Not-so-classic 3D

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Tue Jul 13, 2010 22:42

The education system was almost never quite good enough for the original Carmen Sandiego, and it's extremely unlikely kids would have the patience for flipping through the booklet nowadays (if anyone still has it). :/

thehackercat · Post by **thehackercat** » Tue Jul 13, 2010 22:54

We used to play that when we had free time in class! Good times!

VikingBoyBilly · Post by **VikingBoyBilly** » Wed Jul 14, 2010 0:29

Talk about booklet-itis. I couldn't even beat Prince of Persia because of that stupid potion password system until I uncovered the long lost manual just last year.

Lava89 · Post by **Lava89** » Wed Jul 14, 2010 15:30

VikingBoyBilly wrote:Myst was absolutely gorgeous but it was fucling impossible to solve without any guides. I still haven't beaten it, because I feel the ridiculously overthought puzzle element is the whole point, and if you read up on it beforehand, you're cheating yourself out of the intended experience and the satisfaction of a brain-surged epiphamy when you've made something happen.

To be honest, I found most of Myst's puzzles to be shrouded in logic. There's no real inventory, so you don't have to worry about having the right object to make something work. Instead most of the puzzles feel like some sort of a machine that you have to get working.

For instance (*SPOILER ALERT*), in the Channelwood age, in order to progress through the level, you need to pump water through the pipes and that will give most of the machinery power, like the elevators. The Stoneship age is similar; once you get up to the lighthouse, you need to get the generator running, which will give you light. All of those I found to be very logical. (END of *SPOILER ALERT*)

In fact I think the biggest hurdle of the game is realizing what you have to do in it.

The problem with most Myst rip-offs is that their puzzles aren't very logical and require you to find some random object that you can only click on with pixel perfect accuracy. Myst never required that and the puzzles made sense once you figured them out.

_mr_m_ wrote:Somehow I can't help but mention this game:

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time

If you can get the DVD version of it, it's worth a play.

The puzzle's seemed to be a bit too easy, considering I beat the game when I was 10...but then again it also took me a while to do so

That game was awesome. Story-wise I liked "JMP2: Buried in Time" better (much more deep and engaging), but the interface and graphics blew me away in the 3rd one. That series is the only 1st person adventure game franchise that could pull off the genre as well as Myst.

I also liked that the 3rd one portrayed Atlantis in a reasonable manner, being related to the Minoans. Not some hokey civilization that has no ties to other cultures and everyone has these weird, sci-fi-ish powers (like the Disney version). And lastly, I liked how when they talked about other religions, it was so you could figure out a puzzle, not beat you over the head with it and make you really participate in it.

Post by **Levellass** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:06

Where is Carmen Sandiego? (Carmen Sandiego!)
Where on earth can she be?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley%27s_Adventure

Well I'll be, I had the name wrong!

The Fruit Kingdom was world renowned for its wonderful food. That came to an end when the self-taught chef, Bad Custard, became the chief cook of Carrot Castle. After eating Bad Custard's meals, the King suffered from several bouts of food poisoning, and Bad Custard was driven out of the castle. Wanting revenge, Custard steals the Queen's magic book and starts to wreak havoc on the kingdom. Eventually, Custard becomes so powerful that he takes over the entire Fruit Kingdom. Now it's up to Kingsley, the King and Queen's adopted son, to defeat the evil Custard and restore the kingdom. You take control of Kingsley as he hacks and slashes his way through dungeons and castles. Will Kingsley save the kingdom? Will he be able to find out about his real parents? (He's a fox raised by rabbits, go figure.)

mortimer · Post by **mortimer** » Thu Aug 05, 2010 12:46

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Fri Aug 06, 2010 10:18

I'm usually alright with 3D, but this game in particular bothers my eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdF4M_8wHmo
It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted cartoony or realistic, so the designers went with both.

Dynamo · Post by **Dynamo** » Fri Aug 06, 2010 11:24

I don't care if a game is revolutionary, I only play stuff that's fun, if it's innovative or not I don't really care (innovative isn't always good).

Though I agree that there are important games in each genre, for example Doom, Strife and Duke3d are arguably the most important fps games (fucl you half life), while some of the best 2d platformers include super mario world 1 & 2, rayman 1 and of course commander keen galaxy. Even less important games in the rts genre I'd say, there's Command & Conquer and Starcrarft, and then warcraft and dune but they're basically the same thing.
As for 3d platformers, I've never liked SM64 but spyro 1-2-3, the early crash games, ratchet & clank and Jak & Daxter are the best ones in the genre I think...

