Fowyr said:
Dicksmoker said:
Regardless I still plan on playing Grim Fandango and Sanitarium at some point but I may have to give most of the others a pass.
:facepalm:
I don't think what Grim Fandango great for your first pick. Do you understand what adventure games, much like RPGs, have subgenres? Have you tried to find tactical combat in PST too?
Why you don't tried games from my previous post? Oh, probably you opened mobygames, found them and cursed "cartoonish graphixx"!!!
OK, probably A.M.B.E.R is your cup of tea.
English isn't your first language is it?
Anyway, I plan on trying Grim Fandango because it gets universally praised, both here and elsewhere, so that at least makes it worth looking in to. That and the premise looks interesting. If I hadn't already had so much trouble getting it to work I probably would have played it already.
As for Sanitarium, any game that gets called the "Planescape: Torment of adventure games" has definitely got my attention.
And also I never said I wouldn't try your games. For the record though, how are the two above in different "sub-genres" than Broken Sword?
Now bros, explain something to me. I seem to be getting the impression that the story is what people like the most, to the point where any significant interruption in the story is actually considered
a detraction from the game. Don't you realize that that makes you storyfags? I thought
I was a storyfag. Strip away the story and what is left in the game? When you look at bare mechanics, the answer seems to be "not much."
An example: When I first entered the museum I fucked around in it a little. I knew I had to get that tripod, but the guard wouldn't let me do anything. I figured out how to get in the sarcophagus (by waiting until the guard was distracted with the window) but George was like "I'll be here for hours," so I left it alone for the time being. Then later in the story, I go back and it's close to closing time, so I figure to try it again, and this time George waits until nightfall and then gets out. At this point I was thinking, "Cool, now I have the museum all to myself, so I'll finally be able to do some cool environmental interactions in order to get that tripod." What happens instead? A complete forced story section where George simply witnesses the thieves entering and then seeing Nico (magically turned into Catwoman) come swinging through the window and knock them out.
How is that not bad design? They deliberately passed up a chance to allow the player to do some cool problem solving and environmental interaction in order to force their own retarded story on me. If this was a modern game it would have probably been fully cinematic with QTEs and shit.
That's one example, but I think it gives a good general idea of the game. I understand that knowing how to use items in your inventory and in what way alongside interacting with characters is its own kind of puzzle, and that kind predominates in this game, but the ones used here are very basic and not mentally engaging. I'm fine with those as well, as long as they are suitably engaging. In this case they're not. I don't have much of a reference here, but the Codex text adventure at least was much better in that regard. I had fun playing that and I think it was pretty well designed, aside from the forced ironman which pissed me off.
And really, if dialogue is such a big part of the gameplay, is it so wrong to expect it to not be cringeworthy? If you're fine with cartoonish characters, that's fine, but you're being pretty singleminded if you can't see how someone who stopped watching cartoons a long time ago would prefer that the characters not be cartoonish.
And also, how are the abstract puzzles NOT fun? You're putting your critical thinking and logic skills to work (the same ones you use when figuring out which item in your inventory to use). As long as they're challenging enough, I don't see how they can't be engaging.
The other thing is that we obviously have action-adventures now, and so for straight adventures to be considered as opposed to action-adventures they need to offer something that the other genre does not. The obvious answer is that for pure adventures the
adventure elements should be more advanced, engaging, sophisticated, etc... In Broken Sword so far that is not the case. So, Codex, you tell me: what can I get from a pure adventure that I can't get in an action-adventure? If your answer is "engaging story," "participation in an epic adventure," "memorable characters," or something like that, then you are officially a storyfag and you need to accept that. Hell, I can be a storyfag too, but for me to consider it above all other elements the story has to be good, with good writing, good characters, and non-retarded characters. In games that is very rare. It's certainly non-existent in Broken Sword.
Alternately a game can have the most retarded story in the world but if the gameplay is engaging enough I won't care. (Also not the case in Broken Sword.)
Now, I intend on finishing this game since I've already gotten halfway through it. Though if it keeps up the way it is I may have to take it in small doses. Still, there's bound to be at least a few more puzzles somewhere along the line (I hope). When I'm done I'll post my final impressions and then try to figure out what other entries in this genre, if any (besides Myst, Sanitarium, and Grim Fandango), that I'll try to play next.
Obscure puzzles, multiple solutions galore, 3 completely different endgames, great atmosphere and writing... it's not a beginner's adventure, but it is indeed awesome.
