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View Full Version : Jack the Ripper: New York 1901 sucks


Crapstorm
11-16-2006, 08:27 AM
I'm trying to work through my stack of old games. It's tough, because some of these titles are real stinkers. Right now I'm struggling to finish the Dreamcatcher release Jack the Ripper. Now, I consider myself an adventure game fan as well as a fan of mystery, but this the type of game I loathe.

There is virtually no gameplay apart from wandering around the setting and cuing conversations. There are really only a couple of true puzzles in the whole game, unless you hammer the definition of "puzzle" so thin that it includes pixel-hunting and inventory dumping on all the hotspots. The story is actually quite good. It's the only thing compelling me to complete the game right now (aside from my obsessive-compulsive tenacity). But this is no way to tell a story. I'd rather just turn the pages of a book than click aimlessly through the same dark streets hoping that the next piece of the story is not going to be in the last place I look.

This type of adventure game really just boils down to event triggering, which can sometimes be expedited by logic, but not always. I know that a lot of people in this forum love this type of game; for example Broken Sword tops many people's lists. But I can't get into them. I wish I didn't buy so many adventure games without researching where they reside on the story <--------> puzzle continuum.

Flyboy
11-16-2006, 09:36 AM
You should really try The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: Case of the Serrated Scalpel, if you haven't already. It's a fantastic Ripper-related game!

I know what you mean though about event triggering though. It doesn't always make for the best structure, although in certain cases I think it works fairly well (actually, from memory, the Lost Files might fit into this category quite well, so you actually might not enjoy, in hindsight).

AFGNCAAP
11-16-2006, 09:59 AM
The story is actually quite good. It's the only thing compelling me to complete the game right nowHeh. I don't want to discourage you from continuing, but the AG reviewer, while admitting the story is pretty good even despite the plotholes, says (http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,352) it's undermined by "the single worst ending in the history of adventure gaming". :devil:

This type of adventure game really just boils down to event triggering, which can sometimes be expedited by logic, but not always. I know that a lot of people in this forum love this type of game; for example Broken Sword tops many people's lists. But I can't get into them.
I know what you're saying, but I don't think you've picked the best example of that. The puzzles in Broken Sword are rather minimalistic perhaps, but I never felt they were reduced to event triggers.

marvio
11-16-2006, 11:03 AM
Not to beat a dead horse over the headbut...

TLJ: DF anyone? :D

Crapstorm
11-17-2006, 06:46 AM
Heh. I don't want to discourage you from continuing, but the AG reviewer, while admitting the story is pretty good even despite the plotholes, says (http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,352) it's undermined by "the single worst ending in the history of adventure gaming".

Yep. That was the mother of all crappy endings. I'm glad you warned me about it, because I could have done some serious damage to my monitor otherwise. "All that tedious effort for this?!"

Erwin_Br
11-17-2006, 04:11 PM
DreamCatcher has a lot of misses in its catalogue, in my opinion. Jack the Ripper looks okay, judging from the screenshots, but I think I've read enough.

--Erwin

Solid Snake
11-18-2006, 06:26 AM
There were three ravens...