And these are all excellent games. I don't care if spyro had primitive ai, glitches that let you look through walls, and those things. It still looks great today for me.

tulip wrote:But that's about as many 3D games as I played.

I believe we'd have almost identical tastes regarding videogames if you like 3D :p

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Fri Aug 06, 2010 19:00

RoboBlue wrote:I'm usually alright with 3D, but this game in particular bothers my eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdF4M_8wHmo
It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted cartoony or realistic, so the designers went with both.

By watching this I noticed that Dragon Quest has not changed one bit since their first game. That's pretty bad. Even the Final Fantasy series tried to vary their gameplay mechanics and world settings...

Post by **Levellass** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 4:46

If it ain't broke...

kuliwil · Post by **kuliwil** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 5:22

Levellass wrote:If it ain't broke...

If it aint broke you should use the time you that you would otherwise have spent fixing it to improve it!

On the same token, Hocus Pocus 1-3 were a bit of a let down - they worked and played well, but were all the same! I don't think I even played 3 because I watched my sister playing it and it was the same as 1 and 2!

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 11:17

Levellass wrote:If it ain't broke...

Have you played any of the games? You'll be glad to finish one, then get completely bored by the next because it plays exactly the same. It gets tedious and boring and the only reason you'd finish the next one is for the story and character, which are never particularly well developed.

It's kind of like the Harvest Moon series where they just never fixed the flaws, or where they focused their improvements on the wrong things (for example, HM need more (and better) text, more things to do, a better story, a better carrying/shipping system... not more crops to buy and a slightly different setting!).

VikingBoyBilly · Post by **VikingBoyBilly** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 11:42

I kind of agree. After all, that's the reason the original Mario Bros. 2 didn't go outside of Japan, other than the fact it was battetoads hard (what am I saying? Battletoads was WAY easier!

)

That's partly the reason I was unimpressed with Cosmo and Biomenace. Even though they were slightly fun and very playable, all the episodes were the same, resulting in being bland, and on Cosmo's side they didn't do anything to advance the plot between episodes. Sure, maybe Jazz also didn't have a clear plotline, but at least every world had it's own theme, keeping the games fresh the whole way through.

Doom 1 was classic because you started off with the phobos base, went to the mysterious and slightly hellanized deimos base, then jumped into the fiery pit of the underworld which happens to be another dimension! Then in Doom 2 it was clear they didn't give a flying garg about dramatic buildup in level design and none of it really made sense. They were just levels. That's why I don't like it, but it's a mixed bag of opinions.

The keen games all have wildy different things. Not just in the tilesets, but also in mechanics. Starting off with no pogo, turning lights on and off and activating bridges, different colored rayguns, swimming, 'surfing' on platforms, and most importantly, turning enemies into flowers

kuliwil · Post by **kuliwil** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 13:46

VikingBoyBilly wrote:Sure, maybe Jazz also didn't have a clear plotline, but at least every world had it's own theme, keeping the games fresh the whole way through.

Another thing that Jazz did well was make Jazz 2 a DIFFERENT GAME to Jazz 1. Both are independent and both are visually different and are different to play, hence both are worthwhile having! Like Keen, Jazz had a sequel planned (Jazz 3D - which was radically different once again!) but that was cancelled and then had a Gameboy release that wasn't "canon"

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 17:05

DaVince wrote:
RoboBlue wrote:I'm usually alright with 3D, but this game in particular bothers my eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdF4M_8wHmo
It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted cartoony or realistic, so the designers went with both.
By watching this I noticed that Dragon Quest has not changed one bit since their first game. That's pretty bad. Even the Final Fantasy series tried to vary their gameplay mechanics and world settings...

It's a remake of an early SNES game, what did you expect?
For the record, Dragon Quest V shook up the formula a lot, introducing monster-catching and training to the RPG world. That's right, they invented pokemon.

I don't know all that much about Dragon Quest 6-8, but DQ9 has moved on to a more western style, with hundreds of quests and randomly generated dungeons in the post-game. Also it has co-op.

While it's true that Dragon Quest never really adapted the Final Fantasy style of detailed cutscenes dominating the gameplay (which eventually resulted in your only motivation being to unlock the next cutscene), I think mininal story elements have been a strength of the series.