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Old 09-25-2007, 07:10 PM   #1
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Default The Longest Journey was the last straw *Spoiler Warning*.

*Warning* This post talks about specific parts of The Longest Journey hence spoilers.

This issue has been brooding in me for some time and I really feel like I need to get it out there. And here it is...

I am completely sick of adventure games and The Longest Journey was the last straw. There I said it.

First thing first. I was delighted to find TLJ on steam, I had been hanging to play it for a few years and had been looking for a copy. Steam just made getting it so easy. TJL started off well. The prologue sequence was magnificent, the city was stunning, April looked like a fun character. But the game so quickly deteriorated and has almost completely destroyed my faith in the whole genre. Here is why. TLJ turned into try everything on everything, it just felt like doing a jigsaw puzzle face down. It may not be fair to single out TLJ it was just the most recent of a series of disappointments that included Sam and Max, Grim Fandango, Broken Sword, Syberia and Still Life. All these are generally considered the of the best of the genre. And if this is the best the genre can do, then I agree with the mainstream media saying adventure gaming is dead. I'm sorry about this post sounding like flame bait, I dont mean it to. As I said this is something that has been bugging me for a while.

The point in TLJ where I gave up on it was the ridiculous sequence of events required to get into the cinema. It was just absurd. When I play a game I want options and choices. Give me multiple ways to solve a problem. I don't want to try and figure out the absurd logic of the game designer to just get from a to b. Give me choice about how to get into that cinema. Perhaps the character could climb on the roof and break into an air vent, which could be a mini-game in its self, perhaps you could attempt to bribe the attendant, perhaps cause a diversion so the attendant leaves the cinema with enough time for you to sneak in, perhaps you could create a fake health inspector id and get in that way. The best they could come up with was a battery powered monkey and a shadow wearing a hat! That puzzle was just so frustrating and pointless, it was merely an artificial block just to slow the player down. On its own the shadow and the monkey puzzle would have been an annoyance, but you had to jump through several other assured puzzles just to get there, including poisoning a PI and building a 'fishing pole' out of a rubber ducky and a clamp. Argh multiple pointless roadblocks.

Yes I want choice or at least some paralleled puzzles so if I get stuck on one then I can at least try something else. In DOTT I could switch characters when I got stuck, Riven had multiple puzzle you could work on simultaneously. TLJ there was no choice you had to get into that cinema, there was nothing else you could do, mindless a to b to c, with mini face down jigsaws puzzles just to slow you down. What really frustrates me is that I know adventure game can be so much better, we have Monkey Island, DOTT, Riven and The Last Express to prove it.

So I'm giving up on the adventure gaming. I may revisit it in the future, Experinence112 looks interesting and Grey Matter might be worth a play, Jane Jenson's work on the whole is pretty good.

I had high hopes for TLJ and I was just so let down. If anyone has any suggestions that might restore my faith in the genre I'm all ears. Sorry about the rant and thanks for listening.

A frustrated gamer.
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Old 09-25-2007, 07:24 PM   #2
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You think Grim Fandango and Sam and Max are no good.. but you DO like DOTT and Monkey Island...

?!?!?!?!

Makes no sense to me.

I also had zero problems with any of the puzzles you hated in TLJ. Absolutely zero - not conceptually, nor with the actual solution, nor with the execution.

Sounds like the games you've been playing haven't been meeting your own personal requirements... however, there are many, MANY other games out there that you didn't mention. I wouldn't give up just yet.
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Old 09-25-2007, 07:39 PM   #3
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You think Grim Fandango and Sam and Max are no good.. but you DO like DOTT and Monkey Island...

?!?!?!?!

