Well hello everyone,
I have something I want to talk to everyone about. I am a tremendous Terry Pratchett fan, i've read ALL the books. And I've read them multiple times, I'm not kidding I've reread "feet of clay" aproximately 7 or 8 times. And I am PISSED about the atrocity of Discworld Noir. The animation and graphics are awful, cheap badly rendered, underdesigned trash. The interface is highly illogical and at a guess I would have to say wasn't even so much as designed as farted into the game. And don't get me started on the voice acting.
I could do better voices trashed out of head on alcohol and cold medicine.
The game itself has potential... sooooo much, but whoever made it simply raped the concept till it was unrecognizably shit. I would illustrate it in a style reminicant of Paul Kidby but more cartoony, and simplied.
Who else wants to remake this game? Because it could really be something, besides awful.
PS. Anyone ever thought this way about other games? That remaking them would be better than playing them.
I've never had a BSOD on a playstation game before.
Seriously, I got a blue screen and an error warning me I'd run out of memory.
On a console.
Although, I did actually like the interface. I thought the whole clues and questioning system was good.
The interface for questioning is ok, but takes forever to navigate. Its never explained that question items and inventory items are combinable. And the smell system leaves a fair bit to be desired.
I thought Disworld Noir wasn't perfect, but it had an innovative inventory and some very inventive puzzles. I loved both the clue and the smell system.
Obviously, you didn't enjoy it as much as me, so I wonder why you'd want it remade. Why not suggest a completely new discworld game instead?
Feet of Clay is also one of my favourites.
I bought it when it came out on the playstation and I remember being cheesed off that it was over too quickly for 40 quid. The interface was a bit awkward, but the clues and questioning were good. I also remember it crashing a few times..
I thought Discworld Noir was a really nice game, with a nice plot, good voice acting and decent graphics/well, for its time, at least/. I think it doesn't need a remake, not at all. Why don't you make a game, based on say, "Feet of Clay''/which is probably also my favourite discworld novel/ instead?
I don't think it needs a remake. I loved the voice-acting, and I thought the system of investigation was very good. Also, over too quickly? Which version were you playing?
discworld noir was fantastic!
besides, legally you couldnt do that could you?
The voice acting in Discworld Noir is superb. Pretty much everything is really, aside from the 3-second-long animation loops. Among the best adventures ever.
I really liked it as well. Alot of people would probably wonder why you were remaking it. Wasn't it generally well recieved when it was first released?
I don't understand how anyone can like the voice acting.... its awful well the male characters anyway. The way the game is made just annoys and frustrates me.
Quote from: KANDYMAN-IAC on Tue 08/08/2006 13:24:02
The way the game is made just annoys and frustrates me.
yes. i quite often find myself annoyed and frustrated by programming, graphics design and scriptwriting, etc etc.
Quote from: KANDYMAN-IAC on Tue 08/08/2006 13:24:02
I don't understand how anyone can like the voice acting.... its awful well the male characters anyway. The way the game is made just annoys and frustrates me.
Oh come on - Rob Brydon as the P.I. Brilliant stuff. I very much enjoyed the voice-acting.
rob brydon was good as lewton, he must be a good impressionist, cuz he sounded nothing like keith barrett and all his other stuff
Rob Brydon is an excellent mimic, Keith Barrett isn't exactly his real voice either. I didn't know he was Lewton, he was in Discworld 1 too.
On topic, I also think the voice acting in Noir was good. Better than a great many other games I could mention.
he was discworld 1?
i didnt know that! who was he?
and i just remembered he would have to be a good impressionist. he was on spitting image
Discworld Noir is the base inspiration for almost every game I've ever made. Without it there would have been no Max Griff, nor Shivah, and BoE would have been totally different.
I loooved this game so much. The noir tough-guy fantasy thing was unseen in adventure games before, and I thought Lewton fit rather well. I think Discworld Noir is definitely the best of the three, since Discworld 1 & 2 were a bit too goofy/cartoony for my tastes.
The only thing I really remember annoying me about Discworld Noir was that it takes forever to chat with some of the characters. That guy in the sculpture shop, for example. You click on him, and you have to wait for the man to move into just the right position before he'll talk to you, and he moves slow.
The clues-as-inventory and smells-as-inventory was totally inspired. I'm surprised more games haven't tried a clue system like that.
