A Vampyre Story - Playable demo available.

[Misj']

From the website:


17.11.2008 | Midnight surprise: the demo is here!

Today marks the first release of "A Vampyre Story" in it's first territory. To mark the occassion, we are proud to release the official demo, to allow everyone to get a sneak peek of the game.

In the demo, Mona and Froderick are in trouble: They are on the Vlad's Landing Graveyard and Picknick Grounds, looking for Mona's grave, in order to retreive some grave dirt that Mona needs to put in her coffin for travelling.
This short slice of the game gives a short glimpse of how versatile and multi-faceted the puzzles can be - as well as presenting the athmospheric art and music and humor, of course!

The demo features English and German language. The game will be released on the 24th in the UK and soon in the US and on any decent download retail service, like GameTap, metaboli and GamersGate.

You can download the demo from worthplaying.com: http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=57552

You can also click on the German flag in the tree to get to a list of Mirrors....


I haven't had the time to look at it yet (I'm at work at the moment). But I'm sure most of us are exited...



(Why did I choose to post this in the general discussion and not in the Adventure-related talk and chat-thread? - I dunno...)

[Eggie]

It definitely had some nice graphical touches and the characters seemed fun; the writing might be a little weak, though. Being locked in a cosy cottage hardly screams 'peril' and what's with the giant exposition about how Froderick and Mona met?

I'll come and have a proper play later, I'm sure it's good enough fun.

(Hoestly, though. I think the descriptions of vampire-based magazines in my vampire game were wittier)

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Wow, Mona's voice is incredibly annoying.  What's with all the wascally wabbit talk?  She's supposed to be French, not Elmer Fudd.  The bat sounds like Max from Sam and Max Hit the Road, which isn't a bad thing.  The person doing Shrowdy is trying too hard to sound like Peter Lorre, though.

The 3d is a bit amateurish in parts, especially the 3d sequences with Shrowdy (he looks horrible).  I normally don't mind 3d, but the early 2d designs they did looked much better than this and fit in with the backgrounds better.  The puzzle was pretty interesting, but the dialog is rather flat.  I'm not sure I get the 'remembering items for later' thing.  It seems like an attempt to make the game more realistic so she can't carry tons of stuff, but she's a vampire so why should realism be an issue?

I'm not sure it's a game I'd buy or play based on the demo.

[ildu]

Yeah, the voices are a bit weird. Froderick is fine, and pretty characteristic (albeit very stereotypical), and I don't mind the Peter Lorre impression - he is one of my favorite villain archetypes. However, Mona is quite honestly terrible. You get used to her pretty quickly, but boy was it a shock at first. She's supposed to be French, but she comes off as a bad American impression of a european, i.e. all the stereotypes put together, and yes, sounds very much like Elmer Fudd. It's weird as well, since she is the main character, and her voice is easily the weakest in the demo at least.

The graphics were a bit tame, to be honest, with all due respect to the talent of Bill Tiller. First of all, viewing the 1024x material on 1280x resolution looks pretty dull (I noticed this after having played the demo and then seing the materials in their original size). Some of the details are also a bit underworked, which is apparent for example in the close-up screen of the barrel. Technical issues were abundant, as well - lots of depth layer glitches, clumsiness, text freeze-ups, etc.

Writing was a bit flat, but it got better towards the end. The puzzle was good, though I didn't understand initially why you would need to use a shovel on the door, before heating the ice and after having already wedged it with the pickaxe. I actually liked the 'remember things for later' thing, though even if it's not obtrusive, I'm not too sure how much it actually adds to the game.

One good thing here is that if you don't like the graphics, you can change them yourself. If you look in the game data, you'll find all the textures and bgs, as well as dialog lines and such, available for editing. I'd try my hand at a improved texture pack, but I'm too lazy. It worries me a bit that the texture work is quite frankly very poor. Especially the low resolution of a lot of the textures makes me wonder.

All in all, the demo doesn't bode too well. I just hope they've done a huge lot of beta-testing and optimizing since building the demo.

[Sam.]

to avoid trawling through a million links

http://files.filefront.com/AVampyreStory+Demozip/;12377546;/fileinfo.html

EDIT: Wonderful demo, crashed without seeing anything at all. Black screen then frozen.

Beautiful.

[Matti]

You can also click on the German flag in the tree to get to a list of Mirrors....

Where do you see a german flag there? All I see is an english, a french and a so called "russish" one...


EDIT: Ah, nevermind. The linked site is already german so there's no need for that flag...

EDIT 2: But nevertheless it's called "russian" instead of "russish"..

[ildu]

EDIT: Wonderful demo, crashed without seeing anything at all. Black screen then frozen.

Yeah, it's got startup issues as well. Had to try a few times myself before it started working properly. Also, I have double 19" screens and for some reason it started the game up on my secondary screen, which never happens with games.

[ManicMatt]

Hmm this doesnt sound very promising.. Then again anything commercial seems to be under critical scrutiny around here... 

Although technical problems IS worrying.

I'll be definetely trying the demo before buying it.

[Ozzie]

The german voice acting is pretty good, actually
Seems to be a fun game. I should buy it when I have some money to spare...

[Sam.]

Is there anything in particular you did Ildu? I run it, and main.exe crashes. I am running vista but I have tried compatibility mode.

There is no troubleshooting that I can find for this demo. I have a pretty basic, non gamer, laptop. But it has a gig of ram and 2.ghz core duo so i dont see why it isnt running.

[Layabout]

Is there anything in particular you did Ildu? I run it, and main.exe crashes. I am running vista but I have tried compatibility mode.

There is no troubleshooting that I can find for this demo. I have a pretty basic, non gamer, laptop. But it has a gig of ram and 2.ghz core duo so i dont see why it isnt running.

I have exactly the same problem.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Wow, this game is buggy and has walking deads, so be careful.  If you alt-tab, sometimes the bink videos will mess up and the audio will be caught in a loop. 

Also:

Spoiler

if you convince the hooker to go talk to the conductor BEFORE talking to the children about a musical score the game is effectively broken because Mona refuses to leave the area until she has the music, which you haven't found out about yet and can't get.

[close]

There was another one as well but I forget where.  The puzzles are a mixture of interesting and purely trial and error, so in spite of knowing what you need to do you'll often have to try something else and fail first.  A few examples:

Spoiler

When you read in the vampire for dummies book that black repels holy stuff, it's not a leap to imagine you can use the gypsy ink on the snowman to block the holy crest, but you still have to throw a regular snowball at it first and fail.  Examples like this fill the game, like not being able to wrap the blanket around the bucket in spite of it telling you it's a good idea until you find out the stew gets cold on the way.

[close]

The other thing that is infuriating is how Mona will use her vampiric powers at random, making certain puzzles pointlessly difficult.  Someone needs to tell Bill Tiller and company that when they make a super powered character they are really painting themselves into a corner when they have her able to carry a coffin or push a wagon full of dirt on her own but be physically unable to do something like bend iron bars or fly around pointless barriers.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Sam.]

This is a dissapointing release so far, unless the forums open up at AutumnMoon for troubleshooting or someone can proove to me that the actual release doesnt have the bugs of the demo, i.e. it's complete non-runability, I won't consider buying the game.

[ManicMatt]

I had high hopes for this game, but after playing the demo.. meh.

