I have a friend who, although he's been around way longer than I have, has never played an adventure game before (well, Phoenix Wright games are the closest). He's a huge BttF fan which is why I got him the TTG series and he's really loving the game so far. It's helped that it's not standard adventure game difficulty.
Whether the puzzles are easy or not, it's still a game. Even if a easy game. The story revolves around puzzles, and problem solving. Even to a greater degree than the movies. In the first movie, there's about 1-2 puzzles. One where Marty is late to school, so skate boards holding onto cars, the other where they send him back to his time zone.
For the most part, the rest of the movie is story line.
This game as a movie would be very silly and laughable, easy or not, it's still a game. I wouldn't want to watch a movie where Marty spends 5 to 6 minutes chasing down a dog, and covering its feet in paint . I wouldn't want to watch a movie, I can't think of any good examples. But this game clearly rotates on puzzles, rather than it does purely story/ dialog.
Marty doesn't constantly go around in the movies macgyvering things together...Where as it can be considered a easy game, to consider it a movie is nonsense. The movies don't have problem after problem in them. They do, but I don't feel like I'm watching a puzzle game.
Part two and three both only have a few scenes that any rational person would consider puzzle scenes as could be seen in a game...
It really has no more or less story than a game like Day of the Tentacle has, throughout game play. The only difference is that this game is easier, it's still a game.
There's breaks in the story line, where you have to do certain things to progress in the game, movies don't have that, movies don't pause or take time outs or have goals/objectives.
All the "puzzles" you are mentioning in the games solve themselves with little to no input from the player. It's almost like the design document was loaded with puzzles, and they just decided not to implement any of them, and make them all automatically solve themselves by clicking on the screen arbitrarily.
I've played a lot of adventure games. I've had brilliant ideas to solving difficult puzzles or even easy puzzles, and that was my input, some times I was right. 90 percent of the time I was simply wrong , or the puzzle solution was WAY easier to solve than the direction I was personally taking.
The game is pretty easy for experienced adventure gamers. But, saying that it's not a game, or that no one ever got stuck is not only wrong, but it's wrong. LOL
We can be pretentious and rude, and say anyone that gets stuck on this game is a moron, but that's not true either. I've seen these boards, and people can get stuck, have got stuck. I admit it's not the world's hardest game. But to be honest, I never saw a BTTF adventure game as being the world's hardest game.
I enjoy a good challenge occasionally, once I start something I grill into it, I'm vicious , I'm OC in nature when I start something. But, I never turned on those gears for this game.
Tales shows that they can make a decent adventure game, with titles like Sam and Max, Tales of Monkey Island, let's be realistic, those are adventure game franchises...
This is a movie franchise adapted for an entirely different, larger audience . People keep grumbling about it's difficulty, that was a choice tales made, to try to be fair to all audiences it back fired a little. But, not enjoying the story, and complaining all day along about the difficulty of the game is simply worn out, as much as it is tiring.
They put in a good effort to feel like the movies, and a good effort to get all the original talent involved with the project. They've made a solid effort to make this an authentic BTTF experience, and the game might be easy...Boo hoo, why does a adventure gamer always need a challenge, what does a experienced adventure gamer need to prove? Do you have a reputation? Tales doesn't need to protect it's reputation, it's already shown what it can do WITH ADVENTURE GAMING FRANCHISES. Are we that anal and pretentious that we always need something to challenge our skills, to defend our honor?
Leave it be already. Some people are enjoying it as a game, more experienced adventure gamers might say it's too easy, and...?
I don't see why people can't enjoy their selves and just shut up and enjoy it for what it is. Complaining isn't going to change anything, and if they made another Sam and Max or Tales of Monkey Island, I guarantee that they would stick to what works for that adventure gaming audience...
Maybe they under estimated how easy they made the game, ok, that's too bad, but under neath is still a video game, that they put some time into, and got Micheal J Fox involved, Christopher Loyd, etc etc, any true fan would be happy about this, and enjoy the "game" for what it is.
We already know the difficulty isn't that hard, so why go on about it? It's like telling the hot chick who was once hot that she gained 200 pounds...what's the point?
It's unfortunate that the game isn't a little harder, but why go on and on and on about it? The only thing I get out of all of this is that some of you can't enjoy yourself, make heads form tales
It's not the most difficult TTG game, but it's still designed in their style, and it still has a TTG game feeling to it. Which is cool, it's even animated like a TTG game. It's just a little too easy for one. It's still a game. it DOES take a little thinking, just never enough to get you stuck. It DOES have puzzles, just not hard enough puzzles to get you stuck. Etc, etc.
I played a episode a day when released, I enjoyed the length of the episodes , thought they were long enough, felt like I got a days worth. And they were easy, but I really didn't have time at the time, before my injury, to play a adventure game that was going to take me a year and it doesn't take a Einstein to see how that would be a bad choice on a game that is released episodically. In the end you might of needed a walk through or to rely heavily on hints, it's that what any one would really want to do? Especially an experienced gamer.
Why should they make a extremely difficult game, with a HUGE audience and then release it episodically, frustrating probably 70 percent of that audience as adventure games are only to a select audience?
They made it a little too easy, over estimated, get over it.
They should have solved the problem of idi... er... "casuals" wanting to play the game and not think at all by having variable difficulty settings, not by gutting the game and screwing over their long time fans who expected something that was even remotely challenging.
It's not valid to say that the game is anything but painfully easy. 95% of the game you literally can't do anything that is incorrect. You just plod through clicking on whatever the one or two objects on screen are that you can click, and the inventory is used so sparingly it may as well not even be there.