Anyway, if you really want to do a remake go right ahead. But why bother? Just make another discworld game if you're hungry for more.
It's an ambituous thought, remaking a commercial discworld game. I'm a voracious reader of the discworld novels myself, especially the city watch books, and heavens, I guess it's impossible to make a DW game that pleases only half the audience. The beauty of the discworld, as far as I'm concerned, is that any reader can put so much into the characters. Pratchett has a knack at giving you only SO much information that you know on what lines to think. The city watch has been starred in a comic book and the first DW game, and it has been depicted on the covers, yet still I know there is a "my personal version" of Sam Vimes. For me it is the "correct" one, a sort of mediveal Clint Eastwood with a bad shave. I never liked the cover artwork by Kirby and prefer the newer covers by Kidby.
Back on topic- you want to remake the game. But the things you mention to be "bad" - plot and voice acting, not being faithful to the books, bad interface- would take a team of professionals with BIG CASH quite a long time. And I'm sure there's no Give The Dean A Huge Bag Of Money Goblin around. Assuming you are a freelancer like most people around here, it sounds too ambituous. As much as I'd like to get my hands on another Discworld game, I just don't think your project can be completed... Why not "borrowing" the discworld setting and make an own game, an own story? I think it's save to say that you can get away with it, though I heard that Terry Pratchett can come down very hard on stuff that he think of as "inappropriate"... I could just image a small game with one of the side characters or frequent appareances- a one-room-game where you play Dibbler, trying to sell a sausage in a bun, or a game starring Susan Sto Helit (I'd love to see that!).
But remaking a pro game (even one that does have a lot of flaws), no. Sorry if this sounds harsh. I just think that the though is way out of league.
I think that if you recruit some of the AFP L-Space crew, you can almost certainly get a decent volunteer-written story out of it, and possibly even support from Pterry himself; he's one of the few authors that is active in newsgrouping.
I never said it wasn't faithful to the books... and i didn't said that it has a bad plot. My gripes are interface, graphics, and voice acting.
Voice Acting being the number one, I can't understand how anyone can like lewtons voice. I'm sorry I just don't get it.
I really thought other people would agree with these points in some way, each to their own I guess.
EDIT>
I'll never like Lewtons voice, EVER. He is too fake as a tough PI, and the voice is badly produced (vocally), and poorly acted. Also I'm really pissed that to make Vimes voice they artifically raised the pitch of someones recording, you can hear it and it sound sooooo cheap, plus it makes the character sound weak and prissy and brittle.
The only Voice in the game I liked was Nobby. I thought he was actually good.
I disagree with most of your criticisms, but you're absolutely right about Vimes. They game made him posh and snippy, and he's neither of those things.
I don't think that's just to do with voice acting, the character of Vimes was distorted (I suspect) in order to distinguish him from Lewton. Vimes is my favourite character and I do remember being irritated by that, but I don't think it damages the game overall.
When it comes to voice acting a pre-defined character, it's impossible to please everybody. Some people have already commented that the voice acting for "Shivah" won't match what they had in their heads, and the voiced version isn't even out yet!
I can only agree totally with what both AGA and Dave said - Discworld Noir is still among one of my favourite adventure games ever. It has flaws, sure, such as the animation loops already mentioned, but on the whole I enjoy it immensly, because of the athmosphere, the dialogue, the music, the storyline, the interface, etc, etc... I don't know, it just appeals to me on so many levels, not only because I'm a huge Pratchett/Discworld-fan.
And I too like the voice-acting ,even though I can understand why you don't - A game where there is basically just four people doing all voices obviously makes for a "Hey, isn't that the same voice?"-situation which might take away from the "realism" and immersion in the game. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, and like the voice-acting throughout all three Discworld-games.
So if you ask me, there's no need for a remake at all, even though a new Discworld game would be very welcome, of course...
Nigel Planer does his Neil voice too. That was great.
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Tue 08/08/2006 16:13:34
When it comes to voice acting a pre-defined character, it's impossible to please everybody.Ã,Â
I should clarify that it wasn't just the voice acting for Vimes that bothered me, they changed his character altogether in order for him to be the villain of the piece. In fact he behaved more like Captain Quirk. That's a small point though, it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the game.
