Farbror

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Posts posted by Farbror

  2. Posted

    There's also some interesting new news in the press release too. For example, three years ago they were saying that there werre going to be 16 different minds, and now they are saying 10 plus 3 real world locations. Let's see, real world wise we've got Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp and the Asylum. That leaves one unknown real world location. Anyone, besides Chris, got any ideas? Let's see as far as minds go there is Edgar's (black valvet), Lili's, Milla's, Sasha's, Lungfish's, Boyd's (conspricy theory watchman), Fred B.'s (Napolean guy), Dr. Loboto's, and some millitary guy. Hey, that comes out to be nine. So, assuming all of the above are still in, we only don't know about one mind. Again, any thoughts?

    Hmm, maybe this one?

    Near the bottom:

    One of my favourites is a maniacal coach. You don't know what his problem is until you jump in his mind and see the dark problem causing him to be so angry is that he lost his cheerleader girlfriend to the football captain. It's a very funny game, and this time will be one I play.

    Or is this one of the ones you mentioned?

  11. Posted

    No, seriously, can you burn books?

    I mean, games where you can't burn books and games that doesn't allow you to import your own music files to listen too are super bad!

    I mean, look at The Sims! If you put your bookcase next to the fireplace, you may burn the books up! And that game is the best selling game ever!

    Morrowind! You could put down books in fires! True, nothing happened to the books, but still!

    Civilization! Build a library, and if the other players decide to destroy your city, I bet the books are destroyed by really big fires!

    Uh, in the Wind Waker, there's these fire arrows, and this guy at your home island with a lot of books. So there...

    I'm quite sure there were some book burning in Grim Fandango, somewhere...

    Seeing a pattern yet?

    Let's just hope Psychonauts got some burning books in it...

  13. Posted

    Farbror: I don't think you're quite on the money there. The fact that they expanded on the action with FT2 was a cause for some controversy, but I think the lukewarm reception had a lot to do with the game's art direction and lackluster concept. They didn't seem to get what made the first one great. It seemed like some low-budget kids game about bikers instead of the sequel to the insanely cinematic and gritty original. Just my 2 cents.

    Yeah, well, we weren't really "OMG ITS MONKEU5 OMG OMG LOLZ", that's really what I meant.

    I also disagree that no one was excited about S&M2.

    Where did I say that? Did I say that? Man, I'd better shoot myself if I really said that, beacuse that's nothing but a pure freaking lie.

    (Just for clarification, the lie is that noone was excited about S&M2, not that I said it, which may still be a lie but I'm not sure. I could scroll down here and check what I've written, but man, I mean, endure that!)

  14. Posted

    Just so I don't confuse anyone, I'm not really defending anyone, I'm just explaining Lucasarts point of view.

    Okay, LucasArts makes tons, and I mean tons, of cash with Starwars game thanks to three developers of which one has only one arm.

    They do?

    I don't know any numbers and what I'm really doing now is just maing stuff up, but this company recently fired basicy everyone who didn't work at star wars stuff. Major Star Wars stuff. It's just a wild guess, but I think this company has been in financially better shapes.

    Grim had good long-term sales....

    True, but that's apparantly not how you count if a games sells good or not in this business. Why? That's freaking dumb!

    (Just to clarify, it's freaking dumb not to count long term sales. It's the money guys who are dumb and short sighted.)

    I think you're right in that the major reason we're really angry at LucasArts is that they've reated us so badly. Let's make a comparison beetwen Full Throttle 2 and Sam and Max 2.

    When we first heard about FT 2, we were somewhat skepctical. I mean, Oh no, they're adding FIGHTING and MORE violence than BEFORE. Let's be honest, we more or less knew that they were going to screw it up.

    And they cancelled it. Who was angry? Yeah, of course, but I mean "cancellingsamandmax2"-angry? No, beacuse we had this nagging feeling that this wasn't going to be good.

    But perhaps even more important, the official reason that the game was canceled was "It wasn't really that good." At least that's what I remember, and I'm wrong 56 % of the time. But you get my point.

