You're all critics. AVS was a good game. A bit rough on the edges but a definitely boost to the genre. The characters were interesting, the environments were beautiful, the story was functional but by far the best and worse thing I've ever watched. The energy and music was set right and the game did not lack atmosphere.
I dunno if I was one of the critics, but I actually quite liked aVS.
Like above, I just didn't really take to the trailer. The weird monster thingy + the uninspired characters just don't do anything for me...
Gimme a demo and I might change my mind. If not, I'll wait for a walkthrough and watch the first 5 mins before I buy it.
I was actually pretty excited by Vooju at first, but the further along it goes the less I like it.
Here's a question for all you Germans: how is the marketing for Ghost Pirates there? Because apart from the website, I'm not seeing anything about the English version yet; maybe it's different for the German version?
This is how I'd put it: if not coincidentally tripping over the GPOVI website, 90% of the people don't even know about it. Let alone that it was in development for quite some time. No hype at all about this game. Shame.
well there was a three page advert in gamestar, germanys number one computer game magazine. but thats about it. very little information or press releases, it's really a shame.
at least i got my copy sitting right next to me. i just had to finish playing csi deadly intent before i started with this one
When the english version comes out I will definitely give it a go.
I did buy "A vampyres story" and thought it was graphically gorgeous to look at but over heavy on the dialogue.
I was yawning my way through the first 20 minutes of yakking ,itching to get into my first bit of puzzling.
The whole tone of the game was as such.
I've read that lessons have been learned and so I'm willing to give it a go as there is not a lot of choice out there for adventure devotee puzzlers as myself.
Here's a question for all you Germans: how is the marketing for Ghost Pirates there? Because apart from the website, I'm not seeing anything about the English version yet; maybe it's different for the German version?
the marketing over here is simply horrible.
so I played about 1 1/2 hours now and can tell you now my first impressions.
first the start of the game feels a bit odd. there is this long intro where a whole bunch of characters are thrown at you and you dont realy know whats even going on. after this sequence the game starts right with you giving control over the 3 ghost pirates in 3 different locations and with a special task for each one. I missed something like a prologue or something where the game somethly leads you in - maybe giving you control over one pirate first.
till now I cant realy evaluade the story.
the graphics are fine as we know from bill - although the background miss sharpness. the whole atmosphere in the beginning is top nutch and remind me very much of MI 3 and Blood Island. big part of this feeling is occured by the great music, which again could be in a MI-game.
the puzzles till now are okay - nothing groundbraking. because your 3 ghosts are connected spiritualy with each other, you can ask for advice, when you find an item, but dont know what to do with it. for example if papa doc finds some vegetables, blue belly the cook can tell him, whats special about them and so on.
sadly the whole game feels like it lacks some final polishment. there are from time to time horrible long loadingscenes. also the game runs quite instable on my pc (dont know if its all to blame my pc - but I think its a fiffty-fiffty share), leading to short freezes, and some soundscratchers. and espacialy in the beginning you feel like one or two more scenes in the intro would be helpfull for the understatement.
so all in all till now a solid but not uber adventure. hopefully the story and length can convince and that there is no such bad cliffhanger as in AVS.
The marketing is almost non-existent, and after talking to some others it seems to be a reoccuring problem with the publisher lately.
And then it does not even have a budget price; having a full-price game without anyone knowing it is bad. If you go for a budget price people might still pick it up because the cover and the description appeal to them; but for 37 Euros (55 Dollars) people will just scratch their head and pass on an unknown game.
It´s sad because from what I´ve heard it seems to be quite a good game.
Man... it's pretty crazy to set a deadline (I'm talking about the publisher here) and then decide to forget about marketing. What's the use in setting a deadline if you're not going to try and sell it anyway?
Soo.. anyone finished the game yet?
I'd love to get some impressions from you! i'm dying to know if the game is any good at all!
right now I'm in the middle of chapter 2 from 3 (well they are not officially chapters - but they play as such)
the atmosphere in chapter 2 is excellent. you are in a town that feels just like plunder island from mi 3 incl. music. it really feels like the spiritual follower to MI 3.
funny thing beside (just a minor spoiler): you are going to meet a leviathan and even get inside of him (just a coincidence?!)
when I'm through with Ghost Pirates I'm going to post a short review.
(saddly I dont know how to make screenshots or even a video - else I would make some for you)
and for the poster with the english subtitles - I would like to know how he managed it - because till now I didnt find a way to enable english subs. (just want to make sure it works for those, who might want to buy the german version because of the engl. subs)
I started playing POVI yesterday. It feels completely different to TOMI which is mainly because of the 2D backgrounds and the pure point & click interface (quite relaxing after playing TOMI all that time I have to say!)
