Theseis - The Best of AG to come
 

I wanted to start a new thread for Theseis as it is one of the most promising games that will come to us in 2008, after long devel, it looks promising that it will be in our hands this year. It combines an excellent full 3D engine, with an intriguing story combining both ancient and modern Greece, and some of the best of all the innovations that have come to us with full motion engines and vid, plus the awareness that adventure gaming, combined with intrigue and thriller aspects can make a great and very modern game package indeed.

I have been following the devel of this remarkable game, Theseis: a Journey of Heros, for some time. As many will already know, it is being made by one of the leading Greek AG game develeopers, Track7, and am I very excited to see the new trailers and released info,

The site for the game is open and has some great trailers and teasers and full info, no definite release date yet according to Track7 Games Product Manager Demetris Papadopoulos, but i hope it is at least by Q2. It is great to see adventure game development taking such nice new directions and energy.

The site for the game is here:

http://www.theseisgame.com/

and Track7 is here:
http://www.track7games.com/

the game will be released on PC and X Box 360.

I am really looking forward to this, and mods please let this new thread live as i feel that the most recent past thread, though lively, was not as respectful of the game and the fine intentions of Track7 and the great efforts being made in Greek game development as I would like to be. thanks.

Nice graphic indeed, but looks very much like an action adventure to me.
Afraid this is not my cup of tee :)

the first two screenshots from the first link reminded me of Shenmue, which is certainly not a terrible thing. That said, I agree with Misslilo, the stealth moments look like something straight out of a Tom Clancy game, whilst the last was straight out of Oblivion or any other Western LotR rip off.

Probably more Dreamfall than anything else, but I might give it a go if there's a demo in the future.

There is a demo of level 1 on the website, tho i think it is mostly a display and not full game play.

All things considered, the genre is indeed shifting and widening, to include some action elements, which we saw with Dreamfall and some other titles, I am more comfy myself with orientation towards exploration and puzzling, but have actually begun to enjoy some of the more action related games over play this last year......

the visuals really appeal to me, as I love such atmospheric and well crafted environments.

AG did a preview of this game after seeing it at E3 in 2006. It was a while ago, but I don't think too much more has been revealed since then.

What I remember of the portion we played at E3 was that it was fairly actiony, but it was only a small part of the game... you'd probably think the same about Dreamfall if you saw certain parts of it. The story was very intriguing. I do remember having trouble with the controls, but they may have changed since then.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...eis_market.jpg

Theseis looks like an adventure game designed for those of us who, for whatever reasons, prefer to not limit ourselves to typical conventions arbitrarily imposed on this genre. As it is games like this (Indigo Prophecy, Dreamfall, etc.) are the minority if you lump them under adventure game. We need more of these games to offer different choices, not everyone likes to hover their cursor over a flat picture looking for a single pixel hotspot or point & click to get a character from one end of the screen to the other. ;)

That stated, I really hope Theseis will give us high quality, original gameplay that's inventive. One main problem devs and publishers seem to have with 'progressive' games is eventual complacency - they pimp the fact that it's in real time 3D etc. etc., but it turns out to be as conventional as, if not worse than, the assembly line, pre-fab point & clickers we've all seen before.

Can't find any demo on the website...only videos.

I'll be playing it. I think, Christian, that the adventure game community are the most tradition loving and tradition following out of the rest of the genres. This is a janus-faced situation and probably contributes to the reason why some people think that the AG genre is dead. Don't be suprised when people reject it for being a bit different.

I like the look of it (I'm the one who started the previous thread), though I hope they keep the action elements to a minimum. It appears that there's no combat and plenty of puzzles, both of which are good signs as far as I'm concerned. Shame the development process seems to be taking so long.

From what I could see from the trailer, we had a guy stealthing about, implying action moments. If this is the case, then technically speaking isn't this is an action adventure?

And if so, what makes this any different to KotoR, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Nomad Soul, Shenmue I & II, Fable, True Crime or any of the Tomb Raiders which are often categoriesed in the same way?

I understand what you're getting at, variety in the genre, but how I see it is, if this is not a pure adventure, then having an adventure that has " original gameplay" isn't likely to be an adventure game. I'll be a hybrid, in which case you can compare it to those you and I have listed and it won't be that original at all.

Alas, I too hope this game will be high quality and original. Don't we all?

:) Understood, but..........so what? I'm not exactly sure what your point is other than categorical semantics. I think at this point in games and gaming culture, hard line labeling can often become a disadvantage for certain games. Force a game to be one kind of game and it could lose marketability from potential targets.

