The Last Express

[Terramax]

Looked up this game on Wikipedia as one of the biggest gaming disasters! 5 years, $6 million to make and stalled when on sale.

What was the game like? Does it work for XP? I'm sure the game was for sale at one stage at Amazon.co.uk, but I can't find it on there anymore.

[Junkface]

Unique gameplay coupled with excellent writing, art direction and atmosphere make it one of the best games I've ever played - Jordan Mechner's greatest achievement. The game works on XP for me, though I get an error message on startup it still appears to run normally.

[Stain]

It is also on GameTap. That gets around that whole "does it work on XP?" problem as well. A good game. It was quite cools that the game world continues on whether you are there to see it or not, but I found if you stray from the path you are intended to take, the game becomes quite hard to follow and more or less unsolvable. So, stay on the beaten path and you will be fine (which kinda defeats the point of an open-ended game IMO).

Cheers

[Crapstorm]

The real-time concept was cool in theory, but dreadful in practice. The gameplay consists of little more than wandering around trying to be in the right place at the right time. The first two times I played it, I had bad luck and missed vital plot developments. I realized I had to start over after hours of uneventful wandering. Even if you happen to be present for all the key scenes, you still have to wander the same locations ad nauseum and endure long lulls in which nothing happens.

Broderbund should have tested a low budget version of the gameplay first before investing a fortune in the grandiose production.

[Fien]

The real-time concept was cool in theory, but dreadful in practice. The gameplay consists of little more than wandering around trying to be in the right place at the right time. The first two times I played it, I had bad luck and missed vital plot developments. I realized I had to start over after hours of uneventful wandering. Even if you happen to be present for all the key scenes, you still have to wander the same locations ad nauseum and endure long lulls in which nothing happens.

Broderbund should have tested a low budget version of the gameplay first before investing a fortune in the grandiose production.

You've complained about TLE before and I decided to sit on my hands. Not this time. It's fine with me if you hated TLE, but this bit about hours of uneventful wandering if you happen to miss vital plot developments is simply untrue. From the moment you board the train, people approach you, they want things from you and it's up to you to find out what's going on. You have to think about what to do and yes, it involves replaying some parts, that's the whole point of the game, but HOURS of uneventful wandering?? Impossible. Fail to deliver to the various parties and you've had it. If you don't talk to X before the train stops at A, or if you don't show Y to Z, it's game over. Meaning you're killed, arrested, thrown off the train... and then you don't need to start over, you let the GAME take you back to a point in time where you can still win!

I can only conclude that something technical went wrong with your game disks, installation, a glitch, whatever.

PS: Tell us how far you got. Tell us about the things that didn't happen.

[Crapstorm]

I can only conclude that something technical went wrong with your game disks, installation, a glitch, whatever.

PS: Tell us how far you got. Tell us about the things that didn't happen.

I can't tell you what didn't happen, because I don't know what was supposed to happen. I glanced at a walkthrough before giving up, and I was blown away by the quantity of things that I missed. It was like I was playing a totally different game.

But yeah, the first time I played the game was ruined by what was probably a technical bug. I looked around, met a few characters, solved a couple of puzzles and then wandered for about 2 hours with literally nothing happening except a series of train stops. I asked in this forum for a bit of help, and I think you clued me in to a character that I hadn't met yet woman in red dress. I agreed that it was some sort of bug, reinstalled the game and started again. Second time I met that character right away and made it all the way to Munich, but I got very bored with the slow rate that I was discovering new things.

[Nautilus]

What was the game like?

Despite the bad sales results (mostly caused by very bad distribution/marketing), "The Last Express" is one of the most fascinating games of all times. Play the demo and see for yourself.

The Last Express including official DEMO
http://lastexpress.markmoran.net/

[Fien]

... but I got very bored with the slow rate that I was discovering new things.

Slow rate??

Okay, I was wrong, it's not a glitch at all, you simply wandered around for hours instead of getting some sleep, like all the signs are telling you. TLE is not your cup of tea.

What always gets me, is that people are unable to see that games (books, films, plays, music) they don't like can still have QUALITY written all over them. Don't like 1st-person adventures without dialogue and inventory? Rotten Mystians which don't deserve to be called adventures... Don't understand what you're supposed to do in a real-time game without any *traditional* puzzles? TLE wasn't tested properly... Didn't you even notice the terrific voiceacting, the wonderful setting, the great writing, the intriguing story?

