Tunguska

[Atlantis]

Yeah so, I've just started playing and..

GOD ALMIGHTY THAT GIRLS VOICE IS SO ANNOYING!
I dont know If I'll cope with it..
Other than that it seems to have a good interface, buit it seems to have resulted back to the old way of gaming in the way that its a bit 'pick up anything you can see, it might just help you' and

Im just wondering about the fishtank-key thing. Do I have to go back to the museum to find an item I need to get it out first or is there a way with the items in the house?

~x~

[AprilLives]

As I remember it, the solution is outside the room. As for the voice, I, too, found it annoying. But the acting is very good, in my opinion, so you might eventually grow attached to its distinct quality.:D

[Terramax]

Yeah, this is one of the times where downloading the demo has really helped me in my decision. I cannot stand the voice either. I hate overt Yank accents, especially when the character is supposed to be from Russia or whatever. I'm trying to find an alternative language voice version with English subtitles, but I'm not sure where to find it.

Anyone able to help?

[Havrepus]

Yeah, they seem to have missed on the accents here. Small annoyance though. Is there such a thing as an alternative voicetrack to the game?

[NemelChelovek]

I had to play this game with the sound off because the voices are so frigging awful. I turned them off when I first encountered Sergej--when you meet him, you'll know why. This game is definitely in my bottom five.

[Havrepus]

That sounded rather drastic. It's not that horrible.

[Terramax]

If any of the other voices are as bad as the main characters, yes it is. It scares me if anyone in this world really does have a voice like that.

Appart from that though, the game seemed quite good. Not a classic, but the museum was atmospheric, and the detail at the trashed fathers house was good too.

Maybe if I can't get a foreign copy I'll buy it for £5 one day if I'm feeling daring.

[Havrepus]

Okay, so the voice acting was bad, but that shouldn't get in the way of playing the game through and enjoying it. I guess it boils down to how much you want to let yourself get annoyed over it. If you think it's that bad, then don't play the game. Scary or not, I have heard worse voices out there..

[AprilLives]

I wonder if it's not so much the voice but rather who they matched the voice with that is the problem. The dancing nurse had a voice that might have better suited the age and likeness of the character.

Nonetheless, the acting of the lead character was lively and very, very good, in my opinion. It's so distinct that I don't think they should change it in the followup. They can have her sound more mature with softer, huskier readings, perhaps using a different microphone.

Also, I thought the lead guy's voice was just fine.

By the end, I did get "used" to the voice and now I can't imagine her sounding completely different. It's a pretty good game that is sure to get better in the next of the series.

[Havrepus]

I wonder if it's not so much the voice but rather who they matched the voice with that is the problem. (...) It's a pretty good game that is sure to get better in the next of the series.

You're quite right. It didn't ruin the gaming experience in any major way for me, and more games from these people are so welcome :)

[Giligan]

I didn't mind Nina's voice. However, Max's voice did annoy me at times. One thing I noticed, especially with charcter like the barkeep and the painting gatekeeper, was that they seemed like they were reading the lines off of a paper. It was uninspired.

[Havrepus]

I think they were reading their lines off a paper. Much of it didn't sound all that convincing. But I think it is time to stop criticizing. Tunguska was a good game, which gave me a very positive experience.

[AprilLives]

Constructive criticism is a good thing if it assists game makers in improving their product. Tunguska shows there is room for improvement but that this series (with the Anna/Max team and their original lead voices) ought very much to continue.

Here is my take below (from another thread) after finishing the game:

Very, very nicely done artistically. But it sometimes felt like I was jumping from one picture perfect frame to another picture perfect frame, rather than exploring a big world of possibilities.

Puzzles ranged from ridiculously easy to deceptively clever. I liked that.

Voice volume and tone were inconsistent at times, as if they changed mics mid-paragraph.

Accents for authenticity would have benefited this game … and the acting fell flat from time to time.

Nina’s voice needed serious getting used to. She sounds more like a 12 year old girl saying lines that a 12 year old boy might say. However, her terrific acting skills somewhat overcame the fact that the voice should have been mature enough to match the body.

