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[Deleted member 7219]

Well this thread made me finally give in and buy it from GOG.com. I had been thinking about doing it for a while.

I love the art style, the soundtrack and the voice acting. Also, the music that is performed in the private car is Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano, and I went and bought it from Amazon MP3; I would highly recommend it. In fact in the game I was tempted to just sit and listen but I knew I had other stuff to do.

I have to say the storyline is pretty meh to be honest, although I did like the romance with that Austrian lass, she was pretty hot.

Spoiler

The stuff with the Firebird just didn't make sense to me. It felt like they wanted it to be a bit Indiana Jones-y, what with him being interested in archaeology and the occult, but the thing about Macguffins in the Indiana Jones films is they get talked about a lot and are given at least some explanation, in this you are told constantly that you are to get the Firebird but you are never told what it actually is, how it was made etc.

Also I wasn't a big fan about how short it was, so much is skipped after you leave Budapest and I would have preferred to have been allowed to just laze about during that time, do some more talking and some more eavesdropping, because I felt those were the strongest parts of the game. And I loved the police coming on board in France, that shook things up and took you out of your comfort zone, more like that would have been quite cool. Instead the game is quite simple and linear, there's nothing you can do other than the things you are MEANT to do, like talk to a character at a specific time. Wouldn't it have been great to have been able to talk to the Serbian people more? I wanted to know more about their motivations. And what was going on with the misogynistic Arabic guy? More interactions with these characters would have been welcome.

Don't understand this talk about multiple paths and multiple endings, because there really aren't any. If you do something wrong you die or get arrested, simple as that. I thought, judging by the GOG.com description and people's reviews, that the storyline adapted to the choices you make, but it doesn't.

 

[Erzherzog]

After a certain point it gets way more difficult and way less important to find out what everyone else is up to.

But I guarantee you missed out on something that would've been interesting to see.

I think the biggest thing was how immersive the game was. (True immersion anyways. I'm sure Bethtards would complain that it wasn't because those people find anything the least bit difficult to be "unimmersive")

Spoiler

The one thing I dislike is that the concert part of the game has such a rigid path for success. Literally having to wait for the clock for the ONE time I get a chance to hide the firebird in time in order to get past the ok ending was not cool. It managed to be more tense than the final parts! Not cool.

 

[Erzherzog]

You can also steal Alexei's

Spoiler

bomb

And he'll use other means to perform his "plan".

Spoiler

Run into the Count's room and get shanked?

Spoiler

On an unrelated note, August has some porn pics in his room, have you seen this?

Yep

The game also has other good endings. You can leave the train in the middle of the game.

I think we're alluding to the same sequence of events. (If not, then holy shit, awesome)

Spoiler

Simply trading the firebird for gold?

 

[Forest Dweller]

Re: There can never be enough Last Express appreciation thre

the game has the courtesy of adding choices and consequences and a replayability factor that surpasses every single adventure game ever created, since you can skip literally tons of scenes and conversations depending on where you are at some given time.

More even than The Pandora Detective? Sceptic get in here.

wrong forum.

Wops, totally forgot about the adventure forum when I posted this, but c'mon it's not that terrible, and that forum is dead anyway.

No it's not. I recently posted a thread in there, and it's HOT.

 

[Erzherzog]

You can also steal Alexei's

Spoiler

bomb

And he'll use other means to perform his "plan".

Spoiler

Run into the Count's room and get shanked?

Spoiler

No, he'll use dynamites, and this can result in a p. funny scene with George Abbot and Cath

Spoiler

Ah yes. "So where did you find the dynamite?" "Dynamite?!" BOOM

 

[Lumpy]

This post is likely to contain a shitton of SPOILERS so fuck off if you haven't played, it's for your own sake.

Spoiler

Ah yes. "So where did you find the dynamite?" "Dynamite?!" BOOM

Exactly

But wasn't that the only path? As far as I remember, the alternative was just a game over, no?


Anyway, The Last Express is far from perfect, and many of the criticisms here are valid. Except for Elwro's - of course you miss out on stuff if you're not there at the right time, that's the whole point of having a real-time game.

The problem was, the story was simultaneously quite retarded, and extremely railroaded (lolz) - which meant that if you didn't act precisely the way the writers wanted you to, you got a bizarre game over. Took the logical action and traded the stupid gem (it was little more at that point, or even later on), you run off with the money. Failed to show the German guy a suitcase of gold (lolwut?), Serbs kill you. Stop the train in Austria? Game over for some fucking reason. Give the egg to the Arab at the end? Train asplode!

There was very little logic in any of these consequences - it was basically a way to force a highly linear story into a real-time game. And there was very little merit in the story itself - there was little clear motivation for the character, hardly any justification for putting a fucking cyborg medieval bird in, and the murder mystery was bullshit because of said bird.


The reason this game is even considered good is because the good bits are unparalleled in the whole damn history of gaming. The feeling of being there (or immersion, one might say :D), the interactions with the world and the gameplay built upon all that is really awesome. If this game had managed, as one might have expected, to give birth to a new genre, The Last Express itself would have retained little relevance as anything but a historical curiosity. But because the industry failed to produce anything quite like it, we have to make do with what we've got.

 

[Forest Dweller]

If there's one thing I can't stand it's illogical C&C...

Ask Marburg.

 

[PWSteal.Ldpinch.D]

I hear you can end the game if you run out of time or mess some quest lines up; just how easy is it to not finish the game properly?

 

[Lumpy]

**Spoilers ahead**

Took the logical action and traded the stupid gem (it was little more at that point, or even later on), you run off with the money.

And where's the lack of logic here? You finish Tyler's deal, you get out of the train.

No, you don't. Tyler's deal was to get the guns to the Serbs. That's why Emir Fuckknows is there - to buy the egg and give the gold.
There's no reason why you would go out of your way to avoid selling the egg, nor why you would want to run with the money but not with the egg.

Failed to show the German guy a suitcase of gold (lolwut?), Serbs kill you.

Wait, have you paid attention to the plot? August was going to sell all those weapons to the serbs, Tyler was the "negotiator" and he thought you're Tyler. If you never show the money to Schmidt, he'll leave the train with the weapons (it clearly show some workers removing the boxes from the train). Serbs get mad, they kill you. What's the problem? Not only you were an imposter, you also fucked their deal and you may even be Tyler's murderer for all that mattered.

Yes, I know what the plot is. Why do they assume you fucked up their deal? If they want you to take up Tyler's role, why don't they discuss it with you? Or ask for the egg back?

Give the egg to the Arab at the end? Train asplode!

This one is quite obvious. You give the egg, Anna and Cath stay inside the train and after some time there's the explosion. You think "what the fuck did I just saw" and replay that part, this time trying something different instead of giving the egg. The bird goes crazy, Anna and Robert jump out through an window. Now they'll not die anymore from the explosion, and you're able to see what caused it.

Yes. It was a fucking bullshit way of ending the game - there was absolutely no logical justification for you to blow the whistle at that point. It was just silly. Nevermind the concept of a cyborg bird itself.

 

[Elwro]

Except for Elwro's - of course you miss out on stuff if you're not there at the right time, that's the whole point of having a real-time game.

Point is, a good game should give you some signs you could notice to get the idea it'd be good to be somewhere at a certain time. Here you might end up at the concert not knowing wtf is going on (and by that time, I think, if you hadn't done some things earlier, you're on a straight road to a bad ending) just because you lost a few hours trying to ask the characters some legitimate questions that the game illogically permits you to ask only on one occasion (I won't check the details since I want to play the game again, badly designed as it is).