Team 17 are by far most famous for the Worms franchise, which at one point pretty much became the entire focus of the developer. However, Team 17 in the 1990s did a lot more than just Worms.
Originally primarily an Amiga focused developer, Team 17 saw success with franchises such as Body Blows and Alien Breed. However, even after the success of Worms, Team 17 still produced some original games. One such game to come from Team 17 in 1998 for the PC was Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy.
Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy isnt that well known of a game outside of a cult following, however it is a third person point and click adventure game. Much like Resident Evil, while the scenes are shown from a static backdrop, the characters are all 3D polygons freely able to move around to wherever the mouse clicks and interact with a vast number of NPC characters or objects. In between some scenes, as a way to progress story or introduce a whole new area, Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy makes use of FMV clips. The game itself is also fully voiced as you would expect from the period.
There are some annoying issues with Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy such as some puzzles being incredibly difficult such as the Sphynx in the museum, and it is possible to get stuck if you don’t do everything in some locations before moving forward. However, this is not to say that Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy isn’t a good game despite some flaws. Perhaps the biggest problem was that Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy was too ambitious for the time, allocated budget and the developers.
It would be great to say that Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy is readily available to purchase on digital storefronts such as GOG, but as of time of writing there is no official way to purchasing this game. Perhaps, in the case of Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy, a better solution would be to see a fully remade game which fixes issues of the original, builds on the worlds and the game itself in an age where we are not limited to the PC specs of the 1990s and the need for multiple CDs.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no great desire from Team 17 to see any remake of Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy or for that matter, making the game available to purchase digitally. But one can always hope.