The funny thing is that the hint system isn't just on/off, it's got 5 different levels.
I've only played on zero (where they still throw some hints if you spend too much time on something), so I find it hard to imagine what playing on anything higher than 1 or 2 would be like. I'd think by level 3 on the hint system, the game would just cut the crap, take the controls from you, and play itself while you watch. Except there's a hint level even higher than that.
A new movie ? M J Fox's condition and age makes it very unlikely.
Unless they move focus away from Marty and Doc. which, if they HAD to make a movie, would be the good way to go for more than just that reason. Such as not wanting to overuse the same premise, or expanding the limited setting a little.
A good way to increase the difficulty is to create dead-ends (meaning you get stuck and have to reload if you didn't pick up an item earlier), remove hot spots, getting killed by not being fast enough or get hamstrung into an infinite loop that it's impossible to recover from.
They should have implemented that from the start.
A good way to increase the difficulty is to create dead-ends (meaning you get stuck and have to reload if you didn't pick up an item earlier), remove hot spots, getting killed by not being fast enough or get hamstrung into an infinite loop that it's impossible to recover from.
They should have implemented that from the start.
Sorry, but most of those are crappy ways of making a game more difficult.
Instant death quicktime events, and unwinnable scenarios that make you have to restart the game? Seriously?
Did I maybe just fail to detect sarcasm here?
Sorry, but most of those are crappy ways of making a game more difficult.
Instant death quicktime events, and unwinnable scenarios that make you have to restart the game? Seriously?
Did I maybe just fail to detect sarcasm here?
You can say what you want, but un-winnable scenarios do make games more challenging.
You're right, they've wronged you, they are going to hell. They made a fun game, that's pretty easy to play, and a great story to go a long with it. They made a BTTF fan boy's wet dream come true and got MJ FOX to voice roles in the next episode Christopher Loyd....They have always been great story tellers and are doing a terrific job at telling the story and keeping true to the movies. Very fun game, too bad it doesn't make me bleed out of my ears or have a aneurysm when I play it. They make games, if they didn't pick up the license we wouldn't be seeing BTTF anything...most probably EVER again. So they made it a game, focused mostly on story, they were trying to make a fun game. But instead they ran into a bunch of Grey Foxes screaming HURT ME MOREEEEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pqrmsJ3SLk
They were trying to make a game that every one could enjoy who was a BTTF fan, even experienced gamers who thought it was too easy. They clearly put a lot of time into the characters, stories, went out of their way to work with the people behind the movies, got Micheal J Fox involved even...Put like some one pumped up on roid rage they want it to be challenging harder, faster... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtHJQBeMKbY&feature=relmfu
Multiple difficulty settings? It may be possible, but TTG doesn't take that route, as far as I remember, hasn't done that yet. I think they stayed true to their formula. It was obviously meant to be enjoyable for every one.But their true fans used to playing licensed adventure gaming franchises seem to have a superiority complex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2jqRwo5MHo
A good way to increase the difficulty is to create dead-ends (meaning you get stuck and have to reload if you didn't pick up an item earlier), remove hot spots, getting killed by not being fast enough or get hamstrung into an infinite loop that it's impossible to recover from.
They should have implemented that from the start.
The only reason I bought Back to the Future is because it looked awesome. Not "the gameplay looked awesome", but "the game looked awesome".
You see, it's a licensed game, and one for an adventure series that's pretty mainstream. Hence, I concluded that either the game would be piss-easy or... well, just that the game would be piss-easy. You still need to attract a big audience, bigger than those on this forum.
Now while BttF really is on the easy side, it is to be expected if you don't want to scare away first-timers.
The only reason I bought Back to the Future is because it looked awesome. Not "the gameplay looked awesome", but "the game looked awesome".
You see, it's a licensed game, and one for an adventure series that's pretty mainstream. Hence, I concluded that either the game would be piss-easy or... well, just that the game would be piss-easy. You still need to attract a big audience, bigger than those on this forum.
Now while BttF really is on the easy side, it is to be expected if you don't want to scare away first-timers.
Well I think this entire argument is simply based on expectations, if that were not too obvious. But, I of course do see your logic as I've been standing on the same side of the fence as you.
The only reason I bought Back to the Future is because it looked awesome. Not "the gameplay looked awesome", but "the game looked awesome".
You see, it's a licensed game, and one for an adventure series that's pretty mainstream. Hence, I concluded that either the game would be piss-easy or... well, just that the game would be piss-easy. You still need to attract a big audience, bigger than those on this forum.
Now while BttF really is on the easy side, it is to be expected if you don't want to scare away first-timers.
That's why you make a tutorial at the start of the series, and/or have a low difficulty in the first episode.
But it doesn't make sense to keep that low difficulty setting throughout the whole season! The game has to become progressively more difficult. That's not gonna scare away new-comers. If anything, said new-comers will just get bored.
The game being too easy has no excuse, as there is A HINT SYSTEM. Either you make a decent game with a hint system, either you just make an easy game with no help. Having a piss easy game AND obvious help (getting the solutions as soon as the problem is posed etc...) from the game AND the hint system is just wrong.
You can say what you want, but un-winnable scenarios do make games more challenging.
I'm going to submit that "challenge" is a subjective term, and therefore what makes something "challenging" is also subjective. I've played games like the one you're describing. They aren't challenging. They're infuriating and little more. Generally speaking what I do is put such things away and never play them again.