Crapstorm :pan:

[Terramax]

It is also on GameTap. That gets around that whole "does it work on XP?" problem as well.
Cheers

<<<<<<< UK

Where is this demo BTW? It's not at Gamershell?

Also, people say the real time in this game is an excellent idea, but wasn't this the same concept as 'Night Trap' - often said to be one of the worst games of all time?

[Fien]

<<<<<<< UK

Where is this demo BTW? It's not at Gamershell?

Also, people say the real time in this game is an excellent idea, but wasn't this the same concept as 'Night Trap' - often said to be one of the worst games of all time?

You've said it... Night Trap is one of the worst games of all time (the acting had me in stitches). TLE isn't. :P

Fortunately Night Trap is not an adventure game, it's about spotting and trapping, killing, eliminating as many black baddies as fast as you can.

[Fien]

Where is this demo BTW? It's not at Gamershell?

Don't you know how to use Google??

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/1513

and elsewhere

[Nautilus]

Where is this demo BTW?


The Last Express - mirror of the official game site, including the original game DEMO
http://lastexpress.markmoran.net/

Mark Moran is one of the programmers of Last Express.

[Crapstorm]

What always gets me, is that people are unable to see that games (books, films, plays, music) they don't like can still have QUALITY written all over them. Don't like 1st-person adventures without dialogue and inventory? Rotten Mystians which don't deserve to be called adventures... Don't understand what you're supposed to do in a real-time game without any *traditional* puzzles? TLE wasn't tested properly... Didn't you even notice the terrific voiceacting, the wonderful setting, the great writing, the intriguing story?

Crapstorm :pan:
I know what you're saying. I've tried to read War and Peace too, and I can never get past page 100. It's not because it's poorly written or a bad book. A lot of people say it's the greatest novel ever written, and maybe it is. I just can't get into it. I loved the book Shogun, which is equal in length, so it's not a matter of page numbers. War and Peace just defeats me every time, I think because the character interactions are full of important subtleties that are beyond me.

I acknowledge all the great things about The Last Express that you point out: the great acting, wonderful setting, superb dialogue scripting, it's all there. What isn't there is fun gameplay. For me, anyway. I won't belabor the point any further. Some people really enjoyed it, and I envy them. I didn't get it. But then again, I don't get a lot of adventure games.

[Terramax]

actually, the one thing that won't let me rush out and buy without trying this is the visual style. The characters have the look of a 1970's Christian cartoon.

But Im downloading the file now. Thanks for the links. No, I don't always google for demos as half the time I end up with sites you hve to sign up to in order to get the demos.

EDIT: Also, I liked Night Trap.

[Fien]

The characters have the look of a 1970's Christian cartoon.

Also, I liked Night Trap.

Maybe you should buy Gothos instead of TLE. :devil: :devil: :devil:

[Terramax]

Maybe you should buy Gothos instead of TLE. :devil: :devil: :devil:

Sorry, Gothos? Is that another American term?

[Melanie68]

Sorry, Gothos? Is that another American term?

I believe it's a game:

http://www.quandaryland.com/jsp/dispArticle.jsp?index=610

:)

[Terramax]

looks quite good actually lol

[Fien]

Yeah, it's a game, it's an adventure... you like vampires, don't you? :devil:
After the civilized, lovable and classy werewolves of your avatar and the ordinary, comfy and homely vampsies in Night Trap, it's high time you turned into one of the really wild, bloodthirsty and batty beings yourself. The acting in the wonderful FMV adventure Gothos is even worse will make you laugh even harder than the Night Trap vampsies.

So find yourself a nice pair of fangs to keep your very own Blood Bar filled with blood from innocent (hopefully Christian) bystanders. :9~ :9~ :9~

But please remember...

"...better get the serious toothpaste!"

[seebaruk]

Last Express was interesting, but i found it hard to get into as well - like Crapstorm, there were periods when I wandered up and down the train looking for something to do, then resorted to a walkthrough where I discovered I had missed out on all sorts of conversations, or had to do something random like trap a mouse in a matchbox. The story was pretty interesting though, from what I could make out of it, and the character development was great. I stopped playing when I hit a glitch which made progress impossible (rewinding time never got rid of it) -

It was when the weird bad dude invited everyone into his room for some delightful music. His henchman kind of got 'stuck' and ended up floating creepily in the air, and the dog never got removed from the woman's room, so I couldn't nab the key.

[Fien]

About your first spoiler:
A black beetle, not a mouse. You can use it to get hold of a certain item. But you don't need to catch it, there's more than one way to get the itme.

About your second spoiler: that sounds like a nasty bug.

