[CoyoteAG]

Originally Posted by Cris Pandry

It seemed Phoenix was quite a passive character and quite naive.

The best part is that she doesn't seem to know any slang terms at all yet she learned how to pick a lock from watching MacGyver.

[Mikekelly]

I just love this game - best AG I've ever played. Like a good book - did not want it to end.

I will be replaying this one over and over..................

[sierramindy]

I feel silly asking this, but why did Sandra call her Phoebe? Is this some kind of nickname for Phoenix?
I'm directionally challenged and I got confused when Phoenix would go through a door because she was facing the door in the next scene, and I would think that was where she was headed so I would go through it only to find myself back where I had been. In other words, Phoenix went through doors backwards, people. Or am I the backward one here?
On the whole though I found the game rather boring in spite of liking Phoenix and Sandra and the gossiping scenes. I didn't like it when Phoenix was questioning people and SHE decided it was enough and stopped. I felt it should be up to me to decide when enough was enough. Still and all, I'm not sorry I played the game because I had been looking forward to it for a long time and now my curiosity about the game has been satisfied, a big plus!

[Hasimir]

I fail to understand HOW this game could get so much credit!
It was barely "acceptable" to me.

Tecnically, it was a PAIN to play.
From the Movement control to the whole Inventory system.
And I was lucky enough to get only one crash (many other good players fell in the line of duty due to this )

The gameplay was, overall, desperately booooooring.
I constantly felt that every element of the game was built to make a short story last longer.
Also, many times I felt that the main character was plain stupid: she stumbled on something, noted how important it was, then asked people about useless and unrelated thigs ... come on!
The best result achivable was to reduce the times you had to re-intervie someone from 3-4 to just 2-3.

Bad game, made worst by all the hype and expectation created reading the (unexplainably good) cooments about it.

It had potential...yes.
The setting is quite well made and deep, it feels concrete and real, interesting to explore (not physically, but socially and culturally).
And the story could have been quite good...a "remote" criminal investigation that ended up revealing so much more than expected.
With a very strong lead-up to the sequel game, and a much bigger mistery-plot involving human salvation.
(And the quote from Wargames, awsome! )

But the GAME itself literally ruined the experience of the story and adventure, for me.
I seriously hope they change...well...everything for the sequel (the story SHOULD be very cool, let's hope the rest matches up).

Just my 2 cents

[edit]
I forgot...my final score was 94 or 96 ... can't remember ^^

[Keregioz]

I agree that many things could be done so much better... but is still one of the best adventure games I've played.

[Johan]

Seems like the game "Culpa Innata" was inspired by the two volume novell "Schrödinger’s Cat" written by the Turkish writer Alev Alatli ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alev_Alatl%C4%B1)

The books in the series are called "The Nightmare" and "The dream" which tell a futuristic story on Turkey for year 2020.

Somebody already read those books?

[burns flipper]

I finished this yesterday, and found it very enjoyable. I had only one computer crash whilst playing (ironically, just after I thought "it's a nice change to have a stable game!"), and I also had Phoenix run backwards through the Business District.

A few quick thoughts:
*Talking to Sandra is useful - she gives the name of Perez's girlfriend, so you can go interview her
* I had a score of 84. I only had 1 out of 2 of the practice interviews at the GSPN.
* I found the metro tile puzzle after finding only 4 out of 5 kiosks, so although I discovered I should spell PEACE, I didn't know which exact letters to use. I used a solution to get the answer...and then when I found kiosk number 5 in the Business District, Phoenix refused to look at it so I never solved the last one.
*In my ending, it seemed to end with Phoenix going to Russia to view a 25-day old chalk line of Bogdanov. Not sure what I was supposed to learn from this!

[burns flipper]

And my long thoughts...

The Land of Renovators plot certainly seems to be setting it up as a sequel by the sheer volume of content:

*The intro sequence was dedicated to a lesson given by them.
*The Butterfly image puzzle, including collecting 4 inventory items, unscrambling some of them, and solving the graveyard puzzles.
*The effort that went into creating the locations in the metro tunnel - the hospital that you can't enter, the tunnels, the Observatory, the computer room, the cafeteria, the abandoned mine and related puzzles.


The sequel will be a quest of Phoenix' to uncover the truth about her society. The following clues lead to this:
*The University Professor's work, which indicated the official history of the World Union has been doctored. He was gathering evidence to show how the media representations defining the history were different from eyewitness accounts.
*Roger Arnett questioning Phoenix' beliefs in the system, saying she wasn't ready yet to learn the truth
*The Land of Renovators' hospital receptionist and the GrandMaster echoing this - that Phoenix is not yet ready for her quest to discover the truth
*Mr Hamilton's involvement with the Renovators, with him currently keeping the truth from the world
*The abilities of the graveyard "ghost" - although, as he was leading Phoenix to discover butterfly images, might he have been a human using Renovator technology?

