Ask developers a question - Broken Sword's Charles Cecil

[made]

Voice acting and dialogue play an important role. It wasn't Stobbart alone. I can't recall a single character that I liked. The dumb french gendarme, the fat british lady, the thugs outside the hotel, the hotelier... they all annoyed the fuck out of me. When I FF through the majority of dialogue, potentially skipping important plot details, I start asking myself, why do I even bother. I get that a lot with newer fully voiced adventures. Maybe I should play with VA off, but if it's there it should not suck imo.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Now you're both criticizing the writing instead of the character

Which is a perfectly fine thing to do, because the characters are part of the writing. It is the author's duty to make his characters as interesting as possible, placing them in situations that will let us get to know them. This is vital if they're supposed to carry the story. George just doesn't do it for me. To me he is the blandest of the bland.

But sure, some liked George Stobbart and some liked Broken Sword and that's fine. You can't like every single thing, vice versa.

 

[Ringhausen]

Voice acting and dialogue play an important role. It wasn't Stobbart alone. I can't recall a single character that I liked. The dumb french gendarme, the fat british lady, the thugs outside the hotel, the hotelier... they all annoyed the fuck out of me. When I FF through the majority of dialogue, potentially skipping important plot details, I start asking myself, why do I even bother. I get that a lot with newer fully voiced adventures. Maybe I should play with VA off, but if it's there it should not suck imo.

Well I didnt imagine this. I can just watch the scenes and enjoy it like a movie. The fact that the characters are cartoony and cliched doesnt bother me at all since the situations are humorous. I guess not everyone find it funny or even slightly amusing.
But calling it BAD is still a tad much I think, if again you look at Still Life. At least the BS voice actors speak with French accents, so you get some sense of being indeed in Paris. In SL they all have American accents and are clearly not professionals (friends of the developers or just people off the street). Not for a moment is it believable that you are walking around in Prague. Add the missing humor and you got a train wreck, objectively bad stuff.

Which is a perfectly fine thing to do, because the characters are part of the writing. It is the author's duty to make his characters as interesting as possible, placing them in situations that will let us get to know them. This is vital if they're supposed to carry the story. George just doesn't do it for me. To me he is the blandest of the bland.

Sure, and it's a valid point, but not a significant one. AGAIN, McPherson (this is the last time I'm writing his name, ever) - even if he was helping the prostitutes for a good reason and not out of the kindness of his heart, it would not matter. The meat of the game is him interacting with the environment and it's either going to be good or bad -which stands completely apart from the reason he is there in the first place.

As far as adventure game protagonist go I can't say I've found any of them fascinating. I wanted to see what would happen to the Sanitarium guy and the Longest Journey girl, but they couldent hold a candle to say Garret or some of the characters from Bloodlines. Gabriel Knight (the guy) I kinda disliked and it took a big piece of enjoyment out of the game. So much that I wouldent even put it on my top 10 list, even though I can't deny that the game had tons of good stuff.

 

[made]

Why do you keep comparing it to Still Life? Compare it to games that don't suck.

And there's nothing worse than overdone, fake foreign accents.

Gabriel Knight (the guy) I kinda disliked and it took a big piece of enjoyment out of the game. So much that I wouldent even put it on my top 10 list, even though I can't deny that the game had tons of good stuff.

Huh? Gabe was awesome. At least until it turned out that he's the chosen one or w/e.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

The Schattenjäger thing isn't really much more than an excuse for Gabriel to get involved in the mysteries, at least in the sequels. The first game could easily have gone on without it.

 

[Ringhausen]

Why do you keep comparing it to Still Life? Compare it to games that don't suck.

What bothers me is that you keep calling it bad when you haven't seen something truly awful. And I'm not comparing it to good games because I'm not trying to prove it's great. GK tries to be a movie, BS tries to be a cartoon - apples and oranges.

And there's nothing worse than overdone, fake foreign accents.

There is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4sfvr7 ... re=related
On its own the scene is bad. But take into account that the ruffians are supposed to be Czech and it's just depressing!

Huh? Gabe was awesome.

He is but something about him just... maybe it's the way he abuses Mosley (reminds me of Bam Margera ugh) or the idea that this kind of guy is supposed to read books - makes it rather obvious that Grace was supposed to be the protagonist before JJ (thankfully!) changed it.

At least until it turned out that he's the chosen one or w/e.

The Schattenjäger thing isn't really much more than an excuse for Gabriel to get involved in the mysteries, at least in the sequels. The first game could easily have gone on without it.

I actually loved this. It's a cliche but the way they pulled off the:
Irony - Gabriel owning a small bookstore that doesnt make money. And then inheriting a big ass castle castle with a huge library.. in serious financial troubles.
Humor - Grandpa Ritter jumping out to save you from the zombies and he has ridiculously awesome hair just like Gabriel
Emotion - and the way Ritter looks like a total badass, yet confesses that he hasn't done much with his life and it's up to Gabriel to...

THIS was what made the writing great, not the massive amount of irrelevant text on voodoo and hoodoo. They took a cliche and went above and beyond.