Flashback (also titled Flashback: The Quest For Identityin America) is a Cinematic Platform Game by Delphine released in 1992 on the Amiga, and later ported pretty much everywhere. It's full of nods to classic Science Fiction films like Total Recall, Blade Runner, and They Live.You play as Conrad Hart, a government agent in The Future. Using a molecular-scanning eyepiece, he discovers alien impostors living among the population, known as Morphs, who don't take kindly to him sniffing around their operation. Kidnapped, his memory wiped, he escapes his inattentive captors on hoverbike and is shot down over a jungle. Upon awakening, Conrad finds a Holographic log of himself instructing him to get his ass to Mars— ...err, New Washington, where his contact is waiting to help retrieve those memories.Gameplay is similar to Prince of Persia, but with a gun. You get a personal force field generator in the second level that lets you block shots- this, along with rolling, is the key to winning battles. The levels can get quite long, although checkpoints (misleadingly called Save Points) are scattered throughout.Made by the same company that created Another World, Flashback used a similar method to create polygonal cutscenes and rotoscoped animation that could be played on an Amiga, Genesis, or SNES. It billed itself as "the CD-ROM game on a cartridge/floppy", and was stuffed with cinematics, most notably when you pick up items. Later, it was ported to the CD-based consoles of the era, with a replacement soundtrack and CGI cutscenes.A sequel, Fade to Black, was made in 1996. It was awful.An HD Remake for PS 360 has recently been announced.
Advancing Wall of Doom: The end of the fourth level. You have to sprint, jump, and roll into a small cavity before the green death catches up with you.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Conrad's second mission in New Wasington is to track down a Death Tower android who has gone berserk and escaped.
Air Vent Passageway: Conrad overhears the aliens' plot from a ceiling grate - which promptly collapses under his weight. To the dungeon with you!
Alien Invasion: The Morphs are hunting for new real estate.
Bittersweet Ending: Conrad has saved the galaxy, and destroyed the Morph homeworld... but he is stranded in unknown space, with no way back to Earth. He enters cryogenic sleep, prepared to drift in space a lone for a long time.
Bottomless Magazines: Conrad never runs out of ammunition, which is fortunate. His blaster apparently does not fire bullets, yet it still spits out shells.
Brain in a Jar / Stationary Boss: The Auxiliary Brain and Master Brain. The former hides behind a rotating shield which deflects fire; the latter is protected by organic sacs that spit goo.
Broke Episode: The second level has you doing odd jobs for cash.
Casual Interstellar Travel: Conrad's prize for surviving the Death Tower game show: a first-class ticket to Earth.
Collapsing Lair: Level 7, after planting a bomb to destroy the alien homeworld.
Dirty Cop: The police seem to be in on the alien plot, or, at the very least, insanely corrupt and trigger-happy. They nearly gun down Ian before you arrive in his lab on New Washington. As for airport security, let's just say it's beefed up◊ by the year 2XXX.
Dramatic Chase Opening: The beginning starts with a cinematic chase focusing on Conrad and his pursuers' feet, followed by a first person flying car chase.
Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion: The Morphs have a giant passageway leading directly to the planet's core. Dropping a palm-sized nuke into the hole destroys the planet.
Escort Mission: There's one in the second level. The VIP is one ungrateful bastard.
Exposition Beam: Ian's chair restores Conrad's memories with a laser directed at his forehead.
From Bad to Worse: In the sequel the Morphs are still around, have successfully conquered the Sol system while Conrad was asleep, and when he finally wakes up, he's in enemy hands.
The Guards Must Be Crazy: "A SPY... Throw the wretch into the dungeons. We'll interrogate him later."
The aliens erase Conrad's memory upon his capture, instead of killing him outright. He might have been more useful to them alive, but this is never explained. Later, Conrad is imprisoned yet again. When the jailer opens the cell door, there's nothing preventing you from simply dashing out of the cell and reclaiming your gun, which is conveniently lying on the floor.
Guide Dang It: There's a jump at the beginning of the second level that requires a maneuver you won't use often. The obscure move was deliberately included as a form of Copy Protection. Unless you had the manual, you were unlikely to progress past the second screen of level 2.
Also, there's the door in the sixth level that requires you to shoot it open, the only door of its kind. Nowhere in the game at all does it suggest to shoot any door, but the comic book in the game's instruction manual shows Conrad doing just that in this exact area.
In Medias Res: Somewhat subverted. The plot should be no secret to anyone who bought the game legitimately, and you learn the truth behind Conrad's mission in the second stage, anyway.
Marathon Level: New Washington is particularly obnoxious with its sheer size, tedious subway travel... and a surprise Timed Mission which will likely reduce the city to an irradiated crater on the first attempt. Clear your calender for this one.
Meat Moss: Planet Morph (though it looks more like bubble gum).
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While on planet Morph, Conrad finds another human survivor. Unfortunately, you can't reach him without triggering a motion sensor, which leaves the stranger wide open to getting shot by an alien lying in wait.
No Body Left Behind: Flashmen (quite rightly) explode once defeated. Fallen cops, on the other hand, vanish into a purple flash of light. It could be that they carry teleportation devices to warp them out of danger — or maybe the dev team just didn't want dead cops' bodies littered around.
The Morphs revert to a plume of blue smoke and disappear. Which is a pretty unique way to expire.
The mutants' corpses are persistent, however.
No Hero Discount: An old hillbilly who lives next to a giant chasm on Titan won't fork over his Anti-Grav belt for less than 500 credits. New Washington is even worse, with a 1500 credit requirement for advancing to the next stage.
Nothing Is Scarier: The cartridge versions have no music, only brief leitmotifs.
Pistol Whipping: Replaces the standard gun attack when an enemy stands too close to Conrad. Can also be used to smash out windows... too bad there's only one breakable window in the game.
Pixel Hunt: A lot of the items on the ground are hard to see. Some of them blink, others, don't.
Lifts can also be hard to see. Like the one at the very end of the game that you need to take to the spaceship to escape the Morph homeworld.
This very lift even became a Guide Dang It for some.
Real Men Wear Pink: Conrad wears a magenta shirt that mysteriously turns white for cutscenes. Except in the Genesis and original Amiga versions, where it's white all along.
Scenery Porn: The Death Tower and the Morphs Planet levels.
See Thru Specs: Conrad's transparent green eyepatch doohickey, used to spot aliens who are hiding in human guise. Features prominently in cutscenes as well as the box art, yet you never actually get to use it.
Shout Out: The final image of the game is Conrad entering a sleep-stasis, and the camera panning outward from the window of his ship. Sound familiar?
Spirit Advisor: During the final sequence of the game, an "inner voice" (implied to be the survivor from earlier) guides Conrad in planting an atomic bomb in the planet's core.
The Taxi: Conrad's first task upon returning to Earth is to hail a hover-cab.
Terraform: Titan (Saturn's moon) has been transformed into a lush alien jungle, with a metropolitan city beneath its crust.
Teleporters and Transporters: An important tool to master, especially in the last leg of the game. The Telereceiver acts as a portable beacon; Conrad can lob it over great distances, then activate the Telecontrol, which beams him directly to the beacon's location. Nifty.
Other teleporters exist in the game, such as the one in New Washington's Job Center. This is also the mode of travel by which Conrad journeys to the Morph homeworld.
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