Messages

I never played it but was Simon the Sorceror 3 a fully 3d game?

Any by the way ... I'm a 'SEXY GAMYE MAYKER' too!  At least that's what all my geeky girlfriends tell me

U MEEN TEH INFLAYTIBLE ONES!!!

P.S. TO EVERYWON: HOW CUM NOOEN ELSE IS SAYING MORE GUUD THINGS ABOWT MY 1000 HRS RPG!!!!1!

DARTYH: UR JUTS JEALUS BEKAUSE I AM TEH SEXY GAMYE MAYKER AND YUOR IS TEH POND SCUMM!!!1!

SPYROS: YUOR ARES TEH LIAR!!!1! I FINISHED WET (BUT I HAD TO USE TEH WALKTHREW)!!!11!! NOT ONLY THAT BUT I SAID 1000 HOUR [blod]RPG[/blod}!!!!1!

PUTS TAHT IN YUOR PIPE AQND MSOKE IT!!!1!

I think we can allow a quick AGS-related ad.  

However, Non-AGS spam makes C-lek pull out his Petagon Knife -- and once that happens, neither Dark Stalkey nor I can stop him!

[What is a Photoshop Phriday?]

What is a Photoshop Phriday?

See this link:
http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/

And for other examples, see here:
http://www.worth1000.com/

The two above websites should give a fair idea of what is involved.
-------------------------
What do I have to do?

Today's Photoshop Phriday is this: "Dress-Up Dramas"

Chrille suggested this one, and it's a great idea.

We've seen adventure game characters in their stock clothing: Larry Vales in his cop uniform, Bernard in his nerd clothes, Herman Toothrot in is shabby hermit gear, etc.

However, what if they wore something different for a change?

This week, you're to pick an adventure game character (AGS or commercial) and dress them up in something you wouldn't normally see them wear.

Have fun!

OMG!!!

I see it again!!!

That's amazing!!!

No way!

What makes you think we're being sarcastic?

In fact, I'll sign a sworn affidavit tomorrow to say I am in no way being sarcastic because I'm sooooooo honest and truthful!

Then I'll send it to Mods and he'll sign it too, because he's soooooo honest and truthful too!

I AERS EMAIL ROB GILBURRT AND TELL HIM TEH GOOD NEWS TAHT WE FOUND TEH SEKRIT OF MUNKEY ILAND!!1!

Holy crap, mods!!!!

You're right -- I see it too!!!

Homer: Hello! My name is Mr Burns. I believe you have a letter for me.

Mail clerk: Okay, Mr Burns. What's your first name?

Homer: (pauses) I... don't... know...

Phee.

"Do you want to be called Homer Jr? The kids can call you Ho-Ju!"

Some bastard on hotmail already had DGMacpherson.

So I changed it to DGMacphee.

Meanwhile, my Mum, Dad, and girlfirend all call me 'D'.

It's like I don't have a proper name anymore.

It's like I've become J.Lo.

D.Mac.

I'll halt anything briefly for a Monty Python reference.

Now back to Photoshopping!  

Speaking of good cartoons being axed, I loved Freakazoid!

Anyone remember the episode where he fights Cobra Queen?

"That hiss can mean only one thing -- THERE'S A BALLOON VENDOR AROUND THAT CORNER!"

but if plenty of people enjoyed it while as we didn't

Name them  

And what game costs $90?  I'm not necessarily saying there aren't games that cost that much, but I've never spent more than $50 on a game before.  You may not be referring to USD (which I am), but if you are that seems unusual to me.

I'm talking Australian dosh.

You could look at it that way.  I don't however think that "LucasArts got rich by making classic adventures" is a very definitive statement, though.  They made some of the greatest and most popular flight sims of all time with X-Wing and TIE Fighter, for one thing.  The Dark Forces series has made them tons of money as well.  As much as it may seem sometimes, they were never "an adventure games company".  They were a games company who made, among other things, really good aventure games.  As is not too surprising to me, they have changed with the times.

Of course X-Wing, TIE Fighter and Dark Forces made money -- They're Star Wars games.

But the bulk of their income came from Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, The Indy games, DOTT, Sam n max, and The Dig (That was a real bread winner).