At least nowadays I do. Back in my day I'm fairly sure I've beaten games that would make a lot of you retreat into the womb. Those days are done however and this is my "happy retirement" as a gamer. I've little to prove to anyone and can still enjoy a game even if it isn't maddeningly impossible.
And while I'm sure mine isn't the only definition of "challenge", I gather the development team would still like people to play the game until the end. That means shooting for a middle ground between "impossible, insta-kill scenarios" and "insignificantly difficult puzzle solving"- because that's where most peoples' definition of that term lies.
And that's just processing this at a philosophical, "we're all right" kind of tone. If I were to look at your assessment semantically, well, I'd have to be a lot harsher.
"Challenge" necessitates a scenario where the goal is winnable- it can be difficult to attain it, of course, but there does exist a path to reaching that goal nonetheless. An un-winnable scenario has only one outcome, and so therefore no challenge can exist.
The fact that the game is easy isn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the surprisingly low interactions possible thorough the whole game. That implies the puzzles, the locations, and the story. The fact that the whole difficulty is about "click one of the 2 stuff in the screen and it will do the trick" is really just a consequence of the lack of interaction.
And I Totally enjoy easy games with decent interaction. Geez, Shadow of Memories is one my favorite and it's clearly similar, yet so much better.
That's why you make a tutorial at the start of the series, and/or have a low difficulty in the first episode.
But it doesn't make sense to keep that low difficulty setting throughout the whole season! The game has to become progressively more difficult. That's not gonna scare away new-comers. If anything, said new-comers will just get bored.
This is a very important point and one that seems to be completely lost on the apologists who justify BTTF as intended for newcomers. What is the basis for the assumption that just because someone doesn't play video games, it automatically means they won't like anything but brain-dead easy puzzles? Lots of non-video-gamers play other kinds of games or sports; challenges are often what engage people. I think BTTF is just as likely to provoke the following reaction: "So this is what happens when you add a game to a movie; kinda pointless, I'd rather just play a real game or watch a movie." as it is to provoke this one: "Thank GOD the game was so easy or I would have never been able to get through it!"
It's a weak argument, a old and tired argument, and a unfair argument to go around calling people a apologist just because they have different opinions about something. It's just a new word invented by people trying to block out, blind away any subjective argument from other people who share the opposite view point. I'm not calling people haters, so the argument really isn't fair...
My opinion is no more less subjective than yours...
People shouldn't be stereotyped for their opinions , it's rude and ignorant.
I don't think this game is doomed to fail, or has failed horrifically. I enjoyed it so far, regardless of all the expected complaints and hate. It is what it is, why not just go full objective , since we're arguing with stereotypes, generalizations? The game is a fairly easy game, ok...end of story. Redundant tripe can stop now. Many people enjoy the game, many don't...
There you go a winning argument, cant be argued...
Why am I even wasting my time on this? If you guys want to complain about something that won't be changed, that's your right...whatever.
if they didn't pick up the license we wouldn't be seeing BTTF anything...most probably EVER again.
This is the worst argument of all time. "We never would have gotten any BttF if this didn't happen" does not mean "It's okay that it is a pointlessly easy game". As much as I loved the Evil Dead games simply for continuing the Evil Dead license with Bruce Campbell as Ash, they are mediocre games at best. There is a distinct difference between enjoying the dialogue/story/characters and enjoying the actual game itself.
Multiple difficulty settings? It may be possible, but TTG doesn't take that route, as far as I remember, hasn't done that yet. I think they stayed true to their formula. It was obviously meant to be enjoyable for every one.But their true fans used to playing licensed adventure gaming franchises seem to have a superiority complex.
They've pretty much always taken that route, if you take the hint system into account. Granted, the hints were the same for all settings, and the only difference was the frequency of hints, but it can still be considered a variable difficulty setting. We don't have a "superiority complex" by asking them to make a game that is challenging to someone older than 5 years old, we have a desire to engage ourselves in a quality adventure game experience, which they apparently never intended on providing us.
BttF is an awful introduction into adventure gaming, also, because adventure gaming is entirely about the moment you solve the puzzle, and the feeling of satisfaction you get from having figured it out. With BttF, that is not present, as there is next to nothing to figure out, so a new player will get the impression that adventure games are all just "click to continue" and very little puzzle solving or logic is required. I'd rather have someone new to adventure games play Sam and Max or Monkey Island and think it was too difficult than have someone play BttF and think the entire genre was a mindless clickfest.
It's a weak argument, a old and tired argument, and a unfair argument to go around calling people a apologist just because they have different opinions about something.
Funny thing is, that wasn't my argument, only a single word in the opening line. And if you're guessing that your incisive objection to that single word will distract attention away from the fact that you failed to address the main argument, you'd be wrong. Incidentally, whining about unfair characterizations and then calling "tripe" on others is more than a little hypocritical.
If I'm whining about unfair characterization then you guys have wet the bed over this game's difficulty. Like, I said, it's not a real argument. It's silly. The game seems to be easy, as a general consensus, many people like, many don't like it. Like I said, I should have known better than to get involved with a argument like this.
Whatever, the apologist label is so lame. It's like If I starting labeling you with ...anything...you used it to express how you felt about the comments of people who approve of the game. And yeah, I do have a problem with the label, don't use fancy labels if you don't want people to comment on them...It's as much a part of your argument as anything else. Why not just call you a HATER and see how that separates itself from the argument.
This in itself is as lame as saying "No offense, but you're a *BEEP*, anyways, as I was saying..."