"These logs are too heavy to pick up" She says. Only to suddenly be revealed shortly after that she has super human strength. Yes I see what you guys mean.

And yes, I think Mona's accent is supposed to be vampire + french but is ear-piercingly high and annoying to boot.

She then told me what I suggested was a good idea, and she'd remember it, but it's not useful now. Except that it was the very next thing I was supposed to do, leaving me stumped for a while.

As a non-technical artist, I liked the backgrounds, and thought the 3D characters other than mona were quite poor in this day and age.

And i didn't laugh... which for me renders the whole thing pointless as it's a cartoony adventure game. I've found Ratchet and Clank on ps3 far funnier in the cutscenes, that game had me replaying scenes cos they made me laugh so much.

[m0ds]

Oh dear, five years or so in the making & it's not floating many people's boat! I've seen the trailers, but neither have particularly enticed me - but that's mostly because the setting doesn't really catch my appeal, in fact it never did when Tiller first came out with it. Didn't really want to tell him that though Perhaps they should fix it all up and wait until Halloween to release it. I've not played the demo but you guys have some pretty good points as to why there's a reason to skip it. Maybe part of their plan is to get feedback from the demo, but then you say there's no where to get troubleshooting help? What a shame! Tiller is still a hero in his own rights and he will always do great art, but it looks like they need to refresh their creative team a bit! Now a 3D sequel to The Dig wouldn't go a miss, Mr Bill!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I was talking about the full game, actually.  The full game is every bit as bad as the demo.

[ildu]

I have to mention that the full game itself is a lot better than the demo made it out to be, at least for me. I haven't played that much of it (and I'll have to replay some, too, because it crashed at a time where I hadn't saved in a long while ), but so far it's quite good. There are obvious things that bother me, but I'm prepared to look past them.

[ManicMatt]

That said, the game is only £14.99 on Amazon, so I think it might be priced just right. I felt So Blonde was a bit dear at £24.99 for an adventure game.

[LimpingFish]

There are obvious things that bother me, but I'm prepared to look past them.

Why?

[Ozzie]

It sounds like the writing is the worst aspect of the game. I hope Bill Tiller will either improve drastically or, even better, find someone who can write good funny dialogues.

[Eggie]

I'm pretty sure Bill Tiller didn't write the dialogue.
Maybe he should have given it a go.

[ildu]

There are obvious things that bother me, but I'm prepared to look past them.

Why?

Because they're mostly technical issues, and issues that have originated from either a low budget or low man-power, rather than something significant like a lack of effort or talent.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions there, ildu.  I guess I'm not so eager to look the other way when a commercial project like this has some rather glaring flaws (like walking deads) that wouldn't exist were it to have been properly tested.  This wouldn't have fixed some of the horrible 3D, but then again, it was their choice to use 3D instead of the better looking 2d art they had in early builds, so as far as I'm concerned they should be taken to task for it rather than forgiven like they've given the game away.  I'd probably be less bothered if it had been budgeted at 15 dollars, since the game is actually rather short and focuses mainly on puzzles that involve a lot of backtracking (and deliberately sets itself up for a sequel).

[Ghost]

Gee, it's "only" 20 Euros here... but considering your points I'll sit it out until it's totally low budget. Reviews here in germany have been rather unforgiving too, though the voice acting generally got good ratings.

[Ozzie]

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions there, ildu.  I guess I'm not so eager to look the other way when a commercial project like this has some rather glaring flaws (like walking deads) that wouldn't exist were it to have been properly tested.  This wouldn't have fixed some of the horrible 3D, but then again, it was their choice to use 3D instead of the better looking 2d art they had in early builds, so as far as I'm concerned they should be taken to task for it rather than forgiven like they've given the game away.  I'd probably be less bothered if it had been budgeted at 15 dollars, since the game is actually rather short and focuses mainly on puzzles that involve a lot of backtracking (and deliberately sets itself up for a sequel).

For me the 3D is a lot better, the 2D sprites looked a bit plain.....and supposedly it's harder and a lot more time-consuming to pull off the same amount of animations in 2D than in 3D. It's also easier to find good 3D animators than 2D ones. From what I've read. What do I know?
I think the game could have been tested better. Even the demo had some clipping mistakes. And I think they could have found someone that actually is capable of writing funny stuff.
But maybe Bill Tiller just naturally expected the game to be funny. I mean, the guys at LucasArts back then weren't also the most obviously talented writers, with the exception of Tim Schafer possibly, but they threw ideas and jokes at each other and what sticked came into the game.
Either the work process isn't the same at Autumn Moon or they don't have such a great sense of humour or they aren't just as naturally gifted as most of the guys at LucasArts were back then. Maybe you also need intuition for good humor, whatever.

It's kinda to be expected that their first adventure game isn't a new masterpiece. Labyrinth from LucasArts back then wasn't that great either and it took them some time to work things out. It's Bill Tillers first game anyway. So, I just hope they get better at doing them.

[Sam.]

The new Sam & Max hit the spot, was funny and was telltale's first adventure game. First Game nerves isn't really an excuse when you have had so long to develop it and you've been in the business as long as Bill Tiller has. Just because commercial adventure games are so few and far between, especially pretty ones, we shouldn't be making excuses for a game which doesn't seem to have been thought about enough.


EDIT: Also, Bone was supposed to be quite good and according to pedants, came BEFORE Sam & Max. Pshaw.

[Privateer Puddin']

Bone, Zooty?

[Sam.]

Never heard of it.

[m0ds]

If this game doesn't do too well perhaps this will act as an incentive for Tiller to re-unite with Ron Gilbert or Tim Schafer on a lone project, or did they all fall out? If they didn't, why are they oblivious to the genius of working together? It seemed to be a winning formula back in the day. Not that I recall any of them working on the same project for LEC, but correct me if I'm wrong

[Ozzie]

@Zooty: But Bone and Sam & Max were designed by people who already had design experience. Dave Grossman, anyone? And the Bone games weren't too awesome either according to reviews, "just" good. The same for the first few Sam & Max episodes.

AVS itself wasn't very long in development. It was announced 4 years ago, but development started much later.
Look, I don't mean that there's no reason to dislike AVS. But I'm actually surprised that people see now that it isn't the new adventure masterpiece. I guess it's good, but it should be clear that the first game is always the hardest. The amount of work for the engine was underestimated and it didn't get done until very late, so the glitches aren't very surprising. They should definately release a patch, though, just because they couldn't fix it in the first place doesn't mean that they couldn't fix it later.
Also, the budget constraints made it necessary to split the story up into multiple parts, hence the unfulfilling ending.

[Sam.]

I'm pretty sure Bill Tiller didn't just pick people off the street, Dave harris worked on The Dig and Grim Fandango, he is hardly new to the game (http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,3219/)

I just think "first game" is a poor excuse for a buggy game, anyone can test.

[LimpingFish]

I don't want to get into what some people (Hello, AdventureGamers.com! ) consider my vendetta against commercial adventures and the people who play them, but my "Why?" to Ildu does relate to it in a small way.

