[Kurufinwe]

I agreed with the main point, while not being completely convinced by the examples themselves. So I was mildly disagreeing, while agreeing at the same time. There, now everybody's confused, and everybody's happy. Good.

[Jackal]

That's why I added my disclaimer:

These are just random examples to make a general point, of course.

I figured someone would argue the specifics.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

I was mostly teasing you, yes. But you could really figure out the whole 'steamer trunk' thing just from the intro.

I guess I wasn't being clear. The player can't identify the victim as Carrington until you see Steve moving the trunk ashore and we learn which passenger it belongs to.

Besides, some of us like to solve the mystery using only information that would be available to the player character.

But, anyway, I actually really liked the fact that, by the end of act 1, you've already discovered much about the characters before having even met them, and I'm not going to complain about that. I wanted to mention it in the review, but it got left out at some point in the writing process; and, anyway, I thought it best to mostly leave act 1 (as well as 5) as surprises to the player.

Is Act 5 the one where you're being chased? Don't you think the decision to leave some of the best stuff as "surprises to the player" is one reason your review appears a bit unbalanced in tone?

You know, Jack had to make me go through quite a lot of soul-searching before I found what really bugged me about LB2. And it was exactly that: that the designers threw in every element that looked nice, even if they did not fit together (and even if most of them were just tired clichés). You seem to agree with the factual assessement, even if it was not a problem for you. Well, if the mechanics of the game are accurately laid out and my subjective appreciation of them clearly labelled as such, then the review does its job and, as a reviewer, I am content.

That's true. The description of the game is accurate, though I don't agree with all your subjective evaluations. And of course, you have to rate it according to how much you enjoyed it and think others will enjoy it. But I think either you underestimated how much most people enjoy it, or you didn't weigh that factor as much as maybe it should be weighed.

So I'm not saying you should change the review or anything. Just that I disagree with it.

Of course, as a forum poster, I reserve the right to defend my opinions to the end of my days. I don't really hope to make you change your mind, though --- only your replaying the game might have a chance of achieving that. You should try to do that at some point, if you have the time; you might have surprises. Or maybe not.

I replayed it once sometime in the late nineties (having played through it a couple of times when it first came out), and other than the recording quality on the voice work being poor, I thought it was pretty much as good as I remembered.

I'll gladly have another go at it.

We'll never manage to agree here. I've replayed LB2 recently (obviously) and am currently replaying GK, and I certainly prefer the intelligence and emotional relevance of the latter over the soulless, shallow farce that is the former.

I think GK is overrated in exactly the qualities it often gets praised for. The characters and plot are only slightly less cliché than in Dagger of Amon Ra, but while LB2 revels in its stereotypes, GK has pretensions of serious drama.

I'll concede that the writing is better in the conversations in GK than it is in LB2, but whatever quality the prose has is constantly sabotaged by the embarrassing attempts to be "deep."

*cough* ... H.T. Marley ... *cough*

If it's not from the first two games, it doesn't count.

And no, I don't think it's unfair. The MI and SQ games promise to be comedies, to make me have fun. If they do that, then I'm glad and can easily consider whatever inconsistencies they have as minor flaws. LB2 promises to be a detective game, something that will stimulate my intelligence; if it insults it instead, then, yes, I feel I have every right to feel cheated.

Maybe your problem is you that you're demanding the wrong thing. LB2 really promises to let you walk into the experience of a murder mystery, a sort of manic Nancy-Drew-meets-Agatha-Christie pastiche, with a bodycount reaching double figures and more hidden passages than you can shake a stick at.

LB2 provides that experience in bucketloads, which is why the game is so fun despite the fact that some details are flawed.

I also think that accounts for the "It's Laura! It's Sierra! It's fun!" reviews that you and Jack found elsewhere. The concept of LB2 is just inherently fun, and the game is well executed when it comes to the factors that are critical to supporting that main concept. An ultimately coherent plot, or three-dimensional characters, or tying up every loose end, or one or two unfair puzzles, are not.

A critical flaw would be if the setting was mundane, or if the murders lacked gothic flair, or if the heroine didn't uncover seedy secrets, or if it wasn't enjoyable being Laura Bow.

It's like Tim Schafer says: "All games are like MechWarrior, in that you as the player are strapping on a special suit enabling you to do cool things. The suit is your character. He may be a giant robot, or he may be James Bond; but when you're wearing that suit, you get to do awesome stuff. "

LB2 does that one thing really well, and therefore (IMO) succeeds despite doing some other things not so well.