The intro sequence is a little difficult to follow though. It starts pretty abruptly and introduces a lot of characters at the same time who's connection to each other I haven't quite made out yet.
The engine, same as AVS's, runs fine on my system; no crashes or glitches so far.
Background art and music are to die for - extremely beautiful.
Although the comparison to TOMI might be justified, there is a major difference in the main characters and their objectives, so to me it doesn't feel like a MI copy.
Concerning the subtitles, I asked a couple of people (having made an educated guessed before), it is not that the game comes with subtitles options, but that upon installation, it creates files for different languages (probably a leftover of preparing it for international release).
What I forgot to ask is if the cutscenes have subtitles or only voice over.
So you have two folders, Strings (interface) & Scripts (dialogue), which have a german.xml file, an english.xml file, etc. If you rename the english one as german, you can "trick" the game in running in english.
All it is missing is an English sound bank, as the game only installs the german one.
the atmosphere in chapter 2 is excellent. you are in a town that feels just like plunder island from mi 3 incl. music. it really feels like the spiritual follower to MI 3.
Now this statement sold me completely!! I am definetely buying this when it gets released in english! I'm hoping that will be before christmas! (nothing like the Tiller-esqe mood in the holiday season!
So you have two folders, Strings (interface) & Scripts (dialogue), which have a german.xml file, an english.xml file, etc. If you rename the english one as german, you can "trick" the game in running in english.
All it is missing is an English sound bank, as the game only installs the german one.
Thanks! It works, but only partialy. Some lines are missing (eg.
Blue Belly's conversation with Doc when Blue Belly finds the bodies
- there is voice for those, but no subs) and every dialog file (english.xml, czech.xml, greek.xml etc.) is different.
It might have something to do with dialog.xml file, but messing with this one makes game crash to desktop while loading main menu.
I'll proceed with the experiments : )
This game looks pretty great to me. But then so did Vampyre Story and I was disappointed in that one. I think this will be better (as long as the dialogue is kept short and there's no excruciatingly annoying main character voices).
Reading Tiller's thoughts and plans for MI, it makes me really wish he'd been part of EMI and TMI
Well, how about those of us who are skeptical get the game and give it a chance. After all, AVS WAS only Bill Tiller's first game, and I personally was disappointed, but I believe in second, hey, even third chances. And no matter what flaws the game has, you know the artwork will always be beautiful. What do ya say?
I agree with you 100%.... although I was not all that let down by AVS.... it was not the best game I ever played but it certainly was not the worst.... and we Adventure gamers sometimes can not enjoy the luxury of being too picky.
I REALLY would like to see Tiller drawing one of the next MI chapters. But only drawing and no more. Maybe he's not good to do the game-designer, or the writer...but his drawings are really magic...
Right, just finished the game. Here you have some impressions (!!!SPOILERS WARNING!!!):
- Graphics, as we all can see, is great. GPVI continues greatest tradition of CMI - we have dark island with Vooju (is Voodoo TM-d by LucasArts? : ) temple, pirate island similar to Plunder Island (even with Cove of Danjer), dark swamp with ruined mansion, gate to Heck, inside of Leviathan (sic!) and much more. Graphics - 10/10. Great.
- Plot: well, let's say it's better than Vampyre Story. It's whole story and doesn't end with cliffhanger. It's difficult to give any more details as the cutscenes are long (why didn't you listen Ron for God sake?!) and they don't have subtitles, so I had to guess what's going on and learn details from dialogs during gameplay.
- If you didn't like merfolks in Tales, you won't like this game - it's full of mythical creatures like demons, gods, merfolks and more.
- Puzzles are rather easy and logical. My only complain is about few pixelhunts (salt in Emperor's room, rag in Heck's Gate) - you know what you need, but you have to spend some time looking for it.
Is it worth playing? Yes it is. If you can get it and can afford it - do so, you probably won't regret.
I have to say, I'm intruiged by this game. I love the atmosphere it seems to have, but I think I'll have to wait for a fully english version if I'm going to look into it.
I REALLY would like to see Tiller drawing one of the next MI chapters. But only drawing and no more. Maybe he's not good to do the game-designer, or the writer...but his drawings are really magic...
I'd prefer a combination, Bill is a great background artist, a lot of people didn't like his character designs in Curse but the guy we have now (sorry forgot his name, it's late ) does a real good job on the concepts, infact, can we get a quick mock up from all you photoshoppers around here? Just want to see how well a Tiller background blends with the TMI character concepts.
