Adventure Jack Keane
Aloah,
i've just played through the demo of Jack Keane (the first three chapters) and to me it's the first german adventure which was quite fun to play. It's far from beeing perfect and it doesn't come close to something like The Secret of Monkey Island but as written before it's still fun to play.
Gamestar gave the 88% which is overrated in my opinion but i guess they just wanted to push the game a bit. They also provide the game demo with their magazine.
I dislike some of the gfx style for instance how the characters and the environment look like (art style, blocky geometry without proper texturing and colouring). But there are also scenes like the cave which look very good.
The music is not so present. They are missing good themes. Not all characters i've talked to were interesting, same with the dialogues but there are also good ones like Montgomery and Amanda. Some of the speeches they took work fine as for example Jack (the german voice of Johnny Depp) and Montgomery (the german voice of John Cleese). They both really worked well.
What's not so good is the synchronisation with the gfx when they talk, things like lip synchronisation and how the characters move then. Most of the time this looks like some bad puppet movements. The poses and the gestures just don't look convincing.
The riddle design is also nothing to get really excited about but it also flows quite well. No great riddles with depth so far again and i only had once a problem (due to that there were gfx glitches over the clickable area) so it also could be harder and simply better but you can at least combine inventory items.
What's a bit annoying are the the small areas they've dfiened for clicking items or especially areas to enter. They a) don't always make sense and b) are just too small. On the other side it's nice that you can run just by doubleclicking. The game's pathfinding does not support getting fast from a to b by doubleclicking if there is something to climb or jump in the way which can be a drag sometimes.
Overall you won't die if you don't play it but it also has it's own charme and was fun to play. Hey and you get pirates and islands! ;O) From what i've seen so far i would give it a 7 out of 10.
url: www.jackkeane.com
Regards,
taumel
i've just played through the demo of Jack Keane (the first three chapters) and to me it's the first german adventure which was quite fun to play. It's far from beeing perfect and it doesn't come close to something like The Secret of Monkey Island but as written before it's still fun to play.
Gamestar gave the 88% which is overrated in my opinion but i guess they just wanted to push the game a bit. They also provide the game demo with their magazine.
I dislike some of the gfx style for instance how the characters and the environment look like (art style, blocky geometry without proper texturing and colouring). But there are also scenes like the cave which look very good.
The music is not so present. They are missing good themes. Not all characters i've talked to were interesting, same with the dialogues but there are also good ones like Montgomery and Amanda. Some of the speeches they took work fine as for example Jack (the german voice of Johnny Depp) and Montgomery (the german voice of John Cleese). They both really worked well.
What's not so good is the synchronisation with the gfx when they talk, things like lip synchronisation and how the characters move then. Most of the time this looks like some bad puppet movements. The poses and the gestures just don't look convincing.
The riddle design is also nothing to get really excited about but it also flows quite well. No great riddles with depth so far again and i only had once a problem (due to that there were gfx glitches over the clickable area) so it also could be harder and simply better but you can at least combine inventory items.
What's a bit annoying are the the small areas they've dfiened for clicking items or especially areas to enter. They a) don't always make sense and b) are just too small. On the other side it's nice that you can run just by doubleclicking. The game's pathfinding does not support getting fast from a to b by doubleclicking if there is something to climb or jump in the way which can be a drag sometimes.
Overall you won't die if you don't play it but it also has it's own charme and was fun to play. Hey and you get pirates and islands! ;O) From what i've seen so far i would give it a 7 out of 10.
url: www.jackkeane.com
Regards,
taumel
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Comments
For instance i don't think that they'll change the story of the first three chapters. Same with the texturing and the characters and their animations, definitions of the clickable areas, pathfinding issues. Not if they are going to release it in about a week. These things were fixed some time ago. So i really don't think that you can expect wonderous improved animations from chapter four on.
What i didn't review were technical issues like the long loading times between the scenes as such things obviously could have been improved for the final version. I just named the gfx glitches which showed up (in three cases here). Things like the riddle design or the story could improve but still i wouldn't come to the same result as the GameStar came when i look at how they came to their rating and it also would be a little bit weird following a certain design style for three chapters and then changing this completely.
As said before i think it's the best german adventure so far but it's overrated when they rate it much better than they rated the single episodes of Sam&Max so far. It's better in some fields and worse in others. And overall i feel it's a 7 out of 10 and not 88%. I can see it getting an 8 if things improve but i doubt that it will turn to almost a 9. But i would be very happy if i would be wrong here! :O)
Part of the problem ist that there is a strong hope amongst those who played the old adventures that these old days come back and it's rather tempting rating things higher than they actually are worth.
And oh i also said that i came to my opinion after playing just the demo. And a demo always should give you a prospect of what you can expect afterwards in the full game. If this is misleading it would be a bad demo.
So yes it's not 100% accurate (and i wasn't aiming for that) but mixed up with some own voodoo thoughts i think it's rather fair...
I haven' t yet played the demo, as I'm waiting for the full version next week. But I have very high hopes, since I think Ankh 2 was probably the best Adventure game of last year (next to S&M Season 1 of course) and also one of the best of the last 10 years or so (and not just the german ones) - definately a 8 or probably even a 9 out of 10, at least in my opinion.
--Erwin
I didn't thought that i would buy another adventure before getting the Sam&Max DVD but well that's life...
If you compare it directly to Season 1 it's the better adventure as it has all the things which i was missing in Sam&Max. It has better puzzles (sometimes they have this tiny little bit beeing great, sometimes they don't, there are longer ones too), inventory puzzles, an ongoing story without reusing locations this much, very good german voices, no episodes (Dave can say in interviews that people want episodes, if i have the choice i prefer non episodic games and i'm also old enough ( at least i hop so :O) to decide if i want to play through three chapters in a row or stay away from the game for 3.1415 days), it just flows very well.
The humour is different one but it's working and nice too.
Story is okayish but a whithin a nice pirate setting.
Musik in Sam&Max is far better.
Gfx wise there are ups and downs like i've already mentioned. Generally the animations, the timing and art is better in Sam&Max but there are also some very good locations in Jack Keane.
Technically i think it's behind Sam&Max as there are more glitches and i had three lockups whist i had one in Sam&Max. Intersecting polys here, some ugly texturing there, long loading times, the handling of the menus (options,load&save) is slicker in Sam&Max too, pathfinding is also worse in Jack Keane (some stupid waypoints) and clickable areas are sometimes hard to target pixel quests, even more if you're in movement but guess what, in the end it's the fun that counts...
My final verdict is a 8 out of 10. For a 9 get the technical issues sorted out, improve the art, add a few genius puzzles and enhance some characters. :O)
I'm a sucker for this type of game style, lol. Maybe because I'm still a kid at heart and even enjoy the disney style
Thank god for that.
Now I'm waiting for Ankh 3 which should be out next week here in germany...
I really like this game - the graphic style, the humor, the story.
The controls was a breeze - left click to walk/run and right click to interact.
Only thing that annoyed me a bit, was the fact that sometimes it was hard to see the inventory at the top, because it had no background. It sort of just floated on top of the game background.
I too would give it a 8 of 10
Don't ask me how or why... just a feeling.