In GK, the Tex Murphy games, Cruise for a corpse, they do. You have the same list of topics for all people, just like in LB2.

You don't (as I recall) get to ask every person in the game about every other person, about every inventory item, as well as about every topic you've learned about.

The difference is that, in those games, you initiate the conversation and are brought to a conversation screen where you just have to pick the topic you want to discuss. In LB2, you have to click on the character, get the notebook screen, turn the pages of the notebook to the topic you want to discuss, select the exit cursor, click with that, to then be returned to the main screen and get your answer. And then, you have to click again on the character and repeat the whole process to ask the next question. That's a terrible interface. And with all the conversations being lumpted together in the first two acts, it is painful. At least, it felt so for me, every time I've played the game.

While ergonomic UIs are nice, I never felt it was too much work to question the suspects. Granted that the state of the art has advanced since 1992, I'd point out that the review eriq provided scans of also praised the conversation system.

I wouldn't be entirely sure about that (though I think it is mostly successful in that respect, and I said so in the review), but, well, the atmosphere never struck me as the game's main promise. As I said, I think it promised to be an intelligent, original, and fun to play murder mystery

I think it's pretty obvious that the game emphasized atmosphere, from the extremely classy box art and the design of the manual as a museum guide, to the art deco chapter titles and the jazz-age music. And not to belabor the point, but all three capsule reviews in that scanned article mention the atmosphere as one of their first points.

--- not least because it was a sequel to The Colonel's Bequest, which was exactly that. But I'm starting to repeat myself.

I thought you didn't think Colonel's Bequest was that original ("certainly would have been better with a bit more originality") or intelligent ("the plot may seem a little simple")? I certainly don't think it was, and in my opinion LB2 is more fun to play.

In danger of repeating myself, I think you're looking for the wrong thing in these games. Doesn't the fact that the victim in LB1 is called "Colonel Dijon" give you a clue about what the LB games are about?

Now get around to reviewing Conquests of the Longbow, and we can finally agree on something!

[eriq]

I started replaying Dagger last nite and I dunno... it's still loads of fun! The taxi rides are annoying but other than that I find it's got the same magical qualities as the rest of the Sierra games. I don't mind the coversation trees myself. So far it's a really fun stylized mystery. The character art in particular is so different than the older Sierra releases. The museum setpiece itself is as cool as I remember. I love "The Archaeologist Song"... LOL.

Originally Posted by Snarky

...I think you're looking for the wrong thing in these games. Doesn't the fact that the victim in LB1 is called "Colonel Dijon" give you a clue about what the LB games are about?

Exactly! Touche'! Well said.

Both Lara Bow games have a very specific 1920's "whodunnit" Agatha Christie sense of humour that I think is quite apparent - especially in the artwork and music. In fact, I think all of Roberta's games with the exception of Phantasmagoria, had the same "oops! that last step was a doozy!" style of humour. In both Lara Bow games, this light-hearted quality is definitely in play.

I invite you to watch this very rare video from my Sierra archive. I ripped this from the 1989-1990 Sierra Video Catalogue. It's a Lara Bow promo. Totally hilarious:

http://www.eriq.net/adventuregamers/larabow.wmv

Enjoy!

[ATMachine]

That was an interesting video. Most noticable to my eyes were two things. One, the characters appearing in the Dramatis Personae at the beginning showed up in a grey message box, not on a stage, as they are in the final game.

Two, Colonel's Bequest originally had a score bar with the game title and points earned (significant, since the final game never shows you points directly; but the team hadn't done any real work on a score system, since the maximum point total shown is 3.)

Did anyone else notice the joke title shown on one gameplay clip in the video? "Murder: The Perils of Programming." Wonder who that prankster was....

Oh, and the "acting" is horrible.

[eriq]

LOL. Leave it to ATMachine to point out all the little special easter eggs in the video. love it!

I noticed all of those things. Most all of the videos from the catalogue were from early builds. I will have to post the "Hero's Quest" video and you can see the original rendering of Baba Yaga's hut.

I agree 100% that the notebook interface was terrible, but I loved everything about the plot. Mind you, I haven't played it in a long time and used a walkthrough on quite a few parts (the game was so buggy on my machine, I feared it would crash at certain parts.) That may have clouded my judgment. I also remember looking at a few parts of the game and saying "that doesn't make sense." And yeah, the ending puzzle was terrible. Maybe I'll look back on it one day and see the ugly truth, but for now, I still like it.

