Anachronox Retrospective @ Gamebanshee

Gamebanshee's Vlada Peric takes a backwards look at Ion Storm's 2001 cyberpunk rpg, Anachronox in this retrospective review. The final score is 7.9/10.

Here's a bit on sidequests and humor:

The side quests are usually interesting, though they as a rule involve a lot of running around;... Unlike some more recent games, in Anachronox the "quest giver" is almost never obvious, so you'll be spending a lot of time talking to virtually everyone. Thankfully, most of the characters have something interesting to say and some are outright funny. This humor permeates the whole game, giving it its own unique charm and is probably the game's greatest strength. When you're not talking or wandering around, you'll be using one of your characters "world skills", which are implemented as easy minigames, to gather information or complete a task. Boots can pick locks and other characters will bring their own expertise into the mix (the most interesting, by far, will be the Yammer skill - Grumpos will incessantly talk to the "victim" about all sorts of unrelated things, which is often hilariously funny).

Conclusion:

Anachronox is based on a heavily modified version of the Quake II engine, which wasn't too new then and is obviously outdated now. The art direction has a definite cyberpunk tone and is interesting, if a bit dark, but the low quality textures and low polygon counts will make this hard to notice...The music is good, though not particularly memorable, while the voice-acting is excellent when it's present during the cutscenes.

Anachronox offers a console RPG experience, infused with an extraordinary amount of quality humor, and is worth playing for that reason alone; the actual gameplay is nothing revolutionary. If you do decide to play Anachronox, my only advice is to bear with it for a while - the old graphics and slow start might turn you off, but those who stick with it will be rewarded with some good laughs and a generally enjoyable time.