Adventure Gamers - Forums

rtrooney - 23 June 2013 06:55 PM

While I didn’t care for the ending at all, I am seriously thinking of playing it again looking for all the possible interactions between characters and objects. I know there are things I missed, and I would hate to uninstall without giving myself a chance to catch most of them.

That was pretty much what i did with this playthrough. When i originally played it some years ago, i was in much more of a hurry to solve the puzzles and progress in the game. I remember that after a while i actually found all the options a little bit annoying and kind of red herrings, as you could never be sure what was just there for a smart remark, and what you actually need to interact with. But this time all the extra funny remarks was really the highlight for me.

This has also been my very first first community playthrough, though not the last. Had i just replayed it alone, i would probably just have raced through the game, and not enjoyed it as much as i did. Playing it together with others this way, has definitely added to the experience.

I’ve fallen a bit behind on the playthrough (I’ve only explored all the possible areas, haven’t really solved any puzzles so far), and I’ve got a couple of busy nights ahead.
I’ll try to catch up by Friday, but I’m unsure if I’ll succeed…

Having said that, I’ll write a review regardless, even if it’s a week late.

While I didn’t care for the ending, I enjoyed the game. Thanks to Sefir for putting it together. I particularly enjoyed being able to play the game “right out of the box.” While I installed the patch, there were still a few glitches, but that is not uncommon with any game.

As I’ve said, I played this game when it first came out but never finished it. I was one of several that encountered the “perfume bottle bug.” If I ran into it while playing solo I likely would have thrown in the towel. Playing as part of a group though got me through the bug.

The graphics, except for the very final scenes, are uniformly excellent. The music and sound effects are quite good. They are certainly unobtrusive which, to me, is as they should be.

The voice acting, with the possible exceptions of Shannon and Rufus, is perhaps the best and most enjoyable I’ve experienced in a game. I can’t for the life of me figure out why this didn’t pull me through the first time I played. The exchanges between Mon and Foderick are priceless. Which also means that the writing was also excellent. While I didn’t understand the references to some of the jokes, particularly those that alluded to other games, I can’t fault the writers for that. After all, if a player had never heard a recording of Herbert Morrison’s description of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, Froderick’s “Oh the Humanity!” wail at the nut crusher wouldn’t make a lot of sense either.

I liked most of the puzzles/riddles. Although a few could be categorized as tedious. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, setting the stage to make Shannon think it was daybreak could have required going through 216 permutations. Some others came with less than clear direction. I’m ambivalent about the “memory inventory v real inventory” issue, but why is there a need to put an item in inventory when the item and the item you use it with is right in from of you?

Overall, I enjoyed both the game and the community playtrough experience. And, as I mentioned elsewhere, I am going to replay the game to catch all the things I missed.

RayB - 22 June 2013 08:51 PM

As for the kickstarter project, it looks cute and all but I would have been far more likely to proffer my coin should it have been decided to conclude the original story even if it was in a more abbreviated form than originally intended.

I feel that way as well. But I feel that way in hindsight. Inasmuch as I didn’t like, and never finished the game when it was first released, I doubt I would have funded any Kickstarter project that related to AVS….sequel or pre-quel.

However, after finishing the CPT, I would have funded a sequel Kickstarter in a heartbeat. And, as Iznogood noted, I would probably have funded the pre-quel hoping/dreaming that its success would lead to completion of the planned sequel. Timing is everything.

TimovieMan - 24 June 2013 02:58 PM

I’ve fallen a bit behind on the playthrough (I’ve only explored all the possible areas, haven’t really solved any puzzles so far), and I’ve got a couple of busy nights ahead.

I’m in the same boat. And the fact that this is the most “open-ended” part doesn’t help, either. But I must say that the game progresses nice and smooth from the semi-limited first and second part, to the more “free-roaming” third chapter. It’s no “Monkey Island”, (and it really doesn’t have to be) - but it’s a really neat change of pace.

I’m behind too. Haven’t really read the thread so I don’t end up spoiling myself. Had a midsummer away from home and now my fiance is on vacation just for these couple of days so I didn’t want to use them for solo play. I’ll get back to AVS this week and hopefully get to finish it in time to have some discussions here still.

Sefir - 25 June 2013 01:50 AM

You have a week (1/7) to finish the game.

Yeah, Baby!

Unfortunately I am well behind - still haven’t really started part 3. I will finish in my own time though and come back and read others’ comments then.

Oscar - 27 June 2013 03:57 AM

And what about the sequel? I agree with others that a prequel is unnecessary, we know what happened to Mona. And I really appreciated the brief exposition in AVS - they could have made her back-story really drawn out but they didn’t. It was a much better idea to make references to it in the jokes, gradually and subtly giving us an idea of her past. There’s obviously a lot to be told about Mona’s history, but that doesn’t mean it should be told.

I agree. It would be perfectly fine with me, if nothing more was told about Mona’s back story than what has already been told, and i think we can all agree that the sequel is much more needed.

I think that the reason he wants to make the prequel (first ?), is that it will be a short, episodic length game, whereas the sequel was planned as a fully fledged game, at least the same size as AVS. But this also mean that it would take more money to make the sequel, making it (perhaps) less suitable for a kickstarter.

I might be wrong about this, but I believe Tiller explained on couple of occasions that AVS 2 got stuck in the copyright limbo, and that the main reason for prequel is to raise money for a full-fledged sequel (apart from the fact that he himself admitted having the need to tell what happened before AVS 1).

That sound reasonable - the only problem is that AVS1 itself was “unfinished” story-wise, and perhaps even those who liked the original wouldn’t donate for a prequel. And there is another theory of mine - most of the successfully-funded Kickstarter campaigns are non-episodic titles - Broken Sword 5, Tex Murphy, Dreamfall: Chapters… while AVS Year One is, while being prequel also an episodic prequel, when it wasn’t in such good position to start with.

But it’s good to know Tiller intends on pursuing future AVS games (whether it’s prequel/sequel).

diego - 27 June 2013 03:43 PM

I might be wrong about this, but I believe Tiller explained on couple of occasions that AVS 2 got stuck in the copyright limbo, and that the main reason for prequel is to raise money for a full-fledged sequel (apart from the fact that he himself admitted having the need to tell what happened before AVS 1).

That sound reasonable - the only problem is that AVS1 itself was “unfinished” story-wise, and perhaps even those who liked the original wouldn’t donate for a prequel. And there is another theory of mine - most of the successfully-funded Kickstarter campaigns are non-episodic titles - Broken Sword 5, Tex Murphy, Dreamfall: Chapters… while AVS Year One is, while being prequel also an episodic prequel, when it wasn’t in such good position to start with.

But it’s good to know Tiller intends on pursuing future AVS games (whether it’s prequel/sequel).

If the sequel got caught in copyright limbo, it’s hard to believe that a prequel wouldn’t be stuck in same.