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Review
by Steve Metzler
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Review
by Steve Ramsey
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Feature
by Steve Metzler
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Feature
by Steve Metzler
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Review
by Steve Ramsey
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Review
by Steve Metzler
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Review
by Clint Mullins
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Review
by Steve Metzler
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Archived commentary
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Alas, if only this space opera was as inspired as the classical music of Richard Wagner upon which it is
based:
Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen (Second Opinion)
I suppose your viewpoint of this game would depend on whether you approached it as art or an adventure
game. Perhaps both points of view are valid, but you can probably guess on which side of the virtual fence
I sit with this one...
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Received some more feedback regarding the Where Have All
the Puzzles Gone? articles, this time from reader Michael Rosenberg:
"I enjoyed your discussion of the decline of puzzles in modern adventure games and
generally agree with you in both your general thesis and the specifics you cite (personally,
Gabriel Knight 3 might be my favorite all time game).
However, I also think you are being overly generous to Dreamfall.
On the one hand, it has one of the greatest and deepest stories ever told in a game, I cannot argue with
that. But in an article about puzzle quality, not overall game quality but rather puzzle quality,
Dreamfall was horrible. Its puzzles were few and far between and when there were puzzles, they
were usually very pedestrian. Any game which one can play for an hour or more, making definite progress
the entire time, and yet not do anything at all but move the character from point A to point B (and
not move in a puzzle way, simply have the character walk from one location to another) has serious
puzzle issues. Again, the story was absolutely incredible, but this was Interactive Fiction that essentially
forgot the 'interactive' part. That doesn't make it bad, nor does it make it a game that people should skip,
but in an article about the decline of puzzle quality, this game is almost the shining example of the
complete abandonment of puzzles."
Ahem. Well, in retrospect, I do have to say I agree with Michael's point. I was dithering over what puzzle
score to give Dreamfall when I wrote the article. Because the production values of the game were so
high, I opted for an Average rating for the puzzles. But Michael is probably right in that I should have gone
with my 'tilt', which was leaning towards Poor :-\
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Just back from a much needed summer break, and we have the latest Steve Ramsey review for you:
Perry Rhodan: The Immortals of Terra
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So I managed to squeeze another dollop of adventure gaming commentary onto the Web just prior to me taking
a week's break:
Where Have All the Puzzles Gone? (Part II)
The concluding part of my latest rant. Once again, your comments are very welcome. Meanwhile, Steve R. has promised
us his Overclocked review, so you can expect that to be posted shortly upon my return. See yas again around the 17th or so!
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Aside from questions related to Steve's XP Games Corner, I don't get many e-mails around here. So I was
delighted to get some feedback regarding the Where Have All the Puzzles
Gone? (Part I) article, in the form of insightful comments from reader Igor Hardy. Following are some
excerpts from that e-mail, and my responses:
"Generally, I agree with the way you feel about puzzles and the decline of their quality in current titles. However,
I wouldn't connect designing and appreciating puzzles so much with the analytical side of the mind. Sure, that aspect
is important, but usually puzzles are fun, precisely because they don't have to follow the very restrictive methodology
of programming or logical deduction. Well, maybe making a meaningful discovery in mathematics can feel a bit similar to
solving a puzzle in a game (unfortunately I'll never know from experience ;) ), but in both cases there's an essential
element of imagination involved that is something completely different than checking what logical inferences are true
in the given context."
Very true Igor, and indeed it's just those sort of puzzles that require you to think 'outside the box' that are
prevalent in games like the Monkey Island series (which I would have liked to include in my article, but didn't out
of concerns that it would become too 'LucasArts heavy'). But when I'm talking about illogical puzzles, it's not in the
context of being slightly off-the-wall/creative/stretching the imagination. It's more about being so badly designed that
they are not possible to solve without guessing, and that's not what adventure game puzzles are supposed to be about.
"I think the GK3 cat hair moustache puzzle has become infamous only because of some person called Old Man Murray.
I actually thought this puzzle in all its silliness was a lot fun and very much in style of the classic Sierra games, a
lot like many things in GK1 for example."
Heh. I read that Old Man Murray article too, when it first surfaced:
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html
It's an entertaining rant alright. But one slightly far-fetched puzzle (which Igor and myself did somehow manage to
figure out) does not make Gabriel Knight 3 a bad game. In fact, even the best games generally have one or two
'stinkers' in them.
In any event, by the middle of the upcoming week I should have Part II of my own rant about puzzles finished. Seeya
all then.
