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| 28 NOV 2010 at 5:17pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | FYI You can get it at the official website.
http://www.graymatter-game.com/
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 29 NOV 2010 at 3:47am |
ZanderatIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 40
Joined: 23 JUN 2010
Status : Offline | Thanks for the link. I knew that I forgot something..............
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| 30 NOV 2010 at 12:53am |
StilerJourneyman
Posts : 1464
Joined: 27 SEP 2004
Location: US, TN
Status : Offline | My thoughts on the demo.
So far, I like the direction of the story and main male character. His storyline seems like it could be extremely gripping and emotional. Definitely has me intrigued for the full game.
The sound design is good, the voices all seemed fine for me, nothing bad or out of place to them. The music was good, fitting for the game and even a good surprise from the "memories" that I really enjoyed music wise.
The in-game graphics are very nice. a good mix of 2d and 3d with nice lighting/shadows.
My MAIN problem with the game is simple, but however a fairly big thing for an adventure game. The cutscenes. It's REALLY REALLY cheap, they shouldn't even be called "cutscenes." Instead just label them "pictures with a fraction of movement if you're lucky."
It's like a flash web-based comic book, there's virtually NO animation at all in them. This is a huge disappointment because you get absolutely no visual emotion that can be portrayed well from ao simple picture. It just seems like they had to have made them for low-budget reasons, I can't fathom why on earth if not that Jane wouldn't want to have more animation to them. I mean it's literally WORSE then the GK 1 cutscenes, thsoe had a lot more animation to then the ones in Gray Matter.
It's just a letdown from that standpoint, I mean there's a good story here from the demo so far, the characters seem interesting and it gets you in, but every single time you watch a cutscene or even a "video" diary (which doesn't actually move...so why's it a video diary?) it just pulls you out, because it seems like a comic instead of a game at that point and distracts when you hear the excellent voicework and the actor pouring emotion into a character however visually all you see is a still picture that doesn't do that emotion and scene justice imo.
Overall I enjoyed the game, the story is interesting and gripping, however Iw as just hoping for "more" when it came to the cutscenes and it seems a step back for the game, especially one from Jane Jensen. I wish she had a bigger budget to do the cutscenes with full animation.
Also I didn't finish the demo completely but I did get far and got stuck, and it was the only "gameplay" element that baffled me.
Spoiler AlertAfter you go into the machine and out, you go make a phone call to the police detective about the car to find the info. He tells you about the car that hit you, then you hang up the phone and then...what? There is NO direction here after this, the player is left to wonder "what the heck do I do now?"
I literally went into every room again, clicked on every hotspot (even turned them on with the spacebar because I was so stuck).
I simply couldn't find ANYTHINg to click on to do anything to advance from here. The machien downstairs where Laura put an "I" I couldn't do anything with.
If anyone can tell me what to do from here plz I'd like to know.
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| 30 NOV 2010 at 2:04am |
DonaJourneyman
Posts : 801
Joined: 19 MAR 2005
Status : Offline | Stiler, I agree with you, the cut-scenes just look cheap. The art isn't that good and character faces vary a lot. I got used to it after a long while, but still... disappointing.
I remember the sequence you're talking about, I did a lot of going back and forth in that game :/ So tell me,
Spoiler AlertHave you checked everything on the computer? There is a file about wine you need to read. Can you check mission objectives and tell me which ones you still need to do?
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| 30 NOV 2010 at 4:15am |
AndromusGuild Master
Posts : 5538
Joined: 6 NOV 2002
Status : Offline | Hmmm.....what Stiler said, for the most part. I found the premise intriguing, puzzles so-so, in game graphics and voice acting adequate, cut scenes absolutely ghastly.
Though I just might buy it when it releases here, something I wasn't planning on. I'm really curious to see how the story plays out.
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| 30 NOV 2010 at 7:14am |
StilerJourneyman
Posts : 1464
Joined: 27 SEP 2004
Location: US, TN
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Donna (30 NOV 2010 2:04am)
Stiler, I agree with you, the cut-scenes just look cheap. The art isn't that good and character faces vary a lot. I got used to it after a long while, but still... disappointing.