Interaction with people, places and things were exceptionally well done … an important facet to any game and one that was sorely missed in Paradise.

Music lends credibility, mood and a sense of adventure to a game and was too often missing in Tunguska, which would have been more mysterious without the Willy Beamish factor.

Although I liked some of her sarcastic humor, Nina’s comments bordered on being devoid of the emotion that creates a likeable, believable character. Also, humor translated from another language sometimes misses its mark.

It was wise of the game's creators to add a fuller and more appropriate ending to Tunguska. I applaud them for the change and for the very cute cut scenes.

[Havrepus]

Constructive criticism is a good thing if it assists game makers in improving their product. Tunguska shows there is room for improvement but that this series (with the Anna/Max team and their original lead voices) ought very much to continue.

Definitely.

[NemelChelovek]

That sounded rather drastic. It's not that horrible.

I thought it was that horrible. The voices were poorly selected and often poorly acted, the puzzles were too often completely illogical and relied too much on leaps of logic, like in the cat and cell phone puzzle. Often, it felt like puzzles were just thrown in because they wanted to stretch the game out (like the lemon in Ireland). The best point of the game was, for me, in the Irish castle trying to get to the man in the well, but it was marred by the fact that there often weren't enough hotspots on a screen, making the solutions stand out. The story was riddled with cliches of the conspiracy-thriller subgenre; if it had done something new with them, I wouldn't have a problem, but these were just the same old conventions being dragged out again and used the same way they'd been used elsewhere. The dialogue was often just as cliched ("I know when something stinks, and this stinks!"). The backgrounds were nice, but they weren't anything terribly special; I've seen the same sort of quality in NiBiRu and Keepsake, and it didn't save those games, either.

All these flaws together made a game that convinced me the adventure genre needs to change if it's going to be taken seriously again. I don't know what the future of adventure games is, but this certainly ain't it.

[aries323]

I've played the demo Tunguska, and I liked it a lot. The new few feature where you can click on the looking to reveal hotspots, I liked particularly much.

Some adventure/puzzle games I've played makes you look all over the screen, and then you'd normally miss the most important clue since you haven't thought of looking just there.

I kind of liked the story also, a young girl in search of her lost father and such. While there were some illogical puzzles like the one mentioned in the spoiler in another post, I did't find that most of puzzles were illogical.

My take on the puzzles was that they seemed to be a pretty integrated part of the story, and actually helped to move the stroy along i.e. you couldn't get the story going if you didn't solve the puzzles. (maybe it was because i was playing the demo in German.....).

Playing the demo in German gave me a rather good impression of how Nina's voiceacting was in German. I don't know how the UK release is, but apparently for the US release, the Voice Acting is terrible. (as far as I know - from this and other sites).

As for Nina saying stuff that a 12-13 year old boy might say, I didn't see this one coming nor did it bother that much. Yes, Nina is a girl, and girls in Europe sometimes (or all the time) say the same things as 12-14 year old boys do.
Thiss has do with how girls are brought up in Europe, I believe. (which, imo, still is somewhat different from how most girls are brought up say the US).

As for the voice maturing with the body, I agree. However, I have always thought of Nina as young(ish) girl of maybe 18 or 19, ok maybe even 24-25 tops. She definetely looks like a college (under) graduate to me...

I've found it nice that you could wander around freely in the game screens. This means that you're weren't forced to follow some set slideshow which the developers have set up for you. This also meant that you could do the puzzles in any order you chose...

Deep Silver/Fusionsphere etc. has said that they wanted to make a game for the casual adventure game while not alienating the hardcore gamers. To me, they have succeeded in doing this.

[Atlantis]

Wow. I seemed to have launched a voice acting debate lol.
Any more tips on whether to go back to the museum before getting the key out?

I dont think her voice will stop me from playing it ultimately but any grown woman with a squeaky voicewho goes around saying 'wheres my daddy' generally begins to irritate me...

She should be blonde..

(No offense to any blonde people)

[Dale Baldwin]

Any more tips on whether to go back to the museum before getting the key out?
Questions like this are best asked in the Hints and Tech forum. Perhaps check this thread (http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?t=17162).