Something about NI.BI.RU. - The Age of Secrets (possible spoilers)

[The Most MisunderstoodMan]

At the beginning, I do not like the game in all honesty. I do not like the voice actiing and every animation is retarded or delayed. But as I play along, I am beginning to find something which compensate for the flaws. It's like you have to imagine how to use things in the inventory. If you do, the puzzles are quite easy. I have to admitt that I did use FAQ:

at places like the Bureau (using distraction to get access to the director), inside the mine (to uncover the corpse), using the battery's acid to melt the lock of the other door.

I think the author has done a great job to narrate to a certain extent, the undocumented history of Hitler's investigations into Mayan's civilisation. I haven't finished the game yet so I don't know what's ahead of me as far as the story-telling goes. But I believe it would be something interesting.

One trouble about adventure gameis that whilst you concentrate on solving the puzzles, you lose the story.

[kasus]

Allthough I finished the game and got some enjoyment out of it,
Nibiru is not one on the better adv.games i've played.

There are too many reasons to why this is game just doesnt work for me, but i'll only list a few:

1. Voice over from German to English is soooooooooo bad it hurts!
2. To many easy puzzles, and ONE to hard!
3. To many stupid tasks (puzzles) to solve just for the sake of solving them.
(there are many examples of this, but one is the Hotdog task in
the alley. These tasks makes the game a little longer, sure, but this is
not the way extend gamplay).
4. Almost impossible to get into the main character and identify with him at
any point of the game. Like for example when his uncle dies,
do you know anyone who find his uncle killed, then drop a quick 'one
liner' and go back to whatever he was doing before the death. Not many
I presume.
5. The overall feel of the game is pretty, well, still standing and sterile. A
few extra cutscenes would be nice, to get the feel that u are actually on
an Adventure.
6. Some downright mindblowingly illogical gaming errors. One example is

when U are in the girls appartment, and the police is on its way, u
understandably cannot go out the front door of her appartment. U have
to backtrack
out the window, up to the attic, down the stairs... and u end up going
past the door to her appartment which u couldnt go out because of the
police, and down the main stairs. Am I the only one that found this part a BIT strange?


There where ofcourse some positive things about the game , but i'll save those points for later ;)

[The Most MisunderstoodMan]

I cant bear it any longer, about NIBIRU!!

This is what you would do in the archive room

Now that the fuse is longer, use matches on dynamite. The crevice grew bigger but the charge was not sufficient.

Catch that rat - Go back to the main corridor at the intersection. Click on rat hole under the sign and across the light switch. In inventory, combine empty box and ruler to make rat trap. That's not enough. Open the can of beans with the can opener. Combine the opened can of beans to the rat trap. Click rat trap with beans on rat hole. Time to go somewhere - go to the stock room and get another dynamite. Go back to main corridor and see a rat enter the trap. Take trap with a rat inside it.

Firstly, why the game is designed so that I need to repeat going to the storeroom for dynamite 3 times!!!!!! ****ing idiot designer! Can you use the Map approach like Post Mortem when you have so many places to go to?? This ****ing Martin is walking like a turtle by the way and he is supposed to be in a rush before the Major finds out he has sneaked into the mine.

And good heavens on earth, how am I supposed to find out that there is a rat to catch??? I mean had it not because of the FAQ I read, I would have never found out I need to do that. Even talking about a puzzle it is far too much!!!

Now I am beginning to understand what is intuitive. And pls do not complain that Syberia or Fahrenheit is straight forward. This game just puts me off. I suggest to anyone who not bought the game , DON'T!!! You will be vexed!

****ing idoit game, I wish I could return with my money back!

[The Most MisunderstoodMan]

And this stupid game won't do ALT-TAB so that you will have to save game and go to the desktop for FAQ or walkthrough. Stupid!!!!!!!!!!

[fov]

I merged your Nibiru threads since they're on the same topic. Sorry to hear you're having such a bad time with this game. :frown:

I have come to accept that there are some games I just don't like. Don't force yourself to finish it if you're so frustrated with it. Maybe you can trade the game to someone else and get something in return that you enjoy better.

[Orange Brat]

And this stupid game won't do ALT-TAB so that you will have to save game and go to the desktop for FAQ or walkthrough. Stupid!!!!!!!!!!

I accidentally hit the Windows key and it went to the desktop, so maybe you can try that(assuming you have a Windows key that is).