[Terramax]

Maybe it wasn't installed properly, but almost all of the animations were still pictures that made about 1 frame every 2 seconds.

And I just don't like the art design.

The animation you saw was the way it was meant to be. There's a reason for it being like that but I can't remember it.

:o So this is my first OOPS as a mod but I hit edit instead of quote so if you can remember what you posted after that, go ahead and do it. Sorry.

Mel

[Fien]

The animation you saw was the way it was meant to be. There's a reason for it being like that but I can't remember it.


Money!

Doesn't everything always boil down to money? :frusty:

The cut scenes have normal animations.

[DomStLeger]

As I recall it was a combination of money, time and the technique they used to make the game. There was a making of video available somewhere (maybe on the game disc? I'm sure I've seen it. Anyway).

As I recall, the whole game was filmed on blue backgrounds with actors dressed up in full costume, then frames of film of the actors were painted over by hand to give the game that rich semi-cartoon/semi-live action look. It must have been incredibly time consuming, and (as the $6m budget shows) very expensive. They had to compromised on budget and time to achieve what is a very distinctive look. I think in many ways it was a game ahead of its time; a game that would probably be much easier and cheaper to make now in full 3D. (edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Express <-- I was almost right, that describes how it was done. Amazing!)

Anyway, I'm with the fans of TLE; it's one of my all-time favourite games. The story and script are superb and the acting is top notch throughout. The plot is very original for computer games and the amazing detail (such as the use of the correct dialects for the foreign language voice actors, and the historical accuracy throughout) created one of the most realistic and believable game environments I've ever seen.

Yes there are some technical limitations, and the real-time nature of the game takes some getting used to. However, these are minor failings in my eyes in what is otherwise an unparalleled gaming experience. A truly unique game which deserved to do much better financially, and which I would recommend all adventure gamers try to get hold of and play. If you're lucky enough to Gametap, get it now; if not Ebay it, it's worth it.

[Terramax]

why has someone hacked into my account and answered my questions in my own name?

In anycase, if the animations are that terrible for a game that had a budget of $6 million, i'm not surprised the firm folded shortly afterwards.

[Melanie68]

I didn't hack into your account. I'm a mod now so I can edit posts. I accidentally hit edit instead of quote and didn't realize it until after (and I couldn't change it). I'm really sorry. :frown: I'm new at this and I've been trying to be careful when quoting posts.

I wrote this in your post that I screwed up:
So this is my first OOPS as a mod but I hit edit instead of quote so if you can remember what you posted after that, go ahead and do it. Sorry.

Mel

Again, I'm sorry.

[Kingzjester]

Awesome game, that. People who don't like it ought to have really good excuse, such as being clinically retarded or legally insane.

Plus Jordan Mechner may not be my favourite game designer, but he is definitely one of my all time favourite people who design games.

[Fien]

In anycase, if the animations are that terrible for a game that had a budget of $6 million, i'm not surprised the firm folded shortly afterwards.

The animations are NOT terrible. Most people get used to them in no time at all.

[Lee in Limbo]

I think the art direction of The Last Express is not only gorgeous, but is one of the best examples of truly representative art direction of any game I have seen that touts itself as a period piece. Honestly, how much better can you get than to have a WWI era story told in an Alphonse Mucha-esque fashion? If I were to design such a game, I'd do it very much like this, merely using modern 3D cel-shading techniques instead of the photoshop-rotoscope work they did on TLE. I'd definitely want it to look as iconic, though. Fantastic work.

[Nautilus]

In the corridors, when a passing character look at you directly into your eyes, that's AMAZING. Stay listening the conversations in the rooms is also fantastic. I never played a game that makes me feel so intenselly imersed in it's story.

[buddi]

I'm trying really hard to get into this game, but I am having trouble getting started. I feel a little aimless. I guess I'm probably just a little slow to adapt to a new style of game. This thread convinces me that I need to go back and give it another try.

[Texas]

The Last Express is actually the game I'm playing now and I'm really enjoying it. As others have mentoned the story is very intresting and I found the art to be very beautiful. The game does a really good job of imersing you in the time and place of the story. I like how the charectors fell authentic and not sterotypes. Their is a making of the game video included in the game although I havent watched all of it. I agree that the way the people move is at times jerky but you have to give them diffculty points for bein so ambitious in what they wear trying to do especially for the time. I can also see how the real time gameplay can be an adjustment for gamers who are not used to it. I do think it is one of the most impressive parts of the game. I would recomend the game to anyone.