[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

I agree. I'm not really afraid of the Xbox 360 gamers (because no one will buy it, i'm joking but really... it will sell close to nothing on Xbox) but the mainstrem reviewers. They will tear it apart (i dont blame them really, they are used to technical wonders like Mass Effect 2, Halo's and so on) simply because Gray Matter will be a very flawed game based around ancient mechanics that mainstream games don't use anymore.

Then MODERNIZE IT! Recreate the world of Gray Matter as a drop dead gorgeous real-time 3D experience where you can explore everything instead of hovering a character or a pointer over a flat graphic slideshow. Be able to walk INTO the world instead of on top of it looking desperately for that single pixel hotspot. Render inventory items as objects you can manipulate in space and zoom into for closeups and details. Take advantage of the 3D to engineer puzzles where positional 5.1 surround sound is a key element in the solution. Create dynamic atmospheric weather and day/night cycles, fully realized physics and motion capture, environmental puzzles and situations that surround the character.

Feature in-game cutscenes that allow us to actually interact with people, places, and things while the cutscene happens in real time, like this: Uncharted 2 cutscene 1

...or this: Heavy Rain: The Taxidermist (DLC)*SPOILER: heart racing suspenseful moments*
...or this: Bioshock: opening sequence

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Trep

Then MODERNIZE IT! ....blah blah blah...

Actually I'm half joking (which means the other half is dead serious).

I also truly, madly, deeply wish Ms. Jensen would finally work on Gabriel Knight 4 - IN REAL TIME 3D FOR THE CONSOLES AND PC. She should hook up with Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Uncharted 2) and have it be their love child. Oh please, oh please....!!!!

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Actually I'm half joking (which means the other half is dead serious).

I also truly, madly, deeply wish Ms. Jensen would finally work on Gabriel Knight 4 - IN REAL TIME 3D FOR THE CONSOLES AND PC. She should hook up with Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Uncharted 2) and have it be their love child. Oh please, oh please....!!!!

The real issue with GK3 was the mechanics, and not the real time 3d. So with a good enough team and a really good game designer, then it could work. I agree with you 100%.

Though I can't complain. I still play casual games. Really, looking past crappy hog puzzles, the stories in these games are quite interesting. Yet most of the REAL adventure games fall short with boring overdone concepts.

[UPtimist]

As I'm sure everyone realizes, the issue is budget - they just don't have the capabilities to make something so grand, and so we're stuck with the nice-but-nothing-special 2.5D. If we still had the good old days' budget, sure, but now we're relying on German small-to-medium size developers. Which is sad, because I've made my point clear on how much I love the whole system in GK3 (and especially what I imagine they could do now...)

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

I agree. I'm not really afraid of the Xbox 360 gamers (because no one will buy it, i'm joking but really... it will sell close to nothing on Xbox) but the mainstrem reviewers. They will tear it apart (i dont blame them really, they are used to technical wonders like Mass Effect 2, Halo's and so on) simply because Gray Matter will be a very flawed game based around ancient mechanics that mainstream games don't use anymore.

The niche adventure reviewers are a lot more tolerant to that, but i expect the Xbox version to have a very low metacritic score, and that will generate bad publicity and even lower sales.

Yes, very true.

I'm surprised their focus wasn't the PC, DS and Wii. It's going to be a vain attempt for Jane and co. to try and reach out to the more 'hardcore' 360 gamers. No doubt there are quite a few 360/'hardcore' gamers out there who enjoy old skool adventures (like me ), but it'll only be a small percentage.

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Then MODERNIZE IT! Recreate the world of Gray Matter as a drop dead gorgeous real-time 3D experience where you can explore everything instead of hovering a character or a pointer over a flat graphic slideshow. Be able to walk INTO the world instead of on top of it looking desperately for that single pixel hotspot. Render inventory items as objects you can manipulate in space and zoom into for closeups and details. Take advantage of the 3D to engineer puzzles where positional 5.1 surround sound is a key element in the solution. Create dynamic atmospheric weather and day/night cycles, fully realized physics and motion capture, environmental puzzles and situations that surround the character.