Give me a break, seriously?It has a negative connotation that to me suggests people can't have their own opinions as you can, that they have to be monkeys who support something blindly, it's just ignorant regardless of how you look at it. And starting your argument that way definitely weakened any respect I had for it.
These sort of arguments ...
They NEVER NEVER balance out, or are worth while, and you can never reach some sort of fair agreement. It's a subjective argument, the only thing objective here is that some people don't care that it's easy enjoy it , some people hate it for that reason...
The net is just a place for many many people to complain...
I really don't have any more time to waste on this one.
It is tripe, prove me wrong by proving yourself right or any one else right. Seriously, it's a video game, all you're doing here is going on and on about your opinions, if not you then everyone else who wants to complain. And I've heard it all, over and over again. You have freedom to express yourselves. But what do I care, these arguments are childish.
Some people enjoy the game, that's fine, some hate it, that's fine. I really don't feel a personal need to continue on about it. But if you want to then that's fine. Count me out, it's a pointless debate and nothing more needs to really be said.
People are entitled to their own opinions, nothing really changes that. I was wrong to get involved with such a silly debate. I was wrong to take a side, which is probably why I've tried to support the fact that some people probably were grateful that the game was easy. Which in turn people would say their idiots, morons, as such...I really don't have time to argue with such view points.
Aw, but how are they going to justify forcing their smug self-satisfied inflated intelligence on the rest of us if they suddenly realise they're working towards empty goals?
There is absolutely no reason for the game to be as painfully easy as it is.
None.
The whole "Wider audience" argument only makes sense if they had actually made use of properly scaling difficulty via the organic hints and built-in walkthrough system, so that if you actually intended on thinking while you were playing, you'd be given the option. You don't built a wider audience by alienating your core audience.
It's literally the same thing as if id Software released a first person shooter where even the hardest difficulty setting were mind-numbingly simple to the point that you almost had to try to die. It doesn't matter how good any other aspect of the game is. If the gameplay is completely simple to the point that any unskilled baboon can throw a controller at the wall repeatedly and still complete it, the game is a bad game.
How many times do we have to repeat this before people understand what we are saying?
That's not fair and I don't think throwing the keyboard at the wall or the mouse would really finish the game. LOL People are listening to your opinion, that doesn't mean they submit, bow down, or entirely agree with you. The difference is people can agree without getting angry, disagree, while most people who are upset with the game are lashing out, and frustrating people trying to enjoy it by posting how much they hate it in threads all over the forum.
I woke up this morning and hate posts made it to the general chat forum section some how. We all get that you don't like the game, lots of us think its easy even, but still enjoy it. It just gets tiring listening to people go on and on and espeically when they call some people idiots, morons, their is a help section on this forum, go post how every one in their just needs to throw their keyboards at the wall to get past their stuck problem or how their idiots or morons, we'll see how long that lasts and how long our respectible admins put up with your point of view.
I'm only wasting time on this conservation now because it's almost 2 AM and I can't sleep.
A good way to increase the difficulty is to create dead-ends (meaning you get stuck and have to reload if you didn't pick up an item earlier), remove hot spots, getting killed by not being fast enough or get hamstrung into an infinite loop that it's impossible to recover from.
They should have implemented that from the start.
Sierra games being that way is a different topic, given that this is not a Sierra franchise. However, if these things caeska mentioned did exist in TTG's upcoming King's Quest game, I would not complain at all.
Honestly, at this point I feel like we're beating a dead horse (or that we've been beating a horse that's been long dead for months) so I have nothing further to add concerning the woeful ease (among other things) of this game. I do hope that this is merely Telltale's attempt at trying to target the film franchise's audience, even those who suck at adventure gaming (like the AVGN admits to being- and he's a huge BTTF fan) but it still feels like a bad precedent to start.
It is what it is and no amount of bitching about it will change that fact.
If there is a general consensus that the game is unforgivably easy and people stop writing it a free pass because they like the story, maybe TTG will actually make future games challenging, or at least include an "easy mode" rather than gimping the entire core game. That is our primary concern, the future of TTG, not whether or not BttF sucks.
I don't want to see TTG jump the shark any more than you do, but if they stop making the type of games that I started following the company like a rabid wombat for, I have no reason to be here anymore.
I was referring to this particular game. I've little doubt that something like the Walking Dead won't be as easy as Back to the Future has been.
I hope that is true, but honestly I'm in "wait and see" mode at this point. If Walking Dead and King's Quest are both painfully easy, I am probably done following TTG.
Walking Dead is another Hollywood license. It'll be just as easy as BTTF. They gotta garner in all those viewers of the show, after all, gamers be screwed.
Walking Dead is another Hollywood license. It'll be just as easy as BTTF. They gotta garner in all those viewers of the show, after all, gamers be screwed.
I dunno. After all, they got the rights from Kirkman rather than AMC, so they're not going to be able to lure in TV viewers with any TV-related imagery. And the games always seem to be better when dealing with a single person that owns the rights to the thing, rather than a large company. So who knows?
I don't know what Jake and Vanaman have in mind for that one. It seems, from Jake's few forum posts, that we won't get a traditional Adventure game out of it. He's said he doesn't see the Walking Dead universe as one where you just stand around trying to figure out key combinations for a door or combine objects together to make crazy makeshift solutions. I do at least have some hope for player agency being something that EXISTS in that one, though.
Actually, I see the BttF game more as a lure. You see, while BttF is piss-easy, Sam & Max tends to be unforgivingly hard, or at least hard enough to make your head meet the brick wall at points. The same goes for, for example, SBCG4AP, while that game wasn't as easy, it was still easy enough.
