[Ninth]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

I don't see why it's so critical that an adventure be considered a game/*game*. In any case, I'd find it hard to disagree with you just because it's self-evident to me that without a story, an adventure is nothing. You have no thread tying it all together, no motivation to keep moving, no reason to play the game in the first place (I don't consider wasting time an adequate reason, no.). If this doesn't bother you, then I have no valid argument with you.

In this case, many (non-adventure) games are not worth playing. Take Prince of Persia (old one) for example. No characterisation, no real story. But still, it's worth it for other reasons.

In fact, it all depends on why you're playing adventure games. For me, story (and puzzles) are secondary to the atmosphere. If I feel good in a game, then the story doesn't matter that much. For example, Goblins has no serious story, but yet it is very fun to play, and Myst, boring book-reading aside, has no story, it has a premise, but that doesn't prevent it from being addictive. BASS, as I said, has some good dialogs, a funny sidekick, easy but fun puzzles, pretty graphics... I consider that motivation enough to play through it.

EDIT: That said, BASS definetely has a story, and a thread that ties it all together.

[Kurufinwe]

To make a long post short, I think an interesting story/premise is a must, but I've never played an adventure game specifically looking for a good story. I've sometimes (seldom, very seldom) encountered a very good one, but that's just a bonus. Anyway, I've already gone long enough about the whole 'exploring locations and the personalities of characters' and 'puzzles' thing, so I'll stop there this time.


Now, something more important : the next section of BASS will obviously be the last. Now, I don't have most of my CDs with me, so I'd like some time to prepair for the next community playthrough. So maybe we should, without forgetting the discussion on BASS, slowly consider determining what the next game could be (esp. since there'll be much to say about the final part). I have a few possible ideas, of course, but maybe it's still a bit premature? Anyway, I'll leave that in the hands of our very capable chairwoman, but I thought it worth mentioning that some of us might need some time to get prepaired.

[Jeysie]

Kurufinwe: Never fear! I had been planning on posting a new thread soliciting game suggestions when I posted the last playthrough point here, to give a week to think about it. (I wanted to keep this thread focused on just this game's discussion.) I can post the "game ideas" thread now, though, if people want. In fact, I think I will do that now.

Peace & Luv, Liz

P.S. BTW, thankee again, Dale.

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

P.S. BTW, thankee again, Dale.

No probs

[Jazhara7]

As it looks like I won't have time to catch up on this, I just wanted to tell you my favourite Joey-Scene:

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Joey, the Dalek!

*glee*


-

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Ninth

In this case, many (non-adventure) games are not worth playing. Take Prince of Persia (old one) for example. No characterisation, no real story. But still, it's worth it for other reasons.

Well, I didn't enjoy any of the Prince of Persia games, so let's take a shmup. No story whatsoever, no characters, tons of fun. Or even playing piano- completely abstract, and that's fun too! So of course I would never say that a game needs a story to be entertaining. Let's not confuse the matter: I'm saying that an adventure needs a story to be entertaining. As I've said in the past: I can enjoy puzzles much more if they're part of a puzzle game, with a good difficulty curve and a pick-up-and-play mentality. When they're put into an adventure, they're only being held up by the story. Without a good story, it is a bad adventure, and it cannot hold my interest for long.

Now Myst- let's not go there. It's obviously not serving the same purpose as adventures, regardless of how you classify it. I don't know what Goblins is.

In any case, Joey is mildly funny, and there are plenty of good gags, as I've said, but you don't spend as much time on them as you do just wandering around. They are secondary. Secondary elements can never hold up a game.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Now Myst- let's not go there. It's obviously not serving the same purpose as adventures, regardless of how you classify it. I don't know what Goblins is.

I feel like it's serving the same purpose to me. Probably because we don't play adventure games for the same reason.

[colpet]

I finished it yesterday. There wasn't really that much left to do. I got stuck releasing the virus

Spoiler:

I didn't know it was on the ID card.

.
All in all, it was fun to play. The game was very reminiscent of GK1 (for me). Same kind of graphics and feel. Same kind of pixel hunting challenges. Even the way the cut scenes were done was similar to Sins of the Fathers.
It was a game I wouldn't have played had it not been for the community involvement, so I would say that that is a plus for playing games this way. The premise didn't break any new ground for me ( Otherland books, the Matrix), but it may have had I played it at the time it was released. It was a fun game, and I'm glad I didn't miss out on it.
One thing I felt was out of place was:

Spoiler:

Ken getting stuck. I mean, what was the point of that?

[Karmillo]

Originally Posted by colpet

Spoiler:

Ken getting stuck. I mean, what was the point of that?

Spoiler:

To avoid having to animate him climbing down the ladder and swinging into the door

[colpet]

Originally Posted by Karmillo

Spoiler:

To avoid having to animate him climbing down the ladder and swinging into the door

[Jeysie]

Well, since I still haven't gotten a chance to catch up yet, and discussion seems to have dropped off, we might as well "offically" declare everyone play to the end of the game. So I hearby declare this a "normal" thread... talk about whatever part of the game you like, now.

Hopefully I can find the time to weigh in later... I think the stuff you learn addresses a lot of the earlier questions and complaints (like why the helicopter crash in the beginning even happened, why Reich only had control over Lamb's LINC status, etc.) In fact, I think that's what I like best about this game... it's good at setting things up and paying them off later.