Incidentally, Evan Dickens declared LB2 the 20th Adventure of All-Time in his first list (not this one). Someone dig that out of the archives. I'd like to see was it has to say.

[ATMachine]

Originally Posted by eriq

LOL. Leave it to ATMachine to point out all the little special easter eggs in the video. love it!

I noticed all of those things. Most all of the videos from the catalogue were from early builds. I will have to post the "Hero's Quest" video and you can see the original rendering of Baba Yaga's hut.

Go ahead, please. I'd love to see it, though I suspect it looks the same as the screenshot on the back of the box, which isn't the same as in the game.

[eriq]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

Incidentally, Evan Dickens declared LB2 the 20th Adventure of All-Time in his first list (not this one). Someone dig that out of the archives. I'd like to see was it has to say.

Really? Is it still somewhere on the site perhaps? Jackal?

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by eriq

Really? Is it still somewhere on the site perhaps? Jackal?

Archive.org is your friend...

(wow, was this green and black ugly )
(and re-reading this reminded me that it was a disagreement over the second incarnation of the top-20 that first got me a job at AGs; I'll have to lauch into an in-depth discussion of DOTT at some point... )
(and I'll return to the LB2 discussion as time permits --- that is, not soon )

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

Archive.org is your friend...

(wow, was this green and black ugly )
(and re-reading this reminded me that it was a disagreement over the second incarnation of the top-20 that first got me a job at AGs; I'll have to lauch into an in-depth discussion of DOTT at some point... )
(and I'll return to the LB2 discussion as time permits --- that is, not soon )

King's Quest VI is the second best game of all time?

I want to cry .

[Kurufinwe]

Yeah, it should have been first.

[RLacey]

I like it where it stands today, at three. But I was really surprised to find that Evan misspelled The Secret of Monkey Island on both lists. He spells it "Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentacle." How odd.

[eriq]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

I like it where it stands today, at three. But I was really surprised to find that Evan misspelled The Secret of Monkey Island on both lists. He spells it "Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentacle." How odd.

I had to look twice before I got it. LOL.

[Kurufinwe]

Sorry for not replying earlier, but now I'm back (and don't complain; I'm not as late as I am in that Obsidian thread...). I'll try and organise my thoughts, but do pan me if I'm forgetting something (this thread is getting more complicated than the game's plot --- hopefully, it still more or less makes sense ).

I'll start with a completely gratuitous jab at the review eriq scanned. You see, a few things about it bugged me. First, the mention of a 'stereo soundtrack', which makes little sense mentioning, MIDI music having been stereo for ages, and the AdLib soundtrack (that most people probably got stuck with) being mono. And then there was the mention of multiple endings, which was a bit ridiculous, since the only 'alternate ending' you can get is failing at the questions and getting killed for it. And the oddest was the mention of multiple solutions to the puzzles, which, as far as I know, is just simply wrong (apart from one occasion, where two items can be used to achieve the same thing). So I was really wondering where they got all those odd notions from. And then I found out. My, my... Talk about quality journalism...

Of course, eriq didn't post this review for its overall quality, but to show that, surprising though it may seem, some people seem to have enjoyed the game. Let's just ignore the previous paragraph, then, and move to the real problem. You wondered, Snarky, if I should not have taken more into account the fact that some people liked the game a lot. It depends what for. If you wanted me to look at what other people thought so that I could repeat the same thing, well, sorry, but that's out of the question. A review is an inherently personal and subjective thing (think that a computer game is something takes takes hours to complete and has graphics, music, voices, puzzles, thousands of lines of descrition and dialogue; reducing all that to 2000 words requires choices, many of them; so, if only for that reason, there's no such thing as an 'objective' review --- and people who claim to be wrtiting such a thing are either dishonest or incredibly dumb). Now, if you think that I should have tried harder to understand exactly why some people loved the game when I didn't, so that I could better explain it to our readers, allowing them to better figure out if they'd like the game or not, then yes, you're definitely right. The problem is, that's not an easy thing to do. Actually, I'm sure I really get it now. And if you look at the various positive reviews of the game, or the posts at the beginning of this thread, you'll see that it's not only on my part that some soul-searching is necessary. But more on that later.

