Well, here is a little feedback if you don't mind.
First, it's good having Sam&Max back! :O)
I just played through the tutorial and a bit of the game. The tutorial was rather boring but i really liked the intro, this was looking good.
1) gfx (pc)
Honestly i was expecting more, at least for the performance the game runs at it's not looking this sexy.
The grain filter get's on my nerves and is straining. I really would welcome an option to turn it off.
I think that the gfx levels ranging from 1 to 9 without stating any information don't do such a good job and i'm also missing pictures for my saved games.
I saw a few glitches like jerking when some characters are beeing moved (narrator) or that the shadows weren't always where they should have been (sometimes they were turned off completely like for instance in the cut scene, sometimes only a part of them was visible like in the alley) and there seem to be some filter issues with the text, for instance the notebook texts look like they are missing any filtering at all as it flickers all the time due to the slow movements.
2) sfx
Sounds good as always, although i had the impression that two times the volume was different.
The narrator has a great voice. Looks like a fat old Elvis.
3) steering
At least a better graphical representation and it's good that it isn't placed in the middle of the screen anymore but i still am not fond of it but who would have expected something else, huh?!
Looking forward to play some more tomorrow *yawning*.
Thanks and good night! *<(:O)
I just played through the tutorial and a bit of the game. The tutorial was rather boring but i really liked the intro, this was looking good.
1) gfx (pc)
Honestly i was expecting more, at least for the performance the game runs at it's not looking this sexy.
The grain filter get's on my nerves and is straining. I really would welcome an option to turn it off.
I think that the gfx levels ranging from 1 to 9 without stating any information don't do such a good job and i'm also missing pictures for my saved games.
I saw a few glitches like jerking when some characters are beeing moved (narrator) or that the shadows weren't always where they should have been (sometimes they were turned off completely like for instance in the cut scene, sometimes only a part of them was visible like in the alley) and there seem to be some filter issues with the text, for instance the notebook texts look like they are missing any filtering at all as it flickers all the time due to the slow movements.
2) sfx
Sounds good as always, although i had the impression that two times the volume was different.
The narrator has a great voice. Looks like a fat old Elvis.
3) steering
At least a better graphical representation and it's good that it isn't placed in the middle of the screen anymore but i still am not fond of it but who would have expected something else, huh?!
Looking forward to play some more tomorrow *yawning*.
Thanks and good night! *<(:O)
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Comments
I mean the enviroments, characters how they stand and do stuff,, how they move when they talk, facial impressions. how they change location, oh oh and SUPERBALL!
The areas looks so amazing, dirty wacky and very nice.
Not done with episode yet, played like 3hours or so now, and its just very amazing.
The humor is really amazing and i love how Sam and Max talks, its just more direct and more smart and fun in many ways.
editty editty: now some of the not so good stuff.
A few of the locations you come to, seems a bit useless serving only 1 possible or a few more, but worst, he graphics is a bit to real for me liking in some of the areas like Mr Pizza and the pawnshop, its almost like CSI stuff, and when you hit that, Sam & max doesnt seem to fit in at all, so use a bit more color and such next episode, this is a cartoony game after all
Are you kidding me? I think the artists have done a freaking amazing job.
Nope, why should i? I don't even know you. :O)
Look, i'm not angry at them, i just was surprised because i really was expecting more after all the things which have been said on the forum and the fact that it runs slower than TOMI.
Some chararcters use more polys but if you arrange them properly this nowadays doesn't slow down things a lot until a certain amount because modern gfx cards are poly crunchers. The shadows didn't add much to the game so far, the particles in the intro were rather small, those spinning little textures looked weird, some objects use higher res textures whilst others still use pretty small ones (look at Stinky), the grain effect isn't a performance killer as well and blabla, so...
Dunno with the mix of high- and lowres textures i would say it even hurts in the art direction as it's a bit inconsistent.
@RMJ1984
Can't comment too much on the humour and the game yet because i mainly went through the tutorial but from there i can say that i found Max very good but i was a bit surprised because i found one step of the solution not this logical, something which TTG always nailed before.
pro:
+ It actually runs on my PC
+ Sam & Max are back
+ Great narrator voice
cons:
- I don't like the grain effect and the shadows. They are there even on Quality 1. I would love to turn them off.
- Either the demo was badly chosen or the humor is not as great as in the other seasons. (
- I get a headache from the penal-zone-thingy.
- I cannot stand the voice of the brain
- The narrator had weird graphical glitches at the end of the demo (only at the end, at the beginning he was fine) (Black Rectangles all over him)
I had some graphical problems too. Which is weird. Sam and Max would sorta lag sometimes with their speech, the motion of their mouths was way off.
Turn off hints if you don't like the flashing objects. I know nothing about it because after ep1 of TOMI, I play with hints off normally.
I am pretty sure I did turn off the hints. I will check this.
Edit: Okay those were sparks. At least outside the penal zone. When I use the rhinoplasty useable objects are marked with sparks so I got confused by it.