After they have been lured here, though, the fun really starts, as these gamers now have a big library of adventure games to pick from, as well as two poker games and two puzzle games. It's kind of like how the free Portal 1 give-away was a way to lure more people to Steam. I mean, it's either giving away a game for free or making a game that is accessible enough for everybody.
The Wii, for example, had lots of shovelware, at least in the beginning. However, these were made to lure in the casual gamers to the console. After that, more and more hardcore games were released. Now while there are still a lot of whiners among us who just keep ignore the Wii library as it is now, there are enough hardcore games to play between the shovelware.
You can seen BttF as Telltale's shovelware, only with a higher budget. It's just here to lure in those people who were previously unfamiliar with adventure games.
Right right, just like you can place a piece of candy in a vegetable platter and kids will start eating their veggies. They won't just go for the candy and never appreciate the values of fresh vegetables, after all. It's not like having a product contain NONE of the virtues of more complete experiences could possibly backfire, resulting in fans that(for example) say "It is a movie more than it is a game, and i don't have a problem with that."
....unless.
Maybe the franchise ITSELF was lure enough, for people who may have never heard of an adventure game before.
In fact, maybe, if the game built up into being a real adventure game, why, the audience would get an idea of what adventure games are.
Maybe giving them an experience THIS truncated only gives people the idea that this is what adventure games are. Maybe people who WOULD like adventure games otherwise entirely lose interest while playing Back to the Future: The Game. MAYBE, just MAYBE, you can't make someone try something just by putting something else adjacent to but never once intertwining with the thing you want them to try.
MY first adventure game was Secret of Monkey Island.
I think a four year old would be more likely to really really get into a fun adventure game despite its difficulty as opposed to an adult who gets stuck and goes "Oh well. Screw it. Got other things to do". Convinced a friend of mine to get Tales of Monkey Island last year and couldn't find his way into club 41, hasn't played it since, sadly. I'll get him to eventually though, goshdarnit. I'm pretty grateful BttF is a little easier than most cause the friend I've got playing that one is absolutely convinced he's rubbish at these games so he usually makes excuses not to play them.
Neither I, nor my brother cared for the lack of harder puzzles in BttF. We just loved playing the episodes, progressing the story and generally having fun with the whole BttF universe.
I've been playing adventure games since 1991 (since I was 10! - not counting Leisure Suit Larry that I'd seen some of my friends play on a PC a couple of years before I'd played an adventure game), and find TTG's take on them quite refreshing since they're easy to solve without spending too much time on them.
It's fun and not too time consuming, since I don't go to bed thinking about a puzzle like I did back when I was a kid (getting stuck on a puzzle for a week is no fun at all).
Neither I, nor my brother cared for the lack of harder puzzles in BttF. We just loved playing the episodes, progressing the story and generally having fun with the whole BttF universe.
I've been playing adventure games since 1991 (since I was 10! - not counting Leisure Suit Larry that I'd seen some of my friends play on a PC a couple of years before I'd played an adventure game), and find TTG's take on them quite refreshing since they're easy to solve without spending too much time on them.
It's fun and not too time consuming, since I don't go to bed thinking about a puzzle like I did back when I was a kid (getting stuck on a puzzle for a week is no fun at all).
Who doesn't like quickies every now and then?
Yeah, I'm with you. If I care about an end-goal more than I care about the story, then maybe I want harder puzzles. But with this I care more about the story. It's bad enough having season breaks in shows with cliffhangers, but to have a forced break simply because the game thinks you're not good enough? Screw that. The more I think about it the more I think I love the balance they achieved in this game.
but to have a forced break simply because the game thinks you're not good enough?
No, because you AREN'T good enough.
Big fucking difference.
The "break", the part where the story stops and you spend time experimenting, exploring, and thinking, this is where you're actually playing. Everything else is just set-up. You're confusing the carrot for the path you're meant to be lead down.
The more I think about it the more I think I love the balance they achieved in this game.
You cannot possibly have a straight face when using the word "balance" here. It's IMBALANCE to the extreme. You can LIKE it, you can think it's a GOOD thing, you can say that you are happy that you can briskly continue and not have to worry about pesky interactivity with a large number of objects and an obnoxiously living world that has the nerve to react to your actions rather than holding your hand to thankfully lead you down an intended narrative, but you can't call this BALANCE. We're looking at a system in which three hints are considered necessary for a puzzle whose solution is "click the only hotspot on the screen, also the hotspot is 75% of the viewable area".
Comments
All the "puzzles" you are mentioning in the games solve themselves with little to no input from the player. It's almost like the design document was loaded with puzzles, and they just decided not to implement any of them, and make them all automatically solve themselves by clicking on the screen arbitrarily.
The game is pretty easy for experienced adventure gamers. But, saying that it's not a game, or that no one ever got stuck is not only wrong, but it's wrong. LOL
We can be pretentious and rude, and say anyone that gets stuck on this game is a moron, but that's not true either. I've seen these boards, and people can get stuck, have got stuck. I admit it's not the world's hardest game. But to be honest, I never saw a BTTF adventure game as being the world's hardest game.
I enjoy a good challenge occasionally, once I start something I grill into it, I'm vicious , I'm OC in nature when I start something. But, I never turned on those gears for this game.
Tales shows that they can make a decent adventure game, with titles like Sam and Max, Tales of Monkey Island, let's be realistic, those are adventure game franchises...