Makes no sense to me.
Lucasarts adventure games are very different. Monkey island was nothing like DOTT which was nothing like Grim Fandango. I don't see why its confusing to like some but dislike others.
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Old 09-25-2007, 07:41 PM   #4
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You know, TLJ (and it's sequel) is hardly representative of all AGs these days.
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Old 09-25-2007, 08:46 PM   #5
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Sam and Max, Grim Fandango, Broken Sword, Syberia, TLJ and Still Life are usually examples that people give when they want to prove the success of the genre. The more practice one recieves in terms of adventure games, the more you will understand the way that one must think: either extremely logically or extremely illogically. I do understand that you can momentarily avoid puzzles that you don't get by switching characters in DOTT, but that doesn't prevent you from having to eventually solving them anyhow. I can also understand how inconsistant logic may befuddle the player, and that is not fair; a player should be able to role-play the protagonist and temporarily think as the protagonist does and an inconsistant thought process can hinder fluidity in the game and frusterate players. I am not quite sure how Monkey Island differs in gameplay with Grim Fandango and thus cannot understand from where your complaints are coming. Both are linear, wacky and imaginative in gameplay and design, and both constantly compared in similarity to one another. The only difference is the mouse vs. arrowpad movement and Grim's heads-up item label feature. Could you specify here?

Adventure games are just a series of roadblocks in order to get to the finish. I do not believe in the slightest that linearity is inherently bad in a game at all. When a writer sets out to portray a theme and message, it may be the case that he or she does not want multiple solutions to a given problem because that "creativity" may cause discrepancies within the plot, disruption of the message and theme, and even may hinder the creativity of the writer when they are to be forced to add in an extra "out" to a situation. The games you refered to (at least Grim, TLJ and Broken) are about ten years old or more and open-endedness was very limited and not in relentless of the video game market. Games back then were not criticized for being linear because very few games had even touched something close to open ended choice gameplay. It is like criticizing a movie for not being in color when color wasn't even invented or in the mainstream.

I think that the forward progression of adventure games may lead to more multiple choice driven games, but there should not be rush to shut the door on linearity completely. After all, one of the many charms of the adventure genre is its ability to tell a story like a book using strong literary elements and characterization in order to portray an ultimate message, profound or merely lighthearted. Unless a choice is important in the deliverance of the theme or immerses the player deeper within the plot, I believe that it is best to allow the writer to present his or her material in a way that will stay true to the original intended direction

Since when has a puzzle not been a "pointless" hinderance in an adventure game? Even some of the most creative puzzles are just roadblocks preventing you to move forward. Without the occasional obscure and unusual puzzles, we would rarely be able to appreciate getting to the cinematic or progressing the plot.
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Old 09-25-2007, 08:58 PM   #6
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Welcome to AG andii.

It sounds as if you are very particular in what you like. You may want to browse our reviews page, but don't just pay attention to the scores (as some of the games that didn't work for you got high scores). Have a look to see what is said about the puzzles and story and what might appeal to you.

If you like non-linearity, you may like Last Half of Darkness: Beyond the Spirit's Eye (that review is coming very soon) or the predecessors in the series. Also, Barrow Hill may appeal to you as it offers the ability to do many things at once. Have you played any of the other Myst games? I'm a particular fan of Myst: Exile. I hope that gives you a start.
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Old 09-25-2007, 10:35 PM   #7
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Thanks TangentBlack you have made some good points.

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Since when has a puzzle not been a "pointless" hinderance in an adventure game? Even some of the most creative puzzles are just roadblocks preventing you to move forward. Without the occasional obscure and unusual puzzles, we would rarely be able to appreciate getting to the cinematic or progressing the plot.
I disagree with this. The good puzzles are part of the story. The reason I mentioned Monkey Island is it had the three quests for becoming a pirate section. Where if you got stuck on one quest there was two others to try (Disclaimer its been years and years since I have played MI so I could be wrong about this), I know there were parts of the game that were linear but it did have this non linear element. Plus the puzzle were part of the story, not a block to the story. For example learning how to sword fight, finding treasure and getting a crew. In Grim Fandango (in the part i played before giving up on it) the puzzles had little to do with anything as with the 'get into the cinema' puzzle in TLJ.

