ThunderPeel2001 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Basic Braining wasn't that bad was it? I enjoyed it. You enjoyed swinging from those bloody poles? The level itself was overlong and same-y and while it wasn't that bad... it wasn't a patch on some of the later levels! I came away from the demo thinking, "looks interesting, but the platforming stuff is pretty boring". Little did I know how cool it was going to get! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samnmax221 Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 I enjoyed basic braining, I thought it was extremely clever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 You enjoyed swinging from those bloody poles? The level itself was overlong and same-y and while it wasn't that bad... it wasn't a patch on some of the later levels! I came away from the demo thinking, "looks interesting, but the platforming stuff is pretty boring". Little did I know how cool it was going to get! Agreed, not a patch on the later levels, but I really didn't think it was that bad, after I'd figured out that you could actually turn around on those poles, that part wasn't too bad. But, then again, save for Prince of Persia, I haven't really played that many platform games (unless Beyond Good and Evil counts) and therefore, don't have much of a frame of referance for saying whether it was better or worse than other platform games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samnmax221 Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 I'd like to see more of combining adventure with action like they did with Pyschonauts, of course for the most part the game industry doesn't seem too tapped into what people want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Actually they are, the majority of games that come out these days please the majority of gamers out there. The action/adventure games isn't what most people want and so people don't tend to make them as much, but instead make whatever they know will make money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrik Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 It's more a case of games that do try to do that type of thing having a distinct track record of totally flopping, regardless of how good they actually are. You can't really blame publishers for not wanting to green light another multi-million game budget, when their last one completely sank. Case in point: Psychonauts. The gaming audience is the problem, not the developers or publishers (with some exceptions). It's very easy to blame the latter, but it's not really justified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samnmax221 Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Well the market is commonly flooded with uninspired FPS's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Yes, but they sell well, which is why the market is flooded with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alien426 Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Well the market is commonly flooded with uninspired FPS's That's because you're interested in them. The genres are actually quite wide spread (except for simulations). Take a look at GameRanking.com's most popular PC games: Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion -> RPG The Godfather -> Driving / Fighting / Shooting Space Rangers 2 -> RPG / Strategy Commandos Strike Force -> FPS Galactic Civ II -> Strategy G.R.A.W. -> FPS ÜberSoldier -> FPS Act Of War: High Treason -> Strategy Daemonica -> RPG Blazing Angels: Squadron -> Action simulation I bet there are a lot more driving games that no one can keep apart because they are so similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrik Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Supply and demand, Samnmax221. Supply and demand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thriftweed_ Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 It's more a case of games that do try to do that type of thing having a distinct track record of totally flopping, regardless of how good they actually are. You can't really blame publishers for not wanting to green light another multi-million game budget, when their last one completely sank. Case in point: Psychonauts. The gaming audience is the problem, not the developers or publishers (with some exceptions). It's very easy to blame the latter, but it's not really justified. It is so unjust that Psychonauts isn't a sell out hit, It is literally one of the best games I have played in the past few years. Must have been a mix of shoddy marketing ( in the UK I haven't seen any promotion at all ) and people just won't give games with cartoon graphics much more than a glance these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabez Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 It makes me wonder how Tim Schafer would tackle the FPS genre. I mean, platform action/adventure is a leap from pure adventure, and he managed the transition masterfully... I think that he would probably make it zany and complex, and it would be completely awesome, but again there's no guarantee that people would buy it even if it was an FPS. I think people like simplicity; in most FPS games it's mainly about survival, so it's very easy to sum up your character and what you have to do. It's more difficult to sum up Psychonauts. You can can't just say "you play a god" or "you have to survive" or "you're killing monsters and getting experience"; you have to explain more, because there's never been a game quite like it before. Same with Grim Fandango. Look at all the popular games - they all seem to boil down to a very simple, tried and tested idea. Of course, those ideas have to come from somewhere and we need games like Psychonauts to set new trends... the problem is that the general gaming public might only realise this in hindsight. Does anyone know if the game has sold better on consoles than on PCs? There seems to be more innovation and more simmilar games to Psychonauts there, like Ico and that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elTee Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 The only console Psychonauts would have been practically guaranteed to get gamers buying it on is the Gamecube, which is the only console it wasn't released on. It's interesting what you're suggesting Gabez; that most popular games can be explained in a sentence, effectively. I was going to argue that most popular games take a 'tried and tested idea' and subvert it slightly - like GTA, for example, being a cross between an RPG, a driving game, a platformer and an FPS. Really, when I think about it though, it could have been sold to someone in the late 90's as 'kind of like Tomb Raider, but with vehicles.' Go back five or six years and LucasArts could have been looked to for a truly great game - the Star Wars Adventure game. It would have been genius - Fate Of Atlantis style classic point-and-click scenarios, real-time space battles, and of course, lightsaber fights. There you have a true marriage of action and adventure (like Psychonauts) but with an established market to sell the game to. If that game had existed it would have been easy to sell Psychonauts as 'kind of like that Star Wars game but with psychic secret agents.' It will be interesting to see how Dreamfall fares - The Longest Journey was wildly successful, and in theory this sequel has a much broader appeal. I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to Psychonauts as well - personally I think it will be better, but time will tell. Only a few weeks to go... