[Stuart]

I played the demo for the first time and enjoyed it. Nice atmosphere, mood, voice acting is fine. Graphics, people have complained about, but I play so many adventure games from the 90s that I never judge an adventure game by them and they look just fine to me.

My only problem with the demo is I couldn't finish it! No, it wasn't too hard, I just had to go to bed and the save function was greyed out for the demo, meaning I have to repeat all my progress and finish the demo in one sitting. Questionable if you ask me, but oh well.

I really hope this game is distributed on Steam, I am buying most of my games there now and celebrate whenever an adventure game makes it there.

[Borgar]

Another rather favourable GM review has appeared on Consolemonster.com:

http://www.consolemonster.com/article.php?id=0000000967

[canadiangeeker]

Originally Posted by Idrisguitar

cant wait to hear some opinions.

it was easy to get sucked into, but i think that is because it was easy. people looked like sims1 and from an artistic value totally missed the mark.

[Dale Baldwin]

Demo of the Xbox 360 version is now available in Europe.

[Giles Habibula]

Dang! I've always been able to find Imports at GamersGate that I couldn't find anywhere else, but no love this time.

Who is in charge of the release schedule for this game??? Arghh!

[M-E]

I've played the Xbox 360 demo and love the atmosphere of the game. There are some things about this version that bugs me:

- The sound. The voices aren't that loud, while some music and environmental sounds are. To some extent this is tweakable in the menu, but haven't they tested the demo themselves?
- The screen size. Somehow this game doesn't fill up the whole screen, but leaves a thick black border on all sides. This too is tweakable in the menu, but it just shows bad design/programming.
- The walking. What's the purpose of the real-time walking if you have to use the ring menu to interact with the environment? They could've done without the walking.

[Lupin The Third]

I've played the 360 demo as well and basically have the same concerns.

-The sound is adjustable in the options but noting actually changes. The music is powerfully loud compared to the audio and during some scenes the spoken dialog literally cannot be discerned.

-The font type is really hard to read. Even on my 57" HD Screen the font is very difficult to make out, especially on the radial dial. It needs to be increased in size or bordered better. It's almost like watching old Hong Kong films with the white subtitles at the bottom that you could only read 2 of every 3 words.

-I actually appreciate the ability to walk but it needs tweaking. The devs need to simply implement the ability to press A when you come upon a hot spot to allow interaction (like the console ports of Syberia). Walking up to an object then bringing up the radial dial and having to scroll around to find the choice to interact with what's right in front of you is a bad design decision. It literally kills the immersion. Keep the radial dial, it works fine as a mouse substitute for players who don’t want to maneuver the characters and will actually make the experience easier for players not as familiar with the genre. But allow those of us who want to walk up to an object and interact with it (ala the recent Monkey Island 2 remake) the ability to do so. Please! I also still think the option to choose to use an entirely classic point and click style also (ala MI 2:SE) would work well.

That said I loved the demo. The game looks absolutely beautiful on my 57" Hitachi HDTV and I can't wait to play the final version on my 360. Now can we just get confirmation that the game is coming to the US? Oh and a nice collector’s edition like the German version (except for both PC and 360) would be really nice too; even if it’s an online-order-only deal.

[Igor]

Finished it. Nothing groundbreaking, but it was quite enjoyable.
Story is interesting, but I expected more daring take on the main theme and especially more interesting and uniqe characters. At times it almost felt like watching some soapy TV series. Certainly not what I expected from a mature game.
I also didn't like David Styles's character design very much. I just couldn't connect the supposed genious with a profound voice charm of Anthony Hopkins, with some young (almost anime-like) pretty boy, who wears the phantom of the opera mask. Vanilla Sky and Tom Cruise's character springs to mind. The only difference is, in Vanilla Sky his character did make sense (he was obsesed with his look), while in Gray Matter it felt under-developed.

Still, it was a good game.. just not what I expected.

[UPtimist]

Originally Posted by Lupin The Third

-I actually appreciate the ability to walk but it needs tweaking. The devs need to simply implement the ability to press A when you come upon a hot spot to allow interaction (like the console ports of Syberia). Walking up to an object then bringing up the radial dial and having to scroll around to find the choice to interact with what's right in front of you is a bad design decision. It literally kills the immersion. Keep the radial dial, it works fine as a mouse substitute for players who don’t want to maneuver the characters and will actually make the experience easier for players not as familiar with the genre. But allow those of us who want to walk up to an object and interact with it (ala the recent Monkey Island 2 remake) the ability to do so. Please! I also still think the option to choose to use an entirely classic point and click style also (ala MI 2:SE) would work well.

What I've been fearing the whole time. And since MI2:SE already did the p&c very succesfully, there was no reason they couldn't do it here as an alternative.

Now I have some serious thinking about what to buy this for...

[rtrooney]

Originally Posted by zane

the bad news is... there is no planned north american release.

Then I guess this will be a much-anticipated game I will never play.

[Stuart]

Is there a UK version planned and will it be on Steam? I may as well get the boxed foreign version if not...

