[MoriartyL]

Chibi-Robo!

One of the best games I've played in around a year. It's another little metalude classic to go alongside Pikmin and Beyond Good & Evil, and which I'm sure to replay almost as many times. You play as a little cleaning robot, which gives you a very interesting perspective from which a story unfolds which is sort of like a Japanese version of a soap opera on drugs. No, seriously. Every one of the extremely silly characters in the game has some sort of emotional arc, with love triangles and guilt complexes and divorce threats and psychoses. The game had me laughing out loud over and over again, and brought me close to tears once or twice.

I just wish it didn't have to have an ending. If there's any game series which ought to be made episodic, it's this one.

5/5

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by RLacey

Broken Sword: The Angel of Death

I had more fun with this than The Sleeping Dragon. It's a fun game, and it's good. Too many niggles with the implementation for it to be classed as "great", though.

I haven't been reading too much about it (for the fear of spoilers), so sorry if that question was asked before, but how does the game control? And what do you think of the graphics, as opposed to The Sleeping Dragon? I remember there was a lot of cotroversy regarding the quality of the graphics, when they showed the first screenshots a few months back. Also are the puzzles more of the classic inventory based type, or the Fed-Ex delivery type, or the Push crates type?

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

I haven't been reading too much about it (for the fear of spoilers), so sorry if that question was asked before, but how does the game control? And what do you think of the graphics, as opposed to The Sleeping Dragon? I remember there was a lot of cotroversy regarding the quality of the graphics, when they showed the first screenshots a few months back. Also are the puzzles more of the classic inventory based type, or the Fed-Ex delivery type, or the Push crates type?

The mouse control seemed a lot smoother in the full game - I can remember only two minor locations in which it lagged a bit, but I do have a reasonably powerful PC.

I don't mind the graphics, though the character models did feel a bit Poser-like at some points. There's an awful lot of absent animation, though, which is disappointing, and it's hardly refined.

The puzzles are mostly inventory, with a smattering of environmental stuff and a couple of easy crate-pushing bits (in places that make sense).

I hope that helps. Without giving spoilers I can't really go into much more detail.

In terms of its actual gameplay I prefer The Angel of Death to The Sleeping Dragon, though the game seems to have suffered by being outsourced to Sumo Digital.

[MadTricks]

Finally i completed Broken Sword: The shadow of the Templars.
And i liked it... Although story did't grip me much unfortunetly, but puzzles were great,graphics as well. Little much talking sometimes, but same time it had good humoric side.
I would give it 8.5/10
And its best 2D cartoon-style-Graphic game i have played.

And i captured nice screenie too
(hope it don't spoil)

[Melanie68]

Aura - Fate of the Ages

It was sparkly!

[TangentBlack]

Well, I just finished Scrapland and I was sorely dissapointed. The concept was very interesting and I admit I had not heard about it until I saw it in a thread at AG. I could not wait to play it and as soon as I started I knew I was in for one of those very repetitive do this mindless chore and that mindless chore kind of game. The plot was blaise and humor droll; I am not quite sure if Scrapland's humor was McGee's or just one of his writers but it was not as witty as I remember Alice being. (Granted Alice's humor was a dry, sarcastic humor that at least I found most appealing as a suppliment to the game's fantastic take on Carol's book.) The visual effects and landscapes, however, were most appealing and I was glad to have experienced such a vivid interpretation of that world. Perhaps I was expecting something slightly more dark from American McGee seeing as though Alice and Bad Day were a bit more cynically disturbing. I am looking forward to McGee's movies/games possibly hitting theatres and computers in the next few years. Apparently, he struck a deal with Universal to make Alice into a movie. I am also very enthused about the upcoming games and possible movies based on a twisted version of both the Wizard of Oz and Grimm Fairy Tales. Oh, I just shudder thinking about what wickedly good games those could become.

[MadTricks]

LOL my last post about finishing BS is on this page.
This shows how short is NiBiRu: Age Of Secrets

Yes, it was short
Not-so-good story imo, great graphics, mediocre gameplay, and bad
voiceacting. Puzzles were very easy even for me. But i liked them because they were quite logical. Hardest puzzle was this colored balls puzzle, what wasn't so hard after all. Talking with people isn't really my favourite thing in adventure games and in NiBiRu I didn't have to do this very much. Story lacked from every aspect and ending wasn't better. After playing great game as BS , NiBiRu seems pretty bad.
But i still enjoyed playing it. It took about 8 hours to finish. I would recommend it to them who are new in genre or like easy-logical-puzzles.

