Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist PC

The action takes place in 1888 in Coarsegold in the Wild West. Freddy Pharkas is a young pharmacist who has been running a pharmacy in the town for some time. Freddy was once a promising revolver, but due to an accident in which he lost his ear, he decided to change his lifestyle and chose to work as a pharmacist. However, it is difficult to escape from the past, which at every opportunity calls for its own. Playing the role of Freddy Pharkas, the player will have an opportunity to see for themselves....

Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist is a great adventure game by Ala Lowe, creator of the otherwise well-known Leisure Suit Larry series, also published by Sierra On-Line. The programme is kept in a humorous convention, which can be seen both after the introduction (a ballad about Freddie performed by Al Lowe himself), as well as the riddles included in the game, such as stopping the plague of wandering snails or preparing medicine for cruelly ringing horses, which poison the air in Coarsegold. On the other hand, Freddy Pharkas is also a high intellectual challenge. Let us not forget that the protagonist is a pharmacist, living in times of underdeveloped pharmaceutical industry, which is why he has to prepare all the specifics on his own, using complicated equipment.

The game is divided into four acts, which in turn correspond to individual days. In order to complete each of them successfully, it is necessary to perform certain activities and meet all current challenges (initially it will only be the preparation of medicines, then the action in the field and finally the end in the form of an exemplary revolver action against the bloodthirsty bandits).

Like other Sierra games of the time, Freddy Pharkas has an interface based on several icons, which are used to move the hero and perform individual actions. The game offers a solid visual setting, stylized on the atmosphere of westerns, with beautifully realized backgrounds and large images of characters during dialogues. The biggest problem of the game is a large number of arcade elements, especially in the later phase of the game, which manifest themselves in the need to make quick decisions. Let's not forget also that this is a Sierra product and therefore it disappears very often, so you should often and unscrupulously use the Save option.

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Last updated on 10 December 2007