It would appear at the moment that the 'truth' is that the World Union was created to give people an unquestioning, easy life, and that the world will be ending in 1000 years - something the Union wants to keep from people. Making citizens placid and handing out their thoughts to them would mean that no-one is aware the world will be ending, nor panicking, nor attempting to do anything about it.


I thought the game was executed exceptionally well. The English voice acting was good, and the dialogue was clever. Phoenix often got herself into awkward moments when interviewing people, but the fact that others (Morssen, Sandra) pointed this out and showed her different approaches shows that the writers of the game understood how to make Phoenix seem less socially able, whilst others would know the right way of saying things. It made Phoenix more believable as you can see that a) she has flaws and b) her belief in the idealised society of the World Union is stopping her from 'growing' and understanding her reality has been created for the masses.

A sequel in which Phoenix grows, learns and changes her belief in the World Union's motives would be a very powerful and provocative game indeed.

[scrumdiddly]

Originally Posted by Mikekelly

I just love this game - best AG I've ever played. Like a good book - did not want it to end.

I will be replaying this one over and over..................

Dude, you sound like a plant. You've made the exact same posts on the JustAdventure forum too.

I'm bewildered by how many people seem to think this is a good game. Maybe I just can't get past the atrotious writing and voice acting. Or the terrible graphics and control system. Or the crude, heavy-handed, illogical philosophy of the game world. I'm going to keep at it, but I'm pretty sure I'll still feel the same way by the end - there are a million better games out there.

[Keregioz]

Originally Posted by scrumdiddly

Dude, you sound like a plant. You've made the exact same posts on the JustAdventure forum too.

I'm bewildered by how many people seem to think this is a good game. Maybe I just can't get past the atrotious writing and voice acting. Or the terrible graphics and control system. Or the crude, heavy-handed, illogical philosophy of the game world. I'm going to keep at it, but I'm pretty sure I'll still feel the same way by the end - there are a million better games out there.

Ok, now you're overreacting... possibly because you had very high expectations and you were disappointed...
I understand people having problem with the controls and the graphics... but I think the voice acting is pretty decent certenly better than most games I played recenty and the writing is pretty good. If you want to see bad writing why don't you play operation wintersun or belief and betrayal

[Symphonic]

I agree with Hasimir. I really don't understand how most speak so highly of this game (even after pointing out various defects.)

I think this game had a good idea behind it (the characteristics of the society it tries to depict and the underlying truth most are unaware of.) Aside from that, I don't have anything else to compliment, and I think it's far from being one of the best adventure games out there. I found it quite boring, to tell the truth, and only kept playing because I was reading a lot of praise around the Internet...

- I found the dialogues plainly boring. And the fact that you could only ask a few questions each day only made it worse. There was a point when I just started skipping the dialogues and listening to Phoenix's thoughts after them and reading the journal as a summary of the relevant parts.

- The meetings with Sandra at the cafe were really a waste of time. I know why they were there... but still, there were other ways of reviewing the developments in the story. You even had the briefings with the chief that mostly seemed to accomplish the same thing. (And if the game had been really well written, summarising the story again and again shouldn't have been necessary.)

- The really interesting story was the one about the Renovators, etc. The murder case just wasn't interesting. It was just a run-of-the-mill police investigation with a futuristic background. There was nothing about the case compelling enough to keep me hooked. I continued playing because of the underlying mystery sounded really promising, but felt cheated when I realised it was treated just as a side quest.

- I don't really know what most people are talking about regarding good puzzles... Some were ok, but most were either out of place (that lock mechanism on the store's door?), tedious (most of the computer-related puzzles) or impossibly hard (at least for me... I just got past the underground wall puzzle because I searched for the solution in a walkthrough. I mean, I knew I had to write "peace", but connecting that with the number you got from the kiosks...)

I agree the game had potential, but it was wasted. The really interesting story in there was underdeveloped, which is a shame. From the get go, when I started suspecting the perfect world was not so perfect, I pictured the game gradually leaving the murder investigation and concentrating on that hidden truth that was hinted at from the very beginning... I was really disappointed to realise the murder case was actually the main part of the game.

[Sar]

Originally Posted by diverbetty

Wait! How can you finish the game without going through the Land of the Renovators? I thought that was a major part of the game, even though it didn't have a thing to do with the original murder plot. (or so I think).

Yes absolutely, somebody told me you could do that. So on my second play I resolved the anti chaos puzzles but did not go into the underground. Avoided that entire section of the game. Oh and I got a 90 for a score. Got a 97 on my other 2 plays where I did go through the renovators. No idea what goes into that score.

Is it possible that score is just a ruse and you simply get a random number when you finish?

[alinutza0704]

I just wonder, what does it mean "good ending" and "bad ending"? The score shows how good citizen of world union we are, but is it a good thing? Maybe just because you didn't went underground, you had a high score. I thinking of replaying the game , and focus more on Phoenixes thoughts and her past, I've noticed that when I asked people about origins, I find out more about Phoenix.

