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| 5 FEB 2006 at 5:20pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Ok like Dom says it's not a long game and I've just finished it.
I have to agree with virtually every point that Dom makes.
Spoiler AlertSubject - I guess the developer wanted to do as pastiche of the Indiana Jones and Monkey Island games. Set in the 1940's you play Joe King intrepid pilot as he ferries a movie star Faye Russell to the Amazon for some unspecified reason that is never brought up as far as I remember. The plane crashes and you get involved in the rescue of the local Amazon princess from a mad scientist intend on taking over the world with his dinosaur army.
Plot - I didn't think the plot worked particularly well. What started as a good pastiche soon descended into a painfully unfunny scatter-cast of ideas ripped off from other games and movies.
Characters - The characters ranged from yourself Joe King (See what they did there- I nearly laughed) to Faye Russell the self obsessed movie star, Anderson your rival, Dr Ironstein a mad scientist, Trader Joe the local shop keeper and a tribe of sexy (or should that be sexist) amazons. The voices ranged from the terrible (I hated Joes voice) to the good (Penelope Keith slumming it near the end was pretty good)
Setting - Amazon 1940.
Themes - Hard to think of specific themes as more of a pastiche of the old serials of the 1940's and the Indiana Jones and Monkey Island games.
Style - The Style was one of the good points of the game the graphics were pretty good for it's time with all the locations looking suitably 1940's and Amazonian. Although I found the scaling of the main character to be a hit or a miss and sometime when walking into the screen he didn't downsize fast enough and looked to large compared to the background.
Developer- The developer never made another adventure, but unsure if i would recommend in any case.
Enjoyment - I started out really enjoying this game. The bit in the hotel was pleasant start to the game. The graphics and sound were pretty good and the voice overs were reasonable. I think it started to go downhill from the crash. The parrot started the downward slope with the first of many Star Wars references (Help me Trader Bob your my only hope) further in the game there were many others (The Witch Doctor speaks in a Star Wars language, "Your a little short for a fumigator" and "here goes nothing" I also noticed references to such different titles as Sam and Max (at the end with Sparky) and the terminator movies. I wouldn't have minded all that if it was at all funny. The combination to the safe (36-36-34 or what ever it was) was just cringworthy and what was with that stupid gorilla. Having an existential conversation with a gorilla to make it disappear twice just smacked of desperation to put puzzles in. By the end the script was really grating my teeth.
Puzzles- The puzzles were inventory based and were for the most part telegraphed so badly that you knew how to solve most of them before you found the necessary items. The game is very easy and it wasn't until the temple area later that it got even remotely difficult. The puzzles did suit the game though.
Interface - I actually liked the interface. It was straight forward with the symbols along the bottom for Open/Close/move/give/look/pick up/talk/use and the inventory scrolling along side it. Build up sentences like "Give Banana to Gorilla" to solve puzzles. It did give a slight extra dimension to the puzzle trying to guess which one to use. Joe walks pretty slow but Ctrl+F allows you to speed up the game and run around like the Flash on speed which was fun for backtracking etc. There is occasionally a lack of knowing where the exits are which could have been improved on. A neat idea was the fact that the journal for saving etc was just another inventory item. However The one glowing highlight of the game was the truly inspirational Map. The Pinnacle location acted as a vantage point for the whole area allowing you to pan left and right to select the location to go to next. (that was cool).
So to sum up what started out as a fun game ended up being an extremely corny pastiche (You know if the developers had written that sentence they would probably make some awful Cornish Pastie reference here but I'll pass ) which although was very nice to look at and had some neat ideas was neither funny or exciting enough to warrant the glowing reviews it seems to get around the web.
Maybe if I had played it when it was first released I might have enjoyed it better, but in comparison to BASS last month it's a disappointment.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 5:51pm |
RobDSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 382
Joined: 30 NOV 2002
Status : Online | You guys are a hard sell. [smiley=laughing.gif] I wish I had known about the ctrl-F feature.
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 5:58pm |
dombrewerGuild Master
Posts : 3103
Joined: 19 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | Betje - So, are you saying I should play really slowly and enjoy it in spite of myself?
