me. The risqué innuendo laden humor would not have been appropriate for little me hanging around. However, by mistake or not I’ll never know, that changed when mom brought home Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist.

As the story goes, or really sung in the optional opening prologue, Freddy Pharkas is a 1880s era pharmacist (hence the title of the game) in the town of Coarsegold, California. When he was growing up, he seemed destined to be one of the great gunslingers in the west, till he was bested by the nasty Kenny the Kid, who not only beat Freddy to the draw but blew off his ear in the process. After his defeat, Freddy gives up gun slinging, goes to college, gets his Ph. D in Pharmacy and begins his new life in Coarsegold, which no one knowing of his past and him trying to repress as many memories as possible. However, everything changes when the new schoolmarm Penelope Primm shows up in town and, direct quote from the game here, “captured Fred’s affection, but he’s scared he’ll get a huge…rejection” about his past life. Not only that, but someone is scaring off the town, buying up all the land and it’s up the Freddy to save the town.

The aforementioned quote of dialog is a very good representation of the humor style. Freddy Pharkas was co-created by Al Lowe, the man who created Leisure Suit Larry, and once getting into it, the game certainly shows his innuendo laden, sometimes scatological (Look it up…no wait…don’t look it up. Please don’t look it up) humor and this was pre-ESRB. One of the first buildings you see in the game is the saloon named “The Golden Balls Saloon” to which Freddy’s internal monolog quips “You’ve always assumed the Golden Balls Saloon must once have been a pawn shop.” Two buildings down is the newly closed hotel which “put a total of two desk clerks and five working girls out of jobs”. These two jokes happen within the first MINUTE AND A HALF in the game. This doesn’t even begin the maladies in which the townspeople come to you for cures, the puzzles in which you have to make a gas mask to get past horses with chronic flatulence, the town doctor who also happens to be the town drunk and, of course, the brothel run by Madame Ovaree. Yes, Madame Ovaree. With her girls Chastity, Purity, Ms. Virtue, and Olga (who happens to be a sheep in a dress). Yes, all these things when flying over my young mind, but one thing sticks.

It’s funny what things you remember in games. For this game, because I was so young, I didn’t get many of the jokes or puzzles. However, one sound sticks with me and reminds me of this game every time. Maybe not by name, but reminds me. That sound is the sound every time you achieve a goal and add to your score. It wasn’t a ding or a gunshot or anything. Instead, it was a guy with a strangled voice (like he was trying to keep it quiet) going “Score”. I’ll set it up this way. Say you’re in the saloon and you meet up with a quite attractive woman, all corseted up and in her finest. She seems to take a hankering to you and wants to see you in her room upstairs. You turn to your partner in crime on the mile long bar and go “score” as she saunters up the stairs. That “score” is this sound. And, for some reason, that sound has stuck with me all these years.

When the game first came out, it was called “the Blazing Saddles of computer games”. That’s a very fair comparison. If you like Blazing Saddles, you’ll more than likely like this game. Finding the game…that’ll be the tough part. Like most games like this, getting copies is very tough. It does show up on eBay sometimes, but it’s expensive and then you have to find a way to run it. On the flip, though shadier, side, the game is also considered to be abandonware, seeing Sierra On-Line really doesn’t exist anymore, so if you look around you could very easily download it. However, the legality of that option is questionable and unknown to me, so I really don’t think it’d be a good idea. But if you can find it, and the humor is something you’re into, pack your Preparation G and play it.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10