202, i don't know...
I've donwloaded the new episode, installed it (by the way i couldn't progress after it was unlocked so i had to quit and restart the game before beeing able to launch it) and then i again was in the streets...
I walked around there and talked to people for about 10-15 minutes and then i quit.
I'm sure i'll have to talk to Bosco again to get hints of what to do and so on but i just couldn't. In my opinion it is a big design fault in the Sam&Max Episodes, that you again and again have to talk to the same people and rexplore the same locations. A friend of mine tried to play through the season1 DVD and he also quit after a few episodes because he felt this even stronger as he was playing this in a row.
Maybe there is a difference if you're doing something active or passive because i'm not caring this much if they reuse settings in a good tv serie or comics (as for the comics i think whilst reusing already known settings they always try to show it from different angles) or it's about the characters themselves that they aren't interesting and funny anymore, you know same jokes same behaviours and so on, probably a mix of both.
The beginning of the game just feels like work to me were i first have to go through in order to maybe enjoy something new later on and i'm sorry but work is the last thing i'm looking for in a game.
During christmas i had time to play through a game i haven't found time to before: InXile's The Bard's Tale is well designed action role playing game. The sarcasm and humour made me laugh a lot of times through the whole game. They succeeded in keeping things interesting and really funny there. Ubisoft meanwhile sells it as a budget title so you might want to give it a try.
It definately was the right decision to buy season1 but i'm not sure about season2 anymore as ttg isn't progressing in the areas which are important from my point of view. The next setting with the undead sounds interesting, maybe i just need a break till then or rush through it with a walkthrough. Let's hope a Vampyre's Story comes out soon and that it's good.
I walked around there and talked to people for about 10-15 minutes and then i quit.
I'm sure i'll have to talk to Bosco again to get hints of what to do and so on but i just couldn't. In my opinion it is a big design fault in the Sam&Max Episodes, that you again and again have to talk to the same people and rexplore the same locations. A friend of mine tried to play through the season1 DVD and he also quit after a few episodes because he felt this even stronger as he was playing this in a row.
Maybe there is a difference if you're doing something active or passive because i'm not caring this much if they reuse settings in a good tv serie or comics (as for the comics i think whilst reusing already known settings they always try to show it from different angles) or it's about the characters themselves that they aren't interesting and funny anymore, you know same jokes same behaviours and so on, probably a mix of both.
The beginning of the game just feels like work to me were i first have to go through in order to maybe enjoy something new later on and i'm sorry but work is the last thing i'm looking for in a game.
During christmas i had time to play through a game i haven't found time to before: InXile's The Bard's Tale is well designed action role playing game. The sarcasm and humour made me laugh a lot of times through the whole game. They succeeded in keeping things interesting and really funny there. Ubisoft meanwhile sells it as a budget title so you might want to give it a try.
It definately was the right decision to buy season1 but i'm not sure about season2 anymore as ttg isn't progressing in the areas which are important from my point of view. The next setting with the undead sounds interesting, maybe i just need a break till then or rush through it with a walkthrough. Let's hope a Vampyre's Story comes out soon and that it's good.
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I won't argue for the rest, I'd have tons of things to say, but my english is too poor this time to express what I want to say
I hope you won't regret it any longer, just remember action comedy and abe lincoln must die, it's just not the same thing at all, we can expect a great evolution through episodes this time too
you dont even have to go into their office the entire episode even though i recomend it, some very funny things in there (lots of other things are optional as well) i like the begining of the game, also... the locations have changed a bit, subutle, but they have changed... and all the dialogue for clicking on the various things has changed as well... cause of all this, i quit complaining about reoccuring locations after 105 (cause they have been updating the loctions like this since then)
Maybe you've missed my point. I'm quite aware of the fact that there is a difference between an adventure and an action roleplaying game but who cares as in the end i value a game by the entertainment i get out of it, no matter if this is another adventure game or as with the example i've provided a game from another genre.
But it's funny as you mention this as i'm remembering that the bard in The Bard's Tale is commenting hitting ESC if you don't want to see a cutscene or speed things up "...Boring..." statements like Max does when you're not acting.