A Vampyre Story, and I have only played the demo, seems to be a very shoddy product. Fours years of development, excuses aside, and the move to 3D don't seem to have amounted to much. In my opinion, you're only as good as your last game and favorable goodwill will only get you so far. I'll probably pick up AVS once it hits the bargain bins, just to see if I was right, but on the strength of the demo (and lets remember that demos should show your games strengths, leaving the player wanting more) I won't be expecting much. The fact that the name "Bill Tiller" occurred anywhere in that equation means little to me anyway. If AVS was scuppered by a low budget (though what that has to do with anything is beyond me. Never stopped Dave Gilbert from making good games), then the hows and whys of it's apparent quality are known only the people who worked on it. Talk of supporting the creators or the genre are as baffling to me as they are naive, and I hold my hand up to not entertaining either. But..

(cue tension)

A lot of "big" adventure names seem to have smelled the funk of the casual market lately (Chris Jones and Arron Conners "Three Cards to Midnight", lauded as the return to the days of Tex Murphy, turns out to be largely cut from the same cloth as those horrible find-the-junk non-games) and some adventure fans orgasmic delight when they see these names in preview snippets or similar seems to cloud their ability to consider the fact that it's money, and not a desire to pick up where they left off, that has warranted these creators return.

Which makes me seem all cynical and bitter, etc, etc. But I have yet to see a product that has broken through the lid of the box marked "thoroughly average" that these developers seem to inhabit. Of course Tim Schafer did it. Though, in my eyes at least, he's far more competent a developer, and less cynical a creator, than most of these names from yore appear to have become. And Hal Barwood's Mata Hari looks interesting, though Barwood has at least some track record beyond his more famous titles (the underrated RTX Red Rock, for example).

But until Jane Jensen, Steve Ince (alright, So Blonde wasn't that bad), and all those other way-back-when peoples, release a game that I can play on it's own merits, they'll always be trading on past goodwill.

A world were Telltale (and I do admit their output has become better than most) make the best adventure games? Who could have guessed?

[Ozzie]

Well, if you don't like AVS you will definately hate Mata Hari. Don't get your hopes up! 

Your opinion may be harsh, but I don't have a problem with it.
I think it's not naive though to support a company who makes games with a vision and the best intentions contrary to to those publishers and developers that churn out one soulless product, an x-th iteration of a franchise or licensed title after another. There are also many adventure games that I consider soulless, but AVS has a heart in my opinion, even if it can't articulate itself well.
Sure, if it sucks, why should you buy it. You shouldn't, but I don't think it sucks. And I think they will improve.

I think you have high expectation towards adventure games and that's just right. Just because the quality kept dropping over the past years doesn't mean that you should be happy with less.

But anyway, tastes vary, I liked the demo very much. Maybe the german translation makes a difference. The puzzle design didn't give a great impression and most of the jokes felt flat, but it was fun. Probably not the adventure of the year, though. Anyway, I still need to play the full version, so why am I talking so much here? I have no idea!
AVS still wasn't 4 years in development, though.

[ManicMatt]

It can't be any worse than Limbo of the Lost, right?

Did anyone even touch that game with a barge pole? And if so, why? I hope it was a pirate copy/demo and you were just playing to see how shoddy and ripped off it was.

I have so many games to play, I can afford to be picky. I MUST be picky. I have over 40 games that need playing!! I need to take a year out to catch up, seriously..

[LimpingFish]

I think you have high expectation towards adventure games and that's just right. Just because the quality kept dropping over the past years doesn't mean that you should be happy with less.

I suppose my disdain for a lot of current commercial adventures is due to a number of factors. It's not because I want to return to the past, because my favorite "modern" commercial adventures are those that try to break with the inherent conventions of the genre. And it's not that you can't enjoy a game that tries to invoke the feeling of those classic titles, or one that has a clear artistic vision.  What really bugs me is the redundancy (creative, technical, what have you) of a lot of these titles. They neither entice you to play them, nor offer you anything substantial if you choose to do so. They seem to exist purely to say "I am a commercial adventure game" and take up shelf space.

The adventure game seems to be the only genre that makes me feel this way.

And people took exception to the fact that I largely blame "adventure fans" and the adventure media for this situation.

Bad games exist in all genres, sure, but the adventure game seems to be the only genre that has such forgiving fans. Which is where talk of "supporting" the genre comes in, I suppose. But I just don't see it that way, and I think it does more harm than good. The genre should stand, or fall, on it's own merits.

I'd rather these studios that do have a valid creative agenda repackage their stories and ideas in a more commercially viable genre, if lack of budgets and publisher support is to blame for these lackluster end products.

[Ozzie]

It can't be any worse than Limbo of the Lost, right?

Did anyone even touch that game with a barge pole? And if so, why? I hope it was a pirate copy/demo and you were just playing to see how shoddy and ripped off it was.

I have so many games to play, I can afford to be picky. I MUST be picky. I have over 40 games that need playing!! I need to take a year out to catch up, seriously..

There were some reviews that rated that game pretty well, like the ones on GameBoomers or JustAdventure. Unbelievable, actually. I guess this is this forgiveness LimpingFish is talking about.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

It's pretty well known that on this issue I agree with LimpingFsh completely.  Most of these adventure sites are pretty pathetic at giving games an honest rating, really.  There have been so many games rated highly on sites like fourfatchicks that I can barely stand it's unbelievable. 

Fish is right, you know; the average adventure fan is so starved for something from the genre that they will lift up a turd and say it's gold just because there's nothing else.  I don't really blame them for this because there really aren't that many adventure games being made commercially, but they also shouldn't be terribly offended when they're called out for mindlessly supporting something that would be a market failure in any other genre, and I really think Vampyre Story is in that category.  Virtually everything about it is bland, the jokes have all been heard before, the characters have no depth, the voices are largely horrible, the puzzles range from poor to broken, the special gui 'feature' of Mona not actually taking stuff and having to backtrack to use it in puzzle solutions stands out as a deliberate attempt to pad the game, her powers are inconsistent, it just plays like a decent amateur game.

The fact is, though, is that it's NOT an amateur game.  It's a commercial game for 30 dollars, an attempt to cash in on the episodic craze and it's weak in almost every area.  As much as I disliked most of the Sam and Max Telltale episodes for their flat humor and flimsy puzzles, I have to say in all honesty that the production values were much higher and showed extensive testing.

[ManicMatt]

The exact same thing happened in the final years of the Amiga.

I'd read one magazine and it'd give really generous reviews to anything, and rarely give out a bad mark. But not AMIGA POWER, oh no. If the game was shit, they'd give it a true score.

Like this game, Valhalla, the first ever "Full speech" game on the Amiga:


It plays as exciting as it looks. Lots of brown. The main character walks very slowly, block by block. Horrible puzzles that were plain evil.

"Brilliant!! 92%" said one magazine. "Awful. 36%" Said Amiga Power.

I miss that magazine..

[Snarky]

A lot of "big" adventure names seem to have smelled the funk of the casual market lately (Chris Jones and Arron Conners "Three Cards to Midnight", lauded as the return to the days of Tex Murphy, turns out to be largely cut from the same cloth as those horrible find-the-junk non-games)

It's pretty well known that on this issue I agree with LimpingFsh completely.  Most of these adventure sites are pretty pathetic at giving games an honest rating, really.  There have been so many games rated highly on sites like fourfatchicks that I can barely stand it's unbelievable. 

Fish is right, you know; the average adventure fan is so starved for something from the genre that they will lift up a turd and say it's gold just because there's nothing else.