All I've ever got is cryptic usually really not that helpful speak thoughts out loud hints that often just tell you you should being doing x and your like ¬¬ im already trying to do x I can't figure out HOW though.
The stuff wasnt really logical for me either, but i really loved to walk around this time and teleport around
Beware, this contains a few spoilers.
Overall it was a pleasant and entertaining game. Leaving out the tutorial which was meh, i especially liked the beginning and the ending. The middle felt more unispired and i got kind of bored. What i really liked is that they once again dared a bit more with the characters and the story. The former episodes were too brave and normal. I wouldn't mind if you go even more astray and saucier.
I only played the end of TOMI because i wanted to go through but honestly i didn't enjoy it at all. This one kept me playing because of the story, so well done. I really liked Max in this one and he often had a funny comment. Best situation was him running for a crowbar. But the overall humour wasn't so funny. I only had to laugh once. Some of the dialogues were very good and it was interesting to try out different options.
I also liked the new dialogue system (funny how Sam looks inthe midddle at the options), although i'm not sure if it reduces too much because you can't distinguish more subtile via a sentence anymore when you're just throwing a word or a phrase at the others.
The inventory was so lala because the diffferent options were kind of hard to select and i missed inventory puzzles. At least we kind of got this with the scanner.
I found some of the puzzles not this logic and there were quite some weird situation which were hard to solve due to this, like getting the glass, the idea of feeding a pigeon with a large and heavy telephone or things like that Max lost his forseeing power but then oops without any reason it was there again weren't this well designed. I really liked the idea of the psychic powers and looking into the future but i sometimes had the impression that the game design wasn't taking full advantage of the idea.
As for the graphics the shadows worked out better in the game and in some situations also added to the atmosphere, compared to the other shadows they sometimes seemed a bit too dark. Some scenes looked very good (Bosco and i especially liked the flag) whilst others looked pretty awful (Streets).
What i was asking myself was if it makes sense showing the steering control at all. Although it's not always placed in the middle of the screen anymore, it sometimes gets in your way and i wonder how this helps the player at all. It better should be an option which can be turned on and off like the grain effect.
Oh and sometimes the steering representation also got stucked. I also was wondering if it wouldn't have been better if you could instantly run via click&right mousebutton instantly instead of having to press both ones. Overall click&drag worked a lot better than in TOMI. Dunno if the code got changed and/or it was due to how the scenes were layed out. I still found myself giggling with inner joy when i could maneuver in a scene just by point&click via objects you could click on. I guess it would be perfect if both would be possible at the same time, as otherwise at least for adventure oldies it might feel like a atrificial constrain.
The hotspots weren't always choosen this wisely. There were a couple of situations were they were too large and covering other objects you wanted to go to/interact with (for instance at Bosco tech, the lift) instead. A few camera settings also caused some problems like when you wanted to go behind the counter or positions were resetted in a weird way like after talking to grandpa. On the bright side, the engine didn't crash a single time on me and i was trying out all settings, switching to the desktop and so on.
Gfx wise i hope that future versions will throw their possibilities more torwards a certain consistent comic look than more realism.
The music was good but i somehow missed an outstanding tune like some of the other episodes featured.
I guess i end up here now. So again, a pleasant episode with it's own ups and downs. I would rate it with a 7.5-8. Oh and yes the credits looked fine and i liked that the molemenshowed up because i always liked them more than the mice folks or even the Poppers. Looking forward to epsiode two. :O)
Sincerely,
tau-ankh'mel baba
Loved
The grain filter (it's wrong how much it adds to the whole feel of this season)
The aforementioned "dirtiness" makes this season feels unique
The dialogue, it keeps getting sharper and sharper season by season (in season 2 it got better episode by episode even!)
The door animations on Skunkape's ship. They made me titter
Soundtrack. It made me say "yes baby!" at one point
Interface. It just works, and works damn well
Teleportation. Clever puzzles and defeats all that walking from area to area, two birds with one stone
Length, maybe it was me or this episode was the longest Telltale game i've ever played. Which is good
Bit iffy on
Future vision. I felt like I was having the puzzle solution being handed to me pretty much. But i'd like to see how it pans out before I make a call
Hated
Erm... Max used the "none of your damn business" line twice.
One (minor, but still) thing that almost shocked me, was that you weren't able to shoot sam's gun anymore :eek: I mean, why :eek: ??? And Sam telling you he doesn't want to waste a bullet when you try using it on something sounds almost out of character : Since when are sam and max even aware that guns need amunition ?
I'm sounding like i'm making a huge deal out of it, when obviously i didn't really worry about it for more than a dozen seconds, but i just don't understand why this got scrapped
Also, i always HAVE to complain about something, so i guess picking such a minor "flaw" tells something about the game's overall quality
i didn't like having a tutorial going on for so long. I just wanted to get into the game...
i didn't like the narrator always telling me that I was saving the world, when for me it's sam & max saving the world while i just lend my brain.
i didn't like the controls. I still play it as point and click, since thats that how i like it more and feels more comfortable, though i'm forced to occasionally use direct control to move the camera (the virtual analog stick didn't work too well for me. keyboard buttons worked better, but there were still places you'd get stuck, like the grate in front of meesta pizzas).
it was fun however and visually its a big step up (though i don't have anything against the cleaner look either).
the powers were cool. teleport makes it easier to go all over the place to check if youre missing something and was used in cool ways for puzzles. futurevision was fun, but its more like a source for hints, except that you are required to use it some times...
the other powers were interesting but we didnt get to try them enough.