@Dangerzone
Did you realise that you might not know this in advance and that depending on how you start you first observe the office and other spots in streets as well to find this out? I do not enjoy the slightly changing environments, instead i would prefer new locations, an ongoing story and more interesting characters. But obviously that's my personal opinion, if you enjoy the game, good for you.
personally i am glad they re-use some stuff, overall it really adds to the episodes and makes them feel longer, regardless of if there are some reoccuring locations or not.... like the teaser of 202, they could have gone right into the 1st act at the begining and started the game on easter island, but the first puzzle, and the comedy associated with it, really made a great start to a great episode....
and if you read my other topic, even with the refreshed reoccuring locations, the episode kinda felt a little on the short side.... but this is beside the point, the entire game for the most part takes place on easter island, besides the teaser, you only return to the street 3 very short times (boscos, stinkys, and the cops) for 3 small portions of puzzles...
(also did you even talk to max in the office? they joke about why they cannot think of one reason for being in there) and if they had not put the office in the game, many would have complained for sure.... and dont tell me that you dont want to see the inside of sybils at least one time this season.... if you tell me that you are not at least a little bit curious, and that you dont want to see what the inside sybils looks like after being all smashed up, well then you are a bold faced liar
You better take a seat as soon your eyes might inform your mind that i'm in no way interested in whatever Sybil was/is involved to, unless maybe there are a few working desks inside her place were developers forgot to take away their secret work on upcoming games like sequels to The Dig, Full Throttle, Monkey Island or a new interesting IPs.
Sybil is a boring character in my opinion. I have a suggestion for you: You go to Ikea with Sybil, oh and would you mind taking the Soda Poppers with you too?! And i adventure the mysteries of space and time with the MoonLander and a crew of Leonard, Agent Superball, the cops, ... and who knows who might come in handy when getting into trouble with whatever we encounter on our journey.
Does this sound fair to you?
That's the thing with episodic gaming that I think some people miss on: it's episodic, much like a television show. And like a TV show, you usually expect to run into a lot of the same locations and characters, right? CSI has their office, Scrubs has the hospital, Full House had the freakin' house, etc. And those sets or locations are revisited just about every episode because that is the world that they live and interact in.
BUT, much like episodic television, there are either reoccurring references or jokes and consistent revisits of characters. Bosco is a regular in the series (will he be back in the next episode or still be in his bunker?) and I NEVER get tired of him.
And when you're watching a tv serie which you really enjoy then they are over too soon which often makes it more fun staying away from them and then watching a few episodes in a row.
I see the advantages for the developing side but it also see the disadvantage for those who play the games. Obvisously you could write a few pages covering this aspect alone.
Anyway another difference i see if you're comparing video games and tv serie. Beside of the ones i've mentiond already another point is that you have to invest more time in the video game than in the tv serie for the old locations as the overall time of one video game episode is longer than in a tv serie.
However i do understand that this is fun for those who really admire the world and all the characters living in there. If you really feel this way, i guess you have less problems with it but if you see it more differentiated and have stuff in there which you like but also things which you dislike then it's starting to get an issue much sooner.
I prefer quality full size adventures with a big story instead of one short an less interesting case each episode. If they would cut a long story into meaningful pieces in order to take some of the advantages of the episodic format then well okay but what i dislike are episodes were the complexity of the story is dictated by the timeframe one episode offers as this often results into less interesting games.
My dream would be a double sized telltale games, with two separate teams, one working on episodic games, for all who likes them, and another team working on a full sized game, for example episodic games for sam&max and a full monkey island game... well... no, telltale tool seem to be for 3D games, bad idea Grim Fandango !
Beside of this there are also other smaller teams who managed to get a quality full size adventure out, companies like Deck 13 with Ankh and Jack Keane for instance.
Anyway it's sad as there is a noticeable difference in quality between an adventure designed as a full length game and the smaller chunks which must fit into one episode. Play Sam&Max Hit the road and then try to play through Season 1 for instance and you'll notice that you can't enjoy the episodic format in a row as they are repeating things way too often.
Obviously it would be best if they would release a full size adventure but if that's not gonna happen it still would be better if they could tell a coherently complex story in that episodes and maybe split the whole game into only 3 longer chunks.
