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| 31 OCT 2003 at 5:00am |
adventuredogGuild Master
Posts : 3255
Joined: 14 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | I've only played for an hour or so today and I know what you mean Alaska. This is the perfect game for a rainy weekend! I had to purposely stop playing so I could briefly check out the forum here before going to bed. No I'm not just going to load up the game again so I can play for "just a few more minutes". I'm not; I can't; I have to get up and go to work in the morning.
Still adventuring after all these years!
Patiently awaiting The Last Crown: Haunting of Hallowed Isle, and Bracken Tor...
... and Asylum if it's not tooooo scary...
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| 3 NOV 2003 at 9:35pm |
szcaxJourneyman
Posts : 935
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Alaska (30 OCT 2003 6:38pm)
Before you know it not only a whole day has gone by, but you should have been in bed hours ago
Wow, I don't think I've ever spent 24 hours straight exclusively on an Adventure game! Civilization 2, maybe, but... wow.
Don't drive, man. One time I was at an all-night LAN party, then I had to march for 3 hours around a parking lot in the blistering August heat as part of marching band rehersal, and on the way home I fell asleep and my car ran into a FOR SALE sign. Totally honest. Extended gaming and driving don't mix.
Back on topic: I'm glad you liked the game. I'll have to check it out
Black holes are where God divided by zero
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| 10 NOV 2003 at 3:35am |
DracheHexeIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 39
Joined: 26 AUG 2003
Status : Online | I just finished it about 1 1/2 hours ago.
Since I don't want to spoil it I'll just sy if I were to give it a graded rating like the JA+ reviews,it gets a "C".
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| 10 NOV 2003 at 8:59am |
GreatPumpkinSpace Cadet
Posts : 162
Joined: 19 OCT 2003
Status : Online | I'd say about a C+. There's nothing horribly wrong with it, there's just nothing horribly right with it. But, I'd say overall it is slightly better than average. A better ending would have smoothed over some of the other rough edges.
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| 10 NOV 2003 at 10:59am |
| Deleted User | I give it a C-
The - is for taunting the player.
In a strictly linear game you can not make players WAIT and ASK several times to trigger the next event. It's all very well to have a NPC say "Come back later", but the poor players don't know there is nothing else to do in the meantime, so they start looking for new hot spots to click on, visiting places they've already seen numerous times. In one case I had to go out and come back SIX times before the game gave me what I wanted. What were the designers thinking...
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| 10 NOV 2003 at 4:27pm |
ArnirIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 53
Joined: 21 JAN 2003
Status : Online | I would give it a B or maybe even a B+.
Negatives:
I thought the main character's voice acting was too stilted plus a few of the other characters as well.
Some of the solutions involve wasting time which is very annoying.
Didn't really care for the ending.
Too much of a pixel hunt at times.
Positives:
Room exit indicators.
Ambience.
For me, the biggie, and the reason for the very high grade, is that the story/game completely sucked me in and I wanted to keep going. That is the litmus test for me.
I must say that I didn't agree with GameSpot's review. A 5.5 or something like that.
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| 10 NOV 2003 at 6:09pm |
GreatPumpkinSpace Cadet
Posts : 162
Joined: 19 OCT 2003
Status : Online | I didn't really enjoy the ambience at all. I was really excited about a horror-themed adventure game, especially one that seemed to potentially have a hint of Lovecraft in it. Instead it was a pretty stilted murder mystery party, and since I figured out who the murderer was on Day 1 : there wasn't really any tension.
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| 25 NOV 2003 at 2:22am |
adventuredogGuild Master
Posts : 3255
Joined: 14 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | Yeah, that nasty poster with his spoiler!
Just finished last night. Loved the game. I would give it a B+ or even A-.
The ending was a bit of a downer but inevitable and fitting.
Loved the dark atmosphere, the weather effects, the graphics, the plot, the gameplay, the voice acting (I think Samuel was supposed to sound that way for various reasons including the pain he always seems to be in), the innovative disappearing hotspots, the use of the right mouse button, etc.
I think it is a plus that the inventory doesn't become active until needed so we aren't picking up everything in sight just 'cause we can. I enjoyed wandering around and having to "kill" some time before returning to a few of the places for answers from some folks.
Still adventuring after all these years!
Patiently awaiting The Last Crown: Haunting of Hallowed Isle, and Bracken Tor...
... and Asylum if it's not tooooo scary...
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| 10 DEC 2003 at 10:15am |
CorgarIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 1
Joined: 9 DEC 2003
Status : Online | I consider this a very nice game.
