I really enjoyed the static cutscenes, but i understand that it might turn people off.

I also understand your point about the descriptions, but trust me it will get better, the first two chapters are easily the worst , too damn slow, but the third one is great. If you enjoyed GK stories, you will like this one. Sometimes it might feel a bit like Gabriel Knight lite, but its very well written. If you're playing it because of the story you WILL NOT be disapointed, i guarantee you that! :p

Are there any other online English gaming forums you guys frequent where they are posting reactions to Gray Matter other than this one (and other than DTP's forum?).

Just curious to get as broad of sense of the reactions as possible.

Sorry, you're right. However, it can be ordered as a physical disc from http://www.amazon.de/dtp-entertainme...8457971&sr=8-1 and this one is in English as well, according to http://forum.dtp-entertainment.com/v...?f=120&t=17028.

Thanks! Got it, and installed it but haven't tried yet, I prefer playing in the evening lol

Just finished it. Overall I enjoyed it.

+ Nice backgrounds
+ Very good music
+ Nice voice acting for Dr.Styles

- Bad character animation
- Hotspots were a menace
- Cutscenes weren't my style
- I didn't like Samantha both as character as well as voice acting
- Quite slow in the first chapters

As for the story, I didn't enjoy it nor hated it. Typical and predictable.

I rate it 4/5. Not the best game of the millenium, not even of the decade. Syberia was much superior.

Ok, I couldn't wait, I just started the game. .. :D Just a little preview, before really getting into it. Seems nice, the cut-scene in the beginning was a bit of a let-down but it's just a different style, not a major issue. I kinda like it. Not surprised that they didn't have a budget for proper cut-scenes. The atmosphere is very Vampyre Story vs. Gabriel Knight, and to add more to the comparison, the hot-spot reveal and foyer are very similar too (minus the bad jokes). I like it so far, and it's kinda what I expected; not a big budget, high-tech game but neither a cheap cartoon-like adventure.

Whew! I think that's quite pricey even in GBP, especially for an adventure game! :frown: Granted, the 360 version will cost £29.99 and the PC version £24.99, but they're somewhat cheaper (mainly the PC version). I would like to play now, but I don't wanna be buying this one and then the official PC copy with a box, CD, manual etc. at a later date.

I'm just gonna wait it out until the official release.

The Secret Files 2 was the same price at gamersgate and I was furious at them asking so much, when the SPECIAL EDITION version was 10 euros CHEAPER in my local game store. I never got either, nor do I plan to. I enjoyed the first one, though.

It's ridiculous how they market digital download as cheaper and faster way to get your game, when the reality is this; you get the game cheaper and with extra stuff for less money by buying it from a game store, and not as a digital download. This goes for all digital sellers.

However, Jane Jensen... 40 euros anytime.

well i've been an adventure player since Hitchhiker's guide, and I am more or less brutal towards most advnetures, but that only comes about because of waiting for real gems to surface, of which unfortunately few do.

Up to Chapter 4, and here's my thoughts :

graphically, it was a bit of a shock I must say, it felt somewhat more like a budget release, but as a Jane Jenson game you must of course give it a chance. And really, the graphics aren't that bad -- the story is strong, and that is absolutely what counts most. I don't understand this "slow pace" whinge people have going on, it runs at a perfect pace in my opinion. The story so far is just great, you just have to keep playing to find out what happens next and it really gets you in its grip. The soundtrack is repetative but the sound effects are excellent, top notch. No doubt the best adventure game in years, already, and 77 is in my opinion brutal, and really just plain stupid. Its a 90 minimum game at this point already, absolute quality storyline and to say the Longest Journey is better by score is in my opinion deeply insulting. But then again its just one, very uneducated, reviewer.

At this point it gets 90/100 from me and it is a resounding success thusfar and absolutely worthy of purchase.

Iam at the end of chapter 1.
I like tha game overally, but what I dislike is the graphical style that reminds me many of these "casual" games that I dont appreciate at all. I was expecting from Jensen to diversify her game from all these mindless games and also from all the bad point and click games that are just made to sell some copies.

Of course the story seems interesting but the aesthetics and the bacground grpahics are so similar.. And the same for some comments of Samantha when examining the environment.
Gabriel knight 2 and 3 (i haven't played the first one) had something really special and archetype, that this game seems to dont have. Im in the beggining of the game, so I wish to make a mistake.

