Well, just played 1 and 2 and I was right-review
The idea of episodic adventure gaming always sounded troublesome to me. For FPSs, it made sense. For adventures, I assumed that since each episode would be short, the fun part of adventure gaming would be missing. Puzzling. The combination of fewer locations and fewer items would lead to a lack of puzzle amount and challenge. I decided to wait until all episodes were released.
In checking out Myst Online, I found that for 99 cents I could join gametap for a month. After signing up I figured I might as well play the sam and max sooner rather than later since it is included.
Good points: Fantastic graphics, fairly amusing dialogue, good voice acting.
Bad points: Long and frequent load times, very few items(6 in the first episode) leads to easy puzzles, forced to watch intro movie and ending credits with no way of bypassing, few locations, super short and predictable stories.
Unfortunately, my fears were justified. Despite fantastic graphics and decent, if over the top stabs at humor, the game felt completely watered down. The fun of adventure gaming comes from slowly accumulating new items, talking to people, and trying to figure out what the next logical step is amongst all the items/puzzles/characters/locations. As such I felt little motivation to play-"well, I might as well finish since I get it free with gametap."
The idea that the full season will "equal" 15 hours total or whatever is really misleading. It is more like 6 x 2-3 hours of gaming. The difference is that you'll never have a ton of items and a ton of places where they could possibly be used, which would require you to slowly explore your options and think.
I'd rather have nothing than these kind of episodes to be honest. It is great financially for telltale, but not good for the gamer.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but the episodes were even more simplistic than I imagined, even after preparing myself with the reviews. I don't even think I'll end up playing episode 3, which I get for free.
Adventure gaming isn't dead, and with new games like Barrow Hill, Al Emmo, Runaway 2 still coming out, why settle for less?
In checking out Myst Online, I found that for 99 cents I could join gametap for a month. After signing up I figured I might as well play the sam and max sooner rather than later since it is included.
Good points: Fantastic graphics, fairly amusing dialogue, good voice acting.
Bad points: Long and frequent load times, very few items(6 in the first episode) leads to easy puzzles, forced to watch intro movie and ending credits with no way of bypassing, few locations, super short and predictable stories.
Unfortunately, my fears were justified. Despite fantastic graphics and decent, if over the top stabs at humor, the game felt completely watered down. The fun of adventure gaming comes from slowly accumulating new items, talking to people, and trying to figure out what the next logical step is amongst all the items/puzzles/characters/locations. As such I felt little motivation to play-"well, I might as well finish since I get it free with gametap."
The idea that the full season will "equal" 15 hours total or whatever is really misleading. It is more like 6 x 2-3 hours of gaming. The difference is that you'll never have a ton of items and a ton of places where they could possibly be used, which would require you to slowly explore your options and think.
I'd rather have nothing than these kind of episodes to be honest. It is great financially for telltale, but not good for the gamer.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but the episodes were even more simplistic than I imagined, even after preparing myself with the reviews. I don't even think I'll end up playing episode 3, which I get for free.
Adventure gaming isn't dead, and with new games like Barrow Hill, Al Emmo, Runaway 2 still coming out, why settle for less?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Many, many beloved adventure games (Grim Fandango is the classic example) have distinct 'chapters', from where you cannot return to past locales, and the transitions are often accompanied by a significant loss of inventory.
So, don't play them then.
To each their own of course, but I don't agree with much of your assessment myself, nor at least 2 of your 3 recommended alternate adventure games to play.
We're all entitled to our own gaming habits, but to me 12-18 hours of gaming total (6 x 2-3 hours) where most of that total time is spent seeing/hearing new content at a consistent pace is a lot better than a 15 hour game where most of that time is spent slowly wandering around and having content arrive at a slow pace. I've tried Myst Online, but while intriguing, I really didn't have the time or patience to spend hours and hours on the puzzles--just not the pace for me.
---
And anyway, wouldn't Myst Online actually sort of qualify as episodic adventuring, since new content (locations, puzzles, and storyline) are supposed to arrive at a consistently scheduled pace? The difference with Sam and Max is that Sam and Max are following a more-or-less stand-alone episodic model (akin to a TV sitcom like Seinfeld or The Simpsons) while Myst is more of a serial episodic model (ala 24 and Lost).
Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting Myst Online.
