Originally Posted By shadow9d9 (28 JUN 2007 4:22pm)

I don't recall ever commenting on Sam and Max being episodic...  I commented on its super easy puzzles.

Dreamfall, Sam and Max, Fallout 3, FF 7-10, Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise, and many many other games/tv shows, books, etc have become watered down with bigger budgets and mass market appeals.  Plenty enough to extrapolate... It'd be wonderful if they sold more, just like it'd be wonderful if BattleStar Galactica had ,more than 2 million viewers while Reality TV ratings and the next law and order copy ratings soar.  That's life.. feel free to dream I guess.. I just prefer to take reality as it is.  

Originally Posted By shadow9d9 (28 JUN 2007 3:32pm)
Actually," it often leads to" is followed with real life examples, which makes it assumption free. There is causation-bigger newer adventures with bigger budgets= dreamfall and sam and max.

Dreamfall was cut scenes with running and sam and max had pitiful puzzles.  2 real life examples.  No other big budget adventures in recent times.  Therefore with bugger budgets, it often leads to said results.  Point out the assumption there.  Often =! every time.

And me saying that I prefer to skip dialogue doesn't have any correlation to your judgment that I would enjoy games more if I played them your way.  That connection does not exist.  

You need to fill in the blanks with assumptions like:
He must do that with every game!
My way is the right way and if you skip dialogue you get less enjoyment.
He can't judge voice acting unless he listens to every last second of it.

Sorry, but taking one statement someone on the internet says and then determining that you "pity them" amounts to nothing short of a superiority complex and a misguided belief that you could possibly know enough about the person to judge them.

Originally Posted By shadow9d9 (28 JUN 2007 6:23pm)

"And me saying that I prefer to skip dialogue doesn't have any correlation to your judgment that I would enjoy games more if I played them your way. That connection does not exist.

"I never said that.  "

Yup, your "pity" statement was that.

Originally Posted By Jenny100 (28 JUN 2007 10:03pm)

Originally Posted By shadow9d9 (28 JUN 2007 6:23pm)

"And me saying that I prefer to skip dialogue doesn't have any correlation to your judgment that I would enjoy games more if I played them your way. That connection does not exist.

"I never said that.  "

Yup, your "pity" statement was that.

No it wasn't. Go back and read what I said and pay attention to the context.
You've already admitted you don't appreciate good voice acting and aren't in the least bothered by voice acting that could curdle milk. You skip through it all, good or bad. Fine if you want to play that way. Most recent games have bad or mediocre voice acting, so it doesn't make much difference. But in the games where there's good voice acting, as in the LucasArts games that are voiced, you miss out on part of the characterization. You don't think you're missing anything, fine. But other gamers do miss good voice acting. Don't assume that because you enjoy playing by clicking through conversations that everyone wants to play that way.

Originally Posted By Terry Penrod (28 JUN 2007 11:42pm)
.

To each his own and after all, these are games played (I hope) for fun.

Overall though, I tend to read every word of text, watch every cut-scene and listen to all recorded dialog in a game. Heck, I've even been known to read large manuals before installing a new title.

Sometimes those elements are more a chore than a joy though - especially when budget cuts came in those areas. But in general, I like the added dimension of sound on a number of levels - as spoken words, in music and sound effects. It just completes the multimedia experience and when done well, can really bring a game up a whole notch.  

One example was Grim Fandango. It had the perfect musical score, world-class voice acting, clever writing and better than average sfx to go along with a wonderfully whimsical artistic style, a very entertaining original story and its share of good puzzles. It was funny and endearing too. Unlike many here, I had no problem getting used to the mouseless control scheme, so it had virtually no weaknesses for me - the measure of a real gem IMO.

More on topic, Grim Fandango is just the type of super imaginative, fun and funny adventure game that might appeal to a wider audience if it were properly adapted to a new system in full 3D with a simple intuitive controller like the Wii. It might also need a little more action but I'm not fully convinced that is an absolute requirement for success even on a console system.

Cheers,  Terry  

Originally Posted By Terry Penrod (29 JUN 2007 3:04pm)
Of course, it takes real money to develop and test full 3D commercial titles but that too is a given. So why do certain developers insist on struggling so hard to make the transition from 2D or 2D/3D to full 3D - especially when they have the financial resources to simply hire qualified 3D experts? I think it is mostly stubborness driven by ego and a fear of losing some degree of control over an already complicated process. Add to that the extra financial burden and we get clunky control schemes, poorly executed 3D level designs and weird camera problems - all signs of inexperience.  

Originally Posted By Jenny100 (29 JUN 2007 5:36pm)


*snip*

If you're talking about Funcom, I think they were trying to create a 3D game engine that had a better way of locating and managing inventory than what had been done before. I haven't seen any other game use that cone thing for searching out inventory. It probably worked better in theory than it did in practice. Funcom wasn't a newbie to 3D games, though I don't know how well the controls work in their non-adventure games. BS3 and BS4 is what I think of when you mention weird camera problems, but Revolution hired another company to do the programming on BS4, and it wasn't much better than BS3 as regards camera angles. Is there another game you're talking about?

Originally Posted By shadow9d9 (29 JUN 2007 3:22am)

Originally Posted By Terry Penrod (28 JUN 2007 11:42pm)
.

To each his own and after all, these are games played (I hope) for fun.

Overall though, I tend to read every word of text, watch every cut-scene and listen to all recorded dialog in a game. Heck, I've even been known to read large manuals before installing a new title.

Sometimes those elements are more a chore than a joy though - especially when budget cuts came in those areas. But in general, I like the added dimension of sound on a number of levels - as spoken words, in music and sound effects. It just completes the multimedia experience and when done well, can really bring a game up a whole notch.  

One example was Grim Fandango. It had the perfect musical score, world-class voice acting, clever writing and better than average sfx to go along with a wonderfully whimsical artistic style, a very entertaining original story and its share of good puzzles. It was funny and endearing too. Unlike many here, I had no problem getting used to the mouseless control scheme, so it had virtually no weaknesses for me - the measure of a real gem IMO.

More on topic, Grim Fandango is just the type of super imaginative, fun and funny adventure game that might appeal to a wider audience if it were properly adapted to a new system in full 3D with a simple intuitive controller like the Wii. It might also need a little more action but I'm not fully convinced that is an absolute requirement for success even on a console system.

Cheers,  Terry  

Grim Fandango would have been an enjoyable game if they made it point and click instead of the slow and irritating system it used.  Lucasarts blew a huge chance to broaden the genre with that game. The control wasn't HARD... it was just slow and irritating(mostly due to the slowness of cycling/using items).  It may have scored well, but it didn't sell well-I am sure I was not the only person bothered by the irritatingly molasses like control.  I think it was the only Lucasarts game I started but couldn't finish... even after 2 attempts... That is what happens though when you mess around and try to "innovate"... it often(this means not all the time) leads to nothing but aggravation.