And maybe being a good World Union member it's not such a good thing, you know?

[Mikekelly]

NO ADVENTURE GAME is LOVED by everybody that walks the planet earth. Never EVER going to happen.

There are published reviews that gave Gabriel Knight a 5.7 - yep hard to believe.

I've even seen Syberia get a 5.1 from one site.

SO - why all the fuss about THIS game?

Generally speaking IF you gave The Longest Journey and Syberia high marks - then you would tend to give high marks to this game as well.

Adventure games are a niche market with the bulk of the releases being low budget bargin releases. Once in a while we get a game that is not a budget release like "Dreamfall" and 'Culpa Innata" - which is nice to get once in a while.

SO - you can nit pick this game all you want - but this is as good as it will be getting for the near future at least.

[Rattsukrabe]

Since this thread is (was?) about replayability, and one reason for replaying games is to improve one's performance (however the game might measure that), does anyone know how the game's score is calculated? There is no way to know as you play if the choices you make are hurting or helping (no way in fact to even know you are being scored until the end). Is it possible to get a perfect score? (and is 100 a perfect score?) There may be hints in the game: the chief chides Phoenix about wasting time; so is efficiency the key? Do you lose points by taking too long? Too many days? Do the dialog choices affect the score? Does the direct approach gain or lose points (Julio criticizes Phoenix for her lack of inter-personal skills)? How about other choices, such as whether or not she hops into bed with the men? Or tries to flirt with the bouncer?

Does anyone know? Just a hint would be nice.

[Panthera]

Phoenix really annoyed me with her incapability to understand sexual references. She's been raised at in a sexual-fixated society, she's been with several men, still she has no clue what people hint to? That tend to be a sign of poor people skills, but why should she do the interviews then?

Finished the game with 86 after 21 days. Asked for way to many warrants. What really annoyed me was that I was unable to fully explore the Pyramid until she "updated" her PA. She's grown up there, she doesn't need to update her map to visit the different parts..

I have mostly the same complaints as the others; the ending is unsatisfying, and the land of the renovators and her nightmares just leave a lot of unanswered questions.

I wasn't able to talk to Mata hari alone, which apparently is possible according to the guide, and nearing the end I only had one location left, the military base (and the metro) and she goes away for a day! Had to go around waisting time until she came back, and I was finally able to get the journalists name.

There are many similarities in the games story compared to " Brave new world" by Aldous Huxley, most prominently the focus on sex and spending as a way to keep people happy, and unintelligent (and children are produced in laboratories and raised by experts).

Roger Arnett is a great person reader, therefore he can also see behind the lies the society is built upon. That's why they have a special deal with the "police". The image renewers help keep the public's focus on looking good/fit, buying new clothes and make-up, steering their thoughts away from more "intelligent" topics. But to be able to talk everybody around (also the old, rich with high HDI who don't feel a debt to society) you need to know how the society really is built up. The highest HDI's in the society know what's really going on, but play along to protect the society, and keep it as it is. After all, no violence and no critical thinking, coupled with mass spending, isn't really bad for those who've gained their wealth and rep on those values.

Roger Arnett is reminiscent of Mustapha Mond, leader in Brave new world. He's fully aware of how the society treats it's people, completely removing critical thinking, and appreciation of art and nature, but sees this as unfortunate side-effects of creating a perfect society.
Recommend reading brave new world, and 1984 by George Orwell if you haven't read that.

Edit: Oh, I think the reason for the crash was that the pilot was using the device, after all, if they where smuggling it in, why only one? The fact that both Bogdanov and the pilot had the same mood changes suggested that they where both using the device, and being affected by it..

Edit 2: oh, yeah, the story also made me think of the movie "demolition man". Perfect society on top, the real human society underneath the ground..

[Fien]

Originally Posted by Panthera

I wasn't able to talk to Mata hari alone, which apparently is possible according to the guide

Which guide is that? I couldn't talk to elusive Mata Hari either.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by Rattsukrabe

Does anyone know? Just a hint would be nice.

I think Panthera is right: asking for too many warrants is not a good idea. Bothering Chief with irrelevant personal stuff or gossip may have consequences for your score, I don't really know. But I'm fairly sure the 3 interviews with Patel and the two women are crucial. My final score was better when I was able to spot their lies.

[Rattsukrabe]

I couldn't talk to elusive Mata Hari either.

Has anyone been able to talk to her? I certainly never came close. Can you get past the goon guarding the backstage area? Or is there some other way?

[Panthera]

Hmm.. I can't find it in the guide I used (http://www.gameboomers.com/wtcheats/...ulpainnata.htm), maybe I just imagined the whole thing, or read it wrong or something. I could've sworn it said I could talk to Mata hari