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Old 12-25-2005, 05:44 PM   #4
Ninth
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Paris, France
Posts: 6,409
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Ok, for tonight I'm game. Note: I've already played, and completed it, once or twice.

Intro: The concept is good, but I can't help but finding the actual thing tedious. For one thing, my game box had the cartoon included, so it made the intro redunant in the first place, and for another, more serious thing, I thing it's cheesy. Of course, the entire point is to be a bit cheesy, but I thinks it's overdone. What I especially don't like is the inclusion of dialog. Still images go well with a narrator's voice (and Foster's voice is fine), but not with dialogs. At least in my book.
The story it tells is classic, but good, and the story telling is efficient, and to the point.
Still, overall I'm not a fan of the intro.

Beginning of the game.
Well, first of all, I'm playing with ScummVM, using the SuperEagle filter. That's the one I like best, and it suppresses the pixel problem.
Second; I'm using voices + subtitles. Not that I couldn't understand it without the subtitles (although it wouldn't be easy), but I found the voices a tad irritating without the text, for some reason, and in any case, the CAPITALIZED words and different colors add to the atmosphere.

The first puzzles are pretty straightforward, and easy but not too easy, and would be perfect if it weren't for the waiting that can occur while waiting for the robot.
The graphics are great, exuding atmosphere, pretty and gloomy at the same time. The characters and background animations are, as in most of this time's games, excellent, helping make this world alive.
The voice are good, if not great.
The dialogs are a bit cheesy, but that only adds to the game, and they're overall pretty funny, in a dark tongue-in-cheek way. Joey in particular is one savory sidekick.
The story is the good old amnesic thing, but it's impemented well. It's not the game's main asset, though (that would be the atmosphere, followed by the characters, and the humor).

In this part, the furnace scene is one I vividly remembered from my first playing. Its violence is very unexpected, and as such pretty remarkable.
Another screen I found striking is the second one, the "fire exit", where you get a measure of this place height.

So. The intro is "just" ok, but the beginning sets the mood for what follows really well, introducing the settings and characters in a clever way, while not overheating our puzzle solving neurones.

I will be in holidays next week, but you'll probably hear from me again in this or similar threads.
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