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Apologies for the rather long spell without anything new being posted here, but I wasn't idle. In fact,
I was very busy researching and penning an article that I had started to write quite some time ago. The
article speaks for itself, so without further ado:
Where Have All the Puzzles Gone? (Part I)
The concluding part of the article will follow sometime next week. In the meantime, some feedback wouldn't
go unappreciated. It's getting a bit lonely out here on this blog :-\
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Steve Ramsey brings us another review of a rare edutainment adventure, in the form of
Mission Sunlight. In fact, it's so rare that it's completely
off the radar at Moby Games.
The game was originally released in French, under the title Mission Soleil. The target
audience is ages 8 - 13, but (as a mainstream site once put it) "And so while the score I'm giving
the game (70) makes it look like it might be a decent pickup, I wouldn't really recommend it, unless
slow-paced, frustrating adventures are your cup of tea." ...or as I would put it: unless you're
into art, or collectibles ;-) Coincidentally, Steve didn't give me a score for this game, so I just
made one up, based on the tilt in his review. Hope I guessed correctly!
I've been pretty frustrated lately about the quality of the puzzles in recent adventure titles. The
subject is too complex to dissect in a blog though, so I've started to write an extensive editorial
piece that compares the puzzle design in adventures new and old, good and bad. Watch this space...
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This was one of my favourite games of the 90's. Some people (myself included at the time) slated it
for the apparently abrupt ending, but in retrospect I think the ending was actually one of its strong
points. A dream within a dream, as it were, that had you thinking about it for quite some time after.
And there was a really good algebra-themed puzzle that had me right chuffed to have solved it without
requiring any assistance. So here ya go:
metzomagic.com review of Morpheus (Second Opinion)
For those of you wondering how many more older game reviews I've got stocked up in my arsenal, the
answer is... not too many more. But I think they lend a bit of necessary perspective when it comes
to discussing how to keep our favourite genre alive and vibrant... especially since those of you
who hang out on the various adventure game forums are probably well aware of my opinion on the
more recently released adventures. With the exception of a very few: The. Puzzles. Suck.
Granted, not every offering even in the heyday of adventure games had great puzzles, but I seem
to recall for the most part that a higher proportion of games at least had logical puzzles (unless
the game in question was made by Cryo). But you don't even get that nowadays. Unless we drive this
point home to the developers - that they need to go back to the great games and analyse what made
them great - we'll continue to get more of the same drivel. You keep buying garbage, and I promise
you that they'll keep shovelling it out the door.
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Away for the past weekend, and also a rare break from computers. As we're getting into the swing
of things again here, I'd like to welcome back long time Quandary contributor Clint Mullins, with
his brief but informative review of Portal. I've been
meaning to pick this one up myself, and just might do that now that it's available separately
(already got Half-Life 2 when it was first released, so reluctant to splurge out on The
Orange Box bundle just to acquire Portal).
And... since we do confess to playing the odd shooter or two around here, Clint and myself will
be bringing you the occasional review of more 'generalist' fare like Bioshock or Crysis.
Hey, we may not get there first, but we get there eventually ;-)
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Most of you are familiar with Belgian artist Benoît Sokal as being the graphical genius behind
the Syberia games. But game-design wise, he cut his teeth on this one:
metzomagic.com review of Amerzone (Second Opinion)
While Syberia sits there comfortably among the top-rated
games on my shelf, Amerzone... doesn't. While undeniably good for a first effort, it just
doesn't have the polish or wow factor that characterise these later games. I thought it kind of
petered out at the end, like he'd run out of ideas. Anyway, have a read and see what you think...
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Yeah, I know. No matter how pitiful a particular game is, it will always have its own little
cult of followers. And when the unfavourable reviews start popping up, they rush to its defense
as if the poor thing was just run over by a car and needs to be rushed to hospital. The fact
is, with games like this:
metzomagic.com review of Celtica (Second Opinion)
...the car should have backed up and run over it a few more times just to be sure the bleedin'
thing was dead. Steve Ramsey was right when he had this to say about Grackon's
Curse:
"Just because a game is wanted by collectors, doesn't mean it is any good."
That observation certainly applies to Celtica, which is sought after simply because of
the fact that there are, thankfully, not all that many copies left floating around. At least, I
hope that's why it's sought after. The main problem I had with it was that it was so blatantly
derivative of Myst that I couldn't manage to muster any
respect for it at all. Another proud winner of the Games Domain Review 'Junk' award. I do remember
that when I first posted that review at GDR, my friend Ray Ivey over at Just Adventure got a right
good chuckle out of how vitriolic I was. Hey, maybe he's right. Life is too short to get all het
up over a silly little game, no? But I call 'em as I see 'em, and so does Ray ;-) Though, we do
usually see more eye-to-eye on particular games than we did concerning Celtica...
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