Gameplay: 6/10
Voiceacting: 3/10
Graphics: 8/10
Story: 6/10
Puzzles: 7/10
Difficulty:Easy

Total: 6/10

[Giligan]

Chromehounds

Great graphics, intriguing story and great characters, both protagonist and antagonist, cool machines, but basic gameplay. Music good. The maps were fairly basic, but good.

Graphics- very good
Story- good, which is not something you see everyday in a combat game
Music- very good.
Gameplay- fair

[MoriartyL]

Myst V: End of Ages

An abomination.

Uninspired, lifeless and flat-out boring world design in itself makes this a lousy game. But the game doesn't content itself with basic incompetence: The three sets of controls are all awkward, the graphics are repetitive and uninteresting, the acting and writing are unbearable (which was true in the previous games as well, but there was less of them), and the puzzles are typical inventory puzzles with an added level of gimmickry only serving to annoy.

The story, which cannot be skipped, has three sides: Yeesha's excessively vague whiny angst, Esher's excessively vague indignant rambling, and the Bahros' excessively vague existence. The Bahro have no sort of presence past the first scene, being completely contrived clockwork gameplay devices, while the two humans (or D'ni or dunny or dufnee or duckknee or whatever) were not only contrived as well (being there the whole time and never doing a darn thing to help) but also made me wish there were a gun nearby so I wouldn't have to keep listening to them. (If only the great all-powerful slate could be used in such a manner, say by hitting them on the heads with it. Nope, it's a useless rock.) There is no one here to sympathize with. The plot itself I didn't understand because it revolved around countless trivial little details which put me to sleep, with a generous helping of pretention mixed in.

This is by far the worst of the Myst series, worse even than Myst III. I am very glad that I borrowed rather than bought this game, and it's very unlikely that I'll ever buy a new game from Cyan again.

1/5

[Jelena]

Just finished The Black Mirror.
Great graphics in an environment I love: British worn out mansions. Lots of exploring in old houses, gardens and tombs. Even a morgue!
The story was interesting but without any bigger surprises.
The protagonist Samuel Gordon turned out to be a bit of a pain in the....in the long run. All of you who find Kate Walker rude should really meet this guy.
Everyone spoke and moved very slow so I ended up reading the lines and clicking away (expr?) to speed up the game play.
Puzzles were great. A good mix between inventory- and logical puzzles.
I really had great fun playing this game.
7/10

[Monroeski]

Shadow of the Colossus. Truly excellent game, though I didn't like the final colossus much. Just seemed out of place.

[MdaG]

Voyage. Started out really good, but went downhill storywise toward the end. Puzzles were good though and I love the environments. An artistic game :-)
3+/5

or D'ni or dunny or dufnee or duckknee or whatever

LOL !!!

[Jelena]

Just finished B.S 2. It was fun. I've really come to like George and Nico and the kind of adventures they get into.

[Junkface]

Feel the Magic/Project Rub
A hell of a lot of fun and with its own look and feel. I very much enjoyed most of the different gameplay approaches and the fast pace. A few minor irritations (most significant of which is that I kept failing the final level because the microphone was picking up the game's own sound effects) but definitely glad to have played, even if it feels a bit lightweight. Anyone got any thoughts on the sequel?

[Panthera]

Secret Files: Tunguska

On the very positive side, I think this is the most bug-free game I've ever played. Loading was really fast, cutscenes runned great, skipping cutscenes was easy, skipping text and any other thing like that was no problem. It also tolerated alt+tabbing really good. Some times it pixelated the top of my screen when I alt+tabbed back (it went away after she moved a little) but after playing half of syberia without a chin, that didn't bother me so much..
I only experienced one "problem" If you alt+tab when george hids behind the wall, change to nina and then back again, he's free from the wall, making it possible to walk around in the room you are hiding in (first floor hospital). He still couldn't look at anything though. Walking out of the door, and back again resetted everything, and he was back hiding..

Graphics was beautiful and the story was promising, but the way it was presented didn't really drag me in, and I didn't like the characters (explained this more in another thread). To many long conversations and cutscenes, kinda shoved me out of the game a bit to frequently. Puzzles was varied, and gave you many different challanges, I have to confess, I was most often stuck because I hadn't found that little item that had changed in a room since the last time I checked.

I'm still glad I got it, and it is one of the games I'll probably play again, but not that soon..

7/10

Wooo, round numbered post count!
half way to five hundred..

[insane_cobra]

I last finished Deus Ex and before that The Suffering, but since I'm feeling a bit lazy, I'll just paste my impressions from another forum:

Speaking of Deus Ex, I just finished it several days ago. It's been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years until I finally decided to give it a try and now I'm sorry for not doing it sooner. Yes, the first level is pretty boring, but it gets better afterwards.