Just because YOU don't personally enjoy or appreciate something doesn't mean others cannot honestly do so. Some people like playing hidden-item games, and some people enjoy adventures that stick very close to the old tried-and-true formula. Not your cup of tea? Fine. But attacking people for liking something you don't like? Honestly...  :

And while many adventure game sites are a lot more uncritical than I would be, I find that Adventure Gamers - which I used to write for occasionally - tends to be a bit tougher on the grading scale, and separate the gems (or at least the solid titles that are worth a look) from the dross. For example, currently the last three reviews give grades of 1.5, 2 and 3.5 (out of 5), and the preview of A Vampyre Story was definitely measured in its enthusiasm.

[LimpingFish]

I'm not in the habit of attacking people (unless I'm lurking in a dark alley with a baseball bat), and I just stated that I consider those hidden object games to be appalling claptrap. The fact that some people enjoy them is largely irrelevant, as is the fact that some people enjoy Martin Lawrence movies. They're still shit. Some people can have fun crouching by the side of the road, poking fresh roadkill with a pointy stick. People are, by and large, weird and varied. I don't have a problem with that.

To paraphrase what I said on AdventureGamer's forums, I regularly see adventure fans and the adventure media supporting sub-standard products that mainstream gaming outlets rate much lower. Maybe this is because the mainstream tends to rate them not as a genre but as individual games. If you treat the adventure game as though it exists in a gaming vacuum, separate from the criteria that other genres are routinely judged on, is it any wonder we constantly end up with nothing more than the mundanely average?

The fact that somebody may enjoy the mundanely average doesn't automatically validate it's quality.

[Snarky]

I keep forgetting that your personal preference is the benchmark of objective quality, while other people's opinions are worthless.

And I seem to remember from the Adventure Gamers discussion that a closer investigation found that the difference between mainstream and niche reviews was not all that great, far from consistent, and that the outliers tended to be on the mainstream side. Besides, the notion that even a systematic difference between two sets of reviews, when they're written by different people, for different audiences (with different tastes, prior knowledge and priorities), with different ratings scales, means that either group is doing something wrong is, well, stupid.

By the way, back then we were arguing over whether the "mental inventory" innovation of Discworld Noir was picked up by other games. I thought there was another example I was forgetting (in addition to Dave Gilbert's games, Diamonds in the Rough, Resonance and Mata Hari). It was, of course, A Vampyre Story.

[Misj']

Was there ever any good - truly good - adventure game? - Commercial or not...? - Grimm Fandango may come close, since it had at least character development, a good story, good graphics (although the real-time-3D wasn't up to yesterday's standards either), and music..but it too had many flaws (apart from compatibility issues with my current computer). Curse of Monkey Island is one of my personal favourites, but is it flawless? - Definitely not (and that has nothing to do with Ron Gilbert not being involved, because let's face it: when it comes down to character development/progression or story, Monkey I and II aren't that good either. And since neither story nor character development have to be affected by limited resources, we can't blame that). Sam & Max and DOTT had no character development throughout the story at all. Full Throttle actually did have character development (Ben and Mo feel like they have grown during the game), but it was short...and the action sequences could have been done a lot better.

So back to a Vampyre Story...I received it yesterday, started playing it, and liked it (sure, it was only like fifteen minutes since I didn't have more time, but hay, in fifteen minutes you know whether you like a game or not). Is it perfect? - No. Do I like the 3D? - Not really (but then again, I also don't like all those 3D movies in the theatre, let alone 3D jump-n-run games...I just happen to be a 2D guy), but I can look past that. I feel that the integration of 2D and 3D could have been done better, but I think it was a bold try that seems to work well enough. Ok...so I can see which objects were made in 3D, but that is also true for many 2D games (or cartoons), where the objects are not well integrated in the background...it may not be perfect, but it won't reduce my fun with it. Mona's voice has actually grown on me a little...but I don't really like the fact that she giggles when Frodrick makes a joke. On the other hand...if she hadn't they wouldn't have had a healthy relationship. The jokes may not be all to my taste...but many of the Monkey Island or Sam & Max jokes weren't either...particularly not nowadays that I have grown a few inches.

So...best adventure game ever? - No. Worse than the classics? - I don't really think so (yet).

Ps. You can't look at a game outside of it's genre. Bejeweled would have failed as a first person shooter (at least I think so). The requirements are different per genre, and for an adventure game I like to wander around in a lively world that is not boring to watch even though I have to walk in the same three rooms for a long time (basically because I'm a terrible puzzle-solver ). I will have fun playing a Vampyre Story, and I'm glad it has been made. There is plenty of room for improvement...and hopefully they will, but until that time...

[LimpingFish]

Speaking of attacks...

I'm not getting into semantics again, as I made my point a number of times in the AG thread for the benefit of those that seem to have the attention span of a goldfish. I thought I provided some numbers to back up my opinion in that case, maybe you feel otherwise.

"when they're written by different people, for different audiences (with different tastes, prior knowledge and priorities)"

I have one priority. I have one taste. I want to enjoy my chosen pastime. I have no allegiance to any one genre, and I don't want to be part of a user base that considers itself some sort of special needs class. You do a great disservice to anyone outside the scene, who may sometimes call these games as they honestly see them, without what you call "prior knowledge" and what I call "fanboy baggage", claiming they are somehow misguided in their use of the criteria they use to rate these games. Despite numerous cases of positive mainstream opinions in the past. It seems we can all agree on the good games, but only those qualified can finger the bad.

Some of the fans on AG were very clear in their dismissal of negative opinions from outside the scene, and very vocal about the fact the it takes an adventure fan to offer an acceptable opinion on the quality of an adventure game. I simply chose to question that opinion.

And it baffles me that, yet again, I'm being chastised for simply not agreeing with the majority. This sense of objective quality you speak of doesn't seem to extend to those who express it in the negative.

I have never, on AG or here, said people are wrong for playing and enjoying these games, and, as far as I can recall, I've never expressed an overt wish that people would stop playing them.

I'm just relating how I see the situation. No matter how I package it, though, you're never going to agree with it. I have no problem with that. Why should you?

[Snarky]

I have one priority. I have one taste. I want to enjoy my chosen pastime. I have no allegiance to any one genre, and I don't want to be part of a user base that considers itself some sort of special needs class. You do a great disservice to anyone outside the scene, who may sometimes call these games as they honestly see them, without what you call "prior knowledge" and what I call "fanboy baggage", claiming they are somehow misguided in their use of the criteria they use to rate these games. Despite numerous cases of positive mainstream opinions in the past. It seems we can all agree on the good games, but only those qualified can finger the bad.

I never claimed they were misguided in how they rate the games. I just said that I don't think they're superior. You seem caught in the notion that if one side is right, then the other side must be wrong. For example, if mainstream sites don't like a game, then it must be "sub-standard", and adventure-oriented reviewers are wrong to support it.

Some of the fans on AG were very clear in their dismissal of negative opinions from outside the scene, and very vocal about the fact the it takes an adventure fan to offer an acceptable opinion on the quality of an adventure game.

And I very strongly and very clearly disagreed with that view, as did several others, including the editor of Adventure Gamers.

And it baffles me that, yet again, I'm being chastised for simply not agreeing with the majority. This sense of objective quality you speak of doesn't seem to extend to those who express it in the negative.

I have never, on AG or here, said people are wrong for playing and enjoying these games, and, as far as I can recall, I've never expressed an overt wish that people would stop playing them.