[kasus]

The "ALT-TAB" problem wasnt this game's biggest problems though imho..
:z

[Stroggy]

I cant bear it any longer, about NIBIRU!!


Firstly, why the game is designed so that I need to repeat going to the storeroom for dynamite 3 times!!!!!! ****ing idiot designer! Can you use the Map approach like Post Mortem when you have so many places to go to?? This ****ing Martin is walking like a turtle by the way and he is supposed to be in a rush before the Major finds out he has sneaked into the mine.



If you think that's bad wait until later in the game when

you need to run up and down stairs asking for another bucket of water and waiting for the bucket to arrive over and over and over

[Thrawn42]

On a whole I found Nibiru to be pretty enjoyable though admittedly a mediocre game and at that due to a few things that could have been fixed (in my opinion as a developer) with little difficulty. The puzzles themselves were not beyond reason although many seemed completely arbitrary. Only one time did I look through a walkthrough for a solution (safe combination in the professor's study) and I was so close to to figuring it out, I was annoyed I resorted to one.

Some of the complaints here seem silly as per the complaints about the logic of puzzle solutions or things like tabbing (though that could be very easily fixed as well). What Nibiru cannot escape however are a few things that break the game down at times from an enjoyable adventure title to an excruciating exercise.

-There is far too much pixel hunting in the game. While
many of us adventure gamers have complained in the past about usable objects being too obvious in the scenery, Nibiru takes the polar opposite approach. This is actually linked to the second large problem.

-The game is far too scripted, requiring one action to occur before seemingly unrelated item/conversation branches appear. There are times in the game where it makes perfect sense.

Take for instance:


The keys to the Nazi researchers safe are underneath the drain in the laboratory. Martin would not have even known to look at the drain, thus it does not appear as an actionable in-game object.


Unfortunately instances like this in the game are far outnumbered by things like:


The crack underneath the stone sink in the Mayan temple.
Why can't you see that crack before the first attempt to fill the sink and pull the lever?


In Reply to kasus:

6. Some downright mindblowingly illogical gaming errors. One example is

when U are in the girls appartment, and the police is on its way, u
understandably cannot go out the front door of her appartment. U have
to backtrack
out the window, up to the attic, down the stairs... and u end up going
past the door to her appartment which u couldnt go out because of the
police, and down the main stairs. Am I the only one that found this part a BIT strange?



Well actually that's not that illogical. If you notice:


Barbora's apartment door is ajar, meaning that by the time you reach the hall the police are already inside her apartment. Thus you bypass the police.

[BigJ]

Just finished it, and while I agree with the complaints so far, I've seen worse in games, and I've gotten used to such issues in adventure games (unfortunately). My issue was the ending. Granted, I was kind of distracted by someone watching TV in the same room, so maybe I missed something important, but it seemed kind of... abrupt and not especially well thought out. Did they fall behind their deadline or something?
I mean, why did the sphere turn the bad guy into goo, while it didn't turn the hero into goo? Why did the light go out of the sphere when it was put on the professor's grave when it had glowed for thousands of years? How did you make it back to civilization from the temple with a bullet wound? Did he announce the location of the temple to the world (he is an archaeologist after all)?

[Legolas813]

I guess I'm in the minority. I enjoyed Nibiru. I really liked the interface used. The only problem was with the bead puzzle and the ending that made absolutely no sense.

[Thrawn42]

I have to say I really did enjoy the game up until the ending on which it just fell flat on its face.

[Stroggy]

Just finished it, and while I agree with the complaints so far, I've seen worse in games, and I've gotten used to such issues in adventure games (unfortunately). My issue was the ending. Granted, I was kind of distracted by someone watching TV in the same room, so maybe I missed something important, but it seemed kind of... abrupt and not especially well thought out. Did they fall behind their deadline or something?
I mean, why did the sphere turn the bad guy into goo, while it didn't turn the hero into goo? Why did the light go out of the sphere when it was put on the professor's grave when it had glowed for thousands of years? How did you make it back to civilization from the temple with a bullet wound? Did he announce the location of the temple to the world (he is an archaeologist after all)?

It's not you, the ending was indeed way too abrupt, I expected some other characters to give some more information on the entire plot, but instead the player is left baffled. The Black Mirror's ending wasn't that much better either.