[Crescent Moon]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08...s_6103870.html

There were surprisingly few executives from the major game publishers in attendance, but news about a major publishing deal did break during the show: sources let on that Majesco has picked up Tim Schafer's Psychonauts and will publish the game in early 2005.

Hmm.

[remixor]

Also:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08...s_6103929.html

[Jake]

In regards to the "there should be PC and PS2 ports" comments, I have to say that after going in and testing the game at Double Fine during that "open call for testers" thing, I disagree for a couple reasons (Doug and Chris probably also disagree). First, after playing the game, it's beyond clear that it is truly built to be played with a console controller. Raz's movement, much like Mario in Mario64/Sunshine, is very fluid and very dependent on an analog stick for detailed control of his speed and direction. Mapping a single speed "forward" "back" and "strafe left/right" to WASD or the arrow keys, and mapping shift to "run" would not be doing it justice, and would turn the jumping elements from "fun" to "not fun and instead annoying." Then you'd just have people on forums complaining about how this was clearly a console game what is it doing on PC? etc etc.

As for PS2, again after seeing Psychonauts (we've all seen screenshots!), and then seeing the graphics on even the nicer looking "cartoon" PS2 games... it would be crap. PS2 games just don't look like Psychonauts and it's not for no reason. The XBox has more powerful hardware, and a lot more "built in" video tricks, built in audio tools that it would take Double Fine weeks or months to back-port their own versions of to the PS2, and even then they'd probably have to lower the polygon count of all the character and level art. I don't think it would be out of the question to do a visually inferior, framerate inferior PS2 port at a later date if by a completely insane twist of fate, Psychonauts became a best seller (hell throw a PC port in too if that's the case), but otherwise I don't think that at this point in time back-porting everything to PS2 would be the best use of Double Fine's time and money.

[Mattsius]

Well, if you say so, I'll take your word for it. I'm just sad that I'm probably never going to play this game. Oh well, I guess I can live without it.

[Jake]

Yeah the "as many people as possible should be able to play it" argument is a good one for the pro-porting side, but it doesn't seem practical for them to do without the unlimited bank of Microsoft or EA or something, or guaranteed appeal to Marketing departments, neither of which Psychonauts has really, despite Psychonauts being awesome.

[Marek]

I think Double Fine should do a promotion in which every PC-based Grim Fandango fan who buys an Xbox to play Psychonauts gets ... erm, like a sheet or Raz stickers or something

[Jackal]

I should just throw out my PC (analog, dual stick) gamepad. So long as most PC gamers see them as a "console" controller, we'll never get any PC games that embrace them.

I agree porting doesn't really make sense under the circumstances, though.

[The Seed]

Being a "PC-based Grim Fandango fan", I have very conflicted feelings on the game. On the one hand, i really really want to see the game do well because Tim Schafer is the best ever and if this is a success then there's a better chance of him doing other great stuff. On the other hand, if the game does turn out to be a success, then I'm going to be really bitter because I'm probably never going to be able to play it, seeing as I've never planed on getting an XBox before, and wouldn't buy one just so I could play one game, no matter what that game may be.

My only hope is that after this Tim Schafer decides to do some kind PC based adventure game thingie.

[Mattsius]

I also have a gamepad for my PC, but I never have any use for it. Wonder why?

[Jake]

Whether I have a gamepad or not, I'm always turned off by platformers on PCs because I never have a PC good enough to run them, despite often finding myself in the possession of a "good PC." Playing a platformer on the console it was originally written for, I'm basically guaranteed a specific consistant framerate (unless the game is crap), and on every PC I've owned, that's never the case. Even when I have a PC that's technically within spec, there are always times that I'll walk around a corner and uncover a beautiful vista (clearly littered with timing-specific jump puzzles) which drops my frame rate to a chunky 15 fps, causing the character to become unresponsive and sluggish, and any shots I fire to go wild. This is why I had to stop playing Giants despite it being an awesome game.

Everyone here who talks about wanting Psychonauts on their PC... do any of you have a PC that would truly be high quality enough to run Psychonauts at a consistant 40fps or higher with the graphic details turned up to anything higher than the "brown blurry mess" setting? And if you are able to afford a state of the artt PC, what's holding you back from buying a used xbox for $110? That's clearly 1/3 the cost of a new video card you'd need to buy to play Doom 3 on highest settings



Its just silly to me i guess. I'm a Grim Fandango fan and a pc gaming fan etc etc etc but Psychonauts just isn't a PC game. It's dumb to me that PC gamers complain about how adventure games just aren't console games, or how RTS games just aren't console games, and then seem to think that 3rd person jumpey platformey games are somehow not console games but are somehow "universal." Just like you have to bust your ass to make an FPS that is good on console, you have to do the same with a PC based platformer. You couldn't just port it over and expect it to be as fulfilling. Halo was reworked from the ground up to be an enjoyable FPS on console. Psychonauts was and is not going to be reworked from the ground up to be fulfilling on PC.