I thought the action on the street was very nice and besides a short visit, most of the fun was on easter island, even mire than in 201. I never get sick of Bosco's. I love that guy. Sybil...well, not so much.
i have to agree there. after i got my season 1 dvd, i played through them all in order for the 2nd time. playing them side by side like one big game definitly feels like you're spending 90% of the time at sybl's and bosco's.
i'm hoping season 2 will improve this so that when the all the episodes are realesed on dvd, it wont feel like a continuous experience divided by repetitive (and sometimes annoying) scenarios.
im happy that moai better blues was more focussed on easter island.
Personally, I enjoy the episodic medium for Sam and Max. With a shorter production cycle, we're able to enjoy their adventures more frequently, even though the episodes are shorter than a full game. Reusing the same scenes doesn't bother me too much, as the little changes made in each location between episodes intrigue me, such as all the junk Sam and Max have been collecting in their office.
Is it just me or have they gone a bit over the top with Max. The voice acting seemed way over done and too high pitched. It just got on my nerves.
Anyway really looking forward to 303, it looks like it's going to be the best one so far.
In your daily life, do you talk to new people every time you wake up, or do you talk to the same people over and over with a mixing of new people here and there?
Most murder/detective mysteries work this way. The hero hears of a crime, and immediately talks to the people he knows and trusts for information, then branches out into the unknown. It's just good detective work.
Beside of this detective's cases differ in their complexity too and so there is no reason to restrict yourself to the smaller and therefore often less interesting cases. Beside of beside of this, this is a comic adventure featuring not the sanest characters in comic history, so it wouldn't hurt doing actually some adventuring!
I also never had the impression that i was solving a case as a detective. I felt more like i'm more or less in control of two funny guys thrown into to short stories.
I don't know. He's complaining about something that bugs him in every episode and is present in this one, too. No matter how Moai Better Blues turns out for him, this "flaw" will remain and, most likely, return during the rest of the season.
I personally don't mind the recurring locations. I play Sam & Max mainly because of the humour, so I hugely enjoy clicking on every object in the office in every episode and chuckling at the new lines of dialogue. Nonetheless, it is understandable that some people are annoyed by having to spend a sizeable amount of time in old locations every single time.
I agree with kirrob. The new Sam & Max games are pretty much one of a kind, so their episodic nature with all it's consequences feels fresh and exciting to me. But InvaderJim42 is right, too, of course, when he says that you can't please everyone.
Anyway, it could definitely be interesting to let an episode take place wholly in a new setting, to provide an element of change and to see how the fans will like it. This opportunity to experiment is in my opinion one of the biggest strenghts of episodic gaming.
It started out well with the first episode this season(santa gone bad, awesome!), so I hope it will pick up in the third episode, just like it did last season. I wish you guys would bring back Brady Culture, he was awesome("Do my evil biddings"). Also, if you ever are going to bring back the soda poppers, please let me knock them out. I loved that! Also, please drop that "Sybil dating a head". I enjoyed learning about her wacky jobs, but suddenly now everything about her is about her and the head. Also, please tone Bosco down a little. In the first episode of season one he was more funny paranoid, but now it's just going too far. Can't there be one episode at least without somebody (actually) trying to get him?
Last request is, could you bring back the cartoonish look of sam & max? I miss seeing people having their lower lip lifted over their head or seeing sam & max pushing a bowling ball onto somebodys head. If somebody get hurt in a realistic way it's just nasty and untasteful, but if it's done in a comical way it's funny and entertaining. Just because it's in 3d, doesn't mean stuff they did on hit the road or in the comics can't be done now.
Dude! Wait.... what? What did you think Flint Paper was doing (almost) the entire episode?
In the end, I think more people complain about the games being too easy than too hard, and they've included a hint system, so... they should probably just keep aiming high.
Marsan:
Can you please explain which puzzles you thought were illogical?
Also, things like making jokes that pretty much only Americans would get just happens. I love watching British comedies, and they crack jokes all the time at famous British actors - of whom I have absolutely no idea who they are - but I just let the joke slide and continue watching the show. Perhaps they went a bit overboard with the American jokes this episode, but you can't blame the fact that they are an American company with probably mostly American employees.