Feature in-game cutscenes that allow us to actually interact with people, places, and things while the cutscene happens in real time, like this: Uncharted 2 cutscene 1

...or this: Heavy Rain: The Taxidermist (DLC)*SPOILER: heart racing suspenseful moments*
...or this: Bioshock: opening sequence

If only they could and had the budget...

[Lupin The Third]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

I agree. I'm not really afraid of the Xbox 360 gamers (because no one will buy it, i'm joking but really... it will sell close to nothing on Xbox) but the mainstrem reviewers. They will tear it apart (i dont blame them really, they are used to technical wonders like Mass Effect 2, Halo's and so on) simply because Gray Matter will be a very flawed game based around ancient mechanics that mainstream games don't use anymore.

The niche adventure reviewers are a lot more tolerant to that, but i expect the Xbox version to have a very low metacritic score, and that will generate bad publicity and even lower sales.

While this might be true to a degree, one does have to wonder who's expectations are more skewed here. On the one hand the 360 audience is used to games like Gears, Reach, Bioshock, Mass Effect and other titles that have significantly pushed technology forward. But simultaneously look at the shmup genre (old school style 2D shooters). It's a very niche market but in this generation it's come to reside almost solely on the 360. Games like Raiden Fighters, Raiden 4, Mushihime, Death Smiles, ESP, Guwange, Dodonpachi and even Ikaruga have a minuscule market compared to how this genre flourished in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Developed almost exclusively by Japanese studios the genre is nevertheless enjoying a bit of a resurgence over the last year and a half which has included Cave's first ever US release earlier this year (Death Smiles). I bring this up because this is, in the modern gaming scene, a very obscure genre that's alive almost exclusively on the 360. Are these games unfairly reviewed by "mainstream" press? Ask any shmupper that question and you'll get an "absolutely", likely followed by a series of expletives deriding games like Gears and Halo. Usually these games are wrongly criticized for being too dated, lacking in replayability, and that they'd have been better off as a $10 downloadable title and are too expensive as retail titles....which is completely ignorant of the genre but is the typical common response from the mainstream press....notice any parallels here? Yet in spite of this, the shmup genre is going through a huge (for it's size) resurgence right now. Now by no measure am I arguing that Grey Matter is going to cause a huge resurgence for adventure gaming because it's on the 360 also. My point is simply that just because the mainstream press criticizes something they don't understand doesn't mean that it won't still find a market.

Alternately let's pause to consider some of what these evil mainstreamers are going to say about Grey Matter. Undoubtedly they'll criticize the animations, the point & click style gameplay, the puzzles, etc. But in some ways don't they have a right to? The original Resident Evil had animations of this quality....in 1996! Here we are 14 years later and we have a character doing the tank-stomp around the screen. Isn't it fair to take issue with that (as many in this thread already have)? At what point should we, as discerning adventure gamers, stop making excuses and simply say "this isn't acceptable"? Personally I love good puzzle solving, and when I look at how a series like Resident Evil has moved away entirely from including puzzle solving as it did in the early years to simply being an action shooter I'm disappointed. But unless the experience of solving puzzles evolves there's arguable reason for many games to move away from them. Does Grey Matter do anything to innovate puzzle solving? Are the puzzles there to advance the story in an intelligent and interesting manner? Or are they simply there because it's a genre standard? And doesn't merely resting on standards invite criticism?

I'm still super excited for this game but maybe I shouldn't cut it slack just because it's an AG and the genre is now more obscure? Maybe the devs should be expected to produce a higher quality product given the plethora of development tools an engines readily available for use? While it's predictable that the mainstream will be "unfair" to Grey Matter maybe we're being "too fair" in overlooking qualities that might hold this game back from achieving the quality that comes to mind when we think of Gabriel Knight and other such classics? We're games like Gabriel Knight 2 and Phantasmagoria revolutionary for their time? Didn't they do new things that pushed technology forward? Maybe we should be expecting at least human-like animations from the characters in Grey Matter given it's pedigree....maybe even the "mainstream" have legitimate reasons for their expectations.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

If only they could and had the budget...

