For Absent Friends - Adventures that didn't make it

[MDMaster]

No. I'm just going to talk about adventures before 2003/2004, so no Lucasarts rambling, sorry, I'm sick of those.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's start. I was looking at a fairly old game mag (may 1997) and there was a really long preview, 4 pages, of The Island of Dr Moreau. This was supposed to be (the preview does not mention it) the tie-in of the Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer movie of the same name that got released in 1996. The funny thing is, the film never managed to arrive here and as of today I haven't spoken with anyone who has seen it. The game looked pretty interesting, sounds like it was going to be a first person game with real actors and also polygonal characters. The NPCs were supposed to act on their own, in a way I guess pretty similar to that in Blade Runner. There were also supposed to be arcade sequences, mostly fighting with creatures; a diary of the main character and a really big map to explore ('it took 45 minutes to explore it all!'). The preview says pretty clearly that it was an adventure game, it was being developed by Haiku Studios (the french guys that made Down in the Dumps) and produced by Psygnosis. Some actors are shown, a diary, various locations (that look like Myst 3), an IA scheme and some artworks. There's also some really interesting stuff, like how they recorded the voices for the creatures of the good doctor: the actors were told to speak the lines in reverse, so to get that 'de-attachment' feeling to 'em. The strange thing is that the game looks almost finished in these pictures, and the author clearly states the game is going to be released in 5 or 6 months.

I haven't found any news or screenshots on the internet, expect for a 'Vivisector', that is another Dr Moreau inspired game but looks like a FPS. If anyone is interested I could scan some shots from the mag, just for the memories :)

See you tomorrow with another 'adventure that didn't make it'!

[Ninth]

As usual, I'm going to rant a little about Legend and Robert Jordan...
A long time ago, after playing Shannara and loving it, and while I was reading the Wheel of Time by Jordan and loving it, I stumbled upon the news that Legend Entertainement had the rights to make a game based on the novels.
I was thrilled, excited, enthralled, joyful, happy and hysterical (especially since AGs were scarecely numerous in those days).
But then, about a year later, I heard that the game was going to be a quake-like (with magic elements, granted... great).
So I was very :( and quite a bit :frusty:.
But then, a few months before, I learned that the game was indead supposed to be an adventure game (which would have been great, I'm sure), and turned out to be a bloody FPS just because Jordan thought AGs were boring.
To sum up:
:pan: :pan: and :\
Jordan Legend

EDIT: To learn all about it : http://www.wheeloftime.com/
Look for the section called "The story behind the Wheel of Time".

[fov]

The funny thing is, the film never managed to arrive here and as of today I haven't spoken with anyone who has seen it.

I think it did poorly in its US release, which probably had something to do with the game being cancelled.

-emily

[log p]

the Island of Doc Moreau has to be on my list of ten worst films ever...fat Brando's wheezing included

[MDMaster]

I think it did poorly in its US release, which probably had something to do with the game being cancelled.

That's true, sure is a good reason to cancel a game, the 'poor' sales, but isn't kinda strange to cancel a game which looked almost 60% complete and also meant the failure of the rather promising Haiku Studio? I mean, as far as I know the game was way under development, even the actors were cast and many sequences filmed... so that meant just more money lost for nothing. Sometimes I really don't understand what is going on with cancelling a game, and we're talking about Psygnosis here. Yeah, them! The guys who actually went on with producing Zombieville (which I'm going to talk about in one of the next 'fof' issues), who is renowned to be one of the worst adventures ever, so I don't really think Island of Dr Moreau could have done worse anyhow. Oh well... :frusty:

[fov]

isn't kinda strange to cancel a game which looked almost 60% complete and also meant the failure of the rather promising Haiku Studio?

Not as strange as cancelling a game that's 90% complete like LucasArts did recently... but we aren't talking about that in this thread. ;)

[Glenn Epic]

Im keen to see some shots... Scan some images MDMaster :P

[MDMaster]

For the second issue of 'FAF' I'm going to talk about an adventure that did make it to the shelves but there are so little info about it, that it's more like it never got released. I'm talking about Sentient.

Once again, it's a Psygnosis game (developed by Visual Sciences, never heard of 'em) we're talking about, and I've just seen a forum where two people mention it as one of the worst game ever. The pics I'm looking at right now on the review I have on the usual old game mag (june 1997) are fairly ugly, looking like a run-of-the-mill bad PSX 3d engine, with resolution stuck at 320x240, although you can fire it up to 1280x720 says the author. The interesting thing about the game though is that it features more than 60 characters with emotions and reactions (rpg-style, so they eat, they sleep, they talk to you when they feel like it, etc), and dialogues are made in a 'textual' old fashion way: 'ask a question, make a statement, give a command, give an object, offer parting' and then submenus with 'I - am going/am called/have a status of/have; Item, person, room, background' and so on. Sentient is a spaceship, orbiting around the sun, that is having problems with radiation; so Garrit, the main character, is sent to fix things. Except that his spaceship crashes on Sentient and he's stuck there and has to escape or something. The review says there are actually six different 'stories' to play, with different endings. The author gave it a '78', that is more like a '6.5' than an '8'.

