[Wouter]

I just received Tunguska today and i'm just starting to play. I was wondering: what are your opinions on the game?

So far, i must congratulate the Tunguska team for great production values: nice music, very straightforward interface, really nice graphics, very polished and bug free look and feel and fast loading times. It has a classy feel to it. The game cover art is great aswell for the uk version and the booklet is neat.

I'm already really happy that i bought the game. However, a couple of "negative" points. Nina's voice doesn't really work for me. Can't really put my finger on it but it gets slightly on my nerves for some reason. Also, i'm a bit dissapointed in the quality of the dialogue. It all seems pretty stiff. I have the feeling that it might not have translated that well from german to english? But that are only first impressions.

Some options i'm missing:
- haven't found a video replay option yet. Is there any?
- the ability to adjust sound volume and voice volume separately

But as said, i'm still at the beginning. And i must say: thumbs up to the team who made this game. It think it is obvious that they are at least very talented. It's amazing how such a small team can produce so much quality.

[lopo]

gr8 game is that i just finnished it and i like it realy much and will play it agein soon gr8 graphics and so on .. good story nice action and nice ending ... not hard puzzles and was easy to some places where hard to understand how to do something but i managed to play to the end with no help

i must say after playng it i think the game get 10 points from me cus i played broken sword 4 before this one

[BlueStinger]

I'm really enjoying it.

Wouter, I know what you mean about Nina's voice but it grows on you after a while. Well it did for me anyway

Also there IS an option to adjust the sound and music separately. It should be glaring at you as soon as you click 'options' on the title menu.

[Rowne]

I'm really impressed with it, to be honest.

I don't know what the US release will be like but the UK edition is wonderful. So I'll cover that, first. For £14.99 ($28.13), it was a bargain compared to most games over here, which can cost anywhere between £20 and £40 for the boxed sort.

The box art is something I like to bring up because whilst they could've just slapped some concept art on there and considered it done, instead they went for a stunning piece that looks akin to a painting of the female protagonist. It has little to do with the game I admit but it looks good on a shelf.

Inside I found a poster of the official game art (the stuff which I believe is used for the US box art, don't quote me on that, though) and on the back of it is a map of the Tunguska region with a few screenshots from the game. Unnessescary but a nice thing to find in there, nonetheless. The manual is wonderfully professional and full colour, a rarity these days I find (except in expensive games). It starts off with a letter from the devs and about halfway through it turns into a mini artbook with sketches and renderings from the game.

As for the game itself, I think it's a really polished adventure. The dialog is really good, at times it can be genuinely funny. I'm pleased by how the characters developed and how Nina seemed to have a leaning towards inner amusingly sociopathic urges whilst Max was a nice (if easy to mildly irritate) fellow with two many puns at his dispsoal. It featured a lot of nice lcoations, a number of wonderful Myst-like environment puzzles and a healthy dose of traditional inventory puzzling.

The proceedings were very logical and only very rarely did I find myself wondering what I had to do, frequently I realized but wondered how I would go about it, which was where the challenge came into it. A problem I normally have with these kinds of games has also been dealt with, usually I have issues finding 'hot spots' in a location due to poor sight. They have a feature though that brings up little magnifying glasses on these hotspots for a short period of time. Usually, I have to check spoilers with adventure games, I admit this but 99 per cent of the time it's because I've missed something in the environment, not due to a lack of determination. I haven't had to check for a Tunguska spoiler once, yet.

Finally, the interface is very clean, it feels a lot like a more modernized and high-res variant of Broken Sword, to be honest. Right down to the little icons that appear when one of the characters talk to someone. It's clear from the style of the game, the story, the World-hopping and the UI that Broken Sword was a great inspiration. This introduces the question thogh of whether, after the first Broken Sword game, you'd like more of the same and of the same level of quality. That was something that I desired so I've enjoyed the proceedings thouroughly.

All in all, it's a professional adventure through and through, the game down to the packaging and for less than just about any boxed game in the UK I can think of right now. I'd honestly say it's a must buy but since the review on AG wasn't all that I would've thought it to be, I'll instead advise anyone thinking of it to try the demo first. If you like the demo, you'll probably like the complete game as much as I did.

- Update.

As for the Nina's voice, I agree that she is a bit grating at first but something occurred to me early on as to why I didn't like it so much. It's because Nina sounds much younger than she actually looks and I think I know why. Throughout the adventure, I found myself thinking "Good grief, she sounds like April Ryan" more than once. I think considering the popularity of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, that's what they were perhaps shooting for and they modified her a bit to suit that goal.

I would imagine that in the German version, she's a little older, a bit more mature and somewhat less the college girl.

[Wouter]

Originally Posted by BlueStinger

Also there IS an option to adjust the sound and music separately. It should be glaring at you as soon as you click 'options' on the title menu.

But there isn't an option to adjust sound effects (birds singing,...) and voice volume separately. I would have liked to make the sound effects a bit louder but now the voice is louder aswell.

Some adventures have this option. Quite handy.

[bored]

The game is good,good graphics and inteface but there is no atmosphere,no feeling.It goes from A to Z,but it does that in a moust pleasant way

[lopo]

on thing disturbes me in the game i read the diery and there is like a year 1949 and the father says i hope to c my little girl agein ... and the year of playtime is like 2006 now if that girl is nina then she must be like 57 years old and that makes him realy old lady

they would change the story line a bit as the father to grandfather then it would suit of the body of Nina in there cus she looked so young

[stinking_dylan]

I mostly agree with the AG review, but I don't think the two main characters are stereotypes. In fact, I'm kind of hoping Nina gets killed! She's a right cow, treating people like cr@p to get what she wants. Which is kind of a nice change in a way. Max being irratable is a nice change too.