I don't see how my personal experience of the game spoils anything for anyone - I stated there were spoilers in my post - no one had to read it until they were finished unless they wanted to.
I think the point of the adventure club is to play a game, have a fresh perspective on it and then discuss it, which is what I've done. I'm not playing it "with" anyone, and in a game of this length and ease I wasn't popping in for advice or a midgame discussion. You might not agree with my opinions Betje but please spare me your sarcasm.
RobD - how long do you think it took you overall? At between half an hour to an hour a day you probably finished it quicker than I did if you started on the 1st!
Lucien - I didn't know about ctrl-F either. If I'd done that I could have been done in 3 and a half.
You reminded me about the gorilla character - what was *that* about? I expected that character to appear later and have some kind of explanation - but no. It was just a bad gorilla joke.
Also, I like the saving option through the journal; an original idea pretty well done, and an unlimited number of save slots, which is relatively uncommon for some reason.
[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/detective.gif[/img][b]Playing:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/blahblah.gif[/img][b]Reading:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/whistle.gif[/img][b]Listening:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/indie.gif[/img][b]Watching:[/b]
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 6:31pm |
RobDSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 382
Joined: 30 NOV 2002
Status : Online | I'm not sure, maybe 10-12 hours, just guessing. I did a LOT of walking around in the temple because
I got stuck in a couple of places. Plus, there was a lot of unnecessary dialog that you didn't need to
hear that I took the time to listen to anyway.
Lucien - Pastiche. I'll have to remember that. I don't think I've ever used that word in my life let alone
four time in one post. [smiley=laughing.gif]
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 7:57pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Ctrl-F is a ScummVm trick not tied to the game specifically. It should work for all the ScummVm games.
It was quite funny watching all the animations going like the clappers.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 9:50pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | No fighting in my thread you two. Limit the responses to talking about the game please or take it elsewhere.
***This is a public service information broadcast ***
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 10:30pm |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | I wasn't going to play this when I found I'd deleted it from the machine and also felt it was too hot to play amything, but decided to download it along with the latest version of Scumm yesterday seeing the weather had cooled down a bit! (does anyone else find the weather has a bearing on whether or not to play games?). Think I played it last time in 2004, so not all that long ago.
Personally I remember quite enjoying the game the first time around, O.K. maybe it's a bit corney (especially Joe's voice, have to say I don't really like it) but Trader Bob made me laugh again, they got the Aussie accent right - sorry Aussies, I know everyone doesn't sound like that, especially these days, but I've met quite a few who do!
Wish I'd knows about the Ctrl.F as well but as I haven't finished the game yet I'll certainly be using it from now on - thanks for mentioning it Lucien.
I don't really see how you can criticize the blocky animations too much, it's just over 10 years old isn't it? Anyway I didn't let them bother me.
Have to agree with Dom and Lucien's comments about the "gorilla" - it didn't make anymore sense to me than it did last time - but then, it's an adventure game and who says adventure games of that ilk have to make sense!
Other than that, don't have any comments at the moment seeing I haven't finished the game.
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| 5 FEB 2006 at 11:01pm |
AndromusGuild Master
Posts : 5537
Joined: 6 NOV 2002
Status : Offline | Dom and Lucien make some good criticisms of the game, but I agree with Jo here. I enjoyed the game in spite of, or maybe because of its flaws. It seemed to me the developer realized the limitations of what they could do and just decided to have fun with it, playing the corny side up. It probably wouldn't have worked for me any other way, but it does here.
There was a way to speed Joe up? Blast. Really, really wish I'd known that -- Joe makes Kate Walker look like a champion sprinter.
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| 6 FEB 2006 at 12:33am |
dombrewerGuild Master
Posts : 3103
Joined: 19 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | Ok, Lucien, no scrapping involved - just politely answering...
What is the point of calling it an Adventure Club if it's nothing but a bunch of personal reviews? And why not wait till other people have had a chance to play it a bit? What's the point of calling it an Adventure Club if people have to skip posts for fear of reading spoilers? At the very least you could have used spoiler tags.
