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| 17 DEC 2004 at 9:39pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Squarejaw,
Nice review.
However, I don't think i'm closer to whether you actually enjoyed it or not
???
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 17 DEC 2004 at 10:00pm |
| Deleted User | It's a difficult one and as such hard to pin down. I try to look at every aspect and don't outright hate ANY game (unless it's really, really, really bad)... and The Moment of Silence is a game I enjoyed aspects of.
If you're a dyed-in-the-wool adventurer desperate for a taste of old-skool 3rd person flava, then it's pretty good. It's stuck in the past, looks average, doesn't improve on anything, has average puzzles, is buggy and suffers from a running overdose. But it's got personality, is mature without resorting to crass jokes and dialogue, has a well plotted if unbalanced story, good-to-great voiceovers and a brilliant soundtrack.
The further I got into the game the better and tighter it got, then it ended rather abruptly with a slightly clichéd plot device that came out of no-where.
It's really up to the person reading the review to decide whether or not "it's for them". It's not a bad game, it's just above-average and contains enough good elements to make it worthwhile.
Hope that clears things up! (A bit!)
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| 17 DEC 2004 at 10:03pm |
ConMolSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 396
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I thought the tone of the review sounded familiar! Nice job Ben (just realized who you were).
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| 17 DEC 2004 at 10:05pm |
| Deleted User | Hey, NP.
It's only recently I've "uncloaked". I've written other reviews and articles for JA+ in the past, although its fun using an alias and I'd hate to spoil the guessing game should anyone want to try it.
Expect something "big" next week, a collabaration (if all goes well) that might cause ripples in the fabric of time.
We'll see.
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| 17 DEC 2004 at 10:16pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By SquarejawHero (17 DEC 2004 10:00pm)
It's really up to the person reading the review to decide whether or not "it's for them". It's not a bad game, it's just above-average and contains enough good elements to make it worthwhile.
Hope that clears things up! (A bit!)
Sorry if I "Outed" you I though everyone knew it was you
It cleared it up slightly it was just the review came across as VERY negative and you didn't seem to like much then it got a "B" so I was confused.
Personally I have played it for a few hours before I had to kuckle down for exams and havn't gone back to it yet, but apart from some bad navigation AI problems and some strange echoey voices I was really enjoying it.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 17 DEC 2004 at 11:08pm |
overcomeSpace Cadet
Posts : 112
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Thanks for the review. I dno't have time to play b-rated games, so I'll pass this one up. But I thought it was released on DVD-ROM? Wasn't there another adventure game (besides Myst 4) released on DVD-Rom recently??
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| 17 DEC 2004 at 11:14pm |
| Deleted User | Yes, it's on DVD-Rom.
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| 18 DEC 2004 at 6:01am |
SusanGuild Master
Posts : 5485
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Aha! Now that I know your real name, I can ...
... send you a Christmas card. :
[smiley=devil_smiley_grintail.gif]
I miss my Bubba: 1986 - 2006.
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| 18 DEC 2004 at 8:16pm |
ConMolSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 396
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | SJH always has a careful tone...not sure if its always negative...I get the impression its very difficult to wow him.
To me, TMOS is a can't miss adventure game.
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| 19 DEC 2004 at 11:12pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By ConMol (18 DEC 2004 8:16pm)
To me, TMOS is a can't miss adventure game.
I just wish that we in the US had an opportunity to miss or not-miss. After reading this review, I won't be spending the extra moolah for the UK version.
Speck
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 11:29am |
grinIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 75
Joined: 6 MAR 2004
Status : Online | Which is just too bad... you won't even know how much to regret it.
I admit there are some points in the review I can agree with without restriction: The path finding is terrible, 1-2 puzzles are a bit hard to come by logically and the hype was way too exaggerated.
BUT: You can't just write a review taking the hype as main reference.
I don't know what cutscenes you are referring too, because the ones in TMoS are the best I've seen in an adventure so far (and I've played 99% of the worth playing that were released in the last 2 years) and most of the rest.