The graphics are nice and it has a good athmospere and storyline. Sure, it is a bit linear but I kind of like that because you won't get stuck too often. The game ran smoothly without any problems and the level of difficulty was not too hard. There was a little bit of pixelhunting, but not unreasonably much.
I would grade it B+, well worth playing, especially if you are an oldfashioned "Point n' Click"-gamer like me!
I look forward to the next game from the developers of this one!
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| 11 DEC 2003 at 4:59pm |
LagavulinPrivate Detective
Posts : 475
Joined: 21 OCT 2002
Status : Online |
Beijtje wrote:
"...but the poor players don't know there is nothing else to do in the meantime, so they start looking for new hot spots to click on, visiting places they've already seen numerous times. In one case I had to go out and come back SIX times before the game gave me what I wanted. What were the designers thinking... "
Actually I do not agree with you, I have reached Wales and so far I think they managed fairly well. You have to pay attention to whats being said and think about what needs to be done, and with this knowledge proceed. Of course you will need to look carefully in all the scenes but with a game looking as good as this, it is fun.
There are much worse examples of so called pixelhunting games out there.
FOR THE MOMENT I AM PLAYING ON MY Win 7&&&&Recently Played&& ark Fall Lost Souls,Outcry,SH vs A Lupin,Tales of Monkey Island,Still Life 2,Sinking Island,Pandora Directive (RP),The Lost Crown
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| 28 JAN 2004 at 2:46am |
Goddess of All Things MagicalSchattenjger
Posts : 1565
Joined: 27 MAY 2003
Status : Online | I had fun with this game. Dark theme story with great graphics. Thank you very much!
The game ran beautifully. That's a big thing for me always.
I'd give it an A- due to the uncertain ending.
&&&&Listening to XM Radio Starbucks Cafe Channel 45&&[IMG]http://img227.echo.cx/img227/8458/dancelikenooneiswatching6ld.png[/IMG]
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| 29 JUN 2004 at 10:47pm |
OmbreroseIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 5
Joined: 22 JUN 2004
Status : Online | Black Mirror was a total pleasure to play. My teenage daughter and I played it together and found it a lot of fun. The puzzles were logical and the graphics were great. We were very sorry when the game ended. My daughter didn't like the ending, but I thought it appropriate. I'd been waiting for it to finally be released here and it was definitely worth the wait.
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| 30 JUN 2004 at 12:24am |
| Deleted User | I have just finished the game and I'm not particularly sad of it. I cannot say I recommend it.
The background graphics and music are gorgeous, and the cut scenes are nice; but the rest is very 1990's !
Animations are jerky;
conversations are rigid and very slow one-liners;
the character is way to slow;
the occasional death/timed puzzles are really annoying, plus it triggers a video and the generic [smiley=boggled.gif]
(and I usually don't mind dying in games);
the story is dark and intriguing, but alas SO PREVISIBLE it's unbelievable (except at the begining);
like betje said, the game makes you wait without anything to do and this is truly ridiculous.
Finally...
spoiler
the puzzle with astrological signs TRULY STINKS: there is no clue whatsoever in the game of what the signs are, and the developers assumed that everybody know exactly their order or whatever > I can't believe I spent 2 hours on that one without knowing I could NEVER do it by myself!
end of spoiler
I'm really dissapointed: C-
In fact, my only real problem is that the game is so outdated it hurts!
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| 29 JUL 2004 at 3:08am |
MikekellyPrivate Detective
Posts : 618
Joined: 25 JUN 2004
Status : Offline |
I've heard from others that this is one of TAC's best games.
HOWEVER, it has been said that the voice acting is not a strong point and the ending is weak.
I'm looking forward to this game after I finish "arkfall"!!
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| 1 AUG 2004 at 4:10pm |
ElfstoneGuild Master
Posts : 5892
Joined: 4 NOV 2002
Status : Online | I add a B- to this.
I really liked the story and the locations it took place, but I was greatly disturbed by 3 things:
1. untolerable linearity
This game loses SO much due to the fact that you are kept on a thin line almost all of the time. Granted, there are puzzles involved you would probably never solve if you weren't restricted to a particular - or several - screens.
Worse than this, there are actually more than one incident which forces you to run around with absolutely nothing to do (cause you done already everything you can, thanks to your great intellect). Nothing as bad as this in a game, I'd say.
2. the story is predictable
I won't spoil anything, but you will most likely think the same, trust me.