When gaming sites write about upcoming games many of them tend to try to force it into a certain box - RPG, RTS, action/adventure, pure adventure. Why they do that I'm not entirely sure, so many games these days are incorporating details that only several years ago seemed exclusive to just one type of game (the puzzles of adventure games, for example) and there are many 'hybrids' and 'trybrids' out there, and so to call a title like, say, Bioshock, an FPS or RPG only is to miss out on other elements that contribute to its being a strong experience as a game.

In the case of Theseis, why should it make difference if we force the category of Adventure Game on it? If anything it could be detrimental to this game's potential to attract people who wouldn't mind a bit of action, stealth, puzzle solving, story, and exploration. Why call it just an adventure game? Why get pissed off if it does feature a little bit of stealth and still offer a lot of adventure game elements? Dreamfall also featured stealth (badly executed) and combat. Indigo Prophecy featured stealth (done in a novel way). Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon had stealth and action. Even Gabriel Knight 3 had some stealth elements.

Bottom line to me is that if Theseis turns out to be an excellent, good quality game, it shouldn't have to be so just because it limits itself to the silly and arbitrarily forced notions of one genre or another.

This game, regardless of us forcing it into one catagory or another, does have adventure elements and is probably pretty close to what we are familiar with in any other keyboard controlled.

Think about it: how many trailers have you seen from pure adventure games that actually show ingame footage? It isn't the most inducing gameplay in the world of gaming and I don't blame them for trying to include more "exciting" imagery to reel in possible gamers.

Sorry. What I meant was, this game is only 'original' and 'inventative' if you compare it to pure adventures. If you compare it to Runaway 2, then Theseis is likely to seem so.

Compare Theseis to the games I listed, the game is not fresh in the slightest.

I apologies for sounding pessimistic when I am interested in this game, although that LotR creature and stealth has put me off somewhat.

It's just Intrepid implied this game was something new and revolutionary with an 'only those who're interested in something complete out of the box need apply' when from what I'm reading, in terms of gameplay and presentation, nothing seems original or inventative at all.

Rather than the question being whether the game will fit into a category that most adventure gamers prefer, the bigger question IMO is whether Theseis will ever see the light of day. The long periods of inactivity between anything that indicates active development going on does not bode well.

It is rather naive to say that anyone that objects to having action/stealth elements forced on them wants to be "limited to typical conventions arbitrarily imposed". I don't mind innovation or even hybrids, but very much dislike having to deal with a lot of action/stealth scenes. Dreamfall bludgeoned players over the head with all of the stealth scenes, so much so that I lost interest in the story. My interest in adventures is the narrative that I can interact with, which seemed to be another shortfall of Dreamfall. Though it had a good narrative, the player had little influence on it. You were just along for the ride and to sneak around. Not my idea of fun.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to any action or stealth, just don't put a ton of it in gratuitously, with only a vague connection to the story. Only when it truly benefits the story. Don't make me feel that I am playing a mostly action game. There are already far too many action games.

Agreed, this is what I liked about Shenmue. It had those dodgy fight sequences (never felt right, even on a DC controller) but you had long moments of just wandering around speaking to various people.

It encouraged you to enter every building and continuously speak to everyone around you not just once but several times, with many of the very minor characters all having little stories to tell.

Technically the game wasn't that big either. It had your house, a small section of suburbs, a local market and on disc 2, finally a port, yet they did so much with what they had.

If only that game were more successful we'd see more games going in that direction.

Sorry i have missed out on the excellent discussion, internet was snowed in here in colorado :) ys, Theseis does seem to walk several paths at the same time but as others so well put, these days there are various threads running through the tapestry of gaming, I had a hard time getting through some action sequences in some games that otherwise I really enjoyed for the graphics and the game story or world in recent games of many genres....but i have not been sorry to try these new things. The greek game development scene is not large but they are working hard at it, and they certainly dont have the huge budgets and vast resources of the heavy hitters elsewhere...so i was excited to see the earliest screenies from Theseis, as an artist, i LOVE the graphicaly elements and visualization and have cheered them on since. It is such a treat to read and enjoy such interesting and dynamic dialog as we get here on this forum and on others, gaming is a remarkable communtiy with many viewpoints and so many excellent ones. thanks to everyone for excellent points. Ys the demo does appear to be pretty much a video of one of the levels, I will see if there is one available somewhere. And thanks Fov for the heads up from your chance to see the game in action. I do hope it comes out this yr. :)