Its not open endedness I'm after. I'm after choice and options. Even KQ1 there were choices in the order you could solve puzzles. If you got stuck on one there were others to try. Yes you do have solve these puzzles eventually but they are not presented in a linear fashion, so you can tackle them at will.

The trouble with the 'get into the cinema' puzzle in TLJ is it destroyed any trust I have in the game to have logical puzzles. I guess its the adventure equivalent of leap of faith game play.
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Old 09-25-2007, 10:42 PM   #8
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Welcome to AG andii.
Thanks Melanie68. I actually have been lurking on and off these forums for a few years. I guess I did not have anything much to say until now...

I'll check out those games you mentioned. I did enjoy Exile, but did not like Myst 4 that much. Have not played Myst 5 yet. Some parts of URU were good, others just terrible. The trouble with the Myst series is that Riven was just sooo good, the other games have a tough time living up to it (:
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Old 09-25-2007, 11:56 PM   #9
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I like the way you think, andii. You might be interested in reading some of my Adventure Architect articles, particularly the one where I talk about experimenting with choices.
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Old 09-26-2007, 12:22 AM   #10
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Quote:
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... The point in TLJ where I gave up on it was the ridiculous sequence of events required to get into the cinema. It was just absurd...
Let me tell you this: you are absolutely on target about this issue, IMHO. That senseless cinema puzzle right in the beggining of the game, when things are starting to look interesting, completely kills the mood. What's worse, I also believe it's representative of the whole genre in some sense (in fact, GK3 has a similar let-down.) That's what makes walkthrougs almost mandatory in some cases (or hints, at least). That's why AGs will not attract new gamers, who don't feel like "thinking in an AG way", and why old-timers like myself are frustrated by the lack of appeal of what should be the greatest of all genres.

Sorry for being blunt, I am also speaking my mind here. Of course, this is all MHO and I completely understand other points of view.
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Old 09-26-2007, 02:36 AM   #11
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I think several of the Kheops games feature the option to change which puzzles you're working on, and often gives you several options as to how you do it. An example is Return to Mysterious Island, where you can build a fishing rod to capture fish, and have several items you can pick up, that work as parts of the fishing rod, or other things.
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Old 09-26-2007, 04:04 AM   #12
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I had high hopes for TLJ and I was just so let down. If anyone has any suggestions that might restore my faith in the genre I'm all ears.
If you haven't played it already, I recommend the underrated FMV adventure Dark Side of the Moon (1998): strong, intriguing story, puzzles that make perfect sense in the game world, very non-linear gameplay. You even get to make choices that have real consequences. For instance, early in the game you can choose to report a boy to a security guard or let him get away. Guess what happens when you meet the boy again later...

DSotM has a few drawbacks. Lots of diskswapping (unless you find the DVD version), no subtitles and a small playing window, which you get used to pretty soon. But I loved it.

@squinky:

Your system of "affinity points" is new to me, but there have been adventures with choices that influence the outcomes in various ways. All of them FMV (at least the ones I can think of right now) and I don't think that's a coincidence.

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Old 09-26-2007, 04:51 AM   #13
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Yeah, I replayed the beginning of TLJ some weeks ago and I also was annoyed by this cinema puzzle.
The problem for me wasn't the linearity (although this could get ridiculous sometimes, for example you had to talk to Mickey first before you could watch TV with her and Fiona...), but that the puzzle didn't fit the game style. The cinema puzzle with all its parts (rubber duck, "do the monkey") would be fine for a comedy adventure like DOTT where logic works in different ways, but not for such a serious title.

Oh, and I also didn't enjoy Grim Fandango. But it was the controls which made it unplayable for me without a walkthrough. It was no fun. Yeah, the story was great, but the gameplay lacked.

