Dr Who adventure game now available

[Threepwood4life]

Some at BBC has made a boo boo lol

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames/download/cityofthedaleks

 

Its not suppose to be available till Saturday but its up on the site for download. Folks from the US won't be able to download it till July.

[Aububuh]

I'm getting this message.

 

"Outside the UK

 

If you live outside the UK, the first Adventure Game will be available to purchase in early July. We will have more information shortly on release dates and where you can buy them, so watch this space!"

 

I live in America, so it seems like a normal BBC thing, but I thought that these games were supposed to be free. Do us Americans have to pay for it? That makes no sense.

[Jenni]

I'm getting this message.

 

"Outside the UK

 

If you live outside the UK, the first Adventure Game will be available to purchase in early July. We will have more information shortly on release dates and where you can buy them, so watch this space!"

 

I live in America, so it seems like a normal BBC thing, but I thought that these games were supposed to be free. Do us Americans have to pay for it? That makes no sense.

I was afraid they'd make the US pay for the games. No worries though. I'm downloading by a UK proxy in the US and it's working fine.

[The Tingler]

I love how Americans consider themselves separate from 'the rest of the world', even if its subconscious. They're not making the US pay for the games, they're making everyone not in the UK pay for the games.

 

I'm not in the UK or the US and I will have to wait until July and pay for them too if I want them, so stop acting like the BBC's specifically snubbing your country.

[s-island]

It's logical that you have to pay for them since you didn't contribute to the making through the TV licence.

[The Tingler]

Yeah, sadly. I wish they'd said that earlier though, they've not given a straight answer to that until now.

[Jenni]

I love how Americans consider themselves separate from 'the rest of the world', even if its subconscious. They're not making the US pay for the games, they're making everyone not in the UK pay for the games.

 

I'm not in the UK or the US and I will have to wait until July and pay for them too if I want them, so stop acting like the BBC's specifically snubbing your country.

I didn't mean it that way, and Audubuh certainly didn't. I just said that I was afraid they'd make the US pay for the games because Audubuh's post said he was American and so am I. I mentioned that everyone outside of the UK would have to pay for the games in my post on my blog, and that was long before your forum post.

 

It's logical that you have to pay for them since you didn't contribute to the making through the TV licence.

I never thought of that. I can see the reasoning behind it, but like The Tingler said, it would have been nice if they'd have mentioned it before now.

[The Tingler]

I'm sorry I sounded so angry earlier on, I was in a bad mood and the BBC stopping me from playing a game I'd been looking forward to didn't help! I feel better now.

 

This website seems to be worth a shot despite its dodgy spam-sounding address. Just go there, scroll down the page a bit to find the second Search box, input the Doctor Who website address - http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/ - and once there find the page for the Adventure Games. The page acts as a simple proxy, so you should be able to access the download page to download the game - albeit perhaps quite slowly. Mine's downloading now.

[Jenni]

No problem. The good news is the game is pretty good so far, so your mood should cheer up even more once you have it downloaded.

 

The only problem I have so far is that there are a lot of puzzles which require you to drag your mouse in precise movements, and my mouse is pretty horrible (it's a cheap ball mouse that came with our cheap eMachines computer).

 

I used this site and set up a manual proxy in Firefox (through tools/options/advanced/network/settings). I went through the list until I found one that worked well and wasn't blocked by the BBC (the first one on the list is). It downloaded really quickly (almost as fast as a direct connection).

 

I was afraid that they might have a required internet check in the game itself, but I've been playing it for a while now with no problems yet.

[Aububuh]

I'm sorry I sounded so angry earlier on, I was in a bad mood and the BBC stopping me from playing a game I'd been looking forward to didn't help! I feel better now.

 

It's quite all right. I didn'k know about that whole licensing thing in the UK before now, so that makes a lot of sense. I was just a little disappointed because they never mentioned this before now.

[jp-30]

Just playing Devil's Advocate here.

 

Other country's TV stations pay for the screening rights of Doctor Who, and viewers pay those stations by either watching on pay TV, or it's funded by advertisements.

 

So money is coming in to the BBC from other countries because of Doctor Who.

 

 

And another way to look at it. How much of your UK Licence Fee has been allocated to making this game? Probably a few pence at the absolute most.

 

Do you think the price to non-UK based people will be the same as a UK based individual's personal contribution from their licence fee to funding the game? ie. a couple of cents?

 

Not likely.

[Jenni]

I just completed it. I enjoyed it, but there was one thing that kept it from being as good as it could be. They repeated puzzles too many times. Especially the maze puzzle. It was an OK puzzle the first time, but not great. I enjoyed the wire puzzle and the pattern puzzle since they seemed like something the Doctor would actually do. But the maze puzzles seemed a little weird, since I couldn't imagine the Doctor pushing little circuits through electrified mazes.

 

If it would have only been done once, I would have let it slide and just chalk my dislike of the puzzle up to fangirl nitpicking. However, they put in three pattern puzzles (but it actually made sense why there would be three of those in the storyline). Then they put in three of the maze puzzles, which were the weakest puzzles.