    Now, Sam and Max 2. Who wasn't looking forward to it? Ah, I thought so, noone. And what happens? They cancel it, but more importantly, why do they cancel it? "Eh, we don't think it will make enough money. Sorry guys."

    Man, of course we were angry! And they refused to release any more information, and if we told them how angry we was, all they said was "Your voice is being heard. The exit is to the right, have a pleasant evening."

    What if they had said something like with FT2? "You know guys, we know how much you like adventuregames and all, but we don't think you'll appreciate this, you know. I mean, it's nothing like the original, and, well, frankly, we're not really good at this stuff anymore. I think the best would be if we just gave it all up."

    We would still be mad, we would be furious, but we wouldn't have been as furious as now, beacuse then we would have a semi-valid reason for them to cancel it. Lucasarts isn't really good at PR.

    Of course, I have no idea if the game was really "nothing like the original" and all that, but if they said so, at least I would have been a little happier.

  15. Posted

    Hmm, I read somewhere that the reason we like Tintins personality is that he hasn't really got a personality. Or something like that, give or take a few feet.

    Wasn't the guy (Hergé) who made Tintin a nazi? Or is that just an evil rumor?

    I love french comics. It's really the only country that can make good comics, if you don't mind USA.

  16. Posted

    True, it's risky, but IMO it's worth the risk. Plus I'm getting some of my friends interested in it after letting them borrow my copy of Sam and Max

    And yeah, it is very risky from a business point of view, but I'm just wishing from a consumer's point of view, a minority consumer you might say, but a consumer nonetheless. Anyway, same point, I'm just being wishy washy around here.

    Anyway, JOKEMASTER AWAY! :fart:

    Of course, as an adventure gamer I surely want to see the sequel to one of the best adventures ever. However, as an, uh, money-guy (?), I can understand why nobody cares about us.

    Really sad.

    I like being the adventure gamer more than a money guy.

  17. Posted

    Perhaps I've been a little wrong inthe statement that "puzzles aren't gameplay".

    Yes, Myst, there we've got quite a different adventure game, where the rewards aren't kinda the same thing as in other games. There the puzzles are reward enough.

    But before I can actually say that adventure games truly have some sort of "playing" part in them, then I want to see more adventures where I can truly "play", that is, finding multiple solutions to a different problem, other characters interacting with me, and perhaps most important, logic puzzles.

    There's not much difference everytime I play through Curse of monkey Island. Everytime, it plays out the same, I know what's going to happen, I know how to solve the puzzles, I know basicly everything. I think that's what I mean.

    Man, this hasn't got anything to do with Homoludens post. Better start again.

    I think many adventure games fail to properly make the puzzles rewards themselves. I don't think the puzzles are anything without a story/world/characters, and then they still fall flat on their own. I need a reward for solving the puzzle, advancement in story or something.

    Let's say someone created an adventure game consisting only of a series of strange situations that the player had to get out of. Like, in one moment he was trapped in a school library at night, and he had to get out using what he could find there. After that, we suddenly find him having to enter a night club, but he lost his ID somewhere and has to trick the guard or something. Then suddenly, he is wearing a diving suit and is on the bottom of the sea, looking for a way to open the locked treasure chest, since it's too heavy to bring up.

    Where's the fun in that? It doesn't make any sense. What we need is a story that can hold together the puzzles, not just a series of puzzles. If I manage to get out of the library here, then I won't think "Yes! I got out of this extremely illogical sitatuation, and now faces another one exactly as strange and nonbelievable as before! I'm so good at puzzlesolving!"

    Kinda, I think.

  18. Posted

    Oh, yes, very few adventure games would work as movies/books...

    Guybrush looked around, confused. What should he do? "I think I need some help from my friend the voodo priestess" he said to noone in particular, but when he arrived, he discovered...

    No way.

    And vice versa, a book cannot work as an adventure game, since the script had to be full of puzzles and such, to make the game work.

    But my point is really, well, noone here plays adventure games simply beacuse they like being challenged by odd situations or wild searches for scissors or pieces of string right? I think the reason you play the adventure games is beacuse you want to see what happens after the puzzle has been solved. You don't solve the puzzles beacuse they in themselves are fun, you play them beacuse they, reward after you've solved them, but a puzzle in and of itself isn't very fun.

