[squarejawhero]

Oh, I just thought. TMOS did have exit indicators. But you had to press a button.

I didn't know this when reviewing it either.

[botherer]

Originally Posted by MaryScots

This gives me the impression that especially the story of MoS might have been a little too subtle for your taste?! Unless none of the plot's aspects and ingredients have been new to you. Congratulations then, you are very well informed about questionable use of todays technologies and their possible impact on our private lives in the future. At least to some of us it was food for thought. If the whole story is contrived then it is very well contrived for me as I still find it interesting when today I read an article about Google's book scanning project for example. I never heard about it before playing MoS and it gives me shivers now. As I said this is only an example. For me the story draws a fine but recognizable line between today and the not too distant future. The world created wasn't overdrawn but tangible and for me that is a big part of the game's quality.

I honestly think that's brilliant. I really didn't like the story, but that's the dilemma of stories. I really like that you got so much out of the game, and found it so engaging. It made my teeth grind, and so I could only report that.

There was a lot more than just the story wrong with it, I would argue. The ghastly plodding running, combined with the lack of exit indication, meant every scene was a horrible slog of running around the edges - not fun.

As Squarejawhero said, the company shows promise. I look forward to whatever comes next.

John Walker
PC Gamer UK

[squarejawhero]

Just thought it's worth noting that even on one site views can vary between positive/negative. Just goes to show the differences in peoples opinions in the rather split AG community -

Mine - http://www.justadventure.com/reviews/MOS/MOS.shtm
Bob Freese's - http://www.justadventure.com/reviews/MOS2/MOS.shtm

I'm not saying that Freese's are any less valid than my own. But we're looking and judging from different angles.

Also here's Legacy's JA+ review -

http://www.justadventure.com/reviews.../LegacyDS.shtm

AG'ers look hard more for connection with the story more than gameplay. Also some games are reviewed through different localisations. It's worth bearing that in mind.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

The average adventure these days has LESS than a years development time and little money to work with. That'd put the quality down a ton on its own.

I've been wondering. Is it difficult to get AGs published and funded these days because they are unpopular or just because all adventure games are so incredibly bad these days?

Also, LucasArts had very little development time for most of their early adventure games. But that was 1992...

[squarejawhero]

I think it's a vicious circle, and no-one's really to blame. Publishers are generally not run by creative people and they just mainly see figures, and you can't REALLY blame them when development of big titles is such a financial risk.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

AG'ers look hard more for connection with the story more than gameplay.

Whoah! Ease up on the generalizations there! If that's what we've all come to, I'd say it's not the gaming magazines who're out of touch, it's the fans. Personally, I enjoy a good story in my adventure games, but I'm not prepared to accept poor gameplay to get it.

[Martin Gantefoehr]

As Squarejawhero said, the company shows promise. I look forward to whatever comes next.

The problem with whatever comes next is that it will be funded with MOS revenues, and your US colleague's score just pretty much destroyed the mainstream US market for us. Not that I thought we were going to be any big there, anyway, but this causes problems for us on many more levels than evident in the public perception.

I'm not complaining, however. This is simply the way the industry works, and nobody forces us to be in it.

Thanks for joining, elaborating, and giving the evil a name and a face, btw.

[squarejawhero]

Whoah! Ease up on the generalizations there!

It's hard not to make generalisations, but it's true. In the nearly three years of being an active forumite AG'ers GENERALLY look more towards either story and puzzle content rather than a game as a whole. Puzzlers can live without story, story peeps can live without puzzles.

@botherer - As for Martin, I think you can appreciate where he's coming from in this case.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Wormsie

If the tMoS dialogue is to be judged by the demo, it was pathetic and laughable at best...

It's appalling. Really, really bad. I'm sorry, and believe me, I'm sympathetic to the problems, but there is absolutely no excuse for dialogue like this. All that money spent on the graphics entirely went to waste in my case, because I hit the first real conversation in the game and was laughing my head off.

(I didn't get very far into it though, I admit, and not for its own fault. Played for a few hours and it seemed okay ish, if ho-hum, but then grew to hate and despise its very existence, thanks to those insipid, self-promoting adverts that Digital Jesters crowbarred into every five minutes of my beloved Battlestar Galactica. After just a couple of episodes, I never wanted to see the title screen again...)