The budget seems low and Im really sad that these days the big budgets go to first person shooters only. The adventure genre is an outsider today, with the exception of Heavy Rain, one of the best games I ever played.

awesome thanks, downloading extremely slowly now. like 500kb a second when my line can usually do 1mb but oh well, it'll be ready in 3 hours!

While those who post to this forum will of course pay for the game when they get the chance, this thread still reveals the ease and frequency of piracy.

Paying for Gray Matter amounts to a donation; one that you have already chosen to make. I will happily make the same donation, once the game becomes available in the US through legitimate and convenient means. I've waited years; a couple more months won't kill me.

Kolzig has read between the lines, and understands that for every Roper Klacks and Nachtmusick who are willing to offer a donation, there are dozens of "customers" who are already playing Gray Matter and will feel no obligation to pay anybody for anything.

If the tiny and dedicated Adventure Gamers community is pirating the game, despite their demonstrated willingness to pay a fair price, what does that say about the prospects for deriving fair compensation from the larger market?

the larger market will pirate this game, and they will do it because they had never thought to, and were never going to buy it in the first place.

they dont care about what adventure gamers do, in fact this "larger market" has probably never visited a forum like this, nor really know anyone who is still passionate about these games anymore.

i see your point but the fact is its totally off the mark.

Already I can see the negative comments on animation as unjustified. What adventure game even had great animations? From what I see, the animation is better than most.

Again, I feel like I'm the only one that likes everything about this game. From the cutscenes to the main character. Also the graphics are absolutely gorgeous. The quality of the models and the use of the latest shader technology makes it so polished. Glad to see the use of softshadows to create a nice transition between 2d and 3d.

Pretty much my thoughts so far. I only just got my copy so I've only had a chance to play literally half an hour, so it's an extremely premature evaluation. That said though, I'm here in these forums rather than playing any more of it. I'm sure once the story starts to flesh out it will draw me in more but so far the game hasn't grabbed me at all.
I know people are defending certain elements of graphics and animations and whatnot, but the point still remains that previous JJ games ahve grabbed me from the very beginning and haven't let go. This one hasn't even come close to giving the same impression.

And those descriptions (so far) as Fien pointed out... bleh. Uninspiring, uninteresting. Like I said though, very early thoughts here. I actually quit on the vague comments. I went outside and she describes a plaque she saw. What plaque? A plaque about what? What the hell are you talking about woman!? (By the way, feel free to point me in the right direction someone, I really don't know what she's talking about!) After the vague descriptions inside the mansion I just had enough by then.

Well, first of all there have been plenty of better looking character models, someone pointed out Book of Unwritten tales for instance, or for my more biased opinion, the numerous great 2D games surfacing which do a much more cleaner and professional job. Not trying to start a 2D vs. 3D debate, just pointing out that it's, IMO, getting better results for the AG budgets these days. Moving on...

It's not the be all and end all for these graphical problems, its true, and what someone jumped in to defend (along the lines of the game being a struggle to get made), it's a fair point to make. I would prefer the game as is then no game at all for sure! But that still doesn't mean that, as the die hard adventure fans, we can scrutinize what we love to play, especially from a developer/designer we love so much. We just wanted it to be perfect! Not too much to ask :P

With all that ranting said and done, I just hope I have the will to keep going with it. Seems hard to get the motivation to be honest, but as I said before I know the story is in there, so, I'll push on...

Ah, now that I'm finally playing Gray Matter, I have serious doubts about the future of JJ games. It's not poor marketing, high price or pirating that really matters. The game simply has very low production value.

The engine by Wizarbox is bad. It was bad in So Blonde, it's still bad in Gray Matter. Long loading times, irritating hotspots, painful pathfinding - that's something a polished game shouldn't have. And as far as animation goes...

We saw rotoscoping, FMV and even realtime 3D. That was in 90th. It's XXI century now, and the best they came up with is the "black screen" magic? I understand everything, but they could at least add some comics in between.

Of course, I can live with it as long as the writing will remain as good as it is. As well as other fans of Jane. But for many other gamers it will ruin the fun for sure. It even ruins some fun for me now. From now on I'll try to concentrate on the story, writing, puzzles, something that only Janes' holy hands touched.

Jane Jensen is too good for this game.

I played this bit a few times, and I got stuck there every single time. You have to literally click on everything in order to progress. This is worst, really. Totally inexcusable.

Kinda shocked to see the "engine" called bad or slow. I've played all recent adventures on the same computer and Gray Matter is easily one of the quickest.