Lucien's intial post states the types of things to comment when you've finished the game. Sort of like a review, the way I understand it. Wait until other people have played - I don't follow that logic - I finished it and what I thought was fresh in my head, in fact I posted a day before Rob finished and two days before Lucien. When would have been a good time to post? In any event I didn't post to ruin other people's experience of it, in fact I wouldn't expect my opinion to have that much sway in any event. In the case of the spoiler heavy post - I do apologise for that, and for not choosing to use the spoiler tag. I'll alter my post accordingly now, but all the same I did state I was done and I would be using spoilers at the very start of my post.
Yes, you ARE playing it with other people. Unless I totally misunderstood the purpose of the Club threads.
Maybe you did, or maybe I did. But what I am doing is discussing the game, something you haven't done yet.
If you don't know by now that I hate it when people spoil games, then you can always call it a "personal vendetta" or something. Except that it isn't.
Then, again, I sincerely apologise. You could have said "could you spoiler proof your post?" but what I read wasn't friendly or courteous. I hold no vendettas or enmities here; it's hardly worth the thinking time, and I hope you feel the same.
[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/detective.gif[/img][b]Playing:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/blahblah.gif[/img][b]Reading:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/whistle.gif[/img][b]Listening:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/indie.gif[/img][b]Watching:[/b]
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| 6 FEB 2006 at 4:23am |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | Thought I'd play the game again for awhile to try out the Ctl/F thingy - wow, that makes a huge difference so thanks again for telling us about it. Now one of these days I'll replay the old MI games and see if it works with them!
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| 6 FEB 2006 at 12:18pm |
colpetSchattenjger
Posts : 1630
Joined: 12 APR 2003
Status : Offline | I played some yesterday, and made it to the pinnacle. I hate to say it, but I'm losing interest. I talked to Trader Bob, for a bit, then groaned when I realised there was so many conversations yet to be had. It all seems so boring - look, pick up, talk, give. Trying to go through all the verbs to see if you missed anything. I'm sure I'll get back to it later, and finish it in time.
On the other hand, I was so desperate for something different, I inhaled Nancy Drew Secret of the Old Clock yesterday. Good, solidly consistent fare, I finished the game in one day. Guess I can't jibe anyone anymore for being a Speedy Gonzales .
Occasionally visiting Uru Live (KI 0063722 .&&
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| 6 FEB 2006 at 12:59pm |
snowtimeJourneyman
Posts : 1014
Joined: 28 JUN 2005
Status : Online | Originally Posted By colpet (6 FEB 2006 12:18pm)
I played some yesterday, and made it to the pinnacle. I hate to say it, but I'm losing interest. I talked to Trader Bob, for a bit, then groaned when I realised there was so many conversations yet to be had. It all seems so boring - look, pick up, talk, give. Trying to go through all the verbs to see if you missed anything. I'm sure I'll get back to it later, and finish it in time.
I can identify with that colpet. It's not grabbing me at all. I can't help comparing it with Grim Fandango when I "enjoyed" (as much as I ever enjoy limited conversation trees in games) trying out all the conversation options because the responses were usually entertaining/amusing. The dialog in this game just doesn't cut the mustard and it's a real chore to go through it. At least I can spacebar through it.
*
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
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| 6 FEB 2006 at 6:17pm |
x64_02Intergalactic Janitor
Posts : 1
Joined: 6 FEB 2006
Status : Online | great
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| 7 FEB 2006 at 3:35am |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | Finished the game this morning.
My thoughts, well certainly there's an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing, the graphics are of course blocky and the dialogue corny - guess I must like corny! I thought most of the voice-overs were fun really, even though Joe King's (gawd that was really a corny name!) annoyed me a bit at first. Penelope King's voice near the end was a nice little addition I think (I'd forgotten about her voice being used until I read someonelse's post. I think some of the inventory puzzles got to be a bit boring long before I'd finished the game, but what the heck, some of the MI puzzles weren't much better from memory.
All in all I'd have to say that I enjoyed the whole experience of playing this game once again - didn't think I would have, so maybe I was just in the mood for something a bit silly, it certainly wouldn't be in my top 20 or so games though but you can't really complain when you're able to download what presumably was a commercial game for nothing can you?