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Old 09-26-2007, 04:56 AM   #14
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As you seem to like options and multiple paths, you should try Deus Ex. While not a true Adventure Game, it provides a great story and several options of approaching each level in the game.
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Old 09-26-2007, 05:31 AM   #15
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You'd probably like the Quest For Glory series. If memory serves, virtually all the "puzzles" seemed pretty integral to the story... and I know there were multiple ways to solve each problem depending on what character class you chose (or if you did a hybrid, you could use any of the ways).
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Old 09-26-2007, 05:35 AM   #16
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The cinema puzzle with all its parts (rubber duck, "do the monkey") would be fine for a comedy adventure like DOTT where logic works in different ways, but not for such a serious title.
A comedy adventure does not have the excuse for including pointless irrelevant puzzles, even under the wacky-zany banner. This is one of the reasons I did not like Sam and Max. In DOTT the puzzles had a point and tied in with the story. They were also logical and consistent with the game's framework. Same with Monkey island. DOTT and MI managed to be both logical and zany. Sam and Max was just arbitary wackiness.

Beacon, I've heard so many good things about Deus Ex, I'll have to take a look. Oblivion is another game I'm thinking about, if the RPG is not too full on. I loved stalker and many people said stalker had elements of oblivion and deus ex in it...

Top article Squinky, I would love to see a game where your actions actually have consequences.

I am tempted to play Mysterious Island I did like the book. IIRC it had allot of inventory puzzles. Are they logical?

I'm not sure if I can stomach FMV games anymore. But hey, I might be surprised.
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Old 09-26-2007, 05:39 AM   #17
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You'd probably like the Quest For Glory series. If memory serves, virtually all the "puzzles" seemed pretty integral to the story... and I know there were multiple ways to solve each problem depending on what character class you chose (or if you did a hybrid, you could use any of the ways).
Yep loved 1,2 and 4 (3 not so much),
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Old 09-26-2007, 05:48 AM   #18
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Quote:
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A comedy adventure does not have the excuse for including pointless irrelevant puzzles, even under the wacky-zany banner. This is one of the reasons I did not like Sam and Max. In DOTT the puzzles had a point and tied in with the story. They were also logical and consistent with the game's framework. Same with Monkey island. DOTT and MI managed to be both logical and zany. Sam and Max was just arbitary wackiness.
It may be true that this cinema puzzle was also an unnecessary complicated hindrance.
But that wasn't my point. It feels even more so out of place since it doesn't make sense in any realistic environment. The rubber duck puzzle was so ridiculous cumbersome, but wouldn't even work in real world.
And the rubber duck and monkey toy puzzle seem like comic logic to me.
I mean, it wouldn't so bad if I would come across them in a comedy adventure game. Okay, they should be tied in better in the story, but it least you know which rules of logic should apply there.
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Old 09-26-2007, 07:15 AM   #19
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It has been a while since I have played Grim, but there are some puzzles that do follow an altered classic format that you described in Monkey Island. For example, in year two it was necessary to release a union bee from prison and at the same time you could be working on trying to get Glottis to stop gambling. In BS1, you have to solve multiple puzzles before being bottlenecked into discovering the secret of the missing soldier.

I can absolutely understand your concern when a game does not follow a consistant form of logic (or illogic) throughout a game. For example, if a cow is a pig in a game, you wouldn't expect a dog to be a dog in that given plain of continuity, if you catch my drift. I would hope not to find a Sam and Max or MI style puzzle in a game like The Moment of Silence or Scratches.

By the way, every puzzle IS a hinderance in a game, they do not do their job if they don't make you think. However, if I see that I have a candle and a match, I expect they will be used in conjunction with one another if the game follows that realistic reasonability. What I don't expect is to use the candle to reach a high object on a shelf and then use the match to poke someones eye out without any clue as to the possibilty of those given actions. Those kind of puzzles irk me like none other and do not rightly belong in an adventure game, or any game to be exact.
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Old 09-26-2007, 08:24 AM   #20
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Quote:
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I am tempted to play Mysterious Island I did like the book. IIRC it had allot of inventory puzzles. Are they logical?
Yes. Easy too.

Quote:
I'm not sure if I can stomach FMV games anymore.
DSotM is prerendered + FMV. Just like Riven. Except that Riven doesn't have so many different characters to talk to.
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