I remember the sequence you're talking about, I did a lot of going back and forth in that game :/ So tell me,
Spoiler AlertHave you checked everything on the computer? There is a file about wine you need to read. Can you check mission objectives and tell me which ones you still need to do?
I finally got through it,
Spoiler AlertI was past that part, I had all the "sensory items" and had went into the machine and back out. I just needed to get a photograph and then scan it on the computer.
Another thing, I went to check the Gray matter forums and man, is the game out??? I checked amazon, it's not even listed on their website, it's not on steam or any retailer that I normally use. Where area ll these people getting the full game from?
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| 30 NOV 2010 at 7:50am |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | The game is out in Europe (not UK), but there is also a dodgy version doing the rounds on torrent sites (bad people >)
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 30 NOV 2010 at 7:01pm |
DonaJourneyman
Posts : 801
Joined: 19 MAR 2005
Status : Offline | I remembered what you had to do right before I fell asleep, lol. I got stuck there as well, it's pretty stupid they give you no hint.
The game is out in Germany. Lucien21, bad people are the ones that released it in ONE country with NO marketing whatsoever. Yes, I got it from a torrent site, and I don't feel bad one bit. I'm going to buy the game as soon as they make it available where I live because I loved the game so much. But their marketing strategy is awful and unjustified.
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| 1 DEC 2010 at 8:44pm |
KoriSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 399
Joined: 27 MAR 2003
Status : Offline | I’ve been reading posts here on JA for years about this game (Gray Matter). Game players kept wondering when it was going to be finished. I thought, from what I read in other posts, that this was going to be a major blockbuster adventure game like in the old days of Jane Jensen’s Gabriel Knight.
After reading the posts here I am wondering. Does Gray Matter really have all these faults I’ve read about or are adventure game players just getting more critical as the years pass?
I really don’t know the answer, but it seems to me that (perhaps) adventure game makers don’t have a chance in today’s world to create a game that would not be torn to pieces by the players. It’s either that or the adventure games that are being made today are of very poor quality compared to the past.
I have not played the Gray Matter demo yet, so I don’t know. I’m just surprised that the game demo is receiving so much criticism since so many people were looking forward to it’s completion.
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| 1 DEC 2010 at 8:45pm |
KoriSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 399
Joined: 27 MAR 2003
Status : Offline | .
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| 1 DEC 2010 at 9:44pm |
| Deleted User | I'd love to be able to comment on the game but heck, I can't even get the demo to run properly. (as posted in the appropriate section)
So much for a quality game.
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| 1 DEC 2010 at 9:55pm |
MrLipidPrivate Detective
Posts : 666
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | The demo didn't care for my aging machine, so I spent some time looking at the video walkthrough to get an idea of what I was missing.
Doesn't appear to be much.
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 3:46am |
ZanderatIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 40
Joined: 23 JUN 2010
Status : Offline | It's not a very good demo. But based upon Jane's track record, I will be purchasing when it is released in the States.
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 8:25am |
CulturaJourneyman
Posts : 1337
Joined: 1 SEP 2004
Location: NL, Amersfoort
Status : Offline | After reading the posts here I am wondering. Does Gray Matter really have all these faults I’ve read about or are adventure game players just getting more critical as the years pass?
They get more critical. I have recently replayed GK2 and although it is a very entertaining game, it is in fact, by todays standards, relatively simple, technically obsolete and okay-ish storywise. I've gotten more critical anyway.
In its day (when I first started playing it) it blew me away. But now I've got used to full 3D (Dreamfall) surroundings, amazing soundeffects, razorsharp images and epic storylines (the media onto which GK was published had lots of limitations that do not exist nowadays). These possibilities have been used to their full extent, resulting in games with much more scope, length, eyecandy and depth (Dreamfall, Bioshock etc).
Judging by the GM demo, miss Jensen might not have used the full tehnical possibilities of todays day and age - wether that is due to budget constraints or something else, I cannot tell.
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 8:54am |
StilerJourneyman
Posts : 1464
Joined: 27 SEP 2004
Location: US, TN
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Kori (1 DEC 2010 8:43pm)
I’ve been reading posts here on JA for years about this game (Gray Matter). Game players kept wondering when it was going to be finished. I thought, from what I read in other posts, that this was going to be a major blockbuster adventure game like in the old days of Jane Jensen’s Gabriel Knight.