This is a movie franchise adapted for an entirely different, larger audience . People keep grumbling about it's difficulty, that was a choice tales made, to try to be fair to all audiences it back fired a little. But, not enjoying the story, and complaining all day along about the difficulty of the game is simply worn out, as much as it is tiring.
They put in a good effort to feel like the movies, and a good effort to get all the original talent involved with the project. They've made a solid effort to make this an authentic BTTF experience, and the game might be easy...Boo hoo, why does a adventure gamer always need a challenge, what does a experienced adventure gamer need to prove? Do you have a reputation? Tales doesn't need to protect it's reputation, it's already shown what it can do WITH ADVENTURE GAMING FRANCHISES. Are we that anal and pretentious that we always need something to challenge our skills, to defend our honor?
Leave it be already. Some people are enjoying it as a game, more experienced adventure gamers might say it's too easy, and...?
I don't see why people can't enjoy their selves and just shut up and enjoy it for what it is. Complaining isn't going to change anything, and if they made another Sam and Max or Tales of Monkey Island, I guarantee that they would stick to what works for that adventure gaming audience...
Maybe they under estimated how easy they made the game, ok, that's too bad, but under neath is still a video game, that they put some time into, and got Micheal J Fox involved, Christopher Loyd, etc etc, any true fan would be happy about this, and enjoy the "game" for what it is.
We already know the difficulty isn't that hard, so why go on about it? It's like telling the hot chick who was once hot that she gained 200 pounds...what's the point?
It's unfortunate that the game isn't a little harder, but why go on and on and on about it? The only thing I get out of all of this is that some of you can't enjoy yourself, make heads form tales
It's not the most difficult TTG game, but it's still designed in their style, and it still has a TTG game feeling to it. Which is cool, it's even animated like a TTG game. It's just a little too easy for one. It's still a game. it DOES take a little thinking, just never enough to get you stuck. It DOES have puzzles, just not hard enough puzzles to get you stuck. Etc, etc.
I played a episode a day when released, I enjoyed the length of the episodes , thought they were long enough, felt like I got a days worth. And they were easy, but I really didn't have time at the time, before my injury, to play a adventure game that was going to take me a year and it doesn't take a Einstein to see how that would be a bad choice on a game that is released episodically. In the end you might of needed a walk through or to rely heavily on hints, it's that what any one would really want to do? Especially an experienced gamer.
Why should they make a extremely difficult game, with a HUGE audience and then release it episodically, frustrating probably 70 percent of that audience as adventure games are only to a select audience?
They made it a little too easy, over estimated, get over it.
It's not valid to say that the game is anything but painfully easy. 95% of the game you literally can't do anything that is incorrect. You just plod through clicking on whatever the one or two objects on screen are that you can click, and the inventory is used so sparingly it may as well not even be there.
I've only played on zero (where they still throw some hints if you spend too much time on something), so I find it hard to imagine what playing on anything higher than 1 or 2 would be like. I'd think by level 3 on the hint system, the game would just cut the crap, take the controls from you, and play itself while you watch. Except there's a hint level even higher than that.
Unless they move focus away from Marty and Doc. which, if they HAD to make a movie, would be the good way to go for more than just that reason. Such as not wanting to overuse the same premise, or expanding the limited setting a little.
They should have implemented that from the start.
Instant death quicktime events, and unwinnable scenarios that make you have to restart the game? Seriously?
Did I maybe just fail to detect sarcasm here?
You can say what you want, but un-winnable scenarios do make games more challenging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pqrmsJ3SLk
They were trying to make a game that every one could enjoy who was a BTTF fan, even experienced gamers who thought it was too easy. They clearly put a lot of time into the characters, stories, went out of their way to work with the people behind the movies, got Micheal J Fox involved even...Put like some one pumped up on roid rage they want it to be challenging harder, faster...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtHJQBeMKbY&feature=relmfu
Multiple difficulty settings? It may be possible, but TTG doesn't take that route, as far as I remember, hasn't done that yet. I think they stayed true to their formula. It was obviously meant to be enjoyable for every one.But their true fans used to playing licensed adventure gaming franchises seem to have a superiority complex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2jqRwo5MHo
Come to think of it, when has Tales EVER made a really hard episode of ANY game that took weeks upon weeks to beat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JQJLGcpN10
Those difficulty settings sound like old Sierra games.
I smell sarcasm.
The only reason I bought Back to the Future is because it looked awesome. Not "the gameplay looked awesome", but "the game looked awesome".
You see, it's a licensed game, and one for an adventure series that's pretty mainstream. Hence, I concluded that either the game would be piss-easy or... well, just that the game would be piss-easy. You still need to attract a big audience, bigger than those on this forum.
Now while BttF really is on the easy side, it is to be expected if you don't want to scare away first-timers.
Well I think this entire argument is simply based on expectations, if that were not too obvious. But, I of course do see your logic as I've been standing on the same side of the fence as you.
That's why you make a tutorial at the start of the series, and/or have a low difficulty in the first episode.
But it doesn't make sense to keep that low difficulty setting throughout the whole season! The game has to become progressively more difficult. That's not gonna scare away new-comers. If anything, said new-comers will just get bored.
The game being too easy has no excuse, as there is A HINT SYSTEM. Either you make a decent game with a hint system, either you just make an easy game with no help. Having a piss easy game AND obvious help (getting the solutions as soon as the problem is posed etc...) from the game AND the hint system is just wrong.
I'm going to submit that "challenge" is a subjective term, and therefore what makes something "challenging" is also subjective. I've played games like the one you're describing. They aren't challenging. They're infuriating and little more. Generally speaking what I do is put such things away and never play them again.