The voice acting is pretty poor IMO. I found much of the dialogue unnatural. Max is pretty good, but Nina and most of the others just sound like their reading off their lines. The acoustics are awfull, shifting from a recording studio, to the bottom of a well in mid sentence!

But, even with those faults, I will still definately be pre-ordering their next adventure.

[MadTricks]

Im playing. Currently im in Moskow.

Graphics really is first class. Voice/sound is quite bad imo but gameplay is pretty good with simple puzzles.

Nina walks oddly, and she is too skinny...

I WANT A BIKE I WANT A BIKE I WANT A NINA'S BIKE

[skurken]

Great graphics and one if the best, most user-friendly interface I´ve seen in a adventure game. Mostly bad voice acting though (Oleg in particular) and so-so gamplay/puzzles. I was a little disapointed but still enjoyed it. Looking forward to more from these guys.

[MadTricks]

Well, I actually like Oleg's voiceacting/voice . . .

[Chad316]

I thought it was a great game, enjoyed it all the way. Definitely worth the £14.99 price! Beautiful graphics and a nice choice of locations. I will definitely be buying the sequel.

[Curt]

What I think so far........


Positives:

Extremely polished
Great interface
Superb Graphics
Good story
Mainly logical or fun puzzles
Plenty to find and plenty of locations
Quality cutscenes
Voice acting of many characters are good
Cost

Negatives:

English translation leaves a bit to be desired
Mixed quality voice recording in English version
Maybe a bit too easy in many parts (but it has a good game length by todays standards).
Nina was mis-cast for the English voice


To sum up: most problems seem to stem from the English translation of the game, but the are NOT bad enough to destract from an extremely good game. I've listened to some of the German dialogue and it is definitely superior, but then seeing the love that the developers clearly put into this game that is no surprise - they probably can't be blamed for the English translations and I'm sure they will learn from this fro future developments. For a first adventure game this is a top notch effort from Deep Silver and I'll definitely be looking out with great anticipation for any future games from them.


Definitely worth buying if you like point-and-click adventures

[MadTricks]

Originally Posted by lopo

gr8 game is that i just finnished it and i like it realy much and will play it agein soon gr8 graphics and so on .. good story nice action and nice ending ... not hard puzzles and was easy to some places where hard to understand how to do something but i managed to play to the end with no help

I must agree

Tere

[nosta]

i basically agree.
i too feel its a very silky and polished game, it also is not too taxing and the artwork is simply brilliant.
The voices havnt bothered me as much as some games but i was idssapointed with the people in ireland having no accents at all.just plain voices, some with not much effort put in to them atall..
the rest are ok though.

[Wouter]

I'm almost at the end of Tunguska and must admit that i feel a little dissapointed from a game i was looking forward to so much. In fact, i now just use a walkthrough to get to the end because i'm not really motivated anymore to play it.

My positive points:
- fantastic artwork. Really well done (allthough the settings aren't as inspiring as for example Sokal's work).
- fantastic cut-scenes
- really nice music and background noises. Again, good work.
- spot on interface. Superb!
- characters are well done and blend in nicely with the backgrounds.
- great idea of the journal
- fast loading times, great menu,...
- great booklet, package
- superb production values and a very nice oldschool adventure
- great animations (trees for example) and weather effects

Negative points:
- like almost all adventure games: it doesn't give any feeling of being a living world (desolated worlds, too few animations, too few characters, in fact nearly no character which doesn't play a role in the game).
- story could have been nice but it lacks pace
- main characters are totally "flat" and lack personality and emotion.
- the jokes aren't all that funny
- the voice of Nina is quite annoying. Also, no accents when in different countries.

It's a promising first adventure game. Now that they have a splendid engine, superb interface,... hopefully Deep Silver will concentrate a bit more on other things. Make the world more alive, add depth and emotion to the characters, and try to add more of a personal touch. More drama, more suspense, ...

In the end, i feel that the review on AG was 100% correct.

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by Wouter

In the end, i feel that the review on AG was 100% correct.

I live to read things like this.

[Wouter]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

I live to read things like this.

Don't get me started on your Paradise review though

[Curt]

Originally Posted by Wouter

- the jokes aren't all that funny

I think that may have something to do with the translation - the humour doesn't really carry across from German into English. I think the English dialogue may have needed altering more rather than doing a direct translation. Still, as you say Wouter, Deep Silver are fairly new to the genre so each game should be a learning process. If this sells well (it has in Germany) then they should have better financial reserves to concentrate more on the translation and voice acting in any new games.

They got far more right than they got wrong with their first adventure which bodes well for the future. Like House of Tales, definitely a company to watch closely.

[Wouter]

Originally Posted by Curt

Still, as you say Wouter, Deep Silver are fairly new to the genre so each game should be a learning process. If this sells well (it has in Germany) then they should have better financial reserves to concentrate more on the translation and voice acting in any new games.

They got far more right than they got wrong with their first adventure which bodes well for the future. Like House of Tales, definitely a company to watch closely.

Absolutely. Despite my negative points, i still am glad to have bought this game. And for a first adventure, it is absolutely impressive. So i would not even hesitate for a moment to buy their next game.