thorn

Grrrr... Jewish New Year fell on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. On the plus side, I could greet everyone with a cheery 'ShanARRRRRGH Tova!', but on the downside, I missed out on the coupon code. That said, I still haven't claimed the free game from having pre-ordered ToMI. Can anyone suggest one episode (not including Sam and Max, which I own all of) that stands alone well?

What I took out of the review was less of an issue with the quality of the puzzles and more about stupidity of the controls.

Which just goes to show that the motherland is lagging decades behind the rest of the Commonwealth.

Wait... what maze in Spinner's Cay? Or are you referring to the jungle environment itself as a maze? It's a location, not a puzzle. Just remembered two more things about the game, one positive and one negative. Positive: Loved the fact that the seagull in the beginning gobbled up a red herring. Negative: I'm a bit of a clutz when it comes to clickable zones. When I tried to join items in the inventory, I would often click the wood bit between the join-zones (circled below), which causes the inventory to close. If I may make a suggestion, it would be good if you close the inventory by clicking to the left of the gold circles, but accidentally clicking to the right of them does nothing.

Yeah, SC was definately better in that respect. I didn't really think that was a big issue. The jungle was smaller than in SN and you didn't need to return to those areas all that often.

Then I'd suggest giving them a go. You play a weak, unarmed schlub in a landscape full of gun-wielding nuts and wild animals.

Yeah, I didn't explain it very well. Let me try again with screenshots:The following two locations are linked: Going right from the screen #1 takes you to screen #2 and going left from #2 takes you to #1. But if you're in the following screen and you go right, you end up in screen #2. If you try to return to where you were, you end up back at screen #1 rather than #3. It was a minor thing and it didn't really bother me in Screaming Narwhal (so don't take this as a complaint). I was just wondering whether the same thing had been planned in Spinner Cay but been taken out, resulting in those dead ends.

Played it when it came out but somehow forgot about this thread. I don't know what's wrong with my ears but I've never noticed any issue with the sound. Absolutely loved the sword fight section with LeFlay. Was my favourite part of the game. The 'Isle of Ewe' gag made me laugh so loudly that a shout came from the other side of the house asking me if I was alright. I agree with the others: I absolutely loved the transition from the islands back to the map. I wasn't a huge fan of the mer-people as a fantasy species in the MI universe, but I loved the design of their town. It just had fantastic (in both meanings of the word) atmosphere and I loved the idea of a town that was stuck halfway between the underwater and above-surface worlds. I'm ashamed to say that for the first time in my life, I considered writing some fanfiction set in the mer-city. Thankfully, I took a deep breath and that feeling went away. Question for Jake: There were several dead ends in the forest that looked out of place. Were these always planned as dead ends or were they going to be like the confusing parts of the Screaming Narwhal forest where an exit from a location takes you to a totally disconnected part of the forest?

Would you classify the first two Oddworld games (Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus) in this category?

Was Fantasy World Dizzy really as good as its reputation holds?

My first memories are of watching my brother play Space Quest I, King's Quest 3 and the original Prince of Persia when I was about 5 and he refused to let me touch the computer. When I finally got a chance to play them for myself, I never ended up getting very far before getting stuck or bored. I think that at that time I liked the concept of computer games more than the actual games that were available to me. In the following years I played various low-graphics arcade style dos-ish games. I think the first real game I played from start to finish would have been Sam & Max Hit The Road, in my early teens.

Ah, but you appear not to have mentally joined the 'spank' in the title with the 'monkey' of his previous work, to produce one of the most popular, mainstream game mechanics of all. Or were you specifically talking about video games?

They look like there's been a huge amount of effort in to making them look crappy and 2d. I suspect this is one of those things you might need to see in motion to appreciate.

I played Trivial Pursuit last week. It was the first time I played it with a set that had been published in the last decade and in a country I know something about, so I surprised myself by doing well. I play Munchkin on occassion when friend's girlfriends aren't around to get bored. I like Risk but I'm really, really bad at it. I'm completely incapable of planning more than one move in advance. Which is the same reason why I don't play Chess and why I own Thud! but haven't touched it in years.

You pretty much stole my thoughts. I just didn't express them due to 'Emperor's New Clothes-aphobia' where I was afraid that I'd missed some great meaning to it all and would look stupid if I said I didn't get it.

The Sam & Max games did the same thing. I actually prefer it, as usually the written line gives the general gist of what you want to say but when it's said by the character, it's longer, more humorous and given more character depth.Also, I don't want to get into the whole Pixar discussion, but I just want to give a lonely thumbs up for Cars. I know it's not their best work, but it has fantastic atmosphere and great... erm... is there a word for production design that's specifically to do with buildings and landscape rather than characters?

I meant the presentation, not the demo.

Is this downloadable somewhere?

I did miss a few quotes, but the ones I did see didn't show any Royal theme. They all seemed to be Revolutionaries. Plus, given that the thumbs up symbol takes you to the followers page, I'd say he's pro-revolution, not pro-royal. EDIT: I see what you mean by the banners though. *shrug*

Can I safely assume that it will be released in Australia on the same date as the EU? Or is that expecting too much?

Speaking of creepy console patents... http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/15/creepy-laughter-tracking-ps3-patent-has-us-rethinking-sonys-wh

This disturbs me far more than it should.

Can you afford the law suit that would inevitably follow?

Okay, that's wierd. But what do you make of a real product like the Nintendo Vitality Sensor?

They get slightly better as you use them, but still remain quite shitely. On the other hand, I thought that the puzzles and dialogue were good enough to compensate for the frustration of Guybrush running in the complete opposite direction than what I specified.