AVGN reviews Telltale's Back to the Future.
Just my luck that there's another thread with a similar title but different content. Oh well.
http://cinemassacre.com/2011/06/23/back-to-the-future-game-review/
And yeah, I know saying AVGN in the thread title isn't accurate since James isn't in-character, but I had to do what gets people's attention.
http://cinemassacre.com/2011/06/23/back-to-the-future-game-review/
And yeah, I know saying AVGN in the thread title isn't accurate since James isn't in-character, but I had to do what gets people's attention.
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Comments
Glad that James liked it! I wish I could see his reaction to the very end!
The lack of knowledge was cringe-worthy, though, on that other fellow's part.
I admit the PC gamer guy was a little...off, but James admitted from the start he never played many PC games. Don't act surprised if he seemed ignorant when it came to them.
Agreed, utterly painful.
And the "PC guy" just said one thing wrong: Sam & Max isn't TTG's first game (Texas Hold 'em & Bone are). But apart from that, I didn't catch any other wrong stuff.
A post I made earlier I think fits well enough here. This game is way too story based to let challenging puzzles get in the way. I felt if they made them harder, it would make the game go on too long to the point I would have lost interest in the great story.
Oh, and James Rolfe was acting pretty much the whole time. I think he knows other types of games like this are harder.
I think he just misunderstood James's question. It sounded like he was talking about the interface and way you interact with the game world more than the actual puzzle difficulty.
That's not an excuse for a game that is pointlessly easy. They can make an easy mode, or just allow the hint system to help out players that can't figure out more difficult puzzles, but just removing any and all challenge from the game? It's like shipping an FPS with no real difficulty settings other than "Can I play, Daddy?"
You simply expected too much.
Or, how I'd like to put it, not everybody is as boss as you.
If not everyone is made for adventure games, then perhaps not everyone should be PLAYING adventure games. If you have the reflexes of a slug, maybe you shouldn't play first person shooters. If you have the spatial awareness of a mute bat, maybe you shouldn't play platformers. If you're tone deaf, maybe you should put down the Rock Band microphone. If you have a complete and total aversion to anything resembling THOUGHT in any of your leisure activities, then adventure games ARE NOT FOR YOU.
Expecting Telltale to make a game that was even moderately challenging was expecting too much?
Why weren't goals, hints, and a flatout walkthrough mode not enough to get new players interested in adventure games? Why did they also have to remove any and all possibly challenging content from the game as well?
what I've got: bullshit
You do know he's reviewed a game as himself before, right?
Which was a modern game based on another 80's franchise that had nothing but shitty games too. Yay Ghostbusters and Back to the Future!
Yep, that's the one, and that game was just as awesome as this one, IMO anyways, there were people who didn't like the Ghostbusters game either, but you know what, I'll TOLERATE and LOVE the s**t out of them the way I do the critics of this game.
Telltale simply took a different direction with bttf, because they had obligations. Bob Gale was a consultant, which is why there was a huge emphasis on the story.
Except because point and click adventure games are a niche genre, people aren't generally going to step into such a game. The problem isn't that these games aren't something that is not for them, it's just that the fact that its learning curve is high enough to keep people away from them.
And you might think Back to the Future is too easy, but there are still people on this world, yes, I'm not bullshitting you, who still require help with some of the puzzles. The games might be piss-easy for you, heck, it's even piss-easy for me and I generally don't play the Sam & Max games because I actually only buy them for bragging rights, but also because they're at a point now where you have to think hard and long
If the next season will be made, I am sure Telltale makes sure the game won't be as easy, but don't expect that game to suddenly be up to your level of complexity. There is a reason these games died out, and there's a reason only indie developers can afford developing such games.
Seriously, if I had to name one disappointment about this series, it's people like you and SHODANFreeman. I expected people like you to actually understand the whats, because, apparently you guys are smart and all.
And I imagine Universal had their own opinions that had to be taken into consideration.
That's the great thing about the Sam & Max series, Steve Purcell will let Telltale do just about what they want with them. Their partnership with Universal will undoubtedly be more restrictive.
Still no excuse for not putting a "hard mode" into the game.
There is this thing called production costs.
There's also this thing called "I used to buy $500-1000 worth of Telltale games and merchandise every year and have bought $0 this year entirely due to how awful BttF is as an adventure game". Maybe they should weigh that into their budget, or maybe they did, and decided that their core fans (you know, the ones who made it possible for them to exist as a successful company) didn't matter in the slightest.
If that is the case, then why are you so eager to champion a company that couldn't care less about its customers and is only interested in the bottom line?
Plus, how much more expensive can it be to write a game that is up to their previous standards and then simply remove a few puzzles from the game if you select "easy mode"?
They'd have made $25 less from this guy if they'd bothered mentioning they had no intentions of including any challenge in the game.
Supporting a company who is in it to make the most money, regardless of any other factors, is a stupid idea, at best, though. Obviously, they have to turn a profit to continue making games, but considering they managed to do so with "hardcore" adventure gamer fare, the only reason to dumb their games down so severely is greed.
I wonder if the phrase "marketplace realities" means anything to the remaining founding members of Telltale anymore, because I had always thought the company was founded because they loved making adventure games. Apparently, they just love raking in cash. Perhaps they should just start making licensed Star Wars games. I hear those make quite a bit of money.
Just to be absolutely perfectly clear on this point - are you saying that as a fan of BTTF, you wouldn't bother with this series because it wasn't challenging enough? So your love of BTTF isn't enough to outweigh your need to be intellectually challenged?
I'm just curious. You're more about the game than the franchise, yes or no?
I already stated that every company is in business to make money, but that doesn't mean they have to release sub-par products and screw over long-time fans, while simultaneously turning their back on the genre they almost single-handedly revived themselves.
They can still make money while making real adventure games, they've proven that for the better part of the last decade. There is no excuse to dumb their games down to this level other than to rake in cash.
I still don't understand why you're defending them for this. This kind of business practice will eventually screw you over too. They're essentially showing no concern for their fan-base or what people want/expect out of the game, and you're lapping it up and begging for more.
I can respect that you enjoy BttF for its story, but you should at least be able to agree that it's complete bullshit that they didn't provide a challenging game for their long-time customers, who were led to believe it would be up to the same standards as the rest of their prior titles.
I don't like to support bad game development, if I can help it, so I definitely would not have paid for the game had I known how bad it would turn out. I would have more likely just waited and watched a playthrough on Youtube instead of spending $25 to be given busywork in between cutscenes.
Fair enough. I'll pay that answer
That's a fair viewpoint to take, but it wasn't my question.