Gray Matter is out! (From the creator of Gabriel Knight)

[Castanova]

Adventure games are basically prime targets for built-in helper things like, say, quest compasses and puzzle hints. There's simply no excuse for not including meaningfully difficult puzzles in an adventure game, even these days. But, to be honest, I don't think easy puzzles are a fully conscious decision. It's simply the fact that penning a mediocre 10-hour adventure storyline is easy, spending months devising ingenious puzzles is hard. But choosing the easy route reveals the adventure designer as not much more than a wannabe author.

 

[Bubb]

I just finished it, and it was probably the best adventure game released in the last 10 years or so. I don't think it is "emo" at all, and I really don't think it should be bashed.

I do think Jensen tried to cater to a younger audience, and I do think just by playing its obvious that everything was written by a woman... but still, care to name a better designed and better written adventure released in the last decade? I sure can't, and that is saying a lot.

Hopefully the game sells well.

 

[abnaxus]

I do think Jensen tried to cater to a younger audience, and I do think just by playing its obvious that everything was written by a woman... but still, care to name a better designed and better written adventure released in the last decade? I sure can't, and that is saying a lot.

Syberia 1/2.

 

[Bubb]

I humbly disagree, Syberia was great, but I think Gray Matter wins hands down.

Also, Syberia was more "emo" by the standards of the locals.

 

[abnaxus]

I think Dreamfall is better as well. But Gray Matter is definitely one of the few post-2000 adventures that manages to stand out.

 

[Wolfus]

Black Mirror is close, but has different mood.

 

[Seolas]

Awesome tour of the real Oxford where the game was set, goes to the same locations.

http://blip.tv/on-location/gray-matter- ... rd-5215677

 

[Wolfus]

I was there for real. Too many people on the streets

 

[kaizoku]

Does anyone have reliable numbers on the number of units sold?
According to this, during it's first 10 weeks it sold 10,000 units :'(
In comparison, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, sold a total of at least 1,000,000 units.

I'm not sure how reliable that info is, considering adventure games are not exactly mainstream and the game is also available through digital distributors.
But these numbers do not bode well for a game like this which probably had a big, even if tight, budget.



Shaite! Fable III sold 3M in xbox.

It's all about the gfx.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Matter_(video_game)#Reception
"Most of the criticisms of the game are directed at the quality of the cut scenes, which are considered out of keeping with the quality of the rendered graphics."

 

[aries202]

Adventure games, at least pure adventure games does not sell these days. Sad this is

You can double the 10,000 games sold retail when tallying up the games sold. Still, 20,000 games sold is not much these days.

I've only played the demo of this game; it is clear to me that Jane Jensen is more accustomed to writing books than making adventure games these days.

 

[deus101]

I have never seen an adventure game worth half a damn since GKIII until this.

I've never seen anyone who actually liked GKIII until now.

This is a momentous occasion.

*takes picture*

Let me get in the shot...

The "le Serpent Rouge" puzzle was awsome, would love more puzzles of that kind.

 

[deus101]

Yeah, David and Sam worked pretty good together and I was certainly glad of that, with Sam being rational yet impulsive and David's methodical attitude towards paranormal.

What bugs me the most though isn't some of the mistakes the characters make, which can be explained by their personalities even if you have to stretch it a bit, but it's the magasine article in which David writes that we only use a fraction of our brain. A brilliant neurologist like David should know that this is a bullshit claim that has been tossed around by some people to justify the existence of paranormal without any of sort of proof. I can easily swallow the stuff about the massa intermedia — which if I'm not mistaken is indeed not present in everyone and doesn't seem to have any use — but the claim that we only use 10% of the brain is too big.

Not that it drags the quality of the character down just by itself — it's a detail after all — but it's still annoying. I don't think the problem lies with David though, more like Jensen.

I think the faults in his methodology are suppose to be apparent(or was that article written before his wife death?), the skeptic magician is suppose to make up for that.

That talk with the Indian was sorta lame, i can forgive the story to be low fantasy jerking of to quantum physics, but the talk about classical elements was just silly.

 

[villain of the story]

Just finished this today. I had actually tried to play it on the last xmas night but was put off by how initially boring it was and have forgotten about it until yesterday.

It was an okay game with terrible technical aspects but with an intriguing story until the game Jensen suddenly takes a dump on the player and pulls a "rocks fall, everybody dies" kind of bullshit to finish the game.

Hotspots are a nightmare. They are all perpendicularly placed rectangles. For some reason, they didn't bother to define uneven geometrical shapes to define hotspots and so what you get instead is overlapping hotspots for which the labels displayed (when you enable them) alternate (because there are so many fucking of them in every screen, there's simply no space to arrange them in a sensible manner, right? Fucking retarded developers) when there are multiple hotspots (like two, in the entire fucking screen, which has to overlap. FFS) that are too close and, in a few instances, the same pixel could register either hotspot, which is super annoying. I mean What The Fuck is this bullshit, 8bit graphic adventures from 15 years ago didn't have this problem FFS.

Animations are very painful to look at but you get used to it. What you don't (or I didn't) is the terrible navigation and the retarded command priority scheme. Protags display retarded robotic navigation patterns for things as simple as observing a far away hotspot, you get to wait for this retarded navigation to hear their pieces. This has always been a problem for many adventure games, like characters walking to predefined spots before initiating dialogue or observing a hotspot every time, even if they are only inches away from those spots and which I have probably seen happen in 20+ adventure games, but it was an extra eye sore in GM. At one particular point, Sam went into a navigation loop in a place towards the end of the game, moving in the same set of directions for inches before changing her direction.

