12-15-2005, 06:56 AM | #21 | |
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12-15-2005, 06:59 AM | #22 | |
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No-Action Jackson Apprentice II Enclosure Cirque de Zale Two of a Kind I've played some of the remakes too. They're not bad, but I'm yet to see a standalone adventure that's any good, with the possible exception of Cirque. |
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12-15-2005, 07:03 AM | #23 | |
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As for your other points, there are always going to be bad fan games with poorly constructed plots, but the fact that some exist doesn't mean that all games suffer from this problem. Turning to the length issue: games take time to develop. That's a simple fact. These people are working on games in their spare time, and you can't expect people to produce extremely long titles within a reasonable timeframe on a couple of hours work (and I'm probably being optimistic here) a day. There are very few games that I'm happy to spend £30 (the equivalent in the UK of the $50 price tag). Priced more affordably, however (let's say £9.99, which is the most I spend on the vast majority of games that I buy), I'd certainly be tempted by commercial versions of a number of these "shit" games of which you've spoken. In fact, I'd happily argue that many of them are far, far better designed than a lot of what does get released commercially... |
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12-15-2005, 07:14 AM | #24 | |
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12-15-2005, 07:15 AM | #25 | |
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12-15-2005, 07:18 AM | #26 | |
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As for commercial games being by their nature better, I disagree. It would, I believe, be pretty harsh of me to start slating commercial titles in the way that you've just dismissed every amateur game out of hand, but I can point to flaws in every single adventure game released in the past few years. Yes, I mean every single one. And this isn't be pretending to be big or clever, just pointing to problems that others would probably agree about. From crippling design flaws to minor quibbles, of course, but commercial titles are by no means the bastions of perfection that you're making them out to be. And, why not take your comparison further than you have? Because, let's face it, every single adventure game released ever looks worse than, say, Unreal Tournament 2007. Even the ones in development. |
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12-15-2005, 07:26 AM | #27 | |
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12-15-2005, 07:39 AM | #28 | |
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Anyway, I actually agree with parts of what you're trying to say here. If time and money are important to a gamer, they're especially important to a developer. The less they have of each, the greater the likelihood a game will be lacking in several areas. That's true even of commercial adventures, which are rarely "backed" with publisher money during production, either. But it's especially true of amateur developers making games in their spare time. BUT... if you actually carry a little respect INTO an amateur game, you're likely to see not only a lot to value in the better ones, but an appreciation of the incredible amount of work and skill that's gone into creating them from the ground up. That's all anyone's really saying here. Anyone can be a critic, and the less you know about the topic, the easier it is. Oh, and the notion that a game CAN'T be as a good as a commercial game is just nonsense. It will almost certainly never LOOK as good, but that's the only thing close to a certainty. Money and talent are often connected, but just as often not. Making arguments about an "ideal world" is useless. |
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12-15-2005, 07:59 AM | #29 | ||
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As a (sort of) side note, one of the reasons Grim ages that well, is that the graphic style was chosen as to hide the incapabilities of 3D graphics of the time (compare to Mask of Eternity, even just visually, to see how could it look like).
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12-15-2005, 08:01 AM | #30 | |
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12-15-2005, 08:03 AM | #31 | |
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Cars and sex are completely unrelated. |
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12-15-2005, 08:06 AM | #32 | |
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12-15-2005, 08:17 AM | #33 | ||
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Although the graphics in amateur games cannot compete with commercial games on a technological level, the best of them arguably rival them artistically. Lower resolution, yes; less animation, yes; more likely to be 2D cartoony than 3D rendered, yes; but the image itself can be just as good. The Apprentice games could be put side-by-side with commercial games done in a similar style and with similar technology without embarrassment. Many of the other best-looking amateur games are very short mini-games with maybe three screens that you can complete in ten minutes--half an hour. Recently I played Caverns, which has (a) beautiful background(s) done in a crayon style. In most high-quality amateur games, the graphics range from adequate to solid. Most could not be mistaken for professional work, but they do the job. In my opinion, graphics rarely make or break an adventure game, anyway. The same goes for many of the other things money buys you: voice acting, "state-of-the-art" visuals and so on. Sure, those bells and whistles are nice to have, but they won't turn a bad game into a good one, and doing without them won't usually ruin a great game. Sure, there are many amateur games with shoddy design and glaring flaws. But it's not really fair to compare the worst examples, or even the average samples, to commercial games. The barrier of entry is so much lower. To really see what amateur games are capable of, you need to look at the best of the bunch. (Admittedly, the games you list are among the best. I really don't think much of what you say applies to them.) If you play games primarily for the eye-candy and production values, of course amateur adventure games aren't for you. But if you're looking for a fun challenge, an entertaining story, some old-school but cautiously experimental gameplay, and a personal vision that hasn't had all its edges filed off to appeal to the widest possible demographics, you could do much worse than checking out some of the games being made with AGS, WME, SLUDGE, and all the other adventure game engines.
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12-15-2005, 09:03 AM | #34 | |
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12-15-2005, 09:13 AM | #35 | |
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Create a fan-game out of love, but don’t start flaunting it as the “next big thing”, because it’ll never top a truly great LucasArts adventure, or a super Sierra title. Why? Because the team is less dedicated (they won’t be making money of it), less experienced and wholly smaller. Yes, if you gather a large team together, as seems to be the case with KQ9, you have a chance of creating something half-decent, but it’ll likely never reach the ears of the mainstream and will fail at achieving any semblance of popularity. Popular games are not necessarily good, and rich companies shouldn’t necessarily be bowed upon, but they have the resources, the money and the talent to pave the way for better, technically superior and more enjoyable games. |
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12-15-2005, 09:18 AM | #36 | |
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Sorry to say, I can't think of an adventure game released this decade that had "superior" production values. |
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12-15-2005, 09:22 AM | #37 | |
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Edit: I'm talking about adventure games here, of course. |
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12-15-2005, 09:30 AM | #38 |
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You didn't answer the question. It's hard to understand where you're coming from if you're not willing/able to give an example of what you consider the ideal to be.
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12-15-2005, 09:32 AM | #39 | ||
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--Josh |
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12-15-2005, 09:35 AM | #40 | |
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Many people consider TLJ one of the greatest adventure games of all time. Saying that amateur games are a waste of time because they don't reach the same level of quality is like arguing that you're wasting your time any time you're watching a movie that isn't The Godfather (or Citizen Kane, if you prefer). How many commercial adventure games came out this year that are clearly superior to the best amateur games produced? Half a dozen? Hardly any more than that. The question isn't whether the best amateur games are as good as the best commercial games. They're not. The question is whether the best amateur games are good enough to be in the class of games "well worth playing". I think they are. You keep slating amateur games in general terms, but I'd like you to explain what was so bad about the games you've played.
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