I'm bitter and whiney. I need to take a break from the forums I think

[remixor]

I agree with Jake.

Originally Posted by Jake

there are always times that I'll walk around a corner and uncover a beautiful vista (clearly littered with timing-specific jump puzzles) which drops my frame rate to a chunky 15 fps, causing the character to become unresponsive and sluggish, and any shots I fire to go wild

Never play Painkiller. Oh God, never play Painkiller.

[Mattsius]

Originally Posted by Jake

Everyone here who talks about wanting Psychonauts on their PC... do any of you have a PC that would truly be high quality enough to run Psychonauts at a consistant 40fps or higher with the graphic details turned up to anything higher than the "brown blurry mess" setting? And if you are able to afford a state of the artt PC, what's holding you back from buying a used xbox for $110? That's clearly 1/3 the cost of a new video card you'd need to buy to play Doom 3 on highest settings

At the moment I don't have a state of the art PC, but this time next year I probably will have. Why not buy an Xbox when you're at it you ask? Well, because that's a waste of money. My state of the art PC will come to good use in many ways, but I'm not going to buy an Xbox just to play one game.

I agree about platformers not generally performing well on PCs, but I'm sure that it's possible for a platformer to play well on a PC, but it's just not very common. I agree though that porting Psychonauts to the PC would likely be one hell of a job, and most certainly wouldn't be worth it.

P.S. Generally I'm not a big fan of platformers anyway, so I don't know what I'm going on about here. I guess I'm just bitter and whiney.

[tabacco]

Originally Posted by Mattsius

At the moment I don't have a state of the art PC, but this time next year I probably will have. Why not buy an Xbox when you're at it you ask? Well, because that's a waste of money. My state of the art PC will come to good use in many ways, but I'm not going to buy an Xbox just to play one game.[/SIZE]

You could always, um... buy more games? There are some great Xbox games out there, you just have to try 'em.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Mattsius

P.S. Generally I'm not a big fan of platformers anyway, so I don't know what I'm going on about here. I guess I'm just bitter and whiney.

I know the feeling

That said Psychonauts isn't a standard platformer. I suggest convincing a friend to rent it and then steal his living room for a couple days.

[Jackal]

Even though I already agreed a port wouldn't make much sense, I'm gonna argue just to make Jake more bitter and whiney.

Underpowered computers is really just an argument of convenience. Hasn't hurt sales of the GTA's, Silent Hills, etc. Really it doesn't take a very high end PC to run a game at Xbox-level graphic quality. It may stink not to have one that does, but that's really the nature of the beast with PC gaming. If you want to play new games, you need to keep up with current hardware, but then that hardware serves you for all the latest games. So anyone geared up for Doom 3 would be laughing when Psychonauts (hypothetically) rolled around.

[remixor]

I think one point Jake may be making (not to put words into his mouth) is that many adventure fans might not have top-of-the-line PCs, as even with the fairly low-req BS3 we got plenty of people here complaining that Revolution expected them to have PCs that could run the game. The people playing Silent Hill and GTA are more likely to already have higher-powered machines (and those games still sell much better on console).
Based on how much of it I played, Psychonauts would need a fairly hefty system to really look as good as it does on Xbox. There are a LOT of shiny graphical effects all over the place, even in the most seemingly mundane areas. The game would really lose a lot of luster by being scaled down.

[pleto4_ryan]

mm....I had this false(?) idea that the game was being designed exclusive onto the XBOX mechanisms...
like Fable and Jade Empire

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by remixor

I think one point Jake may be making (not to put words into his mouth) is that many adventure fans might not have top-of-the-line PCs, as even with the fairly low-req BS3 we got plenty of people here complaining that Revolution expected them to have PCs that could run the game.

Yeah, I realize that. It's certainly true that a lot of adventure gamers don't have the computers to run new games. I'm not disputing the claim, but I just never found it a valid argument not to make games that push the envelope (or in this case, port higher end games).

And just for the record, I'm now losing the battle with current games, myself, so I'm not saying this smugly on a bright, shiny computer.

[Jake]

I agree with you Jackal completely!!! The last thing I want is for PC games to fall behind (some might add "more than they already have" but I don't know if I want to go that far).

I'm just saying that to all those asking for a PC port of Psychonauts, there are quite a few practical and idealistic reasons why it wouldn't be the best plan.

As you can see I'm feeling slightly less feisty now.

Originally Posted by pleto4_ryan

mm....I had this false(?) idea that the game was being designed exclusive onto the XBOX mechanisms...
like Fable and Jade Empire

That's true in a way, but every exclusive XBox trick can be reproduced elsewhere, you just have to do it yourself with your own graphics and sound programming teams, you can't use the XBox's built in tools.

[Kingzjester]

The Xbox camp is full of shit and your arguments are arbitrary.