If that's honestly all you think you've been saying, I suggest you take a look at your previous posts and consider what could make someone read it differently. You've gone way further than just expressing your own preference; you're attacking fans and reviewers, blaming them for causing games you don't like to be made. You don't just disagree with the "majority" (I think the idea that commercial adventure games are pretty lacklustre is actually the majority view on this forum), you complain about the fans and reviewers who disagree with you.

[LimpingFish]

I never claimed they were misguided in how they rate the games. I just said that I don't think they're superior. You seem caught in the notion that if one side is right, then the other side must be wrong. For example, if mainstream sites don't like a game, then it must be "sub-standard", and adventure-oriented reviewers are wrong to support it.

I never claimed any superiority was in effect, and I never claimed anybody was "wrong". You said...

"when they're written by different people, for different audiences (with different tastes, prior knowledge and priorities), with different ratings scales"

You never mentioned anything about superiority. You're calling me out on a reply to a statement you have now changed the meaning of. And you're attributing a point of view to me that I have never made statements supporting. You don't agree with me, I get it. But you can disagree with my opinions without the need to attempt to invalidate them.

And I very strongly and very clearly disagreed with that view, as did several others, including the editor of Adventure Gamers.

Again, where did I claim that you didn't? I also never denied that some people agreed with other things I said in that thread. And I was not making myself out to be the lone voice of sense and reason on the AdventureGamers forum, which you seem to believe I have been claiming to be. You also overlook that some (and I used that word previously) people did indeed express their distrust of "outside" opinions.

I'd also like to point out that I didn't start that AG thread, I left a comment on an Art of Murder review. Somebody at AG deemed it necessary to turn my comment into a thread. The fact is, I wasn't putting my opinion forward for debate, as it exists as what it is. An opinion.

If that's honestly all you think you've been saying, I suggest you take a look at your previous posts and consider what could make someone read it differently. You've gone way further than just expressing your own preference; you're attacking fans and reviewers, blaming them for causing games you don't like to be made. You don't just disagree with the "majority" (I think the idea that commercial adventure games are pretty lacklustre is actually the majority view on this forum), you complain about the fans and reviewers who disagree with you.

To be honest, I don't care how people take it. I'm perfectly aware of what I've said and how I've stated my views. How you or others choose to interpret them isn't my concern. If you feel I'm attacking people, that's your prerogative. If you see my opinions as boiling down to "This game is bad, and you're wrong for not admiting it's bad." that's also up to you.

You're ignoring the fact that I have repeatedly said, on both AG and here, that I don't expect people not to play or not enjoy these games, or that I wanted people to stop playing them, or that they should stop playing them. I'm tired of pointing this out. You've chosen to bring the problems of that AG thread to this one, and again blamed me for some overt attack. You seem to fixate on the fact that a lot of people like playing these games, and that because I (ie. the minority) don't, and I express that fact, it's a slight against all those who do. If the consensus is that the commercial scene is, by and large, lacklustre, then where's the problem? I attribute this to a largely lacklustre fanbase, who I feel have settled for what they get. You don't see it this way. Again, I don't have a problem with that.

Again, why should you?

Here's a new thread on AG, which I have had no input into, in which people again raise the possibility that the mainstream is somehow unqualified to rate adventures. Both sides are represented.

[Snarky]

I never claimed any superiority was in effect, and I never claimed anybody was "wrong".

Bullshit:

The fact that some people enjoy them is largely irrelevant [...]. They're still shit.

I regularly see adventure fans and the adventure media supporting sub-standard products that mainstream gaming outlets rate much lower. Maybe this is because the mainstream tends to rate them not as a genre but as individual games. If you treat the adventure game as though it exists in a gaming vacuum, separate from the criteria that other genres are routinely judged on, is it any wonder we constantly end up with nothing more than the mundanely average?

I don't want to be part of a user base that considers itself some sort of special needs class. You do a great disservice to anyone outside the scene, who may sometimes call these games as they honestly see them, without what you call "prior knowledge" and what I call "fanboy baggage"

The clear implication, especially of the highlighted bits, is that the opinions of mainstream reviewers (and yourself) are more valid than those of other adventure gamers and reviewers.

You never mentioned anything about superiority.

So what do you call this?

the notion that [...] a systematic difference between two sets of reviews [...] means that either group is doing something wrong is, well, stupid.

Neither group (mainstream reviewers and adventure game reviewers + fans) is doing anything wrong, neither side has superior judgment, neither side is (in general) inappropriately biased. They just like different things.

You're calling me out on a reply to a statement you have now changed the meaning of. And you're attributing a point of view to me that I have never made statements supporting. You don't agree with me, I get it. But you can disagree with my opinions without the need to attempt to invalidate them.

Funny, I could say exactly the same thing to you. In fact, that's exactly what I have been saying.

Again, where did I claim that you didn't? I also never denied that some people agreed with other things I said in that thread. And I was not making myself out to be the lone voice of sense and reason on the AdventureGamers forum, which you seem to believe I have been claiming to be. You also overlook that some (and I used that word previously) people did indeed express their distrust of "outside" opinions.

You were clearly associating me with those opinions. In fact, you as much as attributed them to me in the preceding paragraph. ("You do a great disservice to anyone outside the scene [...] claiming they are somehow misguided in their use of the criteria they use to rate these games. [...] It seems we can all agree on the good games, but only those qualified can finger the bad.") So I think it's quite disingenuous of you to say that you didn't "claim" I said otherwise.

And what's the relevance of some stupid stuff someone else said, anyway? Just because some people make a close-minded argument one way and are wrong, doesn't mean that turning it around and making the same argument the other way makes you right. Complaints about the bias of mainstream reviewers against adventures and complaints against the bias of adventure reviewers for adventures are equally flawed.

You're ignoring the fact that I have repeatedly said, on both AG and here, that I don't expect people not to play or not enjoy these games, or that I wanted people to stop playing them, or that they should stop playing them. I'm tired of pointing this out.

You can keep denying that you're saying people shouldn't do it, but as long as you keep complaining about people doing it, that's just a quibble. As I said, you're attacking fans and reviewers, blaming them for causing games you don't like to be made ("I largely blame 'adventure fans' and the adventure media for this situation [bad games]").

You've chosen to bring the problems of that AG thread to this one, and again blamed me for some overt attack. You seem to fixate on the fact that a lot of people like playing these games, and that because I (ie. the minority) don't, and I express that fact, it's a slight against all those who do.

That's exactly what I have not been "fixating on", so I'll just copy-paste the last line from my last post: You don't just disagree with the "majority", you complain about the fans and reviewers who disagree with you.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well, not to take the wind out of the sails of this two-man argument here, but:

Just because YOU don't personally enjoy or appreciate something doesn't mean others cannot honestly do so.

Is something I can make a qualified agreement with, Snarky; qualified because, as I stated earlier, I think adventure gamers these days (and I honestly believe this) are quite starved for games of any quality and will, like a parched man in a desert, drink dirty water from an old boot and love it because that's all there is.  I'm not exactly saying that Vampyre Story is quite that awful, but it has some obvious, glaring flaws that in a more competitive age would've seen it in the bargain bin.

I fully admit that I just did not like the game; I absolutely did not find the humor to be witty or up to par, nor did the puzzles seem particularly well thought out for the most part (I even broke the game twice), and I believe this problem to be worsened by the memory inventory scenario.  The memory concept is one thing that infuriated me because it seems created for padding purposes, to make Mona go back to one area to pick something up, then pop somewhere else to get another thing, and so on.  Some of these events are brief, and thankfully you can skip them, but it still begs the question, 'why?'.  And I've already discussed her superhuman inconsistencies, so I won't go into that again.