If anyone's wondering, I'll post the Gabriel Knight 1 Playthrough thread in a few days or so, to keep people from being distracted from finishing and discussing this game. (I see the 5 Days a Stranger thread question has already been undertaken...)

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Karmillo]

could we maybe have more than a few days for the people who still have to get this game? there doesnt seem to be many options availible to get it

[Jeysie]

Sure, I don't mind waiting. In fact, I'd wanted to wait until February 1st to post the GK1 thread, just to round things off a bit, but it seemed like people were always getting impatient with thread progress.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[MoriartyL]

Okay, I played the ending...

The evil father, the solution straight out of Star Trek: The Next Generation... cliche upon cliche with no emotion whatsoever. Is there a point to all this? Am I supposed to be surprised or even interested in the "revelations" at the end? Blah.

Who's this Gallagher guy? The name rings a bell, but I can't remember who he is. Anyhow, he's killed off for no dramatic reason, which brings the count of pointless deaths up to three, not including all the times Joey's destroyed. Speaking of which, Joey gets two more shells, apparently because the artists were having fun. Well, I wasn't. His personality didn't change with the first shell change (or two, if you count the beginning)- why now? And the Ken personality contradicts everything we'd seen of Joey up to that point. And with that, the count of worthwhile characters is brought from one back down to zero. Yay, writers!

Then there are the two shameless pixel-hunts. Was I supposed to notice that socket or those tongs? How could I possibly, when they blend in so well to the background? Bad puzzles. Then there's the last minute choice resulting in death. The writers must have realized that they had no tension at all leading up to that point, so they threw in that last desparate effort to get the player to feel like something -anything- is happening. It doesn't work- it just annoys, when the player is forced to replay a section for no good reason.


Overall, Beneath a Steel Sky is just a flat-out bad game. It revolves around a pathetic excuse for a story, without developing any characters at all, with puzzles that are all filler and an environment which feels artificial. The art design is generic and the music is painful and inappropriate. There is no originality to be found anywhere. The vast majority of the gameplay revolves around watching a slow walking animation. On the upside, there's one good scene with limited interactivity, and a bunch of cute gags littered throughout. Why does anyone like this game, exactly?

[Karmillo]

The Gallagher guy was sitting outside lambs apartment, you never really had any reason to talk to him
He’s also playing poker later on in the club on ground level, again you never have a reason to talk to him, but he does sometime talk when your talking to the club owner.

I had the same problem with Joey, but when you think about it...you never really changed shells when you put him in the welder, all that happened was rob takes the welder off its wheels and drop it on Joey then he's suddenly wired up to it...life must have been allot easier when the scientists invented magic

But yeah, after all I’ve heard about this game it turned out be very disappointing, I wonder why everyone really wants a sequel out of this?

...what the? My text is all small and funny

[bigjko]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

why Reich only had control over Lamb's LINC status

Why was that, anyway? I must've missed that.

And yes, ending had me feeling completely underwhelmed. I agree completely with Moriarty. The ending didn't have any sort of impact on me.

[Jeysie]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

why Reich only had control over Lamb's LINC status

The decrypted Report.doc file on Reich's card in the LINC terminal after going through LINC space:

"No authority on record for increased status and promotion to supervisor. Unlawful intrusion suspected. Action: Level 3 surveillance."

I got the impression that Reich was given control over Lamb's LINC status in case the surveillance turned up any conclusive results of criminal activity.

I find it interesting because it implies that maybe the apparent incompetence of most of the workers we see is purposeful, rather than "merely" the artifact of a decaying society.

As for Gallagher... talking to him elicits riddle-like comments that suggest he has some idea of what's going on with Foster. (Seems nobody other than myself finds the thought of trying to decipher what he meant to be very interesting...) By killing off Reich, Anita, and Gallagher - the only people other than Foster who seem to have any clue that anything weird is happening - Foster is kept in the dark.

As for Joey... as Karmillo more or less said, Joey's first two shells were just empty shells, with no inherent personality potential to affect Joey's basic circuitry.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Kurufinwe]

Finished it too. Not much to say, the ending is indeed rather disappointing (and predictable). Gallagher never made any sense in the game, and discovering who he is doesn't really make it any better. And I've already said that I didn't care for Ken (though I loved trying every item on him when he got stuck at the door).

The main plot wasn't BASS's strong point, no doubt about that, but it didn't prevent me from enjoying it. I still hold that the gameplay is some of the best ever.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this community playthrough. It was a great idea, and really worked well. Thanks to Jeysie, of course, and to everybody who took part in it; it was really interesting to read everyone's comments and discuss some points I had never given much though to (and engage in neverending debates with MoriartyL ). I hope most of us will be taking part in the GK1 playthrough (and 5 days a stranger).

As a side note, I'm fully set up for GK1 (after spending a lot of time going back and forth between the VGA and the SVGA versions, I've finally settled for the former), but I think we should leave some time for those who need to get it (well, after lobbying for being given enough time between the choice of the game and the start of the playthrough, I'm not going to change my mind just because I happen to have this one close at hand). I'm eager to start, though (I wasn't especially enthused at first --- and I wanted Conquests of the Longbow --- but installing it and watching the intro a set me in the mood again). It's gonna be fun.

[After a brisk nap]

I'll definitely be up for some ballot-stuffing to ensure that Conquests of the Longbow is the next game on the list.

[colpet]

Forgot to say 'thanks' to Jeysie for starting the community playthroughs.