One thing that does seem odd, at least when most adventure games are an almost guaranteed commercial flop in most parts of the world, and the hardcore market will quite happily accept any old crap*, that we don't see more companies trying different things on the grounds that well, it can't exactly hurt! Loathe as I am to reference Roberta Williams in a positive light, I can't remember the last game I played that tried a Colonel's Bequest/Amon-Ra approach to mystery solving, or avoiding paying out millions upon zillions on a world-spanning quest instead of a tighter, more interesting story, with room to play around, rather than plain desperately trying to render and fill a million rooms.

(* I'm still reeling at seeing so many people praising the re-release of the entirely insipid Inherit The Earth, or getting weak in the knees over the unbelievably ghastly Conspiraces - a game that exists solely for the purpose of unintentional humour...)

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Snarky

Whoah! Ease up on the generalizations there! If that's what we've all come to, I'd say it's not the gaming magazines who're out of touch, it's the fans. Personally, I enjoy a good story in my adventure games, but I'm not prepared to accept poor gameplay to get it.

My rule is pretty simple - if you want to sell me an adventure game, you have to sell me an idea I can get interested in, not simply a box that reminds me of when the genre still seemed full of potential, rather than stagnant and introspective.

Failing that, at least sell me a copy of Psychonauts, because it doesn't look like I'm getting a review copy from Majesco ;-)

[squarejawhero]

LOL, any chance of the rest of the PC Gamer UK crew to join in? I've seriously got the giggles as to how this thread has panned out.

BTW it should be worth noting that the slightly odd voiceover on the lady, as far as I could tell, was intentional.

Spoiler:

After all, she is a computer program and her stilted delivery at least made you wonder what the hell was going on, and suited the character to an extent. The only real voiceover I had major, major problems with was the kid. But it's not really the kids fault, after all it was a real kid doing the voiceover.

Nowdays, as games progress into a more mainstream media, voiceovers and suchlike are an important selling factor. Unfortunately, because of the majority of developers either inability or (in a lot of cases) stubborn pig-headedness, they don't hire the proper people that understand jobs like writing, voice direction and proper storyboarding and visualisation outside the industry.

Brothers in Arms is a recent game that had me cringing at some of the appalling timing of the v/o's. Seeing as how much money had gone into it's authenticity, I thought it was pretty appalling when it came to the cut-scenes, and bearing that in mind a bigger offender than smaller-budget adventure titles.

[squarejawhero]

BTW any chance of a PROPER article about "dead/dying" genres? That they're not dead, and that just because some genres are sleeping that doesn't mean they're no longer creditable? I mean, even Ikagura showed there's still potential in even the vertical scrolling shooter.

Personally I think that'd be an excellent kick for publishers and gamers alike.

edit - BTW I believe Digital Jesters did a great job in publicising games like Sherlock and TMOS. The genre needs a push in any way, regardless of personal opinions of journos and forumites. If anything, its healthy that a publisher really backed their games rather than just continuously letting down the potential fanbase and development team.

*coff GMX Media/ Runaway coff"

[Richard]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

BTW it should be worth noting that the slightly odd voiceover on the lady, as far as I could tell, was intentional.

All I know is the main character sounded like he'd been drinking paint.

And I also know that I no longer cared.

Nowdays, as games progress into a more mainstream media, voiceovers and suchlike are an important selling factor.

As a big animation buff, I couldn't agree more. I played Beyond Divinity and was in hysterics during the intro - how anyone could go out to cast someone to play an evil force of darkness and end up with a guy with Daffy Duck's lithp is beyond me. I disagree that voiceovers are much of a SELLING factor - possibly the odd celebrity tie-in - but they're crucial for maintaining the atmosphere. If they're just mediocre, okay, you can often get away with it - but bad ones are like paying Industrial Light and Magic to handle your visuals, and then quickly rounding up a school drama group to do the acting. When I think of tense, exciting stories, I really don't think 'Spy Kids 3'.

[squarejawhero]

Spky Kids 3 wasn't tense and exciting? Better strike that off my list of things to see... oh, it already is.

When I say "selling factor", I mean that a v/o helps to sell the game to the player, to make them believe in the gameworld. It can snap a gamer out of a great title like BIA, or Resident Evil 4 (love the game, wish they'd all shut up). Like animation, everything should be given care of when making a game, be it design, animation, voiceovers, acting... hell, we do it in animation ALL THE TIME and usually on teensy budgets too. Sure, you could argue we've got less to worry about, but that's the way game development is going.

Hm.

Perhaps I should be happy games aren't doing good in those areas? At least my area of work is still going and has no real competition.