And yeah, I'm bringing this topic back on track since it is about Vampyre Story specifically and not adventure games in general.

[Snarky]

I watched the trailer for A Vampyre Story and pretty much determined that it wasn't for me. The intended comedy didn't raise a hint of a smile, and other than Bill Tiller's nice-looking backdrops, there seemed to be little else to recommend the purchase. Word has been decidedly mixed on the final product, too. If there are dead ends, that's indeed something I'd find pretty underwhelming (I'm holding out the possibility that there was some alternate solution or other way out that you didn't discover).

I guess it's plausible that some people really are that desperate for new, good adventures, but I really see no reason why they should be. To refer again to AG, they've reviewed 25 games from 2008 (and several games from 2007 and earlier that only got their English release this year). Of those 25, 14 got 3.5 stars or higher, 7 got 4 stars or higher. That's a lot of games with very respectable scores. Now, you could of course argue that the grades are inflated (3 of those 4-star games are Sam & Max titles, which the regular AG reviewer likes quite a lot more than I--for one--do), but among these there seems to be at least a handful of enjoyable games (I haven't heard a bad word against Perry Rhodan, for example). How many full-length adventures does one person consume per year, anyway?

I've always felt, rather, that the vast back catalogue of classic games, as well as the constant output of AGS titles, is more than enough to keep me occupied from here to eternity. Starved for adventures? No, stuffed! I bought Tales of Bingwood a few weeks ago (there's also a demo), and I still have no idea when I'll get around to playing it.

[Ozzie]

A patch was released today, by the way. Supposedly it removes the dead ends and fixes some other bugs. I have no idea if it works with the english version.

[MrColossal]

I had never heard of Bingwood even though I read indiegames blog regularly... It looks [visually] totally cute! Tell how it is when you get around to it

[LimpingFish]

I seem to be spending the majority of this thread defending my right to be a cynical opinionated pessimistic snob!

The clear implication, especially of the highlighted bits, is that the opinions of mainstream reviewers (and yourself) are more valid than those of other adventure gamers and reviewers.

The clear implication is that I consider a number of outside negative adventure reviews, of games that may have received positive ones within the scene, are sometimes treated as misinformed opinions without any proof beyond "I wouldn't trust them because they aren't adventure fans/don't 'like' adventure games". This is the crux of my argument. My problem is that some fans (that's some, just to be clear) use this to dismiss opinions they don't agree with. I think you agreed with me that, if this is the case, an adventure fan who holds this opinion would be in the wrong. Where we disagree is in the extent such opinions influence the scene, and the potential damage it does. And you're accusing me of using a mirror argument to justify my own opinions. Which is, of course, your right.

I don't inherently think there is a right side, which you seem to feel I consider myself part of. I consider myself to be the sum of my parts and trust my own criteria regarding the quality of commercial adventures. I not saying I'm the only person who thinks this way, or that I've uncovered some sort of heinous conspiracy. I'm just making an observation, based on my own experiences. You seem to be angry that I hold these opinions, or angry that I've put them in writing, I'm not sure which.

The fact that some people enjoy them is largely irrelevant [...]. They're still shit.

Yes. I do consider hunt-the-junk games to be nothing but a rancid tramp's cock pus. You may feel this is unfair. You may also extrapolate from this my supposed disdain for the people who play them, which is inconsequential as far as I see. And why should you care, anyway? But you've used my specific opinion towards these games to help validate your disagreement concerning my unwarranted "attack" on the adventure scene as a whole.

I regularly see adventure fans and the adventure media supporting sub-standard products that mainstream gaming outlets rate much lower. Maybe this is because the mainstream tends to rate them not as a genre but as individual games. If you treat the adventure game as though it exists in a gaming vacuum, separate from the criteria that other genres are routinely judged on, is it any wonder we constantly end up with nothing more than the mundanely average?

Yep, that's my opinion alright. I don't think I'm portraying this opinion as a scene-encompassing fact. It might be a bit of a generalization, sure, if indeed the adventure media treats the adventure game in this way. You hold that it doesn't, I think. I get to why I formed this opinion further along.

I don't want to be part of a user base that considers itself some sort of special needs class. You do a great disservice to anyone outside the scene, who may sometimes call these games as they honestly see them, without what you call "prior knowledge" and what I call "fanboy baggage"

Who may sometimes call these games as they honestly see them...By this I mean if somebody (ie. an Adventure Fan) says that it takes a special kind of understanding of the adventure game (as some have said in the past), as an entity, to offer an honest informed opinion on one. Which to me is akin to applying a handicap before judging a game based on it's merits, as it begins from a point seemingly beyond the need to address the inherent problems repeated in a number of commercial titles (what I see as problems, anyway) because, as far as I see, these genre foibles (as I've referred to them in the past) have been accepted as par-for-the-course. And an adventure fan is indeed doing a disservice to these outside opinions, if they attempt to invalidate them using this particular argument, in my opinion. I'm not saying all adventure media reviews are thus void, just as I'm not saying all outside reviews are thus validated. It's just an opinion based on a theory.

the notion that [...] a systematic difference between two sets of reviews [...] means that either group is doing something wrong is, well, stupid.

Yes. It is. That's why I have a problem with those adventure fans who claim otherwise. I don't think I said a positive scene review vs a negative outside review automatically means someone is misinformed. Just that we might question why, if we choose to rule out personal preference, such situations arise. The whole crux thing again. And the mirror thing too, I guess.

They just like different things.

I honestly don't think it's as simple as differing opinions, when it comes to some adventure fans objections to an outside negative review.

You were clearly associating me with those opinions.

I'm sorry you feel that way. My "you do a disservice" should have really been "one does a disservice", as that's how it was meant, to avoid this misunderstanding.

Now, you could of course argue that the grades are inflated (3 of those 4-star games are Sam & Max titles, which the regular AG reviewer likes quite a lot more than I--for one--do), but among these there seems to be at least a handful of enjoyable games (I haven't heard a bad word against Perry Rhodan, for example). How many full-length adventures does one person consume per year, anyway?

So you agree with me in theory. Only I'm more pessimistic: "...but among these there seems to be at least a handful of average titles, that might pass the time." As to how many I could play, I'd be happy with one game that I could say really impressed me, as opposed to a few that were mundanely passable. Though this is of course a case of horses, courses, potato, tomato, etc.

I've always felt, rather, that the vast back catalogue of classic games, as well as the constant output of AGS titles, is more than enough to keep me occupied from here to eternity.

Which leads us out of "The Problems with Commercial Adventures" and into "Why Rely on Commercial Adventures". I wholeheartedly agree that the amatuer and indie scene gives use a multitude of quality games to play. Which is why the commercial side is largely such a disappointment to me. The past was great, and I could replay games like Full Throttle and Hit the Road, among others, every year or so and still enjoy them. But that doesn't really have any bearing on my problems with current commercial titles, or my opinions regarding why these problems exist. Opinions that you clearly disagree with.

So there you have it. Whether any of this is a fact, an opinion, or just an attack, is up to the individual.