However, I do agree with you about some of the characters. I was not too keen on the three babies standing in front of the Tiki Hut, and the Sybil/Abe thing is getting a bit old, but based on the events of 202, we might now need to worry about that anymore. On the other hand, I did enjoy Glenn Miller, but that might also be because I love Jazz music...
It was first of all the puzzle where you had to
The episode has it good sides too. I just was annoyed by running around in the same way as in the old days, and trying everything on everybody, just to realize the solution was so close to what I was doing, and just a tiny extra hint would have made me able to solve it so much earlier(without resorting to the walkthrough).
The thing with
As for
For me, the episodic format has definitely hurt my love for Sam & Max. So I regrettably understand what taumel says. I just need higher production values (part of which is less recurring locations/characters) to be satisfied with the experience.
I need a big story with multiple chapters and epicness. I enjoyed the Bone games' structure more. I'm not a fan of this sitcom style storytelling.
True, it might be boring to talk to Bosco and Sybil all the time, but isn't that like real life where you talk to a certain family member or friend throughout most of the day? I mean, us humans do not talk to random people extenstivily at a daily bases.
What on earth does real life have to do with any of this?
The whole point of games is that it's NOT real life, and that it's fun. If a game is "boring", it's not doing it's job right.
Yeah, I'm feeling a bit that way. Ice Station Santa managed to keep my attention, but Moai felt a bit like a chore. I think it's partly because I wanted to hear the new description dialogue, but clicking the same things I've been clicking for the last 7 episodes started to take its toll. I don't want to miss anything though, so just ignoring it all isn't really an option.
I've got a feeling this post's going to get nitpicked to shreds, so I'll just say I'm still looking forward to the next few episodes, 202 just didn't do anything for me though.
I actually do agree with you on this. As Lemming mentioned, it's more about the difficulty than logic. When you think about it, it kind of makes sense about
Maybe it's just me, but as soon as I saw the
As for the radio,
The puzzles that had me stuck were:
1.
So I was very pleased with Moai Better Blues. The puzzles were hard enough to have me stumped for a while, and the solutions did make sense in context, and were also quite amusing. The writing and jokes were top notch, and it was definitely the right length.
Plus I did some research to find out a bit more about DB Cooper and the Lindbergh baby and Jimmy Hoffa that I didn't know before
Some Pros:
+) The baby in front of the cave was a great new character, modeled and animated very well. The way he looked at you with this blue eyes.
+) I've enjoyed trying out the liquids near the bar.
+) Bosco and the radio. This was a great idea and i wished that there would have been more done with this idea like forcing Bosco to do certain things on the other side by feeding him with different information/things and so on.
+) Nice horizontal transition.
+) Sam and Max as kids. I had to laugh loud when i saw Sam as a kid. Nice conversation with Stinky here too.
Some Cons:
-) Audio quality of Max seemed to be strange pitched/quality sometimes.
-) The island setting was boring as well as most of the actions and persons there.
-) The humour generally with the other characters wasn't my thing. Sometimes too childish, sometimes too much american specific stuff involved.
-) The mini games didn't work for me. The surfing game could have been fun but the steering was bad (no matter if you tried it by mouse or keys) so that you ended up playing against the steering and not the game. The bagpipe race was just boring.
-) I didn't find the story and riddles interesting. I more solved it in order to get through but without really enjoying it, except the above mentioned highlights. "Master of the Lamps" is the better Gong game.
-) Again artificial lengthening because you had to do things for three times like in 201 already.
-) I wasn't able to quit while the credits were running.
Overall i would give it a 5 or 6 out of 10.
About the episodic format being boring lately: yeah, taumel sure has a good point. I loved 202 so much, but I understand what he feels at all. Telltale has an incredible potential so I'd love to see a full length game, too bad they'll never make one. It's just their policy, episodic format's been a good choice and it works well, they don't need to risk with something else. I'll just keep buying their games 'cause I love what they do, but I'm sure they're wasting a lot of their talent by this policy.