That's true, but they have no duty to respond to that.

As a customer that provided his $50 to Joe Retailer, LucasArts DO have a duty to me and every other disappointed gamer.

However, do you think the gaming public would buy those games?

They don't need to because they're free -- and they rival the classic adventures, which are not supposed to be free.

I was more attempting to get across that LucasArts still seems to publicly take pride in their old games

Then how come they don't provide any XP support?

I don't fully disagree with you there, but that's not what I was implying in the text you replied to.

It does if you read the rest of my comments.

Their collection of Star Wars games is a festering pit of shit.  But I honestly don't think this applies to their adventures.

It does to EMI.

I still disagree regarding them not caring about adventure gamers anymore, which I attempted to address above.

Suit yourself, but you haven't convinced me.

I know they've released an XP-compatible Adventure Pack.  However, it's not like what you download is going to be XP-compatible anyway if they don't sell an XP-compatible version.  You'll end up having to use 3rd party software like ScummVM anyway to make it work.

If they've released an XP-compatible pack, then why do the say on their website that their games are not compatible with XP and they do not offer support.

They also don't support ScummVM.

See above for sellout part.  As far as not understanding why to buy a collectors pack: Well if you already own the old software, you don't need to buy it.  But you don't need to pirate it either.  If it's unsupported and ScummVM has the same improvements the collectors pack does (which it does), just use ScummVM.  Seems simple to me.

You stated before that none of the original members who created those games are with LucasArts now.

And yet the company believes it can milk the last remaining drops of profit from those games.

Even if the ones they make now are utter shit.

So why should I support that.



I'm tired of writing these essay length responses.

I've given all my reasons and am now going around in circles.

Feel free to have the last word.

Relight: You have to look for the secret passages to find the extra rooms.

Where are they?

It's a secret.  


Gilbert: It's in my pants.

I'm sorry, but there are many ways you could have found out if that game was generally considedered to be a worthy MI game before you bought it.  In the age of the Internet, it would have been quite easy for you quickly find out what other adventure gamers thought of this game before you bought it.  I do it all the time.  The Adventure Gamers forum is a good place, for one.  ( http://www.adventureforums.com/ for anyone who doesn't know)

First of all, all the magazine critics gave it the thumbs up.

So did a lot of internet critics.

So why should I trust them?

Secondly, aren't adventure games (and all art forms) subjective.

It's the same with movies -- For example, Roger Ebert, one of my fav movie critics, gave The Usual Suspects 1 star, yet it's one of my favourite films.

By your logic, I should only trust popular opinion.

I am wary of critics -- they can be very misleading.

Just because critic so-and-so says Titanic is a brilliant film, doesn't mean it will be for me.

Case in point: I went to see the Hours this year because it was critically successful, scored several Oscar nods, and everyone was talking about Nicole Kidman.

And I thought it was a terrible -- It had one-note characters and Nicole Kidman practically sleepwalked through her Virginia Woolf portrayal with no life or energy in her performance.

But that was just my opinion.

However, I didn't feel too cheated because it was only $6, right?

Spending $6 on a bad movie is way different to spending $50 on a bad game.

I suppose, if you buy 600 copies of EMI.  I think it's more like the car RUNNING, just you not liking the throttle response, or the gas mileage, or the handling.

No -- EMI is like a full-scale car accident with one of the passengers flung out the windscreen.

It's an utter bomb.

do the same thing as a student, but saying this is so different doesn't really fit well with your $50,000 car metaphor.  And my point is that I see more movies than I buy games, so it's a rather comparable situation for me.  I pretty much only play adventure games anymore, and I still watch movies, so I'm sure I spend more on movies.

Yes, but my point there is that movies don't send me broke.

I can watch, say, a movie per week without losing too much cash, but if I want to play a new game I have to fork out anywhere between $50-$90.

And if I'm paying that much, I expect a damn good game.

Take for example a little gem I got a while back: Hitman.

Great game -- different genre to EMI, but I got way more enjoyment out of it than I did with EMI, and it had a better story and better elements to it.

Same with GK3 -- which is in the same genre, and was the last adventure game Sierra released (as was the same for EMI for LucasArts)

Hitman and GK3 were worth the money.