Snarky, you don't seem to like how I choose to interpret, justly or unjustly, my experiences within the scene. It's not something I intend to continue arguing indefinitely, as I also tend to lose track of my reasons for arguing the longer something goes on. I don't think it makes a hell of a lot of difference whether you feel I'm being unfair or not, as I've said what I said and people can take whatever they want from it. It's just how I see things, flawed or otherwise.

I apologise to Misj' for helping hijack this thread. Further insanity will be kept to the topic at hand.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Wow, that Tales of Bingwood game is pretty cool, Snarky!  The voices are good (so far), the backgrounds are delicious, and it even uses a standard interface.  The character art isn't all that great, but it's not bad by any means.  Hopefully the full game lets you skip the tutorial though since it's pretty safe to say that people could easily figure out the icons by their appearance.

I might just have to buy it, depending on the cost (looks like the price is right at about 10.30 US).

Edit:  Yay, I bought it! 

[SSH]

I bought Tales of Bingwood a few weeks ago (there's also a demo), and I still have no idea when I'll get around to playing it.

I've played it through and will be writing up my review for AG soon. Beware that there's a patch (v1.01) that fixes a bug in saving games in Vista (i.e. v1.00 can't save your game at all in Vista!)

[GarageGothic]

Personally I found A Vampyre Story quite dull. The jokes didn't make me laugh, gameplay was painfully tedious, and while the idea and setting was interesting, nothing really original or surprising came out of that regurgitation of horror movie cliches and on-the-nose references.  I mean, how hilarious is it that the two policemen are called Bud and Lou?

The idea of adding concepts to the inventory is pretty obvious but nevertheless a welcome addition. However, they totally overuse it, to the extent that items that would make perfect sense to pick up must be retrieved later. And why the hell do we have to see the character retrieving the item? Sure, as ProgZ said you can skip the animations - but you still have to wait for the room to load, which we didn't even need to see - we know that the item is there, why not just have the characters fly offscreen and return with the item?

Another thing that really bothers me is the idea that progress doesn't give new possibilities as much as it just adds more obstacles. For crying out loud, the first half of the game is pretty much an extended "escape my house" puzzle. And every time you think you've succeeded, something gets in the way and adds yet another stage to the same bloody puzzle. This seems to be the trend also in other game genres, for instance shooters like F.E.A.R or the original Half-Life for that matter. Whenever you seem to the brink of escape, something explodes, your helicopter gets shot down, the elevator doors close a second before you get there, and you're sent on yet another expedition through the research complex or whatnot.
There's never any real sense of achievement, you don't feel like you're progressing as much as being redirected. And exactly for this reason, what ultimately convinced me not to buy any of the sequels to A Vampyre Story, was the ending:

Spoiler

Yay, I'm thinking as the carriage with grave dirt speeds down the cemetery hill, we're finally getting away from this bloody place.  I know that this is a series and there won't be any neat conclusion to the plot this time around. But at least I'm heading for the harbor where the ship that will take me to Paris is docked. I start imagining walking the streets of Paris in the sequel, maybe meeting some parodies of Anne Rice's foppish vampires while charming my way into the Paris opera circles. That could be pretty fun. Then, another cutscene, a plot twist, and suddenly - Coming Soon: Further Adventures in Draxylvania. Apparently they can't do a horror parody without also revisiting the Frankenstein/mad scientist stereotype, so no leaving Draxylvania until that's been milked for whatever jokes Mel Brooks didn't already use in Young Frankenstein. Sigh.

[close]

Sam & Max: Night of the Raving Dead was SO much better than this.

[Vel]

Even if I hesitated whether to replay The Last Express or try A Vampyre Story, your post made me choose the former, GG. It's about time adventure games became something else than mundane.

[LimpingFish]

Downloaded Bingwood demo. Never heard of it before. Looks nice. The main characters voice doesn't annoy, which is always a plus. Some of the NPC voices might begin to grate if exposed to them for a long time, but they suit well enough. I liked the tutorial at the beginning, since it managed to sum up everything quite well. Backgrounds were nice too, though the character art is a bit generic. I don't seem to be able to tolerate the old "I can't do that/that won't work" way of telling the player something they are attempting to do can't be done (I tried using the shovel on the lock at the shed, and I would've liked a specific reply, rather than "I can't combine these things") but that's just me being picky. Good use of music, too.

It does seem to be another rescue-the-princess ye olde fantasy affair, with stock character types, but, judging from the demo, it's all very nicely put together.

Comparing the demos, I'd see myself playing this over A Vampyre Story, simply because AVS strikes me as having no arse in it's, admittedly pretty, trousers.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well having bought Bingwood I have to say it's quite reasonably priced, though I will also add that I don't think it's worth any more than what they're charging.  It is a pretty standard fare adventure in all respects, and yeah, the characters are rather drab compared to the backgrounds, but I think the retro charm is something that makes it so appealing to me.  It does very much play like an old 90's adventure game (including the stock interaction replies) and so far I feel it's worth the price. 

The same couldn't be said for my first few minutes with the demo of Vampyre Story and then the entire game.

And yeah, I think the music in Bingwood ranges from brilliant to very Monkey Islandish (especially the music when you're about to do something sneaky, which was a nice touch).

[HillBilly]

Was there ever any good - truly good - adventure game? - Commercial or not...? [...] Curse of Monkey Island is one of my personal favourites, but is it flawless?

Was there ever a flawless game ever? I can't think of one. The ones that actually entertain me are considered mediocre by most.

I bought Tales of Bingwood a few weeks ago (there's also a demo)

Thanks for this. I really like the voice-acting, especially the main character.

On-Topic: I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said. Jokes doesn't make me laugh and the main character annoys me. I have no idea why they chose to have shitty 3D-characters instead of 2D art. The character art in the book during the intro had so much more, well, character than the actual game!

[Misj']

I bought Tales of Bingwood a few weeks ago (there's also a demo)

Looked at the demo...threw it away again after a few minutes. Definitely not my kind of game. But then again,  I don't like retro graphics, so that should have been a hint. I got bored quite soon so I stopped playing. Decided to give it another go, found that I couldn't skip the annoying (and unfunny) intro-dream-sequence (since I hadn't saved), and decided that I wouldn't play it if it were free, so let alone if I had to pay money for it. I'll stick to a Vampyre Story...at least I find that amusing and wanting me to continue playing (apparently I'm one of the few people here who does). This I just wanted to remove from my computer as soon as possible.

To everyone his own taste.

Ps. Had I listened to the people here I might have decided that aVS would have been a waste of money, and I would not have been playing it right now...well...now that would have been a real waste.

[Frodo]

Just tried the demo.

The demo itself is okay - not great, just okay.  I like the 'remember things for later' idea, and the puzzle was quite clever. 
Her vampire strength was mentioned before.  If she can pull the cart, why can't she break the door. 

But her high-pitched, squeaky voice is SO irritating.   

[Scummbuddy]

I've read on Mixnmojo that her English voice is more tolerable in the game, than that of in the demo. Perhaps it is that you just get used to it, but I can say I too was put off a bit by her striking voice. I do plan on picking up the game though.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Mixnmojo is full of crap .  Her voice is identical in the full game, so why would it be any easier to tolerate?

Fwodewick my nowse is cowd!  Where is that wascally wabbit?

[Snarky]

People have been saying on the AG Forums too that her voice sounds different in the full game. Same actor and same accent, but not as high-pitched or something.