Concerning all the voices about GPOVI being a (TO)MI rip off: Just replayed EP1 came to the scene where Guybrush finds the Pyrite Parrot. Its "full name" is "Pyrite Parrot of Petaluma". Bill Tiller's company is / was located in Petaluma. I wonder if that was / is supposed to be an allusion to him being copying their game ideas...?
Could be terrible wrong too, though...yeah, maybe I'm wrong.
Concerning all the voices about GPOVI being a (TO)MI rip off: Just replayed EP1 came to the scene where Guybrush finds the Pyrite Parrot. Its "full name" is "Pyrite Parrot of Petaluma". Bill Tiller's company is / was located in Petaluma. I wonder if that was / is supposed to be an allusion to him being copying their game ideas...?
Could be terrible wrong too, though...yeah, maybe I'm wrong.
Oh dear... I really hope you're wrong, because if it's true that would just be mean. It's probably just a coincidence though.
I hope it is...! But it seems strange, doesn't it? Also the Voodoo Lady's enraged "I spent months creating a Pyrite Parrot and you ruined it before it was finished" could be a hint at the fact that TOMI was released before GPOVI was.
But I don't want to become paranoid here. I started playing GPOVI and although there are similarities for sure I can clearly state that it feels completely different from TOMI. No rip-off. And if it was meant to be one, Bill didn't succeed. ;-)
I hope it is...! But it seems strange, doesn't it? Also the Voodoo Lady's enraged "I spent months creating a Pyrite Parrot and you ruined it before it was finished" could be a hint at the fact that TOMI was released before GPOVI was.
But I don't want to become paranoid here. I started playing GPOVI and although there are similarities for sure I can clearly state that it feels completely different from TOMI. No rip-off. And if it was meant to be one, Bill didn't succeed. ;-)
nice theorie, never thought off this before - but it makes quite sense.
There are no credits for "Character Design" and I imagine it was done by the storyboard and concept artists. I wonder why these other artists don't get as much love as Tiller (excluding Steve Purcell). Plus, you've got to notice the striking similarities between character design in CMI and GPVI.
Edit: In retrospect, I can't tell if you were being sarcastic with the whole smiley-face-with-his-tongue-out-thingie.
Comments
I dunno if I was one of the critics, but I actually quite liked aVS.
Like above, I just didn't really take to the trailer. The weird monster thingy + the uninspired characters just don't do anything for me...
Gimme a demo and I might change my mind. If not, I'll wait for a walkthrough and watch the first 5 mins before I buy it.
I was actually pretty excited by Vooju at first, but the further along it goes the less I like it.
This is how I'd put it: if not coincidentally tripping over the GPOVI website, 90% of the people don't even know about it. Let alone that it was in development for quite some time. No hype at all about this game. Shame.
at least i got my copy sitting right next to me. i just had to finish playing csi deadly intent before i started with this one
I did buy "A vampyres story" and thought it was graphically gorgeous to look at but over heavy on the dialogue.
I was yawning my way through the first 20 minutes of yakking ,itching to get into my first bit of puzzling.
The whole tone of the game was as such.
I've read that lessons have been learned and so I'm willing to give it a go as there is not a lot of choice out there for adventure devotee puzzlers as myself.
the marketing over here is simply horrible.
so I played about 1 1/2 hours now and can tell you now my first impressions.
first the start of the game feels a bit odd. there is this long intro where a whole bunch of characters are thrown at you and you dont realy know whats even going on. after this sequence the game starts right with you giving control over the 3 ghost pirates in 3 different locations and with a special task for each one. I missed something like a prologue or something where the game somethly leads you in - maybe giving you control over one pirate first.
till now I cant realy evaluade the story.
the graphics are fine as we know from bill - although the background miss sharpness. the whole atmosphere in the beginning is top nutch and remind me very much of MI 3 and Blood Island. big part of this feeling is occured by the great music, which again could be in a MI-game.
the puzzles till now are okay - nothing groundbraking. because your 3 ghosts are connected spiritualy with each other, you can ask for advice, when you find an item, but dont know what to do with it. for example if papa doc finds some vegetables, blue belly the cook can tell him, whats special about them and so on.
sadly the whole game feels like it lacks some final polishment. there are from time to time horrible long loadingscenes. also the game runs quite instable on my pc (dont know if its all to blame my pc - but I think its a fiffty-fiffty share), leading to short freezes, and some soundscratchers. and espacialy in the beginning you feel like one or two more scenes in the intro would be helpfull for the understatement.
so all in all till now a solid but not uber adventure. hopefully the story and length can convince and that there is no such bad cliffhanger as in AVS.