EMI wasn't

My point here is, friend, if I'm paying that much money while on a low income, I expect someting good.

As a movie-goer, I don't go broke because I can afford $6 a week easily.

Yes, basically that's what I mean.  However, it's different for them to just be "another company that's doing it" rather than to be leading the effort.  I'm not saying it makes them BETTER--there's nothing noble about being a sheep--I'm just saying it wasn't their IDEA to phase out the adventure game.  They're still trying to make them anyway, even if they're shit.

Are they making less adventure games?

Yes.

Then they DID decide to phase them out.

I don't care who the leader was, LucasArts got rich by making classic adventures and now they've abandoned that AND abandoned us.

It's just a bunch of guys making games now.  And I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying that we sort of have to deal with it because that's how business works, and they have always been a business.  Just before, there were a smaller business with better games designers.

Excuse me, but WHY THE HELL SHOULD I HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT?

I have every right to complain and hold them responsible.

I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one, because you think they do and I concede that they don't.  If they please all the adventure games that make them rich, then become poor because of it, we'll be in the same state as we are now.  They won't be making good games, but because they don't have the money, not because they don't have the talent.  And look, do you think they INTENDED to make MI5 a bad game?  It WAS a bad game, but again, without the people there who helmed the great AGs in the past, I'm not sure it's quite as easy to just release a great and classic adventure game out of thin air.  It would be wonderful if they did, but who's going to do it?

Pleurghburg is free and made by a handfull of people.

Same with KQVGA 1 + 2.

And both of those games are better than EMI (Btw, it's MI4).

My point here is that people can make a free indie game that's more credible than the dreck LucasArts are releasing.

I don't think LucasArts intend to make a bad game.

But you think they could try WAY better than a giant robot monkey and crap like "The Ultimate Insult".

The only "Ultimate Insult" is EMI itself.

That's true, but on the other hand GK3 was released in a closer proximity to GF than EMI, and can't imagine any adventure gamer calling GF a bad game.  It's not a huge difference, but it's unfair to single out EMI when GF was released only 11 months or so before GK3.

You miss my point here too.

You said it would be hard for a Sierra Executive to admit the existence of an adventure game of the past.

And I provided one.

And it isn't unfair to single out EMI -- Both EMI and GK3 were the last adventures released by both companies.

At least Sierra ended the genre on a high note -- I hold them in respect for that.

Ok, I'll give you that it's somewhat frivolous, but I honestly don't think that's money they took out of the "Good Games" fund.  And beyond that, I think it's utterly unrelated to anything having to do with making better games.  I'm sure they have all the money they need to make good games, name change or not, but without the guys there to put that money to good use, it's not going to happen.

In other words, LUCASARTS HAVE SOLD OUT.

Instead of getting the talent to make the games, they've just been releasing crap after crap.

They're trying to appeal to popular demands and failing.

It's just lucky Uncle George has the new Star Wars movies for tie-ins.

It's the only way LucasArts makes any money.

They're sellouts!

How appropriate.  You fight like a cow.

I think you need to go back to Melee island and practise some more insults.

You're not good enough to fight the Swordmaster (TM) yet.


Listen, all your points are valid but you still haven't justified why I shouldn't download LucasArts games for free when:
A) LucasArts are sellouts who don't care about adventure gamers anymore.
B) They openly state they don't support the games anymore because of the introduction of Windows XP
C) I'm on a budget and don't see the point of buying a collectors pack when it's unsupported and LucasArts are a bunch sellouts who don't really care about their fans.

I played it for 1002 hours.
You've beaten yourself, DG

I've what what what now?

It sucks ass.

TEH RPG CREAT0RZ'S GAEM IS M0R3 R0X0RY!

You can make no judgement on that, sonny-boy, for two reasons:

a) RPG Creator's Game isn't out yet.

b) You haven't made a 1000 Hour RPG either.

So, in the grand scale of 1000 Hour RPGs, my game = TEH WINNER!!!

Yes -- I'm an Australian who's also a member of the US National Rifle Aassociation.  

No, I bring this up because recently there was a gun legislation discussion in a previous post, and I forget which post it was.

I just thought this might be of interest to some people.