* Half Life 2 Episode 2 is delayed and it's release has been pushed into 2007
* Release date for the second Sin has yet to be announced
* Who actually plays the episodic games from Kuma?
Lets not hope Half Life and Sin will have its episodes be on Forever development.
On the other hand, Sam and Max Season 1 episodes are coming out on reliable releases. Not to mention the writing is excellent. So yeah, I think episodic gaming for adventure games make more sense than FPS. The latter type of game is more difficult to develop and keep a schedule.
I am trying myst online for 99 cents... it is beta... plus, each age is much much longer than one s and m episode, which is the point. You never get stuck in s and m.. you often get stuck in a myst age.
I am trying it because I want a coop game with my wife... I only brought it up because its promotion of 99 cents for a month let me try sam and max for free.
Did you read what I enjoy about adventure gaming? Enough areas/items/puzzles to present a challenge... myst's ages are long enough to accomplish that, unless you think myst games are easy....
Did you read why I complained about adventure game episodes? I explained it in detail and it had nothing to do with the release schedule. Perhaps you should go back and read it.
I don't care if each s and m episode was released a day after another, they suffer from lack of locations/items/puzzles to make a compelling adventure game...no challenge/no exploration/little thought needed... therefore contrived.
No, I'm pretty sure I've read it several times.
But I have to confess that I'm still confused to why you start off arguing FPS is better for episodic gaming than adventure games. I thought it was the same thing, i.e. taking a full game and make it in smaller chunks instead. Am I being stupid?
Well, I explained what makes adventure games unique... fps games are straight forward.. just need to add more landscape...can make it as hard or easy as you want,...
Adventure games require items/puzzles... Sam and max episode 1 had a whole 6 items and about 6 total locations... It was easy, lacking thought needed.. therefore, what is the point in bothering? I play adventure games to think...
Feel free to explain to me what you enjoy in adventure games if not for enjoying the challenge of figuring out what items goers where/puzzling... I explained what makes adventure games enjoyable and how this game is lacking in those categories... what am I missing?
No one has commented on the long loading times, forced watching of credits in the beginning and end, etc of my cons btw.
I play adventure games to think as well. The language in Sam and Max is actually difficult and rich in vocabulary (for non-native-english this would be a challenge in itself). But I don't want to play puzzles where you have to bring in this stuffed cat from two scenes ago and together with duct tape combine it with a phone booth in order to call all the hip cats just so you can get some swiss cheese. Ludicrous! That wierd kind of puzzles is what killed adventure games genre in the first place (according to Old Man Murray).
So every game should have 1 item per screen? Why would having more items and locations imply illogical puzzle design? I don't see the correlation!
Come on now. There are plenty of adventure games that are completely logical with plenty of items and locations. Discworld 2 is a game I'm almost done with.. amazingly funny, plenty of locations, lots of items, and I have yet to get stuck for more than a half hour so far... completely logical.
Again, you miss the point. The problem with this format is that less times/locations is the side effect. This makes it super simple and watered down. Therefore, exactly what adventure games are not about. That was my whole point.
I don't enjoy 6 item and puzzle games...period...too simple, too boring.
And about the loading times, every time you enter an location for the first time in a play session, it takes a long time on my machine. When I revisit a location in a play session it's much faster.
I'm not sure how much memory the game requires but I wasn't able to play the second episode in one playsession because I think all locations are being cached into memory to speedup loading times and therefor before I'm able to get to the end the game throws an access violation and returns to windows. Then I have to kill the process manually and restart the game and continue with the latest autosave.
I'm still hoping later episodes will get longer and harder with more locations (I don't care if they are recycled or not) and more inventory use.
So far I thought the game had challenging and logic puzzles that didn't feel watered down. But I do agree that an episode is small, yes. But the consequence of adding more items and locations would mean that you have to spend more time looking at your inventory and walking around locations where you don't have to be. And in a small episode game like S&M that would just seem like a waste of inventory space and walking-around time.
Actually one of my gripes with the game is that Telltale hasn't implemented the double click warping to relieve the boring walking-around aspect of the game. But I guess it's not in there just to prolong the game a bit.
I'll give another example with the previously mentioned DIscworld 2. The first 2 chapters are maybe 6 hours long tops each. However, there are plenty of items(all used logically) and at least 15 different screens of interactions in each chapter. If discworld 2's first 2 chapters were divided into the episodic format, being each chapter is one episode, it would be a fine example of how to do episodic gaming right!