    That's different from Civ, where you play the game for the gameplay itself.

    Man, that's bad. Noone's gonna get what I just said. Just like everthing else I write.

  20. Posted

    Mmm, I think that's where we disagree, Jake. I don't think the puzzles are there to challenge you, I think that puzzles are there to give you an excuse to walk around and explore the world and in a way form the story on your own a little. In a way. I think. I kinda don't consider puzzles gameplay, beacuse, well, once you know them, you're not going to get much enjoyment out of them anymore, whereas in Gotham Racing, you will still get enjoyment from playing a particular level, even if you know it perfectly.

    And the whole "experience" thing. Well, eh, I guess it's kinda like reading books, and suddenly, you realize how the books are going to end or what's going to happen on the next page, beacuse you have "experience" with that kind of books. I think. Or something.

    Well, okay, they got some form of gameplay in a way, but not in the same sense, and what I guess I've been trying to say here is that you don't play Adventure games for the gameplay (puzzles), but you play Civ for the gameplay. I think that's what I've been trying to say.

    Edit: Maybe.

  21. Posted

    That may be true, Jake. I can't really answer for that "narrow" part, maybe it's true.

    Well, okay, if I put it this way then:

    To get good at "ordinary" game, you have to get familiar with the game mechanics, find out good strategys, and practice, practice, practice.

    To get good at an adventure game, then you have to familiarize yourself with the world, get to know the characters and enviroments and such. A "strategy" in adventure games would be something like, "Try to combine all inventory objects with each other" or "Empty every dialog tree before moving on". It's just not the same thing.

    I think that you can't be "good" at an adventure game. You're not supposed to be good at adventure games. You're not supposed to play it. You're supposed to experience it. Not play it.

    I mean, compare Grim Fandango with Civilization. You can't honestly say that you can be good at playing Grim Fandango in the same sense that you're good at playing Civilization.

    Edit: Okay, I think I know how to put it in a good way now.

    Let's compare Grim and Civ. Quite different, but still games, huh?

    Now, let's compare a book and chess . They're very different. That's kinda what I mean.

  22. Posted

    Well, uh, the thing is, well, that, hmm, strange.

    First of all, it has nothing to do with Real Time or Turn based. The last express was real time.... kinda... I think... and it was neat.

    Yes, adventure games are a game genre, but that doesn't mean that they have any gameplay in the same sense as F-Zero has any gameplay. It all depends on your definition, I guess.

    Well, I think, that, well. This is hard, you know. In almost all other games, you know what you're suposed to do, the trick is doing it. In adventure games, you (often) know what you want to do, but you don't know how. You don't know to do it. I think that's the difference. And the trick in other games is to practice the game or coming up with clever strategies or stuff, in adventure games you just have to get the "Aha" experience. It's not a measure of "mad skillzorz" or "Advanced tactics", it's a, uh, well, how should I put it. Dang, I can't. You just have to believe me.

  24. Posted

    Yes, well, true, interesting. Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that they actually released Sam and Max 2. Would it have sold good? "It all depends on the game!" You'll all say. Well, yes, true again.

    What if it was as good as Escape from Monkey Island ( Eh, okay I guess, but they've done better in the past)?

    What if it was as good as the original ( Hooray! Adventure games live again!)?

    What if it was as good as, well, take any unpleasant adventure coming out the last two years?

    When would it have sold the most?

    Would it have mattered?

    Beacuse, let's face it, only adventure-fans like us would have bought it, and most of us would probably have bought it anyway if even if it was semi-good, beacuse there aren't enough good adventure games out there.

    Even if the game was super good, I mean like Grim Fandango-style here, it wouldn't have mattered. Then it would only have won GameOfTheYear over at Gamespot, and two more people might have bought it. Look at Grim Fandango.

  25. Posted

    ..and these guys are supposed to give us Psychonauts?

    To defend their underwater territory, players undertake a campaign to drive the raiders away while simultaneously solving a series of action-based puzzles designed to thwart the player.

    Action based Puzzles? Somehow reminds me about something I recently read on Adventuregamers.com...