[Snarky]

.

[GarageGothic]

It could be that the demo uses harder compression which makes her voice sound more whiny. But I think it's also a matter of getting used to it when playing the full game. I still don't like the voice casting though, and skipped most of the audio as soon as I had read the text (annoyingly, some lines of dialogue are too long to display, so you have to wait for the line to be said so the text scrolls down).

[Secret Fawful]

You know, so far I've gone through the full game and I'll say this, I think you are all being way too harsh on the game. Some of you have complained that the first part of the game is just an escape from the house puzzle, and oh wait a minute, did you happen to forget she was trapped there by the vampire's curse? So, would you suggest it just skips over that and allows her to leave as she wishes?

Adding more obstacles is called...oh...puzzles...if I remember right. And her voice isn't really all that annoying? What makes it so annoying? I think it fits the character. She's not exactly smart. I mean she thought a drawing of herself taped to her mirror was her reflection! So yes, she's an absolute dolt, and I think her voice matches perfectly.

What I find strange is that once an adventure game comes along with a good sense of humor, or what tries to be anyway, you all treat it as if it's trash and the absolutely most horrible product you could have gotten. The first LA style game out there, a few things are off and we suddenly rate it 1/10? I call that a case of butthurt. Oh, and uh, don't respond by saying, well I rated it a 4/10 or whatever. It's an example and that reply would be a straw man.

Now am I saying the game is perfect? No. But it's no so bad as to garner the extreme amount of hate it has been getting. The humor plays as if I wrote it. All right, that basically means it's about moderately funny with some gems here or there. And the voice work is really good as far as I'm concerned. The 3D work wasn't absolute trash. It was yards ahead of Escape From Monkey Island at least I can say. What do you want? Fallout 3? The puzzle structure was sound, and the puzzles fit. However the game has the same feeling that a lot of the later LA games such as GF and CMI has. I think this is it's problem. It doesn't have a magical or atmospheric feel. It's more of an interesting setting with funny characters and situations, but no heart. There's no heart in this game, that is the main problem I would address. Without heart it's just a fun time, but it's no Secret of Monkey Island. However, it's no Escape From Monkey Island either.

Give the game the credit it deserves for being the first adventure game in years to at least rank among some of LA's last greats.

FT  10/10
GF 10/10
CMI 9/10
AVS 6/10
EMI 3/10

Keep in mind TTG's first outings were not nearly as great as the current ones such as Strong Bad and Sam and Max Season 2. Like all baby companies, this one just needs to find it's footing before it really takes off. I won't compare it to a large scale company, because time doesn't mean a whole lot when a company has as many problems as AVS had.

In a years time I bet AME will really gain more respect and experience.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

What I find strange is that once an adventure game comes along with a good sense of humor, or what tries to be anyway, you all treat it as if it's trash and the absolutely most horrible product you could have gotten. The first LA style game out there, a few things are off and we suddenly rate it 1/10? I call that a case of butthurt. Oh, and uh, don't respond by saying, well I rated it a 4/10 or whatever. It's an example and that reply would be a straw man.

1.  Good sense of humor is your opinion, nothing more or less.  It seems that most people here so far disagree with you, however.

2.  I don't think anyone said (though they would be well within their rights to do so) it's the worst thing ever, but people who have paid for it are (and rightfully so) airing grievances about the variances in production values, voice cast, and bizarre/broken puzzle design.

3.  Don't tell people how they can or cannot respond to your statements, that's just trying to head off any criticism directed at your comments and it makes you look childish.

4.  The old 'strawman gag's' a bit played out, I think.  We need to come up with something else to use to try and win arguments, like supporting statements. 

5.  I disagree that the 3d is yards ahead of Escape From Monkey Island beyond what improvements modern computing offers.  The 3d look for Vampyre Story, in my view, lacks personality and suffers from Bland Syndrome.  Shrowdy (post-undeath) in particular looks terrible, and his cloth tatters move in a jaggy, poorly animated fashion.  I never felt visually cheated by Escape, but tastes vary.

6.  One point we do agree on is that the game lacks any kind of center, a heart, the energy to make the player feel the game is more than the sum of its parts.  Tales of Bingwood, for its clear lack of production values, also clearly showed me that heart went into the design. 

7.  Why should anyone have to give Vampyre Story credit?  And what does it exactly deserve credit for?  There's absolutely no way I'd ever rank it among some of Lucasarts fine games because it falls so short in so many categories, the most important for me being fun factor.  Hell, I absolutely love horror themes in games and I was completely unimpressed by every aspect of this adventure, and when it comes right down to it, Vampyre Story was just a total bore for me to play.  When you spend time just grinding drawn-out puzzles with pointless backtracking to move on to the next puzzle you realize there's just no story here, or so little they had to pad it with their special memory interface.  And I wouldn't consider trial-and-error puzzle design ever to be a sound structure.  You should not have to progress through a game by way of failure first, and too many of the puzzles in the game seem written by someone who thinks they're too smart for you; so smart indeed that you can't possibly figure out the solution yourself, so what you need to do is fail first.  Sometimes repeatedly.  I've mentioned a couple of these in a prior post.

Another issue you bring up is Mona's actual character.  Yeah, they do portray her to be somewhat daft, but other times she appears clever, and then sometimes it appears she wasn't daft at all but is living in denial - so which is it?  All three?  And yeah, I found her voice intolerable at times, and sadly, it did not grow on me or become cute or otherwise forgivable.  Her voice is a strange mix of pseudo-french stereotypes and Elmer Fudd and the result just isn't very good.  And in spite of the whole Peter Lorre impression being done to death, Shrowdy's is one of the weaker attempts I've heard in awhile.  If you want my honest opinion, I think Grundislav did a much better job of pretending to sound like an irate chinaman in Limey Lizard than Mona does of sounding like a ditzy french opera star.  He also does a damn fine Walken impression, but that's another story!

I don't have much to say about the music because it's so subtle and underused that there really is nothing to say, and I think that goes for the game as well.  Nothing about it particularly stands out or grabs me and says 'you must play this game!'

[Misj']

Hell, I absolutely love horror themes in games and I was completely unimpressed by every aspect of this adventure, and when it comes right down to it, Vampyre Story was just a total bore for me to play. 

You thought this was (going to be) a horror themed game?   

That's weird....

[SSH]

You thought this was (going to be) a horror themed game?   

That's weird....

What a fool for thinking a game about vampires would be horror themed!

[Eggie]

I've always used horror-themed to mean 'themed around things which are associated with horror without actually being in the horror genre' so AVS fits that term rather neatly in my opinion.

[LimpingFish]

What I've seen of AVS, aside from some nice art, doesn't make me want to play the full product. Not because I don't like comedy-horror, or cartoony art, or games that ape LucasArts, but because it strikes me as a distinctly average game. People may tell me the full game is better, but if that is the case, why put out a demo of the worst part of your game? I get the impression, based on other opinions in this thread, that the game won't be any better. Just longer.

This is clearly enough for some people.

[ManicMatt]

And it's not like I was ready to shoot this game down in flames, because I was genuinely interested in this game and had high hopes for it. So if anything, my disapointment comes from high expectations.

AVS story's 3D characters would only appear better than Escape from Monkey Island in the same sense that Tomb Raider underworld looks better than Tomb Raider 1 on the psone. So that's a rather silly comment to make.