At least nowadays I do. Back in my day I'm fairly sure I've beaten games that would make a lot of you retreat into the womb. Those days are done however and this is my "happy retirement" as a gamer. I've little to prove to anyone and can still enjoy a game even if it isn't maddeningly impossible.
And while I'm sure mine isn't the only definition of "challenge", I gather the development team would still like people to play the game until the end. That means shooting for a middle ground between "impossible, insta-kill scenarios" and "insignificantly difficult puzzle solving"- because that's where most peoples' definition of that term lies.
And that's just processing this at a philosophical, "we're all right" kind of tone. If I were to look at your assessment semantically, well, I'd have to be a lot harsher.
"Challenge" necessitates a scenario where the goal is winnable- it can be difficult to attain it, of course, but there does exist a path to reaching that goal nonetheless. An un-winnable scenario has only one outcome, and so therefore no challenge can exist.
There, I've said what I want. You're incorrect.
The fact that the game is easy isn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the surprisingly low interactions possible thorough the whole game. That implies the puzzles, the locations, and the story. The fact that the whole difficulty is about "click one of the 2 stuff in the screen and it will do the trick" is really just a consequence of the lack of interaction.
And I Totally enjoy easy games with decent interaction. Geez, Shadow of Memories is one my favorite and it's clearly similar, yet so much better.
This is a very important point and one that seems to be completely lost on the apologists who justify BTTF as intended for newcomers. What is the basis for the assumption that just because someone doesn't play video games, it automatically means they won't like anything but brain-dead easy puzzles? Lots of non-video-gamers play other kinds of games or sports; challenges are often what engage people. I think BTTF is just as likely to provoke the following reaction: "So this is what happens when you add a game to a movie; kinda pointless, I'd rather just play a real game or watch a movie." as it is to provoke this one: "Thank GOD the game was so easy or I would have never been able to get through it!"
My opinion is no more less subjective than yours...
People shouldn't be stereotyped for their opinions , it's rude and ignorant.
I don't think this game is doomed to fail, or has failed horrifically. I enjoyed it so far, regardless of all the expected complaints and hate. It is what it is, why not just go full objective , since we're arguing with stereotypes, generalizations? The game is a fairly easy game, ok...end of story. Redundant tripe can stop now. Many people enjoy the game, many don't...
There you go a winning argument, cant be argued...
Why am I even wasting my time on this? If you guys want to complain about something that won't be changed, that's your right...whatever.
This is the worst argument of all time. "We never would have gotten any BttF if this didn't happen" does not mean "It's okay that it is a pointlessly easy game". As much as I loved the Evil Dead games simply for continuing the Evil Dead license with Bruce Campbell as Ash, they are mediocre games at best. There is a distinct difference between enjoying the dialogue/story/characters and enjoying the actual game itself.
They've pretty much always taken that route, if you take the hint system into account. Granted, the hints were the same for all settings, and the only difference was the frequency of hints, but it can still be considered a variable difficulty setting. We don't have a "superiority complex" by asking them to make a game that is challenging to someone older than 5 years old, we have a desire to engage ourselves in a quality adventure game experience, which they apparently never intended on providing us.
BttF is an awful introduction into adventure gaming, also, because adventure gaming is entirely about the moment you solve the puzzle, and the feeling of satisfaction you get from having figured it out. With BttF, that is not present, as there is next to nothing to figure out, so a new player will get the impression that adventure games are all just "click to continue" and very little puzzle solving or logic is required. I'd rather have someone new to adventure games play Sam and Max or Monkey Island and think it was too difficult than have someone play BttF and think the entire genre was a mindless clickfest.
Funny thing is, that wasn't my argument, only a single word in the opening line. And if you're guessing that your incisive objection to that single word will distract attention away from the fact that you failed to address the main argument, you'd be wrong. Incidentally, whining about unfair characterizations and then calling "tripe" on others is more than a little hypocritical.
Whatever, the apologist label is so lame. It's like If I starting labeling you with ...anything...you used it to express how you felt about the comments of people who approve of the game. And yeah, I do have a problem with the label, don't use fancy labels if you don't want people to comment on them...It's as much a part of your argument as anything else. Why not just call you a HATER and see how that separates itself from the argument.
This in itself is as lame as saying "No offense, but you're a *BEEP*, anyways, as I was saying..."
Give me a break, seriously?It has a negative connotation that to me suggests people can't have their own opinions as you can, that they have to be monkeys who support something blindly, it's just ignorant regardless of how you look at it. And starting your argument that way definitely weakened any respect I had for it.
These sort of arguments ...
They NEVER NEVER balance out, or are worth while, and you can never reach some sort of fair agreement. It's a subjective argument, the only thing objective here is that some people don't care that it's easy enjoy it , some people hate it for that reason...
The net is just a place for many many people to complain...
I really don't have any more time to waste on this one.
It is tripe, prove me wrong by proving yourself right or any one else right. Seriously, it's a video game, all you're doing here is going on and on about your opinions, if not you then everyone else who wants to complain. And I've heard it all, over and over again. You have freedom to express yourselves. But what do I care, these arguments are childish.
Some people enjoy the game, that's fine, some hate it, that's fine. I really don't feel a personal need to continue on about it. But if you want to then that's fine. Count me out, it's a pointless debate and nothing more needs to really be said.
People are entitled to their own opinions, nothing really changes that. I was wrong to get involved with such a silly debate. I was wrong to take a side, which is probably why I've tried to support the fact that some people probably were grateful that the game was easy. Which in turn people would say their idiots, morons, as such...I really don't have time to argue with such view points.
