| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:21am |
OmniaIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 25
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | So what to do. Well, let's see what other games are on the shelf. Mafia. Well, the driving bit isn't really my thing, but looks very nice indeed. A possibility. What's this we have here?
A rather scantily clad woman on DVD box graced with the title Druuna: Morbus Gravis. Hmm. Interesting. Looks stylish, adult themes yes, but seemingly sophisticated presentation. 6 CDs. Wow. I must say that is a bit impressive. Never read the comic books by Italian artist Paulo Eleuteri Serpieri, still it looked like a serious, intriguing and moody SF-based adventure experience. And it was from Microids. Well, they can't go wrong now can they?
Still, the game was a bit expensive, so I scrutinized ?the back of the box for quite some time. It boasted of many things I like "hyper-realistic 3D environment", great music and so on. All sounding very impressive. The graphics did look rather impressive. That is, on the box, I might add.
Interactive dialogues and Lip-synch speech
24 large sectors in real time
30 real characters
60 minutes Full Motion interative video
Volumetric lights and character "skinning" in real time
3D graphics and Motion Capture animation
Certified THX audio
10 original soundtracks
Alright, maybe I didn't scrutinize it enough. My naivete betrays me. Now that I think about it, volumetric lighting is hardly anything to boast about. It was the bright lights in the store. Couldn't concentrate.
Anyway, I was quite dazzled as I'm a big fan of game with attractive FMVs and good sound. (I was truly wowed over with Syberia and The Longest Journey.)
And well, hey, 6 CDs. How could I go wrong? The voice cuts in. Read a review. Find more information. Don't be an idiot. This game is not cheap. Do not give into temptation. Use the force. I'm thirsty. Find water.
Well, I had yet to go wrong with a game purchase. I mean I've enjoyed Syberia, The Longest Journey, the Myst series and I have Atlantis III, Schizm, Obsidian and other quality games in the wings. Well, the result of a lack of shopping spree control but still a great collection of high-quality, powerful games. Plus I mean, Microids. Microids, Syberia, goodness and quality. This should be good right. And hey, 6 CDs. Still, I really should read a review before buying it. What if it's garbage? Ahh, but it looks cool and it's from Italy. Tons of great adventure games come out of Europe. I'll take the chance.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:21am |
OmniaIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 25
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | So, I make the purchase and am feeling pretty good. This should be neat. Moments later on the train home I open the package and inspect the manual to get a sense of what the game is all about. The plot is creepy and seeped in SF mysterious weirdness--killer plague virus, nasty foes, life and death, good and evil. Hmmm. Looking good so far. Then I get to the explanation of controls.
No mouse control. Hmm. Too bad. Um. Okay. (I'm quite used to all the fun mouse-based adventures.) Well, can't condemn the game yet. The controls don't look to easy though. Hmm.
I arrive home and pop it into the drive to install. Full installation 2.9GBs. No problem. No "Options" on the start panel. Now that is a bit odd. While I'm installing the game I decide to take a trip to Just Adventure and see if it's been reviewed. It has. Grade: D. Uh-oh. Not good. I scanned through Alex Lindholm's review and my heart sank. It's seems to be all eye-candy, sloppy execution, little "game", worse "gameplay" and altogether unpleasant. Still, only one review. (On about disk 4 about now.) Doing a Google search led me to more reviews of horror and torment. Fall not into temptation, for if ye do, great indeed will be your sorrow.
Still, no turning back now. No return policy at the store, so this 6-disk wonder is mine for the ages. Let's see if it really is that bad. I turn off the lights and start the game, preparing for the worst. Uhh, really low-res video. Still, moody and rather cool. I come to this machine and try to figure out the controls to enter her brain and relive one of her memories. She's in a coma and you use this "Brainholder" ??? to enter her mind and save her through her memories. Anyway, I finally naviagate to one of the memories to be met with the in-game Druuna model.
Um, I know the game was done in 2000, but my goodness, the model is horrifically bad; her face looks like a big clumps of clay slapped on a wireframe. The camera distance is disturbingly far and controlling her with the keyboard is well, not exactly smooth as silk.
Though I know I shouldn't judge a game by reviews and first impression alone, and of course I'll play a bit more, but I do quite think I have just bought my first truly bad game. [insert raging arched lightning visual effect and subsequent booming thunder sound effect here, cue torrential downpour.]
The visuals and music seem alright I guess, but bad gameplay, sloppy execution, lack of direction and other faults seem to dominate. Oh well. Live and learn. But hey, 6 CDs. Maybe I can make a mobile out of it something. ?
The end of the beginning of the end.
I simply felt I had to share this little experience, and very cathartic too. Hope no one minds. Lesson learned.
Any other gaming horror stories out there?
Cheers, Omnia
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:53am |
mszvPrivate Detective
Posts : 751
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Good story. Please continue, when you have your next purchase!
Regards, mszv
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 3:22am |
| Deleted User | Horror Story:
I once bought "Traitor's Gate." I offered to give it away, free of charge, to anyone who wanted it back on the old JA board. No one took it.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 6:33am |
JenniferMillerSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 232
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Here's a better one . . .
Back when I was foolish, I traded Timelapse for Temujin.
Lord, what a bum deal . . .
Jennifer M. :
I am Sirrus. AND I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!!!&&&&Visit me on MySpace!&&[url]http://www.myspace.com/BonoGirl79[/url]
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 6:36am |
CerberusPrivate Detective
Posts : 417
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Yup, like I said on one of the other topics.I'd rather buy Daikatana than Druuna. :-/
...That or stab myself in the eye repeatedly. Less painful in the long run.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 6:38am |
JenniferMillerSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 232
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | GAH!