After reading the posts here I am wondering. Does Gray Matter really have all these faults I’ve read about or are adventure game players just getting more critical as the years pass?
I really don’t know the answer, but it seems to me that (perhaps) adventure game makers don’t have a chance in today’s world to create a game that would not be torn to pieces by the players. It’s either that or the adventure games that are being made today are of very poor quality compared to the past.
I have not played the Gray Matter demo yet, so I don’t know. I’m just surprised that the game demo is receiving so much criticism since so many people were looking forward to it’s completion.
I dont' think it's too much to want actual ANIMATED cutscenes or "video" diaries that actually....are a video and not a still picture with sound?
I mean come on, this are some BARE things that even indie games can do, so why not this one? It's Jane Jensen for crying out loud, in the adventure world if anyone can afford actual REAL cutscenes it shoulda been this game.
What sucks so much about it is that you can see the story there beneath it, you can get a sense of the emotion trying to be portrayed by her writing as well as the voice actor, bu teh animation(or rather lack of) falls flat on it's face.
It's literally like something you can find on those Flash-video sites that people would make in their spare time.
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 9:52am |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Cultura (2 DEC 2010 8:25am)
Judging by the GM demo, miss Jensen might not have used the full tehnical possibilities of todays day and age - wether that is due to budget constraints or something else, I cannot tell.
Keep in mind that Miss Jensen is at the mercy of her developer/publisher. She designed the basic game and storyboard and so on and had a big overall say, of course, but she was not the producer, and it was a "work with what you have or never get this game out" sort of situation.
Apparently the dev who finally produced it, was pretty much better anyway than the first one who started it, so... [smiley=shrug.gif]
..and of course, also since it was started quite a long time ago, you can't exactly expect it to be cutting edge.
This is why I personally think that design-wise and storywise it's a very nice game...- but well.. yeah, I guess they were working within a budget, and trying to make the best of the bits and pieces left behind by the initial developer.
Btw, since Ubisoft bought Vivendi, do they hold the franchise for the GK games now? ..or is it Activision that has it now? Ah, it's Activision. B****s > Well, actually it was Vivendi who were the first set of baddies, IMO.
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 10:42am |
CulturaJourneyman
Posts : 1337
Joined: 1 SEP 2004
Location: NL, Amersfoort
Status : Offline | Well, at least Activision has both the means and the technical skills to produce (any) cutting edge game....
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 11:54am |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Cultura (2 DEC 2010 10:41am)
Well, at least Activision has both the means and the technical skills to produce (any) cutting edge game....
Exactly, which is why it is so infuriating that they want nothing to do with Jane and the GK games.
Apparently she already had a GK4 written, but Vivendi/Activision wanted nothing to do with it; and just think what Gray Matter could have been if Activision had been prepared to back it...
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 3:32pm |
CulturaJourneyman
Posts : 1337
Joined: 1 SEP 2004
Location: NL, Amersfoort
Status : Offline | But apart from that issue, I really wonder if mrs Jensen hasn't produced a game which is a bit of a throwback. Not only qualitywise (which I agree can't be helped due to lack of funds) but rather story- and puzzlewise.
Back in the days of GK2, it was quite a task to retrieve keys for the car, documents from a bag and such, it was novel and fun.
But we've seen all that, many times, and todays generation of gamers is geared up for much more complicated en 'deeper' tasks.
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 3:49pm |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | ...but on the other hand, many genres have become easier and oversimplified. One especially sees this with RPG's where the graphics are now beautiful, but with especially the ones that lean more to consoles, gameplay is now childishly easy compared to the RPG's of olden days.
I think perhaps Gray Matter has seen a bit of pressure to try and compete to some extent with the extremely popular "casual game" genre? The card-trick puzzles and comic-book type of cutscenes would certainly suggest this to me.
Luckily there is still enough depth in many of the other puzzles (in the full game) to still squarely put this game in the adventure game genre as far as I am concerned.
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 2 DEC 2010 at 6:20pm |
CulturaJourneyman
Posts : 1337
Joined: 1 SEP 2004
Location: NL, Amersfoort
Status : Offline | I think perhaps Gray Matter has seen a bit of pressure to try and compete to some extent with the extremely popular "casual game" genre? The card-trick puzzles and comic-book type of cutscenes would certainly suggest this to me
hadn't thought of that, but you may well have a valid observation there.
