COLUMN: 'Bastards of 32-Bit' - Tail of the Sun
August 11, 2006 5:06 PM | Danny Cowan

Wild, pure, simple crap.
Artdink is no stranger to this site, having been responsible for some of gaming's more interesting efforts during its 13-year reign as publisher of niche titles. For all the innovation and fresh ideas present in Artdink's games, however, there's no denying that many of these titles are acquired tastes at best, and can be actively unlikable at worst.
Tail of the Sun is one of Artdink's hardest games to defend. It's not for everyone, and what little enjoyment you'll glean from it will likely be of the ironic variety. If you can appreciate the comedy inherent in watching a narcoleptic caveman being mauled to death when he falls asleep during a fight with a mammoth, however, Tail of the Sun could be worth your time.

Back in the prehistoric era, there apparently wasn't much to do other than eat, sleep, and die. Consequently, this is what you'll spend the bulk of your time doing in Tail of the Sun. Controlling one member of a growing tribe of cavemen at a time, you'll venture out into the chunky polygonal landscape in search of nourishing cookies scattered throughout the land, in order to feed your hungry family back home.
Yes, cookies. In one of Tail of the Sun's more bizarre twists, a core element of gameplay involves the collecting and eating of cookies -- all of which were officially licensed from a Japanese bakery and rendered with a loving attention to detail, according to an in-game advertisement. These cookies, when eaten, will enhance the abilities of all of your tribesmen, allowing them to hit harder, run faster, and swim for more than a few seconds without drowning.
Once your tribe becomes strong enough to travel to the far north without dropping dead of exhaustion halfway, so begins your search for mammoth tusks. By hunting down the mammoths of the north and slapping them until they explode, your caveman can gather their tusks and begin to construct a tower, with the goal being to build it high enough to reach the sun.
It's unlikely you'll get to this point, however, as the game's glacial pace is all but an immediate turn-off, and is a problem that's only compounded by your character's habit of falling asleep at any given moment. This will lead to cheap deaths that are somehow hilarious in their tragedy; there's nothing that can be done to prevent your character from drowning after he falls asleep while swimming, so why not laugh about the futility of it all?

As one of the few living and sane humans who has ever played Tail of the Sun to completion (look, I was a bored teenager who would rent damn near anything during the PlayStation era so long as it was new, all right?), I can say that the ending is totally worth it. The game features multiple endings depending on how well you accomplished your goals; the one I received was a surrealistic description of how my tribe eventually murdered and cannibalized itself into extinction. I guess spending much of the game beating my tribesmen to death out of boredom wasn't such a good idea after all.
While Tail of the Sun may have just barely been entertaining enough to finish back upon its first release, it's difficult to imagine anyone having the patience to do so nowadays. The long load times, lulling atmosphere, and real-time sleep simulation all do their part to make the game as off-putting as possible. Still, it could be fun with the right group of friends. Try seeing what happens when you let your caveman fall asleep at the top of a mountain sometime. It's good stuff!
[Danny Cowan is a freelance writer hailing from Austin, Texas. He has contributed feature articles to Lost Levels Online and 1up.com, and his writing appears monthly in Hardcore Gamer Magazine.]
Categories: Column: Bastards Of 32-Bit
9 Comments
You actually finished the game?! Thats... insanely awesome. I played it a fair amount back in the day, but I kept getting lost all the time. If only your stupid caveman breathren could bother making a map instead of waisting thier time scribbling their crude useless paintings. I always wanted to take the time to find out what those wierd statues dotted around the world were for, or travel all the way around the world going north (I always starved to death in the snowy country), or just see how wierd I could get some of the tribesman to look (I'm sure you remember some of them could be quite horrifyingly freakish). It might have been a bad game, but it had a real sense of wonder and mystery about it. Or perhaps thats just nastalgia talking...
TrueTallus | August 11, 2006 12:51 PM
It sounds ... err... interesting... really. I mean it. Funny in a quirky way it seems and the equivelent of the DnD movie in video games.
A brilliant post!
gnome | August 11, 2006 12:56 PM
I finished. My roomate finished it. We both loved it. But we are in the minority.
There was a ton of stuff that you could stumble across in the world. Sure, none of it did anything, but it was fun to find. The weird body parts statues, the aliens, etc.
And the cookies basically evolved your tribe. With the skills learned by one caveman being passed down to the next generation.
The kind of cookies you ate the most of would determine your ending. I went for a lot of lung power (so that I could wander around the oceans finding weird crap), so my race became fish people.
There were also other cavemen wandering around. You didn't see them very often. But, once in a very rare while you'd fall in love with one of them.
Of course, the one time this happened to me my guy passed out, fell off a mountain and drowned. Just like the real world.
Ian | August 11, 2006 1:04 PM
Whoa Déjà Vu! I just thought about this game last night for whatever reason. Nice to know the original reviews were spot on.
d | August 11, 2006 3:48 PM
Ah, Artdink. I used to own Aquanaut's Holiday. Now THERE'S a dull game, and inadvertently ramming the swimmer into coral walls was borderline infuriating.
Anonymous | August 13, 2006 12:17 AM
I played this game too. I guess it was OK... It was funny!HAHAHA... I bet it too. The game has various endings (about one for each BODY ATTRIBUTE). One was very odd that came to mind. When u finished it with EXCELENT swim ability, ur cavepeople live in the water-ODD.Well out of 10,i gave it a 7.5/10
Kevdog | February 15, 2007 6:07 PM
i absolutely love this game. i grew up on it. i get so much fun out of searching for the hidden suprises.
chelsea | March 9, 2008 7:23 PM
Wow my friend gave me this game. I went in this one cave and the graphics were so horrible that I couldn't find my way out. Anyway, I still guess it's an ok game. I didnt complete it yet, i got it a week ago. But I just love when you fall asleep on a cliff, then fall into water. Except I dont drown, because i have a strategy. pressing the jump button will cause your caveman to wake up in less than 3 seconds! But yes the graphics are horrible but i still love this game...
Someone | July 12, 2008 6:24 PM
The guys at Game Informer are doing a Super Replay of this game. It's hilarious.
Marz | July 8, 2011 11:01 AM