And then it does not even have a budget price; having a full-price game without anyone knowing it is bad. If you go for a budget price people might still pick it up because the cover and the description appeal to them; but for 37 Euros (55 Dollars) people will just scratch their head and pass on an unknown game.
It´s sad because from what I´ve heard it seems to be quite a good game.
http://s60.radikal.ru/i169/0911/ec/7256970d17b4.png
Oh, very interesting. If the worst ever happens, and the english release doesn't materialize, that's a relief.
Question, does it have subtitles in the cutscenes? Because IIRC, cutscenes in Vampyre didn't.
I'd love to get some impressions from you! i'm dying to know if the game is any good at all!
How to turn them on? : )
[maybe living in Europe isn't that bad? i could get the game quite soon, but can't understand it]
right now I'm in the middle of chapter 2 from 3 (well they are not officially chapters - but they play as such)
the atmosphere in chapter 2 is excellent. you are in a town that feels just like plunder island from mi 3 incl. music. it really feels like the spiritual follower to MI 3.
funny thing beside (just a minor spoiler): you are going to meet a leviathan and even get inside of him (just a coincidence?!)
when I'm through with Ghost Pirates I'm going to post a short review.
(saddly I dont know how to make screenshots or even a video - else I would make some for you)
and for the poster with the english subtitles - I would like to know how he managed it - because till now I didnt find a way to enable english subs. (just want to make sure it works for those, who might want to buy the german version because of the engl. subs)
The intro sequence is a little difficult to follow though. It starts pretty abruptly and introduces a lot of characters at the same time who's connection to each other I haven't quite made out yet.
The engine, same as AVS's, runs fine on my system; no crashes or glitches so far.
Background art and music are to die for - extremely beautiful.
Although the comparison to TOMI might be justified, there is a major difference in the main characters and their objectives, so to me it doesn't feel like a MI copy.
What I forgot to ask is if the cutscenes have subtitles or only voice over.
So you have two folders, Strings (interface) & Scripts (dialogue), which have a german.xml file, an english.xml file, etc. If you rename the english one as german, you can "trick" the game in running in english.
All it is missing is an English sound bank, as the game only installs the german one.
Now this statement sold me completely!!
Looking forward to the review!
Thanks! It works, but only partialy. Some lines are missing (eg.
It might have something to do with dialog.xml file, but messing with this one makes game crash to desktop while loading main menu.
I'll proceed with the experiments : )
Reading Tiller's thoughts and plans for MI, it makes me really wish he'd been part of EMI and TMI
Lol. I'm just sitting here being really thankful that man never came close to the further development of the MI series.
As for me - I just got to Chapter 2 (
Just created on wikipedia about the game but need more info before gets deleted. Anyone care to add more relevant info to it?
Here's the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Pirates_of_Vooju_Island
ame are no german game developers...
- Plot: well, let's say it's better than Vampyre Story. It's whole story and doesn't end with cliffhanger. It's difficult to give any more details as the cutscenes are long (why didn't you listen Ron for God sake?!) and they don't have subtitles, so I had to guess what's going on and learn details from dialogs during gameplay.
- If you didn't like merfolks in Tales, you won't like this game - it's full of mythical creatures like demons, gods, merfolks and more.
- Puzzles are rather easy and logical. My only complain is about few pixelhunts (salt in Emperor's room, rag in Heck's Gate) - you know what you need, but you have to spend some time looking for it.
I'd prefer a combination, Bill is a great background artist, a lot of people didn't like his character designs in Curse but the guy we have now (sorry forgot his name, it's late
Could be terrible wrong too, though...yeah, maybe I'm wrong.
Oh dear... I really hope you're wrong, because if it's true that would just be mean. It's probably just a coincidence though.
But I don't want to become paranoid here. I started playing GPOVI and although there are similarities for sure I can clearly state that it feels completely different from TOMI. No rip-off. And if it was meant to be one, Bill didn't succeed. ;-)
nice theorie, never thought off this before - but it makes quite sense.
Here's a capture of his only credits in Curse:
There are no credits for "Character Design" and I imagine it was done by the storyboard and concept artists. I wonder why these other artists don't get as much love as Tiller (excluding Steve Purcell). Plus, you've got to notice the striking similarities between character design in CMI and GPVI.
Edit: In retrospect, I can't tell if you were being sarcastic with the whole smiley-face-with-his-tongue-out-thingie.