Not 6-9 items and 6 locations, wham bam, done.
Or something like Broken sword 1 divided by 3 would make decent episodic adventuring because there is enough content to fill 3 compelling episodes.
With these current games, Telltale can alleviate this issue a bit by having more items and stuff that carry over from one episode to another. I think they did that pretty well with the
Some people won't care, because they love seeing their favourite dog and rabbity-thing back in action. I'm one of the people who's still lusting after ridiculous puzzles to match the ridiculous dialogue and story. I liked the lack of logic.
I'm content to play through series one and not complain about difficulty again, but I want telltale to consider the possibility of making a regular-length S&M game, with "traditional" (severed hand-golf-ball-retriever) puzzles, just because making those stupid gadgets was... well, stupid. And awesome
I could even punch the "old-school" view of - sod-it, just make it in 2D.
But i'll leave that for today
Yes, my point is that you start off saying that episodic adventuring is troublesome and is "not good for the gamer" but now you're pointing out why episodic Myst is alright or how you'd do Discworld in an episodic sense--in the end it just actually is that you find the first two episodes of Sam and Max too easy. That's fine, and many have expressed that point, but it's not the episodic model to blame.
Anywho, I find that it's only going to be the hardcore play-as-many-of-them type of adventure gamer that often will play both Myst and Sam and Max--just like you'd find that there are few ER fans that watch 24--they may fall into the same genre/model, but they're different animals altogether, and the most extreme complaints from one side about the other might not make sense to one another.
Well, your first paragraph shows that you didn't read WHY it is troublesome and not good for the gamer. When you go back and read my explanations and address them, you should have a better understanding.
You are trying to argue semantics with my words while ignoring the REASON for saying them.
Btw, Myst Online, which I have not even begun to play btw, has enough content to start as a full game, because, it IS actually a full game-Uru... They plan to add a new age at launch and more in the future. A Myst age usually takes quite a while to beat and consists of often dozens upon dozens of screens, many many puzzles etc.
Please go back to the REASONS I gave for why TELLTALE's version of episodic gaming is bad for the adventure gaming. Also, read and try to understand how the alternatives I gave(discworld, broken sword) would remedy the problem inherent in the Sam and Max model.
No, that isn't what I said, please try again.
"The difference is that you'll never have a ton of items and a ton of places where they could possibly be used, which would require you to slowly explore your options and think."
"they suffer from lack of locations/items/puzzles to make a compelling adventure game...no challenge/no exploration/little thought needed... therefore contrived."
This actually amounts to me saying that the games are too short, and a side effect is lack of challenge and a huge disconnect from episode to episode that really makes the game feel watered down.
For yet another example, take Discworld 2's first and second act again. The second act keeps ALL the locations from the first, while adding the same amount of locations-to about 25-30 or so total. This keeps the game connected and part of a whole. THAT would be the way to do episodic content. Keep building upon what you start with and making it more and more complex. Not starting over each time and having another 2 hours of just a few locations and very few items.
Yes, but I've earlier argued about a stand-alone versus serial episodic model--comparing Seinfeld to to 24 or Lost--24 and Lost actually frontloads you with 4 and 6 hours (respectively) of content before starting up on a regularly distributed model, the same with Myst--and you arguably have to be in for the whole ride. The stand-alone model of Sam and Max is that you can jump in at any episode--ala Seinfeld.
In Seinfeld or the Simpsons, you want to know about what kinds of trouble the guys run up to this episode, or what elements of pop culture are going to be made fun of this time, any ongoing story arc is secondary--in 24 and Lost you want to find out, first and foremost, how the ongoing story is going to unravel. Critiquing the lack of length or depth in the former or the lack of independent episodes in the latter is missing the point of what their respective creators are striving for.
I find that this is starting to be analogous to going to the cinema, leaving only having seen 2/6th of the movie, and then complaining about how shallow the movie was. It is rediculous, but then again it seems that some movie reviewers seem to work this way.
Jokes aside, I do want to see S&M have more puzzles involving some amount of serendipity in the future.
