Adventure Gamers - Forums

Don’t get me wrong, the game starts nicely and it has this beautiful Vangelis music but then it goes on filling up your journal with tons of information and the map with dozens over dozens of locations. You stop for a day or two to do something else and if you return you have to read again most of it to get back on track in a proper way. Don’t get me wrong, it might be easier if you do it non-stop, but if you do it in portions it’s full of disconnects to the flow. It should be an 101 no-no for future and modern games.
Not only that, but it’s also filled with plenty of problematic puzzles that are neither bugged or theoretically difficult, but they become difficult because the map is huge and one may not know what the writers thought it would happen later.
But apart from that it was an enjoyable game and the dynamic nature of its script was admirably complex (that wasn’t tedious).
Ah, it also went too abruptly to some new characters in the end. Here you are, going very slowly and methodically investigating 2 or 3 characters and bang here are some new guys in your life that just throw everything directly at you, the end.
i.e. The movie was nice also because it had a nice soothing flow, being all Detective Supercomplexity in the end wasn’t “impossible” but it wasn’t enjoyable. (And don’t put stupid killer rats in a game like this again.)
edit: and photograph investigation. Seriously, this is why future games have automatic detection sometimes. Not being sure if you missed something on a very complex painting isn’t exactly fun (when you don’t know if it’s that that was missed or something completely different.)

I sort of agree, but that’s one of the things I liked about it. I played it as a kid, when it was the only game I had for a year or so, so I went and played it back multiple times to see all the different endings - I think that’ why the latter half feels a bit rushed and complex, it sort of requires you to see other endings. Even so, I see what you mean, and I was so invested in the story that I guess I didn’t notice if it drops off.

9cupsoftea - 29 January 2013 01:03 PM

I sort of agree, but that’s one of the things I liked about it. I played it as a kid, when it was the only game I had for a year or so, so I went and played it back multiple times to see all the different endings - I think that’ why the latter half feels a bit rushed and complex, it sort of requires you to see other endings. Even so, I see what you mean, and I was so invested in the story that I guess I didn’t notice if it drops off.

I understand what you mean I guess. My first big love with adventures was Indiana Jones IV and I played it in full without any help. I was even young and my English was rudimentary at best so it was super hard. But comparing it to modern gaming, being tedious isn’t exactly fun and to promote intelligent gameplay you have to avoid the fat of repetition and aimless wandering.

That annoyed me too though I soon found the ‘hack’. It was easy to just go front, let it appear, go a bit back, kill it, then leave the screen completely, go back and it’s gone. (Otherwise the plank would break.)

*bleep bleep bleep* “McCoy 88F”