You must be doing something wrong.

Sughly, you really need to look at the damned plaque or you'll walk around forever. It's a trigger for the next "event". I haven't played enough of the game to know if kuze is right, but I'm stuck in Oxford and I really hope I won't have to look at everything again to find one little thing I missed. Too boring for words. I'm currently replaying two other games and I'll get back to Gray Matter when I have finished them.

About the plaque near the door. I noticed the plaque in the intro looks different than the one in broad daylight. The same words, arranged differently. Strange... but not in a good or interesting way.

PS: I shouldn't have worried about the long loading times, there are none. At least not for me. In fact, they are so short that there's no time to read the messages on the in-between screen. I realize I already have a lot of nits to pick with GM and maybe that's not fair, but what on earth is the idea behind those idiotic messages? I don't want to read something about bonus points or turning subtitles on and off, because that's unimmersive as hell. And I don't want the game to produce the name of every object I look at. I can SEE it's a portrait, a chair, a table. If there's anything in the manual about turning this superfluous "service" off I haven't found it.

Come on... you're just being unfair now. If you're going with that kind of spirit i think its better to stop playing right now, because you will hate A LOT of tiny little things along the game. Keep an open mind, this is not a perfect game, it has some serious technical problems, try to accept them if you are even thinking about finishing the game.

Is it? Then there must be something wrong with me, what a relief :) Although I have a fast PC, sometimes there's enough time to read two messages. And not all of them are idiotic, Fien. There are some historical or in-game facts, about Sam's boyfriend for example. Anyway, I play on the highest conf and that's hardly too much for a rendered game...

As for

I also wish it was turned off, because the pauses they take to appear are really irritating. Then again, there are those little things Roper Klacks talks about. The interface could've been so much better.

Facts about Sam's boyfriend which I miss out on because the loading times are not long enough? The irony! Especially after So Blonde.

The story really really has to be good...

I'm wondering if the US release of this might actually get an overhaul and improved animations as first announced. When Lace Mamba announced the delay last month into next year they announced that it was for quality issues. Yet now the game slips out in some Euro territories before the February release date. I wonder if they figured most gamers in these regions would prefer to play it now, regardless of animations and such, and they'll simply tidy it up for the US and elsewhere? Will be interesting to see...maybe the worldwide release will address some of the complaints. Then they can re-release it in Germany and such as a "Director's Cut" version....

I really doubt that.

Reading this thread gives me so many different emotions:

Jealous - game is not out in US yet
Disappointed - people are complaining about graphics when it has been known a long time that this game has had budget issues; I can't criticize downloaders who have paid for or will pay for the game, but Jane Jensen and her team of developers deserve every penny from anyone who plays
Excited - overall people seem to really be enjoying the game
Bittersweet - having waited so long, it's tough to accept the game is actually done!

The ridiculous nitpicks this game is getting is hilarity.

Because we're talking Jane Jensen here. It's just if Roberta Williams would to make a new game, or Tim Schafer (oh yeah, he did).

But Sierra was big company, and people should realize that not only Jensen herself made all that puzzles, scripts... So, you gotta give a credit to this new team also and not judge it by the retrospective of one of the best games of adventure games heyday.

I admit, its been such a long time coming, this game has, that expectations are ridiculously high. As I relax into it a bit more and simply enjoy it, this adventure is simply a class above; its the best adventure game in years and I think as the dust settles a bit it will be thought of as another Jane Jensen classic.

Yeah, that's the life. Though I'd prefer quicker loading times.
There are also some of the nicest references to Janes' games I ever saw in Janes' games. And even a reference to her favourite movie.
And her favourite toothbrush...

Through the second chapter and the game continues to get better. The gripes about the graphics are pretty petty. The backgrounds are fantastic, the models aren't incredible but they aren't awful either. The biggest issue is the animations which are very clunky: people turning around in place to get lined up correctly, etc. Sure it breaks immersion a little bit but I still think it's a large nitpick. If you play adventure games for cutting edge visuals and flawless animation then yeah, Gray Matter ain't your thing.

The story is really good so far, in my opinion, and you can just tell it's by a professional writer. The pacing is fantastic. Compare this to some recent adventures and it's just laughable the difference. So while the game may lack polish in the graphics/animation department, it lacks none in the writing... at least so far.

