[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

Yeah, it was. As I said, the intro is great.

Oh, wait... You mean the not-at-all subtle hints in the intro were not enough and you only discovered it later? Boy, you're slow.

Now now, don't be mean. There's no way to know just from the intro exactly who's getting throttled in that cabin. Sure, you can pretty much figure out that Carrington's dead in Chapter 1 (what with Steve lugging that heavy chest and all), but many of the other pieces don't come until later.

More seriously, that particular subplot didn't work too bad, and even more or less managed to fit within the main plot. And so do quite a few other elements. But it's all done quite inconsistently: some things fit together and others don't.

Sure, the plot doesn't ultimately come together as one whole, but the individual pieces are big enough and good enough that I don't think it really matters that much. I'd rather have a story that's a bit incoherent but told with energy and enthusiasm, than a more pedestrian affair that takes care for everything to make sense.

For instance, I prefer the over-the-top carnage (and real suspense) of Dagger of Amon Ra to the pretentious nonsense of Gabriel Knight.

Just like some things are painfully obvious (including the identity of the murderer), while others are really impossible to get by yourself. And many very important things are never explained by the game and, to this day, still make no sense to me. This includes:

Spoiler:

Why did O'Riley (sp?) kill Carter?
What was Yvette's involvement in Ziggy's murder?
What was the dagger still doing in the museum, when Little had every chance to hand it over to O'Riley much earlier? Why was it in the gift shop? Why did it then end up in that alcohol vat?
Why did O'Riley behead Ziggy? Why did he move Ernie's body from that vat of alcohol in the basement to the tusks of that mamooth? How could he do that without getting seen? How could he do that full stop?

I think that you'll agree that those are not exactly minor questions.

Well, in The Big Sleep, none of the writers nor the director had any idea who committed one of the murders. And that's still a detective classic. It's been too long since I played the game for me to tell whether your questions have answers, but there are two things to keep in mind:

1. The murderer was obviously batshit insane. He/she kills, what? a dozen people in one night.
2. If slasher movies have taught us anything, it's that serial killers are capable of superhuman feats of strength, speed and hiding.

Maybe you thought that it didn't really matter. Well, it bugged me. A lot. It still does. I can accept any inconsistency in Monkey Island or Space Quest, I can accept minor inconsistencies in LB1, GK3, etc., I can even accept the time distorsions in GK2, but that was too much for me.

Even disregarding that Monkey Island doesn't have any major inconsistencies (or any at all, as far as I'm aware), this double standard is a bit unfair, don't you think? Yes, I do think it matters; it's definitely one of Dagger's flaws. I just don't think it's critical.

I liked long conversations in TLJ, the BS games, the Tex Murphy games, GK, etc. But, frankly, those in LB2 were mostly bad, for reasons I gave in the review. As to the interface, I'll disagree with you. Just look at what BS, Tex Murphy, GK1, etc. did: you have a list of topics, you click on one, you get an answer, you click on the next one, etc. That's much better than that ridiculous notebook system.

You criticized the conversations from a characterization perspective, but didn't really consider how they worked in terms of revealing information, which is their gameplay function. As I recall, they're pretty well designed in that respect.

And the conversation systems in those other games aren't really comparable, as they don't allow you nearly the same amount of freedom in interrogating people.

As I said above, there's a certain level of inconsistencies I can stomach. LB2 went much beyond that for me. Obviously, you have a higher tolerance level.

It's not really a question of inconsistency, though. It's a matter of stylization. Like chess fails to realistically model battle, Dagger of Amon Ra fails to realistically model people walking around in a museum. The convention of the game is that people only appear for set-piece scenes, or very occasionally wandering around for you to interview.

Of course, the reason for this is that LB2 doesn't primarily attempt to mimic reality, but rather whodunits in books, plays and films. When you try to look at it as if it was real, some details are a bit odd, but no more so than when a trireme defeats a gunboat in Civilization.

I'm not saying that having one puzzle that requires you to cheat is an unforgivable flaw (although, for a game released long before the Internet became widespread, it's certainly not a great idea). But when it is this one, this big 'puzzle' that the whole game is all about, then, yes, it is unforgivable.

It's such a small part of the whole game, and the overall experience, that I don't think no matter how flawed it is it could be "unforgivable." It strikes me as very much an afterthought, not what "the whole game is all about."

I think it's mostly a matter of priorities. I think I judged the game for what it itself decided to set as its priorities, namely the mystery.

I think if you were to judge it on what's clearly its number one priority, that would have to be the atmosphere. And I think it pulls that part off with flair.