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 I wouldn't say GTA had many similarities to Tomb Raider (if we're talking the original GTA with the top down view). The only real similarities I could see were that, at some point, you may have to fire a gun. If we're talking the newer ones with a first person view then, well, maybe. I was actually surprised that the one point n click adventure LucasArts didn't make was one based on Star Wars as it does seem like it would have been the perfect way to tell more of the story, especially at the time of the old Indy games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elTee Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 I wouldn't say GTA had many similarities to Tomb Raider (if we're talking the original GTA with the top down view) Well, obviously, no... the top-down view one could have been sold as 'kind of like Micro Machines, but with no "edge" to fall off - and you can get out of the car, and you have guns' or something though. I'm talking in a very general sense here, like conversational - obviously you wouldn't see magazine adverts for a game saying things like 'it's Sonic, but with a rabbit!' or anything. GTA3 (if we must be pedantic) is similar to Tomb Raider - psuedo 3D graphics (yeah, it's 3D, but not true 3D due to the fixed camera - Mario 64 was the first true 3D game*) and very free-roaming levels. Obviously GTA3 took the free-roaming to a new height, but it's a similar enough engine. *It probably wasn't. But it was the first really mainstream 3D game with a non-fixed camera, or at the very least the one that brought it the idea to public reception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabez Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 People seem to describe games as either: "It's a but like Quake/Tomb Raider/Command & Conquer" or as "you play a criminal/cop/soldier/Stalin etc." People might go into detail and say, "you go around breaking into tombs" or "you go around stealing cars" or "you go around shooting people" or "you have to destroy the enemy" etc. etc. I think screenshots are also important: show someone a picture of Quake or Command & Conquer or GTA and they'll probably be able to work out what the game is about. Show them a screenshot from Grim Fandango or Psychonauts and it's not so clear. Maybe the old SCUMM games had an advantage with the verb icons, because people could see just from looking at a screenshot that you basically... "went around picking stuff up/talking to people". A game like Grim Fandango could, of course, be summed up as "you play a Grim Reaper", except to do so would be to simplify it absurdly, and thus wouldn't really be an adequate description. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Well, to say that would be to suggest that you actually reap souls, which is done twice right at the beginning, and then never again. A better example of a one sentance description selling a game short would be saying that in Psychonauts, you "Enter people's head's and sort them out" which is indeed what you do, but doesn't describe even half of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elTee Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Screenshots don't always sell a game - the pictures of the cel-shaded Wind Waker failed to adequately show how awesome the game really looks in motion. Anyone who bitched about the new cartoony look for the series quickly shut up when they actually played the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Go back five or six years and LucasArts could have been looked to for a truly great game - the Star Wars Adventure game. It would have been genius - Fate Of Atlantis style classic point-and-click scenarios, real-time space battles, and of course, lightsaber fights. There you have a true marriage of action and adventure (like Psychonauts) but with an established market to sell the game to. If that game had existed it would have been easy to sell Psychonauts as 'kind of like that Star Wars game but with psychic secret agents.' If you scrap the 'point and click' elements and psychic bits, then you're left with 'Knights of the Old Republic', which was a superb game! I think it would be interesting to see Tim Schafer co-produce a game with someone with real 'action' sensibilities. Or even him do a 'guaranteed to sell' license like Star Wars (like you said). It would totally rock, but I doubt he'd willingly work with LucasArts again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remi Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 I don't know, even though he wasn't too into LEC creating sequels to his games, I think he'd probably work with the company if the terms were fair. I doubt LEC would work with him, however, if they at this point even know who Tim Schafer is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Someone they possibly paid some money to once... was he perhaps the voice for stormtrooper number 4? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schmatz Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 I was just looking at the Lucasarts page and just had to come here and say something about it, when lo-and-behold someone else already did! What's up everyone (I have no idea who remembers me and who doesn't )! But yeah nothing but Star Wars on the horizon =/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 We'll probably get a new Indy sooner or later, but that game will do nothing but make people think that all LucasArts does is bring out games based on Lucas Films most successful titles (which, at the moment it is, but it hasn't always been like that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elTee Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 Jeez man you've been away for... years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scummbuddy Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Yeah, I missed the Indy/Grim avatar... plus your wit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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