At the end of chapter 1 now and really loving the game! You can so tell it's a Jane Jensen game, from soundtrack to the story. I guess I'm not disappointed because I gave up on this game before it got released and when I started playing it, I expected it to be buggy and unfinished, but it isn't. It's really nice, and I hope they'll make more games together! :)

I absolutely agree. Someone said Syberia is far better than this.. I disagree 100%. Syberia had cool graphics and it was longer, but lacked in the story side; Syberia was filled with story "shortcuts" and rushed even.

I agree with your points as well. Then again, if you play adventure games for cutting edge visuals, you're screwed, as they don't really exist. Expect an adventure game, not a big budget Hollywood-graphics and you can't go wrong with this.

I wanna point out that the loading times are not long if you've got a modern pc/laptop. I'm playing with Sony Vaio E-series laptop and I don't even have time to read the texts on the screen before it's already loaded. So, it's not the game, it's your pc.

I don't see the point in whining about the graphics. It's an adventure game, the budget was small. You can't create Bioshock-style graphics with no money. Instead of doing the usual, poor 3d animations, they went for something different, and I like it. Either way, people would still whine no matter what the technology was. If it really bugs so many of you, then why don't you people donate some money for the company, so they can create a high-end graphics game? lol IMHO the graphics are fine, and similar to other recent releases. Not outdated at all.

That's right, either way you win something and you lose something. A wonderful design feature. I can tell lots of thought went into it. Oops! I shouldn't whine, so sorry. Of course the glass is half full, not half empty.

Heh. I remember how people told me the specs of my *brand new* computer must be the reason the loading times in So Blonde were 30 or more seconds.

That's nitpicking, and you know this perfectly well. You seem really bitter. Any game that has a loading screen like in GM suffers from the same problem: you either miss the texts or they're on your screen for ages. From the little that I've managed to read, the texts aren't really that important anyway; they're there to distract you from the loading time.

Well, how else do you explain that my year old laptop runs the game perfectly and the load screens go by fast, while others' don't? What else could it be, other than the specs? If it's really such a big problem to you, I can't see how you can play most adventure games at all...

Yes. You don't seem to understand that's why it's a BAD IDEA to put info or nice little tidbits on screens which most people will not be able to read.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Many, many possibilities besides specs. Wizarbox was to blame for the problems with So Blonde, there was never any doubt about it. *

You're mistaking my sarcastic tone for bitterness. And I don't like being patronized by people telling me I should stop playing the game, stop whining, donate money, when I have legitimate criticism. I can live with the animation. I realize we will see more and more casualised cutscenes. Low production values and all that. But the gameplay issues are design flaws I find seriously annoying.

*EDIT: Daedalic's A New Beginning is unplayable on my three-year old computer. Literally. After the first screen the game crashes. My specs not good enough? Ha! I can play it on my six-year old XP machine. The loading times are far worse than So Blonde though but I can play it if I have all the time in the world. Am I the only one? You should read what other people have to say about it on German forums.

My take having finished it.

Positives: Good voice acting, soundtrack, characters, and story. Beautiful backgrounds and I personally like the cutscene art style a lot. A few good puzzles in there and a good balance between the story and puzzles.

Negatives: Not horrendously so, but a bit short, guessing the average completion time for most people would be about nine hours. The character models and animations aren't the best as others have said. The "magic" system in the game is a neat concept but they might as well have just saved the player time by doing the trick you pick out by default without having to input the steps yourself because none of those puzzles present a challenge. Most of the puzzles are pretty easy(which could be a positive or negative) but sometimes it's hard to know what you missed in an area, particularly a conversation you might need to have.

Overall, I'd say it's one of the better adventure games to come out in a while, but not on the level of the GK games, and it's somewhat hard to understand why it took so long to make with the shorter length and low budget nature of the game engine. It has a conclusive ending, but feels like the type of game that could have sequels, so hopefully if Jane doesn't go back to Gabriel Knight she'll continue this series hopefully in faster order than the first game.

HitBattousai reminded me something I forgot to mention. The magic tricks were totally not what I expected. Apart from the uninspired boring steps to fulfill them, I imagined a cutscene in each one visualising the trick and all we got was a "yes I did it". Major letdown for something that was one of the presumed highlights of the game.

Just a note: this is not the same engine as in So Blonde, neither the first nor the Nintendo version. Not that it matters or anything, but for clarity's sake ^^

I gotta agree with you. And overall i think the magic system was underdeveloped, basically you don't have to think, just read and follow the steps. They could have done things a bit more chalenging and let the player test and invent new and different tricks.