Sceptic said:
I don't agree about the linearity. Some of the eras are linked and have to be done in a specific order (the Charlemagne/Napoleon one for example) but many of them can be done in any order. And all of the "messages" can be acquired at any time before, during or after the time disruptions. And even most of the disruptions are independant of each other.
I think you’re right about the linearity thing: I was using the term in a wide sense and I didn´t realize it isn´t useful, because then all games would be considered linear.
Sceptic said:
I always play Legend adventures with the "half" option instead of the full menu. The main reason (aside from extra space for text) is to get rid of the list of "usable" items in each area. Even this concession, I find, makes the games too easy. If you hide the menu, you have to look at the descriptions and/or the images to figure out which items could be useful before you even start thinking about how to accomplish your goal. With the list you just glance at the sidebar and automatically know which items you can interact with, which severely cuts down on the thinking required to solve the puzzles. It's not a huge difference, but I still find hiding the sidebar makes the games more fun because they're slightly more challenging.
Thanks for the advice. Even after reading the manuals and experimenting with the menus, it didn’t occur to me playing Legend games with “half” option. I think that’s because english isn’t my first language and my vocabulary isn’t large enough. But I played
Gateway that way, and it was nicer, not only because of the difficulty, but also because I had to examine the descriptions in a more thorough way. Having the possibility to choose the interface one prefers is really a great great thing in a game. I wish more games would take this route.
As a whole, I think Gateway is on par with Timequest. Gateway has, I think, better puzzles that Timequest. Regarding the structure, I like both the same, even if Gateway is a little more linear. I also like how both games manage to make the reason behind the adventure important in an individual and global manner for your character. But, in respect to the atmosphere and the coherence of the world, I think Timequest is a better game: I don’t like how the fantasy element surfaces in the virtual reality. I like the puzzles in them, but I think I was expecting something more “realistic” in a science fiction world. All in all, a great game.
Sceptic said:
The hotspot cursors are even more streamlined: you know which items are needed AND don't usually need to think about what to do with them (granted this is a problem with high-res graphics too; there's so much detail that without hotspots it would be a real pain to figure out which items the developers bothered to program in). This was my major gameplay gripe with Noctropolis, where all puzzles solved themselves automatically; if you were carrying all the items necessary for a multi-step puzzle and clicked on just one of them in the right screen, the puzzle auto-solved itself. No fun.
I haven’t played Noctropolis, but it’s on my playlist, even if I dislike what you are telling me regarding the interface: from what I´ve seen (the introduction and the beginning of the game), the atmosphere looks really good. But I understand you: playing the Legend games one can see how the interface is really important. But eliminating the hotspot cursors isn’t the solution, as you implied. Maybe if the games had a lot more hotspots than they do now, this problem could be solved. Or return to a parser like the Legend games. But I think, specially when I play recent games, that none of these options will happen.
Today, for example, I finished
Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, and what a great game it was. I don’t know if you have played it, Sceptic, but if not you must. I think it’s a classic. The story, the characters, the humour, the atmosphere, the dialogues, the graphics (well, following the distinction the Codex love, the art direction) all of them are excellent. Here it’s a funny story, but, behind it, the player is going to find something “darker” (and not in the new rpgs hype way). I won’t say anything else not to spoil it for you. You have to play it to find out. Regarding the puzzles, they aren’t too difficult (some reviews say that, but, well, now, if the game doesn’t tell the players exactly what they have to do –like in Black Mirror games, for example-, then it’s a difficult game). They have a nice flow, some being more obvious and others where you have to think in creative ways, but all are logical in a madness context. The only problem in this regard is that the game doesn’ have any memorable puzzles. But this is easily forgiven because of a characteristic I haven’t seen in any other graphic adventure games (I can’t talk about text adventures): the level of interactive and reactive is astounding. For any action or combination of items you try, the game has a different answer: sometimes there is a commentary from Edna or Harvey, and sometimes you can do things to differents objects that don’t have anything to do directly with the game. For example, you can cut a poster, write “Edna was here” in a chair or pour kétchup on a plant. All these little details prevent the player from getting bored if he’s stuck and also give him a motivation to try the most diverse and ridicolous things. And works really nice, because you’re controlling a lunatic. And, finally, the interface isn’t the one cursor to do it all; here, at least you have walk, pick up, talk and use.
So, this is an excellent game in allmost all aspects. So that’s why I feel bad regarding the genre when I see this was the first game of Daedalic. One could hope they only have to improve. But no. The Whispered World and A New Beginning are not even close as good as Edna and Harvey, in almost all aspects. For example, none has the level of interactivity that Edna and Harvey had. And even if in The Whispered World the puzzles and the interface are on the old school side, the intelligent cursor and the evident puzzles of A New Beginning are a clear sign of the “casualitation” of their games. And it is symptomatic that two of the main pages of adventure games have given lower scores to Edna and Harvey than to the other games.
The same could be said about Telltale. I have read a lot of bad things in differents forums regarding how they make bad adventure games, including here, in the Codex. And I always have defended the company, because the first season of Sam & Max was ok, with two really good episodes (fourth and five), and the second season, from my point of view, is one of the best games I’ve played in recent years, with an episode, the fourth, on par with the classics in all aspects. But a week ago I played
Tales of Monkey Island, and, well, I was a little disappointed. The best thing is the puzzle design: even if they aren’t that difficult, there is a lot of variation and also some lateral thinking involved. But the writing was bad, very bad. This made the characters not charming, and the humour hardly ever worked. The graphics, the music and the voices were ok, but I don’t really care that much about those things (except when they are too bad, like in Quest for Glory V, for example). All in all, even with two nice chapters (third and fourth, that are better than other recent adventure games), the series are inferior to the second season of Sam and Max, and inferior to the Lucas Arts games (well, except, maybe, the fourth; I have the impression that the Telltale game is a little better, but I’m not sure, because I played MI4 when it came out, and I´ve never played it again). And their Back to the Future, from what I´ve read, is worse than anything they have done before.
But, well, there is always hope that this state of things changes or that some new games are at least ok (like Gray Matter or Perry Rhodan). Meanwhile, I’m going to play the Space Quest Saga (I have played only the three first ones many years ago), alternating some more recent games, like Ceville or Sam and Max season three.