Adventure Gamers - Forums

That’s what I call BEAUTIFUL graphics!

The most underrated game here. It was cut in half several weeks before release with the idea of releasing part II soon after, but it didn’t make enough money that would please Virgin, so everything was scrapped.

If it was released in full like planned on 4 CDs with 25h of gameplay, it would be strong contender for TOP5-10 adventure game ever.

Such a good looking game, why did they ruin the cover art?...

That looks cool indeed and quite a quality considering its time of release,
and yeah that cover art tells nothing, infact creepy.

I remembered that a comparison pic of the Monkey Island old and new version to see that modern and higher resolution doesn’t actually means better and can actually be detrimental for an adventure game.

Also the fact that Blackwell Epiphany (and not Beyond, Portal 2, etc) is the recent game that got further in the big tournament should mean that, at least here in the forums, people don’t really care about shiny and modern graphics to evaluate quality.

@wilco

Lastexpress shits on BW games form all directions in almost everything, writing,
uniqueness, animations, realtime nature etc.

Also games like portal and Beyond are disliked by purists, who believe that traditional
PnC games are the King of the crop.

You are already lost if Lucas/Sierra games are treated like blueprint to gauge other titles, then you cannot measure the true potential on its own merits but on your selective retention.

nomadsoul - 23 January 2015 12:07 PM

@wilco

Lastexpress shits on BW games form all directions in almost everything, writing,
uniqueness, animations, realtime nature etc.

Also games like portal and Beyond are disliked by purists, who believe that traditional
PnC games are the King of the crop.

You are already lost if Lucas/Sierra games are treated like blueprint to gauge other titles, then you cannot measure the true potential on its own merits but on your selective retention.

Might be true but it still means that for most adventure gamers it seems more important a good story/puzzles and classic gameplay than hi/res modern graphics. So if SoccerDude wants to make a game using AGS I say go for it, (fortunately) graphics seem to be the last thing in most peoples mind in here.

Yout probably true about Last Express (I never played it) but lets face it, Beyond might look incredible but its plot and writing is amateur hour compared to Blackwell series. I’m not even talking about gameplay here.

nomadsoul - 23 January 2015 12:07 PM

@wilco

Lastexpress shits on BW games form all directions in almost everything, writing,
uniqueness, animations, realtime nature etc.

I disagree – TLE has very nice distinctive graphics & a good story but only one that you can get the best out of by playing it twice & to me that’s not good writing & inferior to that in the BW games where you get it the 1st time around – sure the animations & real-time novelty of the game may be superior but it had a hell of a lot more backing than WE’s independently produced BW series that is just as unique in a different way.

Also games like portal and Beyond are disliked by purists, who believe that traditional
PnC games are the King of the crop.

Of course they are as they’re ACTION HYBRIDS!!!!!!  & I think it’s less about purism & thinking that traditional P & C adventures are King of the crop & more of keeping immersion in a game without being distracted from action based challenges that you have to repeat over & over to win in order to proceed.  It’s good to see that games are furthering the boundaries of what an Adventure game is but no! I don’t believe combining action is the way to go – there are already plenty of those games & there’s already too many ‘pure’ AGs that include action elements. 

You are already lost if Lucas/Sierra games are treated like blueprint to gauge other titles, then you cannot measure the true potential on its own merits but on your selective retention.

I started playing games too late to be familiar with the back catalogue of Lucas/Sierra games but even so I find your comment presumptuous & rude.

Chrissie - you’re spot on about TLE. I don’t like games making you replay to get the full experience, and you need to do that in TLE. Of course I can admire the other parts of the game, but once I finish a game it goes on my shelf for at least a few years.

BW oozes charm, has great puzzles, and I would say those are all it needs (and wants). The atmospheric graphics are a bonus.

wilco - 23 January 2015 12:53 PM

Beyond might look incredible but its plot and writing is amateur hour compared to Blackwell series. I’m not even talking about gameplay here

Really , spooks, spiritual energy, people turning human from ghosts etc.
It was cringe worthy TBH, wonder what caught your attention.

Cage’s script atleast convinced Page and Dafoe, and atleast Ellen was a saving grace not to mention the connection they made in the end, very plausible and theoretically possible way better than epiphany endgame.

BW epiphany also had VAs straight from streets, they love reading lines verbatim without
any pause, emotion or texture.

And the gameplay you talk about is not different from moving cursor on Desktop to
click and sort window icons. In that sense all those hidden object games are revolutionary.

One of the rare occasions where i am actually happy that games like BW don’t sell more than Qdream’s game.