Peace.
Nah, who am I kidding? They'll never realise it
None.
The whole "Wider audience" argument only makes sense if they had actually made use of properly scaling difficulty via the organic hints and built-in walkthrough system, so that if you actually intended on thinking while you were playing, you'd be given the option. You don't built a wider audience by alienating your core audience.
It's literally the same thing as if id Software released a first person shooter where even the hardest difficulty setting were mind-numbingly simple to the point that you almost had to try to die. It doesn't matter how good any other aspect of the game is. If the gameplay is completely simple to the point that any unskilled baboon can throw a controller at the wall repeatedly and still complete it, the game is a bad game.
How many times do we have to repeat this before people understand what we are saying?
I woke up this morning and hate posts made it to the general chat forum section some how. We all get that you don't like the game, lots of us think its easy even, but still enjoy it. It just gets tiring listening to people go on and on and espeically when they call some people idiots, morons, their is a help section on this forum, go post how every one in their just needs to throw their keyboards at the wall to get past their stuck problem or how their idiots or morons, we'll see how long that lasts and how long our respectible admins put up with your point of view.
I'm only wasting time on this conservation now because it's almost 2 AM and I can't sleep.
Sierra games being that way is a different topic, given that this is not a Sierra franchise. However, if these things caeska mentioned did exist in TTG's upcoming King's Quest game, I would not complain at all.
Honestly, at this point I feel like we're beating a dead horse (or that we've been beating a horse that's been long dead for months) so I have nothing further to add concerning the woeful ease (among other things) of this game. I do hope that this is merely Telltale's attempt at trying to target the film franchise's audience, even those who suck at adventure gaming (like the AVGN admits to being- and he's a huge BTTF fan) but it still feels like a bad precedent to start.
If there is a general consensus that the game is unforgivably easy and people stop writing it a free pass because they like the story, maybe TTG will actually make future games challenging, or at least include an "easy mode" rather than gimping the entire core game. That is our primary concern, the future of TTG, not whether or not BttF sucks.
I don't want to see TTG jump the shark any more than you do, but if they stop making the type of games that I started following the company like a rabid wombat for, I have no reason to be here anymore.
I hope that is true, but honestly I'm in "wait and see" mode at this point. If Walking Dead and King's Quest are both painfully easy, I am probably done following TTG.
I don't know what Jake and Vanaman have in mind for that one. It seems, from Jake's few forum posts, that we won't get a traditional Adventure game out of it. He's said he doesn't see the Walking Dead universe as one where you just stand around trying to figure out key combinations for a door or combine objects together to make crazy makeshift solutions. I do at least have some hope for player agency being something that EXISTS in that one, though.
After they have been lured here, though, the fun really starts, as these gamers now have a big library of adventure games to pick from, as well as two poker games and two puzzle games. It's kind of like how the free Portal 1 give-away was a way to lure more people to Steam. I mean, it's either giving away a game for free or making a game that is accessible enough for everybody.
The Wii, for example, had lots of shovelware, at least in the beginning. However, these were made to lure in the casual gamers to the console. After that, more and more hardcore games were released. Now while there are still a lot of whiners among us who just keep ignore the Wii library as it is now, there are enough hardcore games to play between the shovelware.
You can seen BttF as Telltale's shovelware, only with a higher budget. It's just here to lure in those people who were previously unfamiliar with adventure games.
....unless.
Maybe the franchise ITSELF was lure enough, for people who may have never heard of an adventure game before.
In fact, maybe, if the game built up into being a real adventure game, why, the audience would get an idea of what adventure games are.
Maybe giving them an experience THIS truncated only gives people the idea that this is what adventure games are. Maybe people who WOULD like adventure games otherwise entirely lose interest while playing Back to the Future: The Game. MAYBE, just MAYBE, you can't make someone try something just by putting something else adjacent to but never once intertwining with the thing you want them to try.
MY first adventure game was Secret of Monkey Island.
I was FOUR.
I've been playing adventure games since 1991 (since I was 10! - not counting Leisure Suit Larry that I'd seen some of my friends play on a PC a couple of years before I'd played an adventure game), and find TTG's take on them quite refreshing since they're easy to solve without spending too much time on them.
It's fun and not too time consuming, since I don't go to bed thinking about a puzzle like I did back when I was a kid (getting stuck on a puzzle for a week is no fun at all).
Who doesn't like quickies every now and then?
Yeah, I'm with you. If I care about an end-goal more than I care about the story, then maybe I want harder puzzles. But with this I care more about the story. It's bad enough having season breaks in shows with cliffhangers, but to have a forced break simply because the game thinks you're not good enough? Screw that. The more I think about it the more I think I love the balance they achieved in this game.
Big fucking difference.
The "break", the part where the story stops and you spend time experimenting, exploring, and thinking, this is where you're actually playing. Everything else is just set-up. You're confusing the carrot for the path you're meant to be lead down.
You cannot possibly have a straight face when using the word "balance" here. It's IMBALANCE to the extreme. You can LIKE it, you can think it's a GOOD thing, you can say that you are happy that you can briskly continue and not have to worry about pesky interactivity with a large number of objects and an obnoxiously living world that has the nerve to react to your actions rather than holding your hand to thankfully lead you down an intended narrative, but you can't call this BALANCE. We're looking at a system in which three hints are considered necessary for a puzzle whose solution is "click the only hotspot on the screen, also the hotspot is 75% of the viewable area".