Original Release: Sierra, 1991, PC
Other Releases: PC CD (1992)
A board game that satirizes life in the rat race.
Jones In The Fast Lane (PC, 1991, Sierra)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: DOS Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Jones In The Fast Lane is pretty depressing. I don’t think because the designers set out to intentionally create a piece of dark social commentary – the tone of the game is satirical and even a bit peppy and upbeat, but their essential satire of modern working life just hits a little too close to the bone sometimes.
The game is essentially a board game in PC form. A solo player can try to keep up with the titular Jones, a rather manic worker-bee who seems hell-bent on achieving the American Dream at any cost, or up to four people can compete with each other in hot-seat play.
The opening of the game drops you off in a shabby apartment with little money, no job and no education. You are imprisoned in a small town that seemingly consists of nothing but big-box retail stores and eateries. By gaining employment at a succession of higher-paying jobs one attempts to exceed arbitrary “goals” of satisfaction, set prior to each game, in the categories of Income, Possessions, and Education. One can simply try to climb their way up the employment ladder by punching a clock steadily, but there is also a college that can be squeezed into the player’s off-time and degrees gained there lead to better employment opportunities. During all of this money-making and educational pursuit, the player must also contend with monthly rent, provide for their basic needs such as food and clothing, and deal with random “events” that crop up such as robberies and economic inflation. The game is divided up into weeks, each of which represent a turn, where you have a limited amount of time to go around and perform activities.
This simplistic and drab structure is spruced up a bit by the game’s humor, which is really the most compelling reason to play. Sierra used digitized footage of people from around their offices to represent the various people you interact with around town, and they are full of snappy one-liners when you visit. Weekends consist of you getting into random and comic mishaps that can either gain or drain you a small amount of money, and each of the in-game locations is some sort of caricature of a real-life business like McDonalds or Saks.
Ultimately there is nothing to the game world but making money and the long grind towards upgrading from the Ghetto Apartment to the Ritzy Security Apartment, so that you can safely stash away various consumer goods for yourself without worrying about Willy the Burglar coming for an unexpected visit. There is no escape from this rather horrifying world, and nothing else to do in it – just pile up cash, buy appliances and try to do it faster than the competition (if there is any). You can’t even take a vacation to get a temporary reprieve!
Cutesy board game or dystopian consumer hellscape? You decide!
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