However, my criticism stands the same. Whether they intention it to be like it is or not, the review is of their finished products and my opinions on them. I offered suggestions to improve the model, and if they want to continue doing it like this, more power to them. I, and others like me, will not be buying. If you think that this doesn't matter to them, well, what is the point of feedback then? I am expressing my opinion to them and the opinion does not hold only to me as you've seen. There are many lurkers, like me, who have been thinking that the episodic content AS DELIVERED by Telltale amounts to contrived super short games. I am posting this more to them and to the developers than to people who've decided they like it.
Hey, people like American Idol and no amount of me telling them what garbage it is will do anything. I could only vote with my wallet and my opinion.
Then, again, you didn't understand what I was trying to say. That is a terrible terrible analogy. It would be appropriate if compared to FPS episodic content... or to first person adventure like content the size of a Myst Age.. or to inventory based games with the length of a discworld 2 act 1 or 2... but not to inventory based adventure games of shorter length for the above reasons. If you still don't understand it, then there is no other way for me to explain it.
Oh no, I can't find the right analogies, so I have to fall back on the entertainment model again (sorry). Bone episodes are working out to be have the length and depth (and release schedule) like a miniseries or Movie trilogy, the CSI episodes are akin to the hour-long dramas (like CSI!) on TV, with a stronger overall arc/continuity and longer episode times, and the Sam and Max episodes are working out to be those short entertaining (and stand-alone) sitcoms with short release times.
Having not played CSI yet, I may be wrong.
haha thank you kind sir.
Well said.
"I dislike the new S&M games."
"I, for one, enjoy the new S&M games."
"Well, I don't."
"That's fine."
"You must not have read my post, I clearly said...."
And so on. Nobody is saying your opinion is wrong, shadow. At most, they are saying you should give the remaining episodes a chance, as you never know if it'll grow on ya.
People love to complain about how the puzzles in Sam and Max aren't challenging, and how the situations never get particularly complex. Well, yeah. And my game doesn't have to come to a total standstill every few puzzles, either. It's a slickly paced comedic presentation that actually pays attention to pacing, something that few other graphic adventure games can claim. That Telltale is actually planning an overall game that only amounts to fifteen hours is a Godsend as far as I'm concerned, because they clearly have the right idea; graphic adventure games are, in a lot of ways, horrific messes. They have flaws that it seems most have become numb to. By comparison, easy puzzles are nothing compared to having nothing to do. And the more that Telltale leans that way, rather than trying to absolutely kill you with its puzzle design, the better off their games are.
You don't have to like these games, and I don't really feel any ill-will towards you. But your ideas would wreck the promising things about what Telltale is actually doing right now, and that would be unfortunate, to say the least.
I do not want to bring up the "is adventure gaming dead" argument again, but one thing anyone would have to agree on, is for a genre to stay viable, it has to grow. Now I'm not saying adventure gaming has not grown. The other genres have just grown exponentially faster!
I think Telltale is doing a brave thing with the current model for Sam & Max. In a way, this is a new sub-genre (and thus not fair to compare to old school adventures).
I think they do try to cover a lot of the bases though. Not only do they lure the old adventurers by using a well known classic franchise, but they are making the games shorter for the 'instant gratification' generation. Not only are they trying to accommodate the old, but also the new.
Unfortunately, you can't please everyone all of the time and it seem that people like shadow9d9 fall into the non-pleased category. I understand that you do not like the new Sam & Max and it is your right to do so. It is also your right then not to support telltale.
If what you say is correct, and the games are 'bad for gamers', by not supporting them, they wil realise the games does not sell and change their business model!
What I do not appreciate is while I respect your opinion, you clearly do not respect mine. You question why I enjoy adventure games and say '...I explained what makes adventure games enjoyable and how this game is lacking in those categories...'. That explanation may hold true for yourself, but not for many gamers out there (if you can believe the gametap rankings, for instance).
I say again, I do respect your opinion, but please, do not try to force it on me. I, for one, can't wait for the next episode. Being in the position where I only have an hour or two per day to play games, the short episodes are just the right length and difficulty and very much entertaining for the short amount of time I can afford to play. And considering what we pay for it, I think we can hardly complain.
It's not illogical, I think what he meant was that with only a handful of inventory items and locations, the possible combination of items/interactions is low, especially if you consider lack of interaction between inventory items.
With a greater veriety you can't just take stabs in the dark, you have to think about your puzzle in a more logical manner to work out the solution.