And the retarded command priority scheme; it goes like this: You can click on a navigable space on the scene to move there. You can click on hotspots to move there and do the appropriate thing (eg. comment on it, activate something or leave the screen). If you misclick on a hotspot, you have to click on another hotspot to override that command. You can't just click on a navigable space to cancel out the command. This can lead to some unnecessary scene-changes, which takes a ridiculously long time (compared to other adventure games with 3D stuff rendered over 2D scenes). No big deal, of course, but it feels fucking archaic. Again, adventure games from 15 years ago didn't have problems like this so why are we getting this now?

Inventory access and item manipulation (what little of it) are smooth enough but overall, reminds you of just how much dumbed down the game is compared to previous Jensen games. How long has this game been in development again? I remember reading an interview about it having already been in development for some years back in 2007. Why is there so little in the entire game then? It's a big text-on-rails. Ok, not really anywhere near big. The game is pretty short. If this level of simplicity is Jensen's new game, she should at least aspire to some choose-your-own-adventure scheme, no?

Likewise, most of the puzzles were like something out of a children's book with that "by-rascals-for-rascals" attitude. Simple fucking word games for a prestigious monocled men's club? Well, at least they weren't inane shit they left you scratching your head.

Writing was quite mediocre with good moments. David Styles' voice acting was top notch, despite some unfortunate lines. Characters were cardboard stereotypes. What little moment of exposure they got was spent on juvenile teen grade crap and other Hollywoodisms. I guess Jensen must have tried really hard to come up with excuses for using magic tricks and to create a magic-oriented context for Sam's character. Congrats, Jensen; I hope you've enjoyed your session of regression, at least.

Still, the game was somewhat enjoyable for the story. The initial sci-fi hook and the characters' involvement in it was working for me. It all seemed to be building up nicely towards pretty places and the end game definitely came too sudden and too shitty. UNLIMITAD POWAAAAAAOH WAIT IT'S THEM FAIRIES! AH KEN FLAAHYY!!!

edit: I must add that the game relies a good deal on the artwork cutscenes, very reminiscent of Thief I/II and while very inconsistent as done by several different artists, are all have topnotch editing and direction. The game wouldn't be half as enjoyable without those, for me.

 

[J1M]

Not going to play it. Why does everything have to deal with the paranormal. Seriously, why do women love ghosts so fucking much?

Even Sherlock Holmes. Put him in an adventure game and all the sudden he's tracking down Cthulu.

 

[deus101]

Not going to play it. Why does everything have to deal with the paranormal. Seriously, why do women love ghosts so fucking much?

Even Sherlock Holmes. Put him in an adventure game and all the sudden he's tracking down Cthulu.

You have a problem with Sherlock tracking down a Chtulu cult?

The fucks wrong with you?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Just finished this, p. cool overall, but not without problems, definitely.

What I liked:

- The graphixxx. Those backgrounds were really fucking great, the storyboard cutscenes were coolio as well.
- The story is p. gripping and going through it is enjoyable. Unfortunately the 'main culprit' is pretty obvious for a longer while, I'd say, although his motive stays mostly unclear.
- Good music at times, although forgettable at others.
- It never spirals into any ridiculously corny romance between Sam and Styles, despite the premise being good ground for it (thank God).
- Cool scientific/paranormal dichotomy that makes you wonder till the end wtf is actually going on.
- Cool idea with the Daedalus Club rebuses.
- Rabbit.

What sukd:

- Rushed ending. The game never really dragged out and another chapter would have been really cool, especially if it could omit I BELIEVE I CAN FLAAAAAAAAAH
- The magic tricks are a neat gimmick, but only that, a gimmick. They are hardly 'puzzles' or anything, considering that to perform each one you just follow instructions from the book.
- The chapters with Styles and their lack of obviously set goals. In almost every chapter I'd get stuck for a longer while and run around all the levels trying to click on EVERYTHING because action x would trigger previously unimportant item y to action ("OCTOBER 21 STUDENT, DAVID!!!!", poof! A small diary that is only described as 'that's old' suddenly becomes usable. Same thing with the damned computor showing the weird brian activity, and some more others).
- Too easy all in all, only times I got stuck and had to check a walkthrough was in situations related to the previous point. All the puzzles and stuffies were pretty obvious, most of them from the getgo. Only a couple needed some extended fiddling. Although I can appreciate that they were all very logical.

But all in all it was pretty cool and well worth the 15 potato dollars I paid for it

 

[abnaxus]

Any word yet on Gray Matter 2?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Doubt it, with Moebius in development and all that.

 

[Infinitron]

And now it's really out: http://store.steampowered.com/app/260570/

 

[Darth Roxor]

10 ebro, at 20% off for now????

WOWOWOWOWOWO

I paid 15 potato (5$) for it a year ago

In fact, it is still available for that price at potato shop

https://cdp.pl/gry/gray-matter

 

[abnaxus]

This was another game mishandled by dtp entertainment.

 

[m_s0]

10 ebro, at 20% off for now????

WOWOWOWOWOWO

I paid 15 potato (5$) for it a year ago

In fact, it is still available for that price at potato shop

https://cdp.pl/gry/gray-matter

Yeah, it's really cheap. I got a sealed box copy for half of that a couple of months back.