3. a game-stopping bug
Well, not game-stopping, but savegame-stopping for sure. I can't imagine that someone doesn't come across this nastiness. There's no patch and probably will never be. It involved a barkeeper cleaning glasses for eternity.
Way around this: Save before this happens.
Talk to the barkeeper. If he is cleaning glasses although you are talking to him, stop the discussion and talk to him again. Now he should stop cleaning mugs and you can safely get what you need from him.
Too bad. This game had many things going for it.
[b]playing[/b]: Destination Treasure Island (done in two sittings, but it's nice), Syberia (ho-hum), Dracula: Last Sanctuary (on hold)&&[b]reading[/b]: even more study papers&&[b]listening to[/b]: [url=http://www.last.fm/user/Brax82/]this and that[/url], plus [url=http://www.musicovery.com/]Musicovery[/url]&&[b]TV favorites[/b]: (currently) Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Journeyman (cancelled! grrr...), Heroes&& all-time) 24, Stargate SG1, X-Files, Lost, House
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| 10 AUG 2004 at 10:09pm |
36degreesIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 6
Joined: 8 MAY 2004
Status : Online | *possible SPOILER*
I loved it. Even with the main character a tad annoying and the twist so obvious.
*End of SPOILER*
The story was good enough, some questions remained unanswered but I enjoyed it enormously because of the chilling parts and the haunting atmosphere.
Can anyone recommend me some similar adventure game with horror elements?
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| 10 AUG 2004 at 11:16pm |
| Deleted User | Good adventure games with horror elements?
From least to most puzzly:
Sanitarium
Amber (does not work on XP)
Dark Fall
The 7th Guest (and sequel)
Someone else can probably give you a more complete list, but those are the ones I've played.
Edit: Stupid backwards mistake.
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| 11 AUG 2004 at 9:03pm |
36degreesIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 6
Joined: 8 MAY 2004
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Fickfack (10 AUG 2004 11:15pm)
Good adventure games with horror elements?
From most to least puzzly:
Sanitarium
I thought someone would say Sanitarium. Well then I should move me lazy ass and try and find it! Thanx
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| 11 AUG 2004 at 10:07pm |
| Deleted User | You really should. There's no excuse anymore, since XS Games just re-released the game. It's available all over the place.
BTW, Adventure Game Discussion would be a better place to ask for game recommendations. Here, you only hear back from wackos who confuse "most to least" with "least to most." :
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| 12 AUG 2004 at 6:12am |
| Deleted User | *Ahem*
Blackstone Chroicles
Morpheus
I'll catch some crap over this, but if you play the two Dracula games back-to-back they make one pretty good game (if they re-edited and fixed the bugs)
The Gabriel Knight series
Dark Fall (derivative of Amber but pretty good)
Zork Nemesis
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| 12 AUG 2004 at 8:45pm |
36degreesIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 6
Joined: 8 MAY 2004
Status : Online | Can't play Dracula. I have Win2000, as far as I know it only sipports 95 & 98. Pity, I'm a big Dracula fan.
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| 13 AUG 2004 at 6:28am |
ElfstoneGuild Master
Posts : 5892
Joined: 4 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Dracula Resurrection runs fine in XP, that much I can tell you. No idea about the first part.
[b]playing[/b]: Destination Treasure Island (done in two sittings, but it's nice), Syberia (ho-hum), Dracula: Last Sanctuary (on hold)&&[b]reading[/b]: even more study papers&&[b]listening to[/b]: [url=http://www.last.fm/user/Brax82/]this and that[/url], plus [url=http://www.musicovery.com/]Musicovery[/url]&&[b]TV favorites[/b]: (currently) Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Journeyman (cancelled! grrr...), Heroes&& all-time) 24, Stargate SG1, X-Files, Lost, House
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| 13 AUG 2004 at 9:05pm |
| Deleted User | You may be confusing your Dracula games there. BJ was referring to TAC's relatively recent releases Dracula: The Last Sanctuary and Dracula Resurrection.
To my knowledge, these do work on XP. Some older Dracula games, such as Dracula Unleashed, probably don't.
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| 13 AUG 2004 at 10:07pm |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5587
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Fickfack (10 AUG 2004 11:15pm)
Good adventure games with horror elements?
From least to most puzzly:
Sanitarium
Amber (does not work on XP)
Dark Fall
The 7th Guest (and sequel)
Someone else can probably give you a more complete list, but those are the ones I've played.
Edit: Stupid backwards mistake.
You left out the Alone in the Dark series Fickfack - well, all of them except the last installment, which was a total disaster.
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