Here are some pics taken from the psx version (that explains the ugly graphics I guess): http://media.psx.ign.com/media/002/002115/imgs_1.html?fromint=1

Anyway, I've always wanted to have a go at the game but I've never seen it in shops, not even the psx version. So if anyone tried it, please feel free to post a comment, I'm more than interested in hearing your thoughts.

See you at the next 'FAF' issue!

New_Order: I'm gonna post some pics of Dr Moreau in a couple of days, hold your horses :D

[Jackal]

... also meant the failure of the rather promising Haiku Studio?

Down in the Dumps was a giant, steaming turd, if that's what you're considering Haiku Studio's "promise". By far the worst adventure I've ever played. It's probably safe to say they could have given the Dr. Moreau movie a run for its money in terms of crapness.

[log p]

to rival the movie on those terms it must be the summit of craptacular mountain

[MDMaster]

Down in the Dumps was a giant, steaming turd, if that's what you're considering Haiku Studio's "promise". By far the worst adventure I've ever played.

When people say 'the worst adventure I've ever played' I usually ask myself 'how many adventures have they played'? As for me, I have in my possession more than a hundred adventure games, and I've played others also, and I surely can say that Down in the Dumps is not a bad one.
Actually when it got released most of the reviews I read were pretty good, some even calling it a 'masterpiece adventure', and since I do not believe every single mag was payed a lot of money, I am therefore inclined to believe in what good there is in DITD. I haven't played it a lot, I confess, but what I've played sounded reasonable and fun enough to justify its existence, and for an adventure game is more than enough. To be honest, I was way more disappointed by Bad Mojo and its sluggish quicktime movies and concept, but that's gotta be a matter of opinion. :P

And anyway, The Island of dr Moreau DID looked promising, even if one didn't like DITD, the premise and the graphics alone were exciting. And no, I don't buy that 'if didn't came out, it was for a good reason' philosophy for a second, sorry. :D

[Jackal]

I've played hundreds, and I "have in my possession" far more than I've played. Down in the Dumps is the worst I've played, bar none. I'm sure there are probably some even worse, but I've yet to play them. Feel free to be optimistic about it if you'd like, but since you haven't played it, there really isn't much else to say. I wrote my own negative review on it that detailed all its failings, so I won't explain them here.

I didn't say that Moreau shouldn't be released, did I? :rolleyes: I simply said that Haiku Studios showed little promise as a developer.

[MDMaster]

Well actually that 'It's probably safe to say they could have given the Dr. Moreau movie a run for its money in terms of crapness' does not differ that much from 'It would have been better if it never came out'; when it comes to adventure games I always thought 'the more, the merrier', especially now with every adventure that's cancelled, it's a hard blow to the genre we love.

But of course I do not care about EVERY adventure that's cancelled, only the ones that looked promising or I would have loved to play. Consequently I do not understand that kind of 'hostility' when it comes to never released games, really. But no hard feelings anyway :D

[Jackal]

Well, the crapness line was said tongue-in-cheek, with no hostility at all. I consider every game to have value (just a lot more hidden in some games than others). I'd have judged Dr. Moreau on its own merits, and I'd undoubtedly own it if it had been released.

And for what it's worth, while the Moreau movie was indeed terrible, I liked it in a cheesy (unintentional) B-movie way. :P

And to get back to your original topic, I also have Sentient, though never played it. Psygnosis was actually a publisher willing to consistently push offbeat titles. It's too bad they folded.

[MDMaster]

Hello boys and girls and welcome to another, quite unnecessary, issue of FAF. Today we're going to talk about Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, actually it's port planned for the Sega CD.
Well, it's safe to say that Lucasarts porting Monkey Island got the idea that adventure games could actually become a famous and rewarding genre even on a console. But soon everyone was proved wrong by all the horrible FMV titles and the inevitable death of the console.
I was sent by Sam Pettus, author of Genesis Game Guide, to ask Sierra what become of Larry Leisure for the Sega CD, back in 1999. Know what, I actually got an answer and some useful information too. They said that a port was actually planned, in a similar way to that done with King's Quest on the SMS. So naturally no text options and a nice cd sountrack to go along to. That's all I got out of Sierra, there is not even an alpha version floating around and that's too bad, it could have been a nice update for such an old game.

-

So I guess that's settled Jackal, let me know if you ever get around to play Sentient, I'd be happy to hear your opinion (or buy it from Ebay):D

-

As I promised New Order, here are the pics of Island of Dr Moreau I scanned from the magazine, they are a bit too dark so I had to brighten 'em up quite a bit:

http://www.16bit.emuita.it/images/speciali/Moreauimg1.jpg
http://www.16bit.emuita.it/images/speciali/Moreauimg2.jpg
http://www.16bit.emuita.it/images/speciali/Moreauimg3.jpg
http://www.16bit.emuita.it/images/speciali/Moreauimg4.jpg

-

See you at the next FAF issue!

[Fienepien]

Nice stuff, your FAF! ;)

[MDMaster]

Thanks Fienepien, it's always good to have some feedback :)

-

I was just looking up at the pictures again and noticed something very strange. Inbetween those two pics, the author written that all the pics in the article were actual backgrounds but NOT pictures of the game.

That puzzles me, especially when you look at the picture below, it's clearly not a background, but an animated sequence with polygonal characters. Either it wasn't a first person adventure as I thought, or the game was far from being finished. :confused: