Trans. of foreign AGS reviews - upd. 05/10/05 Sam&Max comics translation

Started by jaz, Wed 05/05/2004 10:39:58

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jaz

The Hamlet, here you go:


The Hamlet â€" a dramatic detective story

Recently released point and click adventure The Hamlet is an example of brilliant storytelling. A detective story is presented in dramatic way and clever dosage of information helps to create  great  atmosphere. Will you accept an invitation to a little town where strange things happen?

When your friend invites you to his countryside place over Christmas it's either A) time for a deep meditation on meaning of life or B)just about the right time to grab a backpack, three pairs of clean socks and go. The hero of cartoony point and click adventure The Hamlet is  a doer, in spite of all dark aspects of his personality and he opts for B. But imagine his surprise when he finally arrives to the place only to find the house deserted, locked and a little note saying: „Gone for a few days“. After short consequent periods of fury-despair - spleen â€" and another seizure of fury the pragmatic approach towards dealing with mysterious situations steps in. And, what a wonder, he soon  finds out that somebody other wrote the note. What the hell is going on here?

Hard to say but probably nothing good. The only way to see  is to break into the house and find out the answer. A detective story with a twist of psychological drama for those who want to discover it together with good storytelling keep the atmosphere at a level which is not half bad, even though the exposition and denouement of the game are not very original. The pacing of the game is great and the authors don't hesitate to include almost an action sequence when it's necessary to keep the game credible. Also the game is not spoiled by superfluous and illogical puzzles.

Even screens with empty houses which would normally be criticised are there for reason as they help to create an illusion of deserted countryside where city folk rarely wanders to and where last few stubborn locals hold tight.

The Hamlet is rather short game even compared to other freeware titles but this game leaves even slightly soft-brained players full of impressions. Some later scenes, which content is better not to give away not to spoil the enjoyment, are very emotionally strong. But there is still one flaw I would like to point out. The game's end is too open for a Marlow-esque detective story. Everything is explained in plain English and there is no space for the bitter feeling on the tip of the tongue and a bit of uncertainity in mind if everything really had to be like it most probably was.

The Hamlet is a product of AGS community's interesting summer contest. Members of different teams randomly formed larger groups with ambitions to create larger and more complex games

No game had been finished when the deadline came but in the end „The Team Competition's“ yielded two sweet fruits of labour: Excellent Two of a Kind by Dave Gilbert and his teammates and todays The Hamlet

AGS engine did a good job on the technical side of the project. The game is bug-free and easy to control through commands on left and right mouse button. Graphics are hand drawn and detailed, the only disadvantage is the resolution of  320x200. Fortunately even in  640x480 (that's why there are black borders on the screenshots) The Hamlet still looks great and you can admire the graphic artists feeling for colour contrast and shading   

Add a decent music and, here goes an adventure worth your attention. Not the longest or most original one but thanks to the professional approach of screenplay writer, graphics artist and musicians it's very atmospheric. and that's what you cannot say even about more technologically advanced freeware games.

alkis21

I'm not sure I *want* this review translated, as it gave Other Worlds the lowest score than any reviews I've read so far, but if anyone cares to do it.. it's in Czech.

http://www.hrej.cz/otherworlds

By the way, does anyone speak Russian?

qptain Nemo


alkis21

Oh Captain my Captain, this is probably too much to ask, but I was interviewed by the Russian magazine Game.EXE, and they sent me some scans of the issue. I don't suppose you could translate them for me?
Here they are:

http://www.alkis.org/External/Game_EXE1.pdf
http://www.alkis.org/External/Game_EXE2.pdf

qptain Nemo

well, I give it a try
But don't blame on me too much. :)
First list

The last hero.
Passage: Path of Betrayal by Darris Hupp . Alida by Cos Russo... Adventure games developed by loners in incredibly long time. You can like these game or dislike them, but please don't doubt on heroic nature of their developers...

The result.
Location: Greece.
Person: Alkis Polyrakis, was born in 1975, citizen of Athene, speeks English and French, likes sport and Steven King, engineer-electrician.
Game: Other Worlds (www.alkis.org or .EXE DVD shareware dept.), very unusual and ablsolutely free adventure game. Made with tool 'Make AG by yourself without knowledge of programming'. First time you see it, visual impression is horrible. There are real photos compressed to 640x480x256colors, interiors
made in autocad, and fantastic, hm, landscapes made in Terragen, you know.
Well, and characters are sprited and hand-drawn. What can I say? Alkis isn't an artist. It's take the time to het used to these terrible backgrounds, these cartoon-like big-eyed characters, music, sound, interface. But story! Title of the game is inspired by string from King's novell  about 'worlds other than our'.
And there are great parody on Myst. (no, really. I was laughing out loud), picturesque fantasy characters which are not classic sex orientation, magic (is perfomed by infinite typing of words like YYBUCS, SIMED and ISODIXO in special panel), betrail, friendship and love, travel in time, Mars. Funny dialogues, non-logical but inspired puzzles (sharpen the knife with stone ladder, make nitroglycerine. turn flower into shovel)

alkis21

Thanks! Well, I guess you can't please everyone. :)

qptain Nemo

No, alkis, I'll complete the translation for you, sorry for delay!
And I just want to tell you some things. I like your game very much. (I even voted for it in some nominations) I don't agree with that review. And finally, you just should to know, NO ONE serious adventure gamer in Russia respects this so-called 'Masha Arimanova' (not the name nor photo is real) for sure. So don't mind that review at all. Well, except that your game is good. :)

Dave Gilbert

Could someone from the czech republic do the honors and translate this for me:

http://www.hrej.cz/abettermousetrap
(The grade on there is 57%, so I can't imagine that the website is very flattering, but I still remain curious.)