Never heard it put quite so graphically, but yes, I completely see what you mean!
I am Sirrus. AND I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!!!&&&&Visit me on MySpace!&&[url]http://www.myspace.com/BonoGirl79[/url]
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 12:40pm |
RavensbreedSpace Cadet
Posts : 156
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Being a chronic sufferer of impluse game shopping I have bought a large number of games that were bad, terrible, or hellishly awful. A couple spring to mind...Starship Titantic. Douglas Adams was behind it, how could it possibly be bad. It was anyway. I admit that for its time it looked pretty, but it had nothing else. Huge ship and no where to go. Not much happened and thankfully it was over so fast.
Not an adventure game but I also bought The Wheel of Time game. Never read the Robert Jordan books, but I thought I'd give it ago. I installed it, played it for 2 hrs. Then I quit the game, uninstalled it as fast as I could. The only reason I didn't beat myself senseless for buying the game was that playing it was punishment enough.
Some people are like a slinky. They might not be good for anything, but its fun to watch them tumble down stairs. &&
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 12:58pm |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | It would be grim fandango.... I knew from the beginning that I didn't like keyboard controls, but I said hey, what the heck. All these adventure players can't be wrong to praise it.
So I bought it, and it turned out to be one of my biggest mistakes. I totally dislike this style of control. I stopped playing it after 2,3 days. After about a year, I started it again due to the fact that I had nothing else to play and I said again 'hey, all these gamers must have found something good with it that I failed to notice the first time'
So I played it again. Second mistake. Gameplay was just not for me. And the graphics were just polygons, polygons, polygons. I had trouble making out what each thing was sometime. I stopped about 1,2 weeks later just because it was not fun at all and I realized that whatever all the rest adventure gamers liked with it, I would never find it.
Then Largo Winch. Again keyboard controls, and but it had a cinematic feeling to it so I thought I'd buy it. The graphics were good, but as I said... the controls is kind of stupid. It just feels dumb in my opinion to wander around walls and tables like stupid in order to see if anything is going to light up or if my character's head is going to turn.
Atlantis 3. I read in all the reviews that the story was just not there, but the graphics looked so good that I thought I should give it a try. The graphics were indeed magnificent, but as the reviews said.... NO STORY. I think they dindn't use any writers for this game, it must have been just a bunch of graphics guys that developed it.
Mystery of the druids. Probably the worst puzzles ever seen on an adventure game. And the voices are horrible also. Harvester and Phantasmagoria 2....what another waiste of money.
Anyway, now I've learned my lesson so I didn't buy monkey island 4 for example that I knew I would have hated cause of keyboard controls, and I'm not going to buy broken sword 3 either. And now I trust the reviews much more than I did before.
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 1:55pm |
CerberusPrivate Detective
Posts : 417
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | dimidimidimi --
Somebody DIDN'T like Grim Fandango. Wierd.
But you're right enough about Mystery of the Druids.
Still it has a certain odd charm about it -- what other game requires you to force a sturdy, locked gate with a file-folder full of papers then throw some salt (for very little discernable reason) at a tomb that looks like a petrified bouncy castle which then explodes!!
(...at least I think that was what happened, I had lost the desire to breath around about that point in the game).
ravensbreed --
- I too bought the wheel of time game. Nice levels and enviroments but rubbish gameplay (Wasn't it supposed to be an RPG originally?). It plays quite well if you deactivate the AI and whack in godmode for a nice stroll around the scenery
Alone in the Dark IV was a big dissapointment for me. It's pretty much a carbon copy of the Resident Evil game with none of the charm of the previous games.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 3:22pm |
bistroSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 240
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hey,....you should make a film! "The Woes of Omnia", "Sleepless in ...the Software Store", etc. Thanks for the heads-up...I was just looking at that one yesterday.
Temujin...the absolute worse game I ever had the displeasure to purchase.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 3:35pm |
CindyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 7
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | The "Good Game" list is SO much shorter than the "Bad Game" one... and it's interesting to see so many differing opinions... While I didn't think it was stellar by any means, I rather liked Starship Titanic. Temujin was one bad game, though... sigh. And it's a shame that the now defunct Southpeak Interactive had SUCH DEEP POCKETS (one of the most beautiful development environments I've ever seen: enormous film set, sound equipment to die for, etc.) but had no clue how to put together a design team. Ah well... But the worst games I have ever had the misfortune of playing HAVE to be Who's Fat Lou? and Alley Cats, the latter of which can only be described as "Strip Bowling." When you got a strike, the (person who can only be described as) bimbo did a little cheerleading routine and doffed another item of clothing until, well, duh...
Thanks for the ENORMOUS game-buying tale.
*****************************&&Cindy Yans&&Features Editor&&Computer Games Magazine&&www.cgonline.com&&******************************&&Eschew obfuscation&&
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 3:54pm |
| Deleted User | Omnia, I love your story. We all get burned at least once. I read about games nearly every day gathering material for the Schedule of Releases. And on occasion I still allow emotion to get ahead of my IQ. The previews/reviews might tell me that a game is going to be a loser but the little evil and perverted voice in my head says "But you may love it. It sounds interesting. What do those other people know." I almost always get in trouble when I do that.
Then there was the most recent Myst. I HAD to try it (that little voice again) even though I hadn't enjoyed or finished the original Myst or Riven. After all, the entire adventure game playing world loved them. Well, there must be something wrong with me because Myst Exile was another game that I didn't finish. Actually, I gave up in about 3 hours - bored and lonesome. Beautiful graphics but the story just didn't grab me.
Even the most popular game has someone who hates it and even the worst game has someone who loves it. I guess that means different strokes for different folks.
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