Eventually I didn't even tried using my gun anymore, tired of hearing those 2 darn lines...
Felt like he was the creation of a marketing department, considering he had the idea that I had to keep being reminded that it's a multipart series and that I'm playing a game.
Not to mention, I think the scenes would've flowed a lot better without him getting in the way.
I agree. I think the visions could be a little more vague. It made the episode way too easy. Then again I remember the first episodes from season 1 and 2 being quite easy in comparison to later ones, so that's maybe by design.
Also, great jokes in future vision, so I still like it !:D
Actually, i didn't even try shooting at characters, knowing it would be pretty much useless (might try and have some fun with that on the next playthrough), but instead at random objects from the setting, not expecting anything more than a "PANG Ting!" sound.
Pretty much silly and useless, but i liked doing that in the previous seasons, and i just don't see any reason why it's been removed, so yeah, it kinda pissed me off. For about 2 seconds and a half, but still :mad:
I thought this comment was funny because I am in the same boat. I just leave the hint system at default and 99% of the time, when it offers a hint, it's something I already figured out. It's just that I can't figure out how to accomplish it. Not really a complaint, just an observation.
The "future vision" concept for "Er. I'm stuck, what around here is important?" (For example, if you use it around outside Bosco's Momma's block you can see things to tell you you're going to need to get up the fire escape; you can examine the pigeon outside Meester Pizza to see what you have to do there) is awesome. It's like a hints system that doesn't say "It's going to take a *real detective* to solve this!" every couple of minutes. (I eventually turned the hints system down).
The problem was where I did know the solution, but couldn't execute it without engaging in future-vision first (Being unable to find the banana peel without it, for example) which led to using the future vision on everything in order to trigger something so I could do something, which led to having the solution laid out in front of me like a munchkin following the yellow brick road.
The game would be a lot more boring if future-vision was indeed all that happens (remember the end?).
Annoyances:
* Difficulty in doing settings before gameplay (that is to say, I didn't know what sound levels to have until the game began or graphics settings resulting in being unable to hear dialogue or control the characters. Spending the initial scenes tinkering with settings as opposed to watching and enjoying was frustrating).
* Sam being reticent to shoot things was disappointing
* The future vision being a hint system lessened my pleasure at puzzle solving (though to be fair, it is an excellent hint system... it's just that I don't want to play with one at all).
* Lack of items and not having any combining items puzzles within the inventory. It just meant very simplistic game play- when I did get stuck, the limited avenues meant the solution was easy to get to even without understanding it.
* My imagination or was there less banter? I didn't get the same sense of camaraderie in this game though that is hard to quantify.
* I can't think of any puzzles that I particularly enjoyed...
Great stuff:
* The music the music the music.
* It really did look good.
* Touches of creepiness (not just the skeletons but also the mole man vacations... eek).
Ambivalent but it threw me:
* The nature of the future. We saw a vision of Flint with the power core at Mamma Bosco's and a vision of Flint with a hatchet in his head. I wondered how he managed to survive the hatchet job but just assumed that somehow he did and it was the hatchet that convinced him to get on with the case... It's dumb of me maybe but I kind of agree with a previous poster that it should have been made more clear that the goggles saw possible futures.
I mean it simply doesn't make sense.
If you want to hide the technical stuff away from the player then you make the changes visible to the user in form of example screens or a little live scene and/or you choose less possiblilities. Offering them in a guess what the changes are in such a variety is extremly user unfriendly.
Also offering it the more classic way should work fine as users who are able setting up a resolution should also be fine with turning shadows on/off, enabling or disabling a grain filter or choosing a AA level.
Actually i don't own any other game with such creepy settings.
Also, I do think it'd be nice if you had maybe a 3D model of Max on the settings page, so I could get a sense of the impact that my settings are having on the game's performance. In TMI the menu itself was apparently designed with 3D elements, so I could just increase a setting and then wave my cursor around to test for lag, but in this game I had to resume gameplay to see the consequences of my settings. Similarly, if you had a character on the settings screen, he could talk when you're adjusting the volume, and that too would be helpful.
Agreed I would much rather have a more proper graphics setup screen than one that is present. That's really the only problem I have with the game.
A few things I LOVE about the new series...
1) The grain. I think it's a great effect that makes it appear more like a drawing.
2) Filth. Rats. Pigeons. Great attention to detail.
3) Facial expressions. Particularly Max's eyebro---er--lumps.
4) Psychic powers and their clever uses
I hope future episodes are more difficult. I'm sure they will be, they always are.