You know how hard it is to make the scenery living. There are lots of animations and the people are mostly hanging around at the same place, but please tell me, how do you imagine the perfect game scenery, programmable in a reasonable timespan/team size. 1001 differently clothed people running in and out of the scene, all animated with 10'000+ polygons? In the end everybody will complain about the system requirements.
I'd give it an A- or B+ at least. :-*
There's no point - just click!
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 12:49pm |
| Deleted User | You're totally entitled to disagree. But the case here was the game WAS hyped up and pushed extremely hard by the publishers for things that simply aren't true. I have to reflect that in the review.
I stick by the rest of it as that's my opinion as an AG player who's been doing it for over 15 years. Besides, I never pinpointed what it was that is missing from the game in terms of ambience or graphics, or made suggestions as to what they should do - simply this game is nothing I haven't seen before years ago.
As I said - it's not a BAD game. Just a distinctly average one with a good if unbalanced plot, some distracting bugs, poor graphics and yes - I've seen better cutscenes in many other games using ingame graphics. That this comes from a "award winning CG company" and speaking as someone who works in animation (CG included) they're good but not as amazing as purported.
As a reviewer I'm entitled to put forward my opinion, defend it and accept criticism... but in this case I disagree. However, if you read it thoroughly you'll find that in the end I DID find things in it worth playing for and the overall score is actually quite good. I'm not saying don't play it - just don't believe the hype, dig beyond the bugs and average gameplay and you'll find something worthwhile.
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 2:32pm |
| Deleted User | "Hollywood special effects company"
This is incorrect and nobody said this.
The cutscenes were done by The Lightworks, a Cologne-based animation company that has worked on a lot of Lucas Arts action games produced by Factor 5.
No Hollywood involved.
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 2:36pm |
| Deleted User | My apologies. It should be "award winning CG artists"... Sorry to misrepresent them there. Edited.
That said, I stick to my comments.
Heheh... I've been a little nervous when I realised you were browsing the forums there for a long time, expecting a massive reply. You had me sweating!
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 2:38pm |
| Deleted User | Oh, BTW, good job on the plotline. It's really what kept me going and it's also nice to see attention lavished on the voiceovers, even if the kid was a little confused as to where he came from! Was he Dutch or something?
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 3:00pm |
| Deleted User | Sorry to misrepresent them there.
No problem. Just wanted to make sure that you don't fabricate more overhype than there actually is and take that as a validation for your main point of MOS being overhyped.
Btw, Tommy's voice was done by a seven year old girl from the UK.
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 3:27pm |
| Deleted User | No problem, I wouldn't want to fabricate anything and will gladly edit any mistakes without argument. I just have a problem with the press release Digital Jesters put out, and whilst I admire their backing of your game (as I've often vocalised) it's a shame that they didn't do it on the games own terms. As such it's easy to be a little disappointed with the result.
Let me make something clear though - as a game, standalone from the press release (the overall marketing was impressive), I did enjoy the overall design of the gameworld and the concepts behind it. It wasn't original, but it was refreshing and it's good to see effort being applied to create something futuristic that doesn't go completely OTT.
I look forward to your future works as this one shows so much promise. You're edging close to creating a classic adventure game in TMOS. BTW believe me when I say that as a reviewer it's hard for me to dish out criticism, particularly when I'm a professional storyboard artist who's work relies on the criticism of others as part of the process.
As such I try to be as balanced as possible and hope that you as a developer can take something from it and that you feel that the criticism is justified, or if not, not completely unfair!
Although with the next article coming up soon I'll be interested to see what happens.
Lastly - she was from the UK?! She varied between some north European accent and what we Brits might call "plummy". Kudos to her anyway - for a seven year old it was excellent!
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 4:16pm |
| Deleted User | As such I try to be as balanced as possible and hope that you as a developer can take something from it and that you feel that the criticism is justified
What the lasting impression of MOS will be is something that I'll decide after having read a dozens of reviews. Yours is one of them.