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| 5 DEC 2010 at 12:49am |
DonaJourneyman
Posts : 801
Joined: 19 MAR 2005
Status : Offline | I think Trav is spot-on saying it's trying to compete with more casual games, I definitely felt that vibe. The puzzles are really simple, think Black Mirror simple, but I liked the story and settings so much that I honestly didn't care because I wanted to see what happens next.
Yes, the cut-scenes could have been so much better. Even with the lack of animation, a lot of characters appear very inconsistent. I can go dig through my screenshots and see if I captured these, if anyone is interested.
The game ran well on my now 5 years old computer. It only started lagging in the last area because the game uses full reflections and I guess my graphics card just couldn't handle that, so I had to turn the reflections off. This made me angry because the game worked okay before that :/
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| 7 DEC 2010 at 10:55am |
EricHG23Space Cadet
Posts : 155
Joined: 23 JUL 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Donna (5 DEC 2010 12:49am)
I think Trav is spot-on saying it's trying to compete with more casual games, I definitely felt that vibe. The puzzles are really simple, think Black Mirror simple, but I liked the story and settings so much that I honestly didn't care because I wanted to see what happens next.
I did too. I admit I was both pleased and disappointed by this, as odd as that sounds from an adventure fan's POV it was kinda nice not having any totally out there clues (like the infamous GK3 mustache one). But it does make the game a bit too straight forward (though I appreciated how you could do most of the chapter' s individual games at your own speed).
But I think the story, most of the characters, and the atmosphere are extraordinary. I also was more than ok with the main game graphics and music (a few awkward animations aside). Maybe it's just that I grewup obsessed with the Gabriel games (and other adventure games of their style) as a teen, and partly nostalgia, but I admit after a slightly disappointing start, I actually very quickly became intrigued in the characters and what was happening next. Probably the best gaming experience I've had in a long while, and I'm sorry for others who are so disappointed in it.
Yes, the cut-scenes could have been so much better. Even with the lack of animation, a lot of characters appear very inconsistent. I can go dig through my screenshots and see if I captured these, if anyone is interested.
The game ran well on my now 5 years old computer. It only started lagging in the last area because the game uses full reflections and I guess my graphics card just couldn't handle that, so I had to turn the reflections off. This made me angry because the game worked okay before that :/
I was using a computer that is fairly out of date for games... I was disappointed, I actually thought the rather simple look would play well--but I ended up having to trun down all of the graphic levels to their basics (no shadows or reflections). But I still enjoyed it obviously.
The cut scenes don't bug me as much as they did others--I thought some were actually uqite movingly done, but I agree the art was vastly inconsistant from lovely to horrible.
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| 7 DEC 2010 at 12:30pm |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | I would most likely ascribe the inconsistency in the art to the fact that this game was taken on by the current producer as a half-done job. Remember that this game actually started production around 2003.
See this old press release. http://justadventure.com/Upcoming_Releases/JaneJensen/ProjectJaneJensen.shtm
Note:
Press Release/The Adventure Company [highlight]May 2003[/highlight]
The Adventure Company to Work with Legendary Game-Storyteller, Jane Jensen
World-Renowned Writer to Guest at E3
The Adventure Company today announced it has an agreement with Jane Jensen and the company she co-founded, Odyssey Digital Entertainment, to write and produce an exclusive new title. Terms of
the deal were not discussed.
[...]
Jane is currently in the midst of the design process of this next game, and although untitled, ‘Project Jane-J’ will be a mystery that takes the paranormal very seriously. Based on mind-altering experiments of a reclusive doctor, the story throws a young female student deep into a world telepathy and clairvoyance, where nothing is as it seems. Like CSI’s use of forensic science, the game and story-line will be based on real neurobiology and psi research.
The game-play will be a combination of investigative, third-person adventure game play, Myst-style logic puzzles interspersed with some arcade-style sequences. [highlight]The title is expected to be on shelves in Q4 2004. [/highlight]
Heheh. Yeah.
(I have no idea whose artwork is the "nice" work - the current guys or the guys that started it...
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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