Speaking of reviews having to do with selecting what to speak of, there's this question of whether I should have been more precise about act 5. It's never easy to decide what should be discussed in a review, as you have to give the reader enough elements for him to see if he'll want to play the game, and yet you don't want to spoil it for him if he does get around to playing it. I often tend to give away too much, especially in a case like this one where I knew I was defending a not-so-consensual position. At the end of the day, I thought that act 5 was just a short sequence that was not really representative of LB2's gameplay as a whole, and came too late to change the player's opinion of the game, and therefore decided against mentioning it in a review that was already far too long and spoilerish. But I wasn't 100%-sure I was making the right choice, even though I mostly felt (and still feel) I was. Do note, though, that I also decided not to mention the end of this act, and the slight continuity problem with the next one --- something arguably quite akin to the game giving you the finger while laughing at you, or so it felt to me. So there're good and bad things to say about act 5, and saying neither might not have been the best decision, but at least it may not have been completely unfair.

Now, the main problem. Obviously, you (Snarky and eriq) consider that I've taken this game too seriously, quite humourlessly even, that I went looking for something deep and relevant when I should just have sit back and had fun without over-analysing everything (did I get that right?). It's possibly partly true. But what really bugged me was not the inconsistencies themselves, but the fact that the game seemed not to care about them in the least, and just laughed off any question that might be asked about its plot. I indeed would like more 'serious' games from time to time, but only if those games have what it takes to back that (which is precisely why I blame BS3 for taking itself far too seriously). And there are many not serious games that I loved. But, if I can like games that don't take themselves seriously, I have no tolerance whatsoever for games that don't take the player seriously. As I said in the review, and in the previous paragraph, I kept feeling insulted while playing LB2 --- and that's something I can't accept. There are many ways for a detective story not to take itself seriously: just look at Agatha Christie's Tommy & Tuppence stories, the first Broken Sword, Discworld Noir, Sam & Max Hit the Road and, indeed, The Colonel's Bequest. But none (I repeat: none) of those examples have a plot contructed with even remotely the same carelessness as LB2's. Sure, SnM is completely whacky, and LB1 is an hommage to the clichés of murder mysteries, but their plots, weak though they may be, actually make complete sense and manage to be told in an intelligent and efficient fashion. Sure, there might be a few holes here and there, but they just feel like slight oversights. In LB2, there are more holes than plot, and it feels like the designers couldn't be unaware of that, but decided not to care, because, hey, the game is fun, it doesn't want to take itself seriously, so who cares? Well, this, I believe, is precisely the difference between the game not taking itself seriously and its not taking the player seriously.

Maybe I need a new sense of humour. Maybe I should not only like watching clowns toss cream pies at one another, but should also learn to love clowns who repeatedly send cream pies at my face. As it is, I certainly don't. And the same is true of games. I have neither money nor time to waste on games that think it's awfully 'cool' to be sloppily designed. And here, I feel, may lie our difference of appreciation regarding LB2 --- or at least in how much we are able to disregard the insult and focus on the rest. Am I right, or am I right?

And now, just for the sake of completeness (I'm not even trying to get back to the conversation system thing, as I don't want to sound harsh --- humourless is enough for today):

Originally Posted by Snarky

If it's not from the first two games, it doesn't count.

You know, at one point I considered ending my review by saying that, like those crazy MI purists who refuse to acknowledge the existence of MI3 & 4 because they weren't made by Ron Gilbert, people might consider refusing to acknowledge to existence of LB2. Maybe I should have kept it...

Now get around to reviewing Conquests of the Longbow, and we can finally agree on something!

As far as I understand, I won't be the one reviewing the Conquests series. But I do promise I'll get into a tantrum if Longbow gets anything less than five stars. And you're welcome to join me, of course.

[After a brisk nap]

Hey, I appreciate that you're responding. I was hoping you would.

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

I'll start with a completely gratuitous jab at the review eriq scanned. You see, a few things about it bugged me. First, the mention of a 'stereo soundtrack', which makes little sense mentioning, MIDI music having been stereo for ages, and the AdLib soundtrack (that most people probably got stuck with) being mono. And then there was the mention of multiple endings, which was a bit ridiculous, since the only 'alternate ending' you can get is failing at the questions and getting killed for it. And the oddest was the mention of multiple solutions to the puzzles, which, as far as I know, is just simply wrong (apart from one occasion, where two items can be used to achieve the same thing). So I was really wondering where they got all those odd notions from. And then I found out. My, my... Talk about quality journalism...