They used to, back in the 90s under Sierra. But the market shifted and Sierra's focus shifted along with it and things changed. The problem is that many adventure developers and publishers refused to pay attention to this change and adapt to it. Remember when the adventure game genre was the most innovative out of all kinds of games? What's ironic is that other kinds of games borrowed heavily from adventure game conventions and made it their own while adventure games in general never changed and progressed.

That's in good part why today it's marginalized by the mainstream media and is largely ignored by the markets. Which means very few big publishers are even willing to invest money and resources to developers like Wizerbox.

Hey, take a look at this:



Uncharted 2: Nepalese Village Gameplay (video clip)

This sequence takes place after our hero, Nathan, wakes up in a beautiful village in the mountains after a severely harrowing experience on a train. He leaves the house and walks around. The entire sequence is in-game and interactive, allowing you to explore and meet the villagers and even at one point play with children and find hidden treasure. There is absolutely zero action involved, only exploration and discovery.

I'm pointing this out because this is one possible direction an adventure game like, say, Gabriel Knight 4 could look and feel like in terms of it being in 3D and not selling out to that whole stereotyping by some of you here (yeah, you know who you are!) that because an adventure game is 3D it must include action sequences. Imagine GK4 being something like this.

Not gonna happen, but at least we can dream, can't we?

[Roper Klacks]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

...

Not gonna happen, but at least we can dream, can't we?

Well that's basically Dreamfall right? Beautifull 3d visuals and classic adventure mechanics.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

Well that's basically Dreamfall right? Beautifull 3d visuals and classic adventure mechanics.

When is the third installment of TLJ coming?!!!


Oh, and getting back to Gray Matter..... .....still NO OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT from the publishers?

[Henke]

This discussion partly shows why many games that are released today are real crap. The developers assume that "technology" are all that gamers are interested in. To bad they're almost right too. Sure, in certain types of games it has always been part of the experience but according to me games are about so much more. One can only thank a higher power that independet games are made and released on the Xbox/Playstation networks and on sites such as Steam. That's actually a good option for Gray Matter.

Regarding everybodys fears of Gray Matters potential shortcomings and strengths, all I can say is that if you enjoy the Gabriel Knight games then you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

[mgeorge]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Uncharted 2: Nepalese Village Gameplay (video clip) )

My God. I wish I had a PS3!

[rayvio]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Actually I'm half joking (which means the other half is dead serious).

I also truly, madly, deeply wish Ms. Jensen would finally work on Gabriel Knight 4 - IN REAL TIME 3D FOR THE CONSOLES AND PC. She should hook up with Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Uncharted 2) and have it be their love child. Oh please, oh please....!!!!

even putting the other issues aside, it's a sad fact that we'll likely never see a Gabriel Knight 4. if I remember right there were some licensing issues, largely due to Sierra having no interest in continuing the franchise but refusing to sell the rights to Jane Jensen, preventing her from making any more games or even books

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Large version of this screenshot. This is exactly how the game looks while you play it. Imagine that the guy on the left is Gabe and the woman is Grace, the huge statue before them a seriously challenging puzzle that could easily take a good hour or two to solve.

Originally Posted by mgeorge

My God. I wish I had a PS3!

This won't make you feel any better...

Uncharted 2 Among Thieves Cutscenes HD 720p Part 1

Note the quality of the voice acting, directing (camera angles), editing, motion capture (body language), and intricate facial expressions conveying emotions and psychology. Also note that actual gameplay graphics are practically indistinguishable from these non-playable cutscenes.

With a very high budget and resources from certain publishers, imagine Gabriel Knight 4 looking like this, in effect like the actual 2D screens in Gray Matter becoming real time 3D and interactive.

Yeah, we can all dream, can't we? Wonder if Jensen or any of her associates - or better yet, Sierra - is reading this thread.