Certainly I liked Quandary's and AG's reviews better than yours. Soleyly for the superior quality of the writing of course! (*g*) But then again, they might just have got caught up in the incredible hype surrounding MOS.
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 5:42pm |
| Deleted User | I'm not sure what to make of that, but have a smiley. (I assume your being jokey)
I know I'm not the best reviewer out there. I'm still trying to find my feet as it were. But I do take pride in doing the best I can and hope that the end result is fair.
Just to explain a few things.... the problem I have as a reviewer is knowing that people have worked hard on games, often in less than satisfactory conditions RE deadlines and money, and have done the best they can. But I rely on trying to be honest about all aspects of a game as I only feel that's fair on the developer.
My own professional work is completely based on criticism. I've worked on shows that aren't fantastic with some great talent behind them - people who've worked on films like Roger Rabbit, Fantasia etc. However, that doesn't effect my own view of the end result, whether I've worked on it or not.
If you want any pointers re visual direction feel free to PM me - I've worked in the animation industry for nearly four years here in the UK solely as a board artist. If anything my main issues with TMOS were mainly presentation based, and not necessarily in terms of overall graphical quality. But I'd rather talk about those in PM - that's if, if you want to.
Not trying to be bigheaded here... just helpful! As I said, I can appreciate what you were doing with TMOS and only want to see you further succeed.
Any "hype" I feel has come across is more down to the publisher. I'd like to know your own feelings on how they've presented your product - certainly, the marketing is excellent, but the blurb is a little misleading. Do you personally feel you think I'm overstating it? If so, my apologies, but you'll appreciate me sticking to my guns. After all, reviewing is about objective opinion!
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 7:25pm |
| Deleted User | (I assume your being jokey)
I am. In fact, many people tell me to never attempt to write a humor game, because I fail so badly at being funny.
Take it easy. Absolutely no offense intended. All is A-OK with a B-review.
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| 20 DEC 2004 at 11:45pm |
RecklessJourneyman
Posts : 962
Joined: 14 NOV 2002
Status : Online | The review content doesn't seem to meet with the end score... Pretty much every paragraph you've managed to highlight something you don't like in the game, the way the story is, what the publisher did, etc. But then you award it a 'B'. Personally speaking a B is indeed fair (though I have enjoyed playing it) but the review text was biased towards critique alone.
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| 21 DEC 2004 at 12:11am |
| Deleted User | Critique is what a review is about, IMO. I don't trust reviews that are either blatantly critical or overly gushing.
However, when reviewing a game like TMOS I'm in two minds. Early on in the game I (sorry Martin) really disliked it, but as the plot thickened I actually got into it. I try to be fair and offer constructive criticism of where it went wrong.
One thing I've learnt since doing it is while it's easy to criticise a review, it's another to write one that cannot be criticised. However, to say I've been overly negative isn't really fair - the critique is there but I've highlighted what I do like. If anything the score reflects the balance of what I don't like/do within the game. It's not a C, that's for sure, and I wouldn't go higher than a B.
Heheh. Rereading it I've noticed a ton of grammatical errors. D'oh!
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| 21 DEC 2004 at 1:56am |
| Deleted User | Heheh. Rereading it I've noticed a ton of grammatical errors.
I told you the review was lacking in many parts. But it does show promise. Y' know, during the first part I really disliked it (sorry), but as it thickened I started to actually get into it.
With fewer grammatical errors, a more balanced score, and less overhyping of the press release, this could have been a stunner review.
It's definitely not a C review, that's for sure, but I wouldn't go higher than a B.
P.S.: Ah, beautiful. What a nice way to spend an evening.
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| 21 DEC 2004 at 2:04am |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Martin_Gantefoehr (21 DEC 2004 1:56am)
P.S.: Ah, beautiful. What a nice way to spend an evening.
Hey quit skiving.
Havn't you got another game to make
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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