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| 7 FEB 2006 at 6:46pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Betje (7 FEB 2006 2:06pm)
Well, it's what they do at Adventure Gamers. The divide the game into parts and play one part each week. AG s where the idea of an adventure club or community play or whatever you want to call it originated. AFAIK, Lucien simply exported the concept.
I made no secret about the fact that AG were doing something similar. In fact I mentioned it when I proposed the idea.
It was an idea that I had been mulling for a while before AG started, but never got round to starting.
The push came because someone was complaining that there were not enough good discussions on JA and it had become a bit stale.
The original aim was to get people posting.
At AG it is more or less a community playthrough in that they set waypoints for people to stop at certain points each week and they just play the game.
My idea was to try to have more like a book club group where we discussed the themes and ideas of the games rather than just a playthrough. This idea might take a little while o bed in though especially with the type of games we have played so far.
So no it wasn't simply exported from AG.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 10 FEB 2006 at 12:46pm |
snowtimeJourneyman
Posts : 1014
Joined: 28 JUN 2005
Status : Online | OK I finished the thing.
Spoiler Alert
I was heartily glad SCUMMVM had the Ctrl-F option to speed things up or I would have given up in frustration. One thing I dislike about 3rd person games is that a lot of your time is taken up just watching the character stroll around the screen. If I want to watch people walking, I'll go stand in the street.
I really had trouble with the interface, I could never tell when I should be right clicking or left clicking. It seemed to vary depending on what object I was clicking. I also got bored scrolling through the inventory one click at a time.
BASS was humorous when it shouldn't have been. This one was trying to be funny and failing miserably. I got to the stage where I dreaded talking to anyone. I don't like dialogue trees at the best of times, but these I just wanted to get through as quickly as possible. Some people complain about Myst-style games being lonely. I'd rather be lonely than spend time in a world populated by brain-dead morons who are only capable of saying the same banal things over and over again.
In summary: don't make me play a game like this again!
*
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
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| 10 FEB 2006 at 9:58pm |
RobDSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 382
Joined: 30 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Yep, I had trouble with the interface too. Half way through the game I was still forgetting when to
right/left click.
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| 11 FEB 2006 at 5:36pm |
dombrewerGuild Master
Posts : 3103
Joined: 19 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | Snowtime - you made me laugh - "If I want to watch people walking..."
Very funny.
[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/detective.gif[/img][b]Playing:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/blahblah.gif[/img][b]Reading:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/whistle.gif[/img][b]Listening:[/b] &&[img]http://www.justadventure.com/public_html/yabbfiles/Smilies/indie.gif[/img][b]Watching:[/b]
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| 11 FEB 2006 at 5:46pm |
AvatarPrivate Detective
Posts : 661
Joined: 3 JAN 2004
Status : Online | Well guys, i have to say, i'm not going to get a chance to finish this game. I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a 2 week holiday, and while I was hoping to finish this before I left, it was a combination of not-enough-time and this-game-isn't-grabbing-me that's leading me to give up in the Amazon forest.
Early impressions - Joe King's voice, while cute and funny at first, simply got annoying after a while. He speaks slowly, and doesn't have a great deal to say, and - maybe I'm missing something - but seems to chat with a lot of people who really have very little to say of any value. Trying to get out of the conversations in the pygmy village was a prime example.) I'll probably come back to the game in a few months, but not any time soon.
Also, the sexual innuendoes got very tiring.... and I can't imagine that they'd get any better once I met the amazon women. I have a feeling I'd be more bored / annoyed / rolling my eyes than humored if I'd even made it that far.
So in the end, a mediocre game that had the potential to be really good - if they'd cut the talking down about 2/3.
Have fun during the rest of the month, and I look forward to our next game month! Put in a vote for Obsidian for me, if we vote on March.)
My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog already thinks I am.&&&&The measure of civility in a society is not how it treats those that are loved, but how it treats those that are hated.
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| 15 FEB 2006 at 7:56pm |
colpetSchattenjger
Posts : 1630
Joined: 12 APR 2003
Status : Offline | Snowtime, you are a better person than me. I tried to get into the game, and just cannot bear any more dialogue. I'm sorry folks, but I'm going to have to ditch this one for lack of interest.
Occasionally visiting Uru Live (KI 0063722 .&&
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