 

The rest of it was great though. The storyline was really good, the voice-acting was good, and the music and sound-effects were good. I was surprised that the stealth gameplay actually fits in an adventure game so well. Maybe the suggestion on the Telltale forums that they make a Firefly game would actually work if they made it like this.

[urluckyday]

Wait...people in the US don't get it until July?! I didn't know people even knew about it here.

[Haggis]

Other country's TV stations pay for the screening rights of Doctor Who, and viewers pay those stations by either watching on pay TV, or it's funded by advertisements.

And also, here in the Netherlands at least, we can watch the BBC channels on TV. I'm not sure how it is in other countries, but according to Wikipedia these channels are offered in Belgium and the Netherlands. So it's pretty strange that while we can watch the BBC on TV, we're excluded from their internet activities (I'd love to be able to use iPlayer, but I can't).

[s-island]

You pay for those channels through your cable TV provider as part of the subscription which again pays BBC Worldwide for it. The Internet part and BBC's other activities don't come into this at all.

[Haggis]

I say the EU should get on it. We demand freely accessible web sites across Europe! (Well, at least I demand it. I still think it's silly to prevent people from other countries accessing online content.) It's all one big mess, and we could really use some European rules for this. But then, I should probably be glad that I can watch BBC channels at all.

[Huz]

I'm just downloading it now, having read a couple of reviews. I'm a bit worried to read that it's got some Broken Sword style crate-pushing puzzles - hasn't Charles Cecil got any new ideas? - but I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it. It's probably a bit much to expect it to break any new ground in adventure gaming, but hopefully it'll be a bit of fun without being too challenging.

 

On a completely different note, as a UK license fee payer, I'm not really sure that the BBC should be spending their money in this way! Providing free computer games is not something a publicly funded broadcaster should be doing, as far as I'm concerned. However, I'd be even more unsure about it if they were allowing all and sundry to download it - sorry Johnny Foreigners.

[s-island]

I'd rather they got rid of the license fee completely, but as long as it's there, those that pay it should get the content for free. I think NRK has their site open to everyone and it annoys me.

[Gabez]

Haha, Johny Foreigner. I'd love it if that was actually somebody's name.

 

I'm happy for the BBC to do things like this with the lisence fee, because it has artistic worth: not just for the game itself, but because it is exploring new storytelling methods, slotting in to the TV series and complementing it. It's not just merchandise, but additional storytelling.

 

That is the main reason why I like the BBC lisence paying system -- because it means (in theory) that they can do what is creatively and artistically exciting, rather than what makes most sense. Although, if they do shut down 6 Music, I'd have to wonder if the BBC is following that idea or not.

 

As for the game: I have it installed and will play it one day! Maybe after the series is ended and I have Doctor Who withdrawal symptons.

[The Tingler]

While the game is very good for a freebie (I'll do a review for some site and post about it here when I do), it does highlight one sad thing - it would've been perfect with David Tennant. I love Matt Smith as the Doctor, but as a voice actor he's poor. Worst 'Noooooo!' since James Earl Jones. Tennant on the other hand is an excellent voice actor - hell, his Doctor voice IS him voice acting!

[GeneralPloKoon]

As much as I would love to play it, i'm not paying for it.

[Gabez]

Does that neccesarily mean that Tennant would be better at voice acting, just because he's putting on an accent? Mind you, I can well believe that Smith is more a facial, body actor than a voice actor. Did you see the cartoons of Tennant? I suppose they would have shown how he would have been in these games.

 

GeneralPloKoon: is that out of principle, because some people get it for "free"? (Not actually free if you count the TV lisence, but that's debatable because not everyone in the UK pays the damn thing). If not, I would have thought that a strong enough desire to play it would make you want to pay for it... but perhaps the desire is not strong enough.

[The Tingler]

Does that neccesarily mean that Tennant would be better at voice acting, just because he's putting on an accent? Mind you, I can well believe that Smith is more a facial, body actor than a voice actor. Did you see the cartoons of Tennant? I suppose they would have shown how he would have been in these games.

 

Nah, he actually is trained properly as a voice actor. Listen to some of the Doctor Who audiobooks he read, he's utterly fantastic and does unique voices for every character. His impression of Mickey is spot-on for example. Before getting the role as the Doctor Tennant also worked several times for Big Finish Productions on several different Doctor Who stories and ranges (incidentally making him one of only two Doctors, the other being Colin Baker, to act on Doctor Who before getting the leading role).

[GeneralPloKoon]

 

GeneralPloKoon: is that out of principle, because some people get it for "free"? (Not actually free if you count the TV lisence, but that's debatable because not everyone in the UK pays the damn thing). If not, I would have thought that a strong enough desire to play it would make you want to pay for it... but perhaps the desire is not strong enough.

 

Well, that may be true I do love Doctor Who, but because I have to pay for something that many can get for free I'm a little annoyed. I WAS really excited about this. I dunno, I will have to think more about it.

[bakana]

At first I was a little annoyed that it would be a pay-game for non-Brits, but then I remembered that this was essentially funded by British citizens, so it makes sense they get it for free and I don't.

 

I'm not whining that Britain isn't providing me (an American) with its lovely socialized healthcare (though heaven knows I'd love some), so I probably shouldn't whine that it's not providing me with its lovely socialized computer games.