After just a couple of missions I was thoroughly impressed and almost willing to proclaim it the best game I've ever played, but then it went slightly downhill. At first it seemed the plot would be a gloves-off examination of US internal and foreign policies and the role of United Nations; also a philosophical meditation on such noble (yet in reality often mutated) concepts as "freedom" and "democracy".

Spoiler:

It also seemed it wouldn't be taking sides as it portrayed UNATCO and terrorists as equally opportunistic and exploitative of common folk.

However, it soon degenerated into a silly conspiracy 101 rubbish.

I also found issues with its design.

Spoiler:

Remember meeting up with your brother in the plane hangar? I thought that would be a major branching off point, but after I finished the game I realized the only real decision making took place at the very end. So disappointing, especially considering how many levels felt like they could be played on different sides. Maybe they planned it originally, but eventually cut it out? Anyway, I'm all for creating an illusion of choice, but it's so disheartening seeing how they could've had the real thing with just a little more effort (well, probably a lot more effort, but it would've been totally worth it).

I also thought the game was a little too long. Thanks to its open-ended nature, it was a lot of fun experimenting with different ways of tackling problems, but by the end it all started becoming a little old. Maybe a part of the problem lies in the fact that not that many features get introduced during the later stages? Apart from some weapons, enemies and augmentations (which change the experience, but not that drastically), you're pretty much shown everything the game has to offer before even reaching the halfway point. I don't know, it just didn't seem quite ballanced to me.

But good points by far outwigh the bad so, while not exactly achieving its full potential, Deus Ex definitely remains one of my favorites.

Intrestingly enough, the game I finished just before starting Deus Ex was The Suffering. I wouldn't quite call it a gem, but it's a good game in every respect. I liked the morality concept, yet I felt if was used in a bit too simplistic manner. Richard Rouse III sure knows his game design (in fact, he's the author of [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556229127//ref=nosim/adventuregame-20 favorite book on the subject[/url]), but seems to be somewhat lacking in inspiration. Maybe he'll surprise us with one of his future projects.

[TangentBlack]

I agree with a lot you have to say. However, I felt that the enemies, weapons, and augs were only a means to the actual ingenuity of the game: discovery. To some depth I can understand how Deus Ex was thinly veiled with the ability to make drastic decisions. I thought as well that I was going to recieve a more philisophical taste of a story rather than a conspiracy story; obviously since in philosophy there are always opposing viewpoints, there would be a clear distinction between choices. And there are, but it comes way to late in the game. I, for one, do not necessarily think that a criticism of UN policy would have made a better theme substitute considering that then it would have established a clear opinion that should be yours to make in the first place. Of course, depending on the will of the player, even a philosophical indecision could bring about implications on or about whatever he or she would wish. Both factions performed some unscrupulous acts, but in the end it seems like you had no choice but to stay on the same path against UNATCO until the finale. I am glad you liked the game and I am suprised you hadn't played it sooner. Better late than never, eh?

[Junkface]

Another Code/Trace Memory
Got the weaker ending. That that's even possible in a modern adventure game makes me like it more. Some questionable design decisions (only being able to pick up certain items once you'd done something relatively arbitrary to make your character realise they were useful, sometimes when it feels you're just walking over triggers for cutscenes or the extremely simplistic conversation system), banal dialogue (a hell of a lot of ellipses and random calling of names) and inconsistent art hurt it somewhat, but in its favour are some quite inventive uses for the DS, good pacing, attention to detail (different character portraits for different emotions was a nice touch), a lot of hotspots (even if many of the responses weren't very interesting) and an often intriguing atmosphere. I also enjoyed the way memory was utilised as a theme; maybe not as nuanced a treatment as one might hope, but certainly more adroitly handled than Dreamfall's faith, for instance. One thing that really broke my suspension of disbelief toward the end was

Spoiler:

the way Richard suddenly buggers off leaving Ashley to find her way out of the caves alone after such a traumatic experience. It's completely implausible to me that a man who's supposedly so remorseful over his previous failings as a father and who the game depends on having a deep need to protect and comfort Ashley would do that.

All up I very much enjoyed the game despite its failings and will have to replay part of it to see the ideal ending. I hope the team use what they've learned from this game to turn Hotel Dusk into a masterpiece.

[MadTricks]

Just completed Secret Files: Tunguska
and accepting with Panthera, no bugs at all

Same score too.
7/10

[Jelena]

I finished Syberia 2 for a couple of weeks age. I like it more than the first Syberia if I have to compare the two games. The beauty of the desolate forests, the worn down town and the amazing Yokoul village all appealed to me and the puzzles were really good ones. A couple of them were quite a challenge to me. But I don't want to compare these games. The belong together forming the most beautiful adventure game story I've played so far.