Yeah, it was pretty obvious that the body of the review is based mainly on Sierra marketing fluff. The actual journalistic content seems to be contained in the three boxes at the side. I don't know what kind of magazine Computer Game Review is/was, but this division strikes me as more honest than many magazines that don't distinguish between what's original, independent content and what's just parroting the press sheet and publisher's spokespeople.

You wondered, Snarky, if I should not have taken more into account the fact that some people liked the game a lot. It depends what for. If you wanted me to look at what other people thought so that I could repeat the same thing, well, sorry, but that's out of the question. A review is an inherently personal and subjective thing (think that a computer game is something takes takes hours to complete and has graphics, music, voices, puzzles, thousands of lines of descrition and dialogue; reducing all that to 2000 words requires choices, many of them; so, if only for that reason, there's no such thing as an 'objective' review --- and people who claim to be wrtiting such a thing are either dishonest or incredibly dumb). Now, if you think that I should have tried harder to understand exactly why some people loved the game when I didn't, so that I could better explain it to our readers, allowing them to better figure out if they'd like the game or not, then yes, you're definitely right.

Yeah, the latter.

The problem is, that's not an easy thing to do. Actually, I'm sure I really get it now. And if you look at the various positive reviews of the game, or the posts at the beginning of this thread, you'll see that it's not only on my part that some soul-searching is necessary. But more on that later.

I realize that it's a difficult thing to do. And I agree that the "#20 Best Adventure Game of All Time" article is completely blind to some of the flaws of the game. But when you talk about posts at the beginning of this thread, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to...?

Speaking of reviews having to do with selecting what to speak of, there's this question of whether I should have been more precise about act 5. It's never easy to decide what should be discussed in a review, as you have to give the reader enough elements for him to see if he'll want to play the game, and yet you don't want to spoil it for him if he does get around to playing it. I often tend to give away too much, especially in a case like this one where I knew I was defending a not-so-consensual position. At the end of the day, I thought that act 5 was just a short sequence that was not really representative of LB2's gameplay as a whole, and came too late to change the player's opinion of the game, and therefore decided against mentioning it in a review that was already far too long and spoilerish. But I wasn't 100%-sure I was making the right choice, even though I mostly felt (and still feel) I was.

Fair enough. If you don't think it would have changed the balance of your review, omitting it shouldn't cause any bias.

Do note, though, that I also decided not to mention the end of this act, and the slight continuity problem with the next one --- something arguably quite akin to the game giving you the finger while laughing at you, or so it felt to me.

Are you talking about the fact that the killer is revealed to Laura (but not the player) and captured by the authorities at the end of Act 5, but in the next Act you nevertheless have to identify the culprit and provide evidence?

As I said, it's been a while, but that's the only thing I can think of that you might consider a continuity problem. In that case, I disagree. Many mystery novels artificially withhold the murderer's name or some other vital clue from the reader in order to maintain suspense. There's a Lord Peter Wimsey story where an entire page is left blank just as the detective explains the mystery, with the excuse that "the perceptive reader will already have figured it out." And the final Act is clearly played as a kind of "Laura has solved the mystery, have you?" game, similar to many mystery puzzles I remember from boys' magazines and comic books I read as a kid.

As I said in the review, and in the previous paragraph, I kept feeling insulted while playing LB2 --- and that's something I can't accept.

It's still not clear to me exactly why you felt insulted by LB2.

In LB2, there are more holes than plot, and it feels like the designers couldn't be unaware of that, but decided not to care, because, hey, the game is fun, it doesn't want to take itself seriously, so who cares? Well, this, I believe, is precisely the difference between the game not taking itself seriously and its not taking the player seriously.

But aren't they right? If the game is fun and doesn't take itself too seriously, who does care?

You, apparently. But I don't really understand why you think we should care.

You know, at one point I considered ending my review by saying that, like those crazy MI purists who refuse to acknowledge the existence of MI3 & 4 because they weren't made by Ron Gilbert, people might consider refusing to acknowledge to existence of LB2. Maybe I should have kept it...

I don't refuse to acknowledge the existence of MI3 and 4. I just refuse to accept them as real Monkey Island games.

As far as I understand, I won't be the one reviewing the Conquests series. But I do promise I'll get into a tantrum if Longbow gets anything less than five stars. And you're welcome to join me, of course.

I'm already working on the first draft of my scathing forum posts.