I totally agree with AGA and disagree with with you, Kandyman. Having been an avid reader of Pratchett and the owner of all the games, I utterly loved Discworld Noir. Sure, some of the animations are a bit long-winded and the game might have some bugs, but otherwise, it's quite perfect. I even love the graphics and voice acting for being really quirky and not what you might expect. I also gotta mension that the game is a perfect length. It's very long, but you can't get bored and it's thusfar sustained multiple replays.
I also thought of making a remake or even a small sequel, but mostly because of the shortcomings of the original engine. for example, the model of Lewton looks quite crappy in-game. The other characters are images, so they don't really pose the same problem. As far as design goes, I would rather like to replicate the old style rather than attempt the impossible of any better design :D.
Quote from: Ali on Tue 08/08/2006 17:00:37
I should clarify that it wasn't just the voice acting for Vimes that bothered me, they changed his character altogether in order for him to be the villain of the piece. In fact he behaved more like Captain Quirk. That's a small point though, it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the game.
True, to a point. I didn't mind how Vimes was voiced, because the game was from Lewton's point of view. Lewton hates Vimes, with what he feels are good reasons. It felt kind of "right" that Vimes was portrayed negatively. It goes against what we know from the books, but the game isn't from the usual point of view...
I liked the game... There were a few things I hated though. For instance, the notebook sound and the way you have to check a whole bunch of pages. Vimes was absolutely awfull. Leonardo's accent was way over the top and it was really annoying.
As for the character design, most characters looked really ugly.
Spoiler
I realise the dwarf had to look like Peter Lore but they made him hideous. And Gaspod? UGLE!
If someone like Paul Kidby made the character design this game would have been 200% better. I like the game, but it doesn't feel really discworldish. The feel of the game is different from the books, so they should have made the characters closer to the originals.
I wouldn't mind a remake, but it has to be made really good. Hard task.
Regarding Vimes, here are some interesting snippets from an interview with DWN writer/designer Chris Bateman (http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,204):
Quote[Terry Pratchett's] biggest change in the latter stages was making us rerecord Vimes' voice—he wasn't happy with the original recording sessions for that character.
Quote...during script writing it became apparent that Lewton was the person Vimes would have been if just one decision had been made differently... a sort of mirror-universe Vimes. That was the origin of the conflict between the two characters within the story.
I have avidly loved Discworld Noir for many years. To critisize it is to critisize the best adventure game which wasn't made by LucasArts or Sierra.
Also, seeing as it's Leuton telling the story, it's perfectly plausible that he could have changed a few things to make Vimes look bad. Same goes with the voice. :P
- Huw
PS: A fan-sequel of Noir would be very very good...
Lewton. Weeks after playing that game I'd walk around the house talking EXACTLY LIKE HIM. I loved that voice.
I've (tried to) read feet of clay, and I didn't like it at all. So I never got into Pratchett. Discworld 2 had some infuriatingly illogical puzzles, probably made worse by my lack of discworld knowledge. So I never finished that one, and they talked for too long.
However, Discworld Noir, I adored. I even happily put up with the overly long conversations this time. the graphics (on the PSone) were awful, and at time I recall I could see "blocks" or "squares" around people where they'd been put into the game. Do you know what I mean? Well it looked glitchy anyway.
I lent the game to my brother and his boyfriend lost it. Dang. Maybe one day I will buy it on the PC. I also liked the smell thing. The only thing I'd like to see improved is the graphics really.
Quote from: KANDYMAN-IAC on Tue 08/08/2006 15:36:56
I never said it wasn't faithful to the books... and i didn't said that it has a bad plot. My gripes are interface, graphics, and voice acting.
sorry, my bad Ã, :P So you're still aiming at making a remake with better graphics and voice acting, which still seems quite a task to me.
Quote from: Krysis on Wed 09/08/2006 06:32:18
If someone like Paul Kidby made the character design this game would have been 200% better. I like the game, but it doesn't feel really discworldish.
I think if he had, we'd get more detail - but since the game was resolutely 3D, it's uncertain how well his art style would have translated.
dont remake it is my opinion.
you'll just be insulted like yodaman was
KANDYMAN's track record is somewhat more impressive than yoda, but still I'm with those who say "Don't do a remake, make your OWN game". It would be a waste of his talents, I think.
I'm pretty much with most of the people here - do your own Discworld game, don't just remake Discworld Noir.
Just do your own game period.
I quite liked Discworld Noir, even with my common hatred of all things Pratchett.
I don't see a need for it to be remade, although I really don't see a need for ANY game to be remade.
But that's just me...