Name
Cans 3
Author
inmate2993 
Category
Game
Release Date
1998-11-28
Rating
(4/5)
Tags
Version
Requires MegaZeux 2.51s2 to 2.61 or newer.
Downloads
Cans 3
No summary available.
Pyro1588  said:
Link
Last modified 2012-05-17 00:18:31
NOTE: This review was written for version 1.0 and may be outdated.
The final installment in the Cans series (unless you count Cans SE.) This is a classic. Regardless of whether you liked Cans or not, this one is definately worth playing. It has great gameplay, and still keeps the minigame-aspect, with a 3d maze, a flying game, and many others (even RPG battles =)
The humor in this game is just outright wonderful. I'll never forget the scene where Chuck walks up to a window behind the security chief, fogs it up, and plays tic-tac-toe on it. Classic humor =)
This game is awesome. Play it.
hob nado  said:
Link
Last modified 2023-04-06 17:43:05
The highest compliment I can pay CANS 3 is how much I stole from it.

I was not the most original MZXer. Part of it's personal failing; part of it's that I was making MegaZeux games for real-life friends who hadn't seen my source material. In my mind, I always wanted to make MMG6, but having taken a retrospective spin through CANS 3, I can see it's CANS that shows up the most.

I don't think I ever set out to rip people off, but as a dumb fourteen-year-old, it always just sorta ended up that way. I'd set out to make, say, some battle music, without really knowing what I was doing; then I'd look up at the end of the day and I'd have plunked down the MMG6 battle theme note for note.

And with CANS, the situation was worse than I thought. Fire up one of the middle-period Weirdlands, and on your quest to collect the four thingies, you'll fight a homie G, wade through sewers, abuse toilets, jump through sidescrolling areas, dive into a pond after a key, fall through portals to different planets, slog through RPG battle engine fights, visit MegaZeux company office parks with swirly jacuzzis, watch MZXers get creatively tortured, and duke it out to clanging metal noises in the final boss fight. All of it from CANS 3. I don't even remember lifting that last one, but it's there.

So, don't play my crap; play the OG.

CANS 3 is a cameo game. It has a frame story about opening a portal to go beat up Inmate's brother (which again, points to the degree to which we used to make these things for people we knew in person). But really, this is a game about spending a lot of time on IRC. Which we did. A lot. The CANS world makes IRC channels from back in the day into brick-and-mortar hangouts and towns, host to a cast of MZX oldbies, which populate the world of CANS almost exclusively. You'll even fight an IRC bot.

Twenty-five years on, the context has mostly drained out of all of these cameos. inmate predates me in the community and I don't know who most of these people are, and so the dialogue goes over my head. Still, you can suss out something of what it was like. Linux was ascendant. MZX companies were born and died. Tensions were worked out between elite oldbies and lame newbies.

And even without getting the inside jokes, CANS 3 is still a good time. You want a goofy 90's MZX romp, it's all here. There's a soundtrack full of every WAV file that ever went hard on AOL: burps, Beavis and Butthead, Mr. Burns, and Barney death. Chuck gets beat up a lot. Storm Eagle and Windows 95 show up. There are explosions. Thanks inmate for a great time.

Favorite line: "3D maze canceled due to lack of interest. Sorry for the convenience."