By the time you're mid way into games like monkey island 3 (one of my fave puzzle adventures) you have somethnig like 20+ items all of which could potentially be used with one of the other items, or on the environment, with numerous scenes available, possible combinatons increase exponentially and it keeps you thinking all the time
I find that funny, to be honest. I remember in the heyday of adventure gaming, most people complained about pixel-hunts and extremely difficult puzzles. Now, they complain about games not having pixel hunts and extremely difficult puzzles. (I'm guilty of that myself, I finally got my hands on a copy of Bad Mojo, and I HATED the short length, by the time I got into the story, it was already over.)
I think the problem lies in memories. An example: I recently replayed The 11th Hour, one of my favorite games, for the first time in quite a few years. Long story short, I couldn't even be bothered to finish it. It just wasn't as good as I remembered it to be. About the only part of the game that was as good as I remembered was the hand-severing flashback, which still makes my wrist hurt just thinking about the incredible FX job they did there.
My point is, we all want to relive playing our favorites for the first time, and very rarely are the games as good as we remember. Thus when we get a new adventure game, especially one that breaks tradition, some will never even give it the time of day.
I played Sam and Max for 99 cents... because of gametap!
Yeah right. I never played most of the old sierra games(matter of fact I found king's quest remake 3 and 5 so bad that I stopped playing sierra games completely) and I have literally 20+ adventure games still sitting and waiting to be played as I get around to them. This includes moment of silence, gk2, 3, ankh, myst 4-5, al emmo, dark fall 2, obsidian, morpheus, still life, discworld noir, etc... Yet I am hardcore!? Yeah right!
I have never played any text adventure game or any text parser game, never played maniac mansion or game of that era... what about me and adventure games could possible be considered hardcore? Because I prefer an adventure game with more than 6-9 items to use in 6 locations? Read the adventuregamers.com review of episode 3.. their sentiments are mine exactly.
Why do people make up assumptions to justify their opinions? I know the fans want to come and defend their love, but don't assume things like .. "well, they must be hardcore adventure guys!""Yeah, that's it!"
So while the game may not be the most challenging, you're one of the first I've heard who didn't even want to enjoy the experience of once again being in the world of Sam & Max.
Anyway, to sum up what the original post said, in a shorter, less frustrating-if-lost way.....
Shadow9d9, your grasping for straws at this point. Nobody's arguing your opinions, so I don't see why you feel the need to get more and more sarcastic with each post you make. You don't like Sam and Max, you never played adventure games from "that era" (Which was the only era of adventure games*see bottom of post* until the last couple years, so what adventure games HAVE you played?), and you take comments about adventure gaming in general and somehow read them as attacks on you. We get it, enough with the one-man arguements already.
(On another note) I noticed you said that "old" games on GameTap are no competition for newer titles. How do you figure that? Is there a magical cutoff date for when games go from "good" to "it r teh suxx0rz lolololz" that I'm not aware of?
*Clarification from earlier* By "adventure games" in that context, I mean as a whole genre, which had only one true era. I'm aware that certain sub-genres of adventure gaming had multiple eras.
Once people have played a game they are less and less likely to want to keep playing it. Therefore it should come at no surprise that newer games are higher ranked.
I did play some games "from that era", but am no means a "hardcore adventure gamer" because of my comments. My first adventure was DOTT, then Sam and Max, then Monkey Island 2, etc...
I went on to enjoy Zork Nemesis(my favorite adventure game), indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Syberia(wasn't too crazy about), The longest Journey(one of my favorites, Riven, Myst 3, Dark Fall, Barrow Hill, Scratches(disliked), King's quest 1 and 2 remakes, 3 and 5 which I disliked. Also played a bunch of others when I was younger but barely remember such as one of the point and click space quests and dagger of amon ra. As I said, I still have a huge backlog of games, but I don't just like adventure games, so it takes time to get through them all. I also played but disliked the controls of Grim Fandango. I loved Broken Sword 1 and 2 and hated 3.
If you think my arguments are "grasping at straws", that is fine. All the reviews for each successive episode has been getting worse for the reasons I have listed and a 3.5/5 from adventuregamers.com is by no means a tremendous success.
As for the previous guy, sure, I like the world of Sam and Max, but that doesn't give the developer a pass when it comes to a lacking and contrived adventure game just because they have a good license.
I just don't play adventure games to hear random dialogues that are semi humorous(but often fall short). I play them for puzzles foremost.