[Roper Klacks]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Yeah, we can all dream, can't we? Wonder if Jensen or any of her associates - or better yet, Sierra - is reading this thread.

Sierra doesn't exist anymore. Gabriel belongs to Activision now, Jane has no power on the series, its sad, but true. Even sadder is the fact that the series is in the hands of a disgusting company like Activision. They will never make a Gabriel Knight game because its not financialy viable and will never sell the rights because they dont want anyone to make money from that IP.

I think its better to forget about Gabriel, while Bobby Kotick and his mates are on charge of Activision there's no chance in hell for them to authorize a GK game, and it could take a very long time until those guys are out of Activision, meanwhile Jane is not getting younger and only her can make a GK game.

Lets hope Gray Matter is a decent game and Samantha and David interesting characters like GK, Gabe and Grace were.

[Monolith]

People talk about budget when talking about quality, but in reality most of the budget goes into marketing and licensing. You don't need all that money to create something on par with Heavy Rain and Uncharted.

Though, it will cost a lot of money for decent animations.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Monolith

People talk about budget when talking about quality, but in reality most of the budget goes into marketing and licensing. You don't need all that money to create something on par with Heavy Rain and Uncharted.

Marketing has a SERIOUS PART in determining how commercially successful a game can be. Marketing is part of the game's overall quality. You can make the most amazing game in history but if you don't market it strategically and aggressively it's worthless 'cause it won't make money - and forget about that sequel.

So yeah, if I were a developer/publisher I'd sure as hell would want a lot of investment in marketing, and on licensing depending on how well the IP does.

Originally Posted by Monolith

Though, it will cost a lot of money for decent animations.

I rest my case.

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Marketing has a SERIOUS PART in determining how commercially successful a game can be. Marketing is part of the game's overall quality. You can make the most amazing game in history but if you don't market it strategically and aggressively it's worthless 'cause it won't make money - and forget about that sequel.

So yeah, if I were a developer/publisher I'd sure as hell would want a lot of investment in marketing, and on licensing depending on how well the IP does.

yet there are plenty of great games that had little to no marketing, and utilized publicity or word of mouth to sell the game.

PC games are a great example of selling games with EXTREMELY cheap marketing.

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by Monolith

People talk about budget when talking about quality, but in reality most of the budget goes into marketing and licensing. You don't need all that money to create something on par with Heavy Rain and Uncharted.

Are you aware how many people it takes to make a game like Uncharted. I was watching the behind the scenes for God of War 3 for example, and at one point in time, 80 people were working on that game. Now the game took 2+ years, and assume on average, with health insurance and benefits and all, an employee costs around 60,000 in LA. That is around 9 million only in salaries. Let's not forget the office space cost, utilities, hardware and software costs, etc... and you get an idea how much it costs to make a big budget game like Uncharted. Then you'll have to add marketing costs and ad spend, production and distribution costs, and the number can go up to around 20 million.

Unfortunately, making games on consoles and high end PC's these days is a very pricey business, and if you strip away the emotion and love that we all have for this beautiful genre, will you green light a 20 million dollar budget for an adventure game that will probably not break even?

[Burns11]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Large version of this screenshot. This is exactly how the game looks while you play it. Imagine that the guy on the left is Gabe and the woman is Grace, the huge statue before them a seriously challenging puzzle that could easily take a good hour or two to solve.

Makes me sad it will never happen, but at least we'll have Uncharted 3.

[Roper Klacks]

Originally Posted by Monolith

yet there are plenty of great games that had little to no marketing, and utilized publicity or word of mouth to sell the game.

The best examples are games from the former eastern bloc. STALKER and The Witcher had almost no marketing outside their countries and managed to sell several million copies each.

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

Then you'll have to add marketing costs and ad spend, production and distribution costs, and the number can go up to around 20 million.

GTA IV budget was something like 100 Million, that's insane! Costs are rising and rising and i feel sometime in the future the way the industry is making games will simply collapse and will have to change.