There's also this:

http://www.hrej.cz/twoofakind
(there's something that looks like a "Reader's comments" section as well, but I could be wrong)

Thanks!

-Dave

Neil Dnuma

More Czech:

http://www.hrej.cz/zooreal

I found an online czech translator here but the outcome was very puzzling: "(...)Zooreal něčekaně widely , long plus splendidly technicky accomplishment sport.(...)" ???

jaz

OK, OK, guys. I will do the translations for you all but gimme some time, let's say till the end of the week. The real life is knocking on the door every once in a while, you know...

alkis21

Quote from: captain Nemo on Tue 15/03/2005 01:38:34
No, alkis, I'll complete the translation for you, sorry for delay!
And I just want to tell you some things. I like your game very much. (I even voted for it in some nominations) I don't agree with that review. And finally, you just should to know, NO ONE serious adventure gamer in Russia respects this so-called 'Masha Arimanova' (not the name nor photo is real) for sure. So don't mind that review at all. Well, except that your game is good. :)

Thanks. I'm surprised by the not-so-flattering comments, considering they interviewed me. Not very hospitable.

jaz

OK, guys, I didn't have much free time recently so there was a delay this time. Anyway, here we go:

Other Worlds:


Other Worlds is one of the latest AGS contributions to classic point and click adventures genre. The author, Alkis Polyrakis, made this game as a present for his girlfriend Natalie. Natalie is also the game's main hero. Her quest is to find her boyfriend (how touching). The game is photorealistic with hand drawn characters and pixelized text over digitised backgrounds. It doesn't look that cool and probably not many will be stunned by game's visuals.. Also repetitive music becomes annoying . The puzzles are on the easy side and the game itself is not very hard to finish but regardless from surprisingly big filesize and massive documentation it can't provide the player enough motivation to dive deeper into the story of Natalie and Alkis. It lacks drive, it lacks atmosphere â€" and this is critical even for mostly slow paced suspense adventure games. A lot of better games have been created with AGS.

jaz

A Better Mousetrap:

A Better Mousetrap is rather short adventure from Dave Gilbert. This point and click title had been created for March 2003 MAGS. The game placed on first position which on the other hand is not that impressive considering that it was the only entry. But what's more important, at the end of the year it split the first place as the best MAGS game of the year with Apcalypse Vel and it tells more about it's qualities. Humorous plot is set in the RON world, main characters are dark mage Davy Jones and crazy Elandra Desmond. She invented a great new mousetrap but when Dave tries to even improve it with his spell the device teleports them through space to cliff edges of unknown world. And what's even worse, the device ran out of energy thus our couple has to find a new source. A better mousetrap excels in witty dialogues mechanism of controlling two characters is also good. The game is very solid graphics wise considering that development time was shorter than one month. Dave Gilbert proved once again that he has talent to create absurd yet funny situations and dialogues.

Well, Dave, there IS a reader's comments section but I don't suppose you want to hear them ;D. Very... ermmm... negative.

jaz

Two of a Kind

Two of a Kind is a brand new adventure from Dave Gilbert â€" well known member of AGS community - and it's very stylish and humorous title. Main characters â€" detective duo Walters & Walters â€" twins that make living solving unsolvable cases in Bluff City. Needless to say the newest case is quite complicated as well, ocult powers are involved and the goal is mysterious and priceless crystal. And should they fail? Well, nothing bigger happens than the end of the world. Two of a Kind have fantastic approach to plot and dialogues, rich scenes full of hotspots, non mandatory puzzles, funny lines and lot of other things that keep player's attention throughout the whole game. It's not by any means coincidental that Two of a Kind was immediately widely accepted, this title is dangerously catchy.
Cartoony graphics also help a lot, low resolution of 320x200 is not an obstacle and the artrworks are great. The only little problem might be slower and less comprehensive controls. All in all Two of a Kind is great old school adventure that must please all fans of this genre.

As you can see, this makes up for A Better Mousetrap as ToaK has been accepted far better ;).

jaz

Zooreal:

Zooreal is one of titles that recently enriched the AGS portfolio. It's a classic point and click adventure starring charismatic kangaroo and obviously it takes place in ZOO. Considering that this game had been made as a MAGS entry (which means it was creeated within one month on given theme) it's surprisingly long and of high technical quality. Carla's (the hero) goal is to free Kelvin the Koala, Freddy the Fish and Wilma the Water Rat from cages and fishtanks. The main obstacle apart from bars and glas is the watch dog resisting all attempts to pacify him. Zooreal is well designed, to solve the puzzles is not easy even though all actions are strictly logical. Zooreal also boasts very nice hand drawn graphic which looks great even in 640x480 as you can see on screenshots. Music is perfect too so maybe we can proclaim Zooreal the best MAGS game ever.

Dave Gilbert

Quote from: jaz on Mon 04/04/2005 10:46:34
Well, Dave, there IS a reader's comments section but I don't suppose you want to hear them ;D. Very... ermmm... negative.

Heheh.  I don't mind!  Are they that bad?  Are they insuting my mother or something?


Dave Gilbert

You can PM the translation to me if it's THAT bad.  I'm all curious now.  Please? :)

Redwall

aka Nur-ab-sal

"Fixed is not unbroken."

Dave Gilbert

I don't think the folks at Plne Hry know about RON, or Instagame for that matter.  Their "Postman Only Dies Once" review obviously judged the game as a single entity as opposed to one in a series.  Although quite a bit of time has passed since then so who knows?

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