Uh... given the state it's in that's good.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

BTW I believe Digital Jesters did a great job in publicising games like Sherlock and TMOS.

If you ask me, they put more effort into publicising themselves than TMOS, and the actual advert was dire - absolutely no hook to get people interested, only some muddy FMV bits to sell it on, and as intrusive and welcome as pop-up adverts, thanks to forcing the exact same thing down your throat about five times an hour, every week*.

The Renault ones on 24 are much better handled - tying into the program itself, short, largely unobtrusive, and designed not to hack you off within milliseconds.


(*The same goes for all the Punisher bits on Enterprise

"BECOME...the Punisher."
"You mean, have my entire family killed and then go beserk, getting horribly tortured and beaten-up, and losing all semblance of humanity in the process?"
"No, more like, play a boring third-person adventure based on a movie/comic you didn't see and probably haven't read."
"Gotcha.")

[Richard]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

Qhen I say "selling factor", I mean that a v/o helps to sell the game to the player, to make them believe in the gameworld. It can snap a gamer out of a great title like BIA, or Resident Evil 4 (love the game, wish they'd all shut up)

Okay. Yes, I agree completely.

Sure, you could argue we've got less to worry about, but that's the way game development is going.

I'd mostly argue that games try to bite off more than they can chew. If you've got £50 and a Handicam and decided to take on George Lucas, well, you're nuts. Even if you've got the money, you're probably not going to get it back in the current games market anyway. It's a game of one-upmanship that right now leads to nothing but a slow painful death (or being absorbed into the likes of EA and never heard of again).

The fact that a game can take you to a million different dimensions, each based on a different pizza topping, doesn't necessarily mean that it has to. Not only is there nothing wrong with the odd smaller-scale project (provided that it has that hook, which most games developers never seem to bother with) it gives you that much more impetus to make the most of what you do.

[Martin Gantefoehr]

I didn't get very far into it though, I admit

Failing that, at least sell me a copy of Psychonauts, because it doesn't look like I'm getting a review copy from Majesco ;-)

Just a side note, but I think you will further decrease the chances of getting a copy from them if you continue to publicly announce that you don't neccessarily play the games you then write magazine reviews for.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Martin Gantefoehr

Just a side note, but I think you will further decrease the chances of getting a copy from them if you continue to publicly announce that you don't neccessarily play the games you then write magazine reviews for.

Er, I wasn't down to review TMOS for anyone, Martin ;-) Had I been doing so, I'd have played it for considerably longer.

Sadly, games I play for fun tend to have to fight a lot harder for control of my spare time. I'm determined to finish a campaign in Rome: Total War at least ONE of these days...

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by botherer

I do agree that 14% seems very low. I gave it 48%, which is still a bad mark. But it at least manages to be a game, unlike something like Legacy: Dark Shadows. Just not a fun game, or a well constructed one.

Hi, John.

Nice of you to take part in the discussion. Just want to reiterate that my issue is solely with 14% representing an absolute train wreck of a game, with virtually no value at all. It's not about claiming the game deserves to be liked more, but simply that a score should accurately reflect the quality of a game (rather than just the reviewer's tolerance level). I have no problem at all with a justified 48%, but I do have a problem with an unjustified 14% or 96%. When I see the latter, I'm not inclined to believe that critical faculties are winning over jaded attitudes (no conspiracies being suggested).

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm only referring to the reviews of MoS. I've neither played Legacy DS nor read PC Gamer UK's review of it, so that score is not part of what I was saying above.

[botherer]

Originally Posted by Martin Gantefoehr

The problem with whatever comes next is that it will be funded with MOS revenues, and your US colleague's score just pretty much destroyed the mainstream US market for us. Not that I thought we were going to be any big there, anyway, but this causes problems for us on many more levels than evident in the public perception.

Thanks for joining, elaborating, and giving the evil a name and a face, btw.

I hate this bit of the job - bumping into the people who put hard work into something you've criticised. Or in this case, torn apart. I really didn't like the game, and it's my job to say when that's the case. But I know why critics are hated.

I want to make something constructive out of the destruction. I would really love to get involved in a dialogue with developers about these things, so rather than just tearing a game down, I can make more useful comments about what it is I'd like to see in a game. Obviously a review isn't the place for that, but there probably should be room for it elsewhere.

I'm also finding myself tempted to go back and have another look at the game. Which is an odd feeling. Although Richard's link to the dialogue somewhat set that back.

John Walker