[M-E]

Originally Posted by Stuart

Is there a UK version planned and will it be on Steam? I may as well get the boxed foreign version if not...

February 2011 is the release date.

[Dwagginz]

Just gave the demo a quick spin.

I'm impressed, but not overly. I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to be doing as David, nor was I really a fan of his voice. He sounded a good 10-20 years older than he looked, which kinda ruined it for me. Sam looked and moved better than I thought she would, but I'm not really keen on her tattoo (Minor problem). I was surprised to find out she's voiced by the actress who voiced Faith's sister in Mirror's Edge (One of my favourite games), too!

Controls were OK, but a little backwards compared to Broken Sword (Which I'm playing currently. It's usually LMB to use, RMB to look, but it's reversed in Gray Matter), and the animations seemed alright, but I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be that stilted or if it was just my 7600GT struggling to cope (I'd put the quality up to High).

I'll buy it, certainly, but I'm not going to let the demo marr my view of the game. It seemed disjointed and completely out of context (As did the TLJ demo when I played that), and I can't use it as a base for how the game truly is.

I just hope the part where she picks up the rabbit is fixed. That made me go "What?".

[zane]

yep, i guess the demo is... chapter 1 and chapter 3??? or maybe just the tutorial of chapter 1 and then chapter 3? Such a weird choice to make the demo that way... i cant imagine it not feeling disjointed.

[Ascovel]

I finally got the game - as a Christmas gift no less - and I'm now at the start of chapter 5.

All I can say for now is that it's a very interesting experience, but it also has a great number of flaws. Already the very awkward interface is diminishing the pleasure of playing the game considerably.

However, there's lots to like as well and there is no doubt that I'm very happy to be able to play a proper new Jane Jensen adventure game again.

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by zane

yep, i guess the demo is... chapter 1 and chapter 3??? or maybe just the tutorial of chapter 1 and then chapter 3? Such a weird choice to make the demo that way... i cant imagine it not feeling disjointed.

No idea, but if it helps you feed Houdini as Sam, go out of the door and then take over as David, but with absolutely no direction or hints as to what to do. I just walked around looking at things.

[fov]

The demo starts at the very beginning of the game with the opening cutscene and tutorial (Sam feeding Houdini). After that it switches to chapter 3, which is the first chapter where you play as David. It's the first time in the game where you start to learn about

Spoiler:

his psi experiments and what happened to his wife,

so from that perspective it's a good introduction to his story. (As far as there being no direction or hints about what to do, that's pretty much the case throughout the game...) But it's not the whole chapter -- some tasks have been completed for you -- and depending on what order you do things, the demo can end abruptly.

I think they did a decent job carving out a self-contained experience from a game that doesn't really lend itself to that, but it is a bit awkward. Sam is the playable character for most of the game, so it would have been nice to play a bit more of her in the demo. But Gray Matter's first two chapters (where Sam is the playable character) are pretty slowly paced and non-linear, so I can understand why they chose to show part of chapter 3 instead.

Originally Posted by Ascovel

All I can say for now is that it's a very interesting experience, but it also has a great number of flaws. Already the very awkward interface is diminishing the pleasure of playing the game considerably.

However, there's lots to like as well and there is no doubt that I'm very happy to be able to play a proper new Jane Jensen adventure game again.

This is more or less how I felt... I was very happy to be playing it, but even the great story and the magic of playing a new Jane Jensen game couldn't make up for the flaws. My review will be up on AG soon...

[Lupin The Third]

Originally Posted by Dwagginz

I'll buy it, certainly, but I'm not going to let the demo marr my view of the game. It seemed disjointed and completely out of context (As did the TLJ demo when I played that), and I can't use it as a base for how the game truly is.

I just hope the part where she picks up the rabbit is fixed. That made me go "What?".

I agree it was a really weird way to "demo" the game. I agree entirely that David's portion being completely bereft of any direction or context made for a bad way to showcase the game. Once I completed the demo I had a better idea of the mechanics they were going for...but until then it was wander aimlessly around the house until you happen to make something happen. The demo really should have started with a bit of dialog from David indicating his objectives for the day.

As to the Rabbit I agree as well. It's bizarre and completely disjointing. I stopped playing the game on PC because it runs poorly for me (need a new video card) and I thought the rabbit scene was the result this...then I played the 360 version and was surprised to see it again. I really hope the dev takes the time to fix things like this and address the control issues prior to a US release in February (or whenever it's happening). There's so much potential for this game with just a little more polish.

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by fov

This is more or less how I felt... I was very happy to be playing it, but even the great story and the magic of playing a new Jane Jensen game couldn't make up for the flaws. My review will be up on AG soon...

I'm looking forward to reading it. I think I'll write a longer opinion on the game when I finish it too.

[ZeframCochrane]

Just popping in here to say I'm still playing it, and I'm loving all the litte references the game drop every now and then.

I just stumbled across this one:



I was very surprised. I did not expect to see earth's point of origin engraved on a tree at Oxford

Also... can anyone explain how come they managed to get permissions to use "Harry Potter" and "Hogwarts" names, but not Eraserhead?