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He, I agree with you Grundislav! Case 2 was the only one that I actually detested, I really hated it!
It felt slack to me, the graphics weren't even as good as in the first part, everything felt unmotivated, the story just plodded along. It felt like you just wanted to get it done. The jump in quality to part three was huge, then!

I thought Case 1 was fine, so I was surprised when you chose to update it instead of this one. But now you do the right thing and update Case 2, too. I guess I'll revisit this story again and hope that I will be more fond of it this time around. The graphics look already better!

Well, the demo is an old one, the graphics look different, are less detailed. I think except for the inventory GUI all graphics changed. I just started the demo again to examine the differences.
Maybe Dave Gilbert should make a demo of the final game? Because even gameplay-wise this work in progress demo is misleading. You can't combine clues in the final game anymore, so you won't feel any pain there.

Ha, I saw that mention of the oogle code the first time around, but I thought that it was still part of the credits! Like the password is the name of a forum member here.

Anyway, thanks for another great game! Storywise it's the best so far, and we finally get to warm up to Rosangela a bit more. I kinda had hoped that the gameplay wouldn't have been so...slight, though. It feels like a backwards trend, taking elements away instead of adding anything to it. That was a bit disappointing.

It was unquestionably great entertainment though, even played it a second time to listen to the commentaries and look how things might turn out slightly differently.

I also liked the bonus material

There's bonus material? Yeah, it was also referred to in the commentary, but I couldn't find it. So, where is it? 

To summarize the game in 4 words: Great story, badly written.
4 more: excessively talky, inane puzzles

Hm, sounds pretty negative. I loved this game on my first playthrough. It tells a moving tale and you sympathize with April and many other characters. But the game has so many small and bigger shortcomings that add up over time...the dialogues are long-winded. No, there's not only much to talk about, but they never move forward, they're stuck on the same topic for eternity.
On my second playthrough I capitulated when I went through the portal the first time. The thought of endless exposition forced on my made me feel sleepy.
The game is wonderful at moments! The forest with its inhabitants, Rupert Clacks castle, Burns Flipper, the island....there were really awesome set-pieces.
But you have to expect that it's not the best game ever.

Oh, I loved the fossil puzzle in The Dig, I had fun with it. The Dig went more in the Myst direction with the puzzles, they were more trial and error, but the experimentation added to the fun.
Otherwise, the planetarium puzzle had me totally stumped and I still don't understand where and how you recieve the neceassary clues to complete it.

Okay, the worst puzzle.....oh damn, there are many terrible ones, but I think you have to differentiate. Some puzzles are great as an idea but poor in execution.
For example, a friend of mine was really aggravated by some of the puzzles in The Feeble Files. Towards the end you had to give a guard a toy (or some kind of box with toys, I can't remember exactly) so you could pass. There wasn't any clue that he would want it and that he would love you so much for it or would be so distracted that he would let you go ahead.
Maybe if the game had suggested that the guard is rather childish and is mentally stuck at the stage of an 8 year old than it would have made sense.
There are probably better examples to make this clear but this just came to mind because I discussed it before.

I also read that Starship Titanic had some great puzzle ideas, but that they were all poorly executed.

I encountered many terrible puzzles, I spent much time of my adventure gaming time frustrated, annoyed and humiliated (I only exaggarate a little).
For me, the most aggravating design error is when I can't do something that I should be logically able to do and the game gives me reason to but that's not possible because my avatar didn't make the connection that this would be the right thing to do. Sometimes you have the feeling that you're not only playing through a character, but that you also need to connect his thoughts and push him towards certain conclusions.

I have the "stick" which I poke at everything I find, but else I'm stuck now. I know where I have to go, but not how I can move the police away.

Maybe the game is just too confusing. I very quickly lose any orientation in the sewers. The map screen doesn't help much. It's the first game where I had to remember the location names so I would find the way again.

I agree that creatively a crossover title sounds like a sure failure. And I have no idea if MMM has even a solid creative foundation (I doubt it) because I never played one of these games. Not to forget that MMM is mainly in german and RON in english. Hm...

But then, if you're creative with this concept it could work. It's not about sellout like when Hollywood or the comics industry does it, I just thought it would be a great idea to bring those two communities together.

I'd like to see a RON committee formed, to set the rules for the reboot, create new character profiles, give some characters a bit more of a backstory. I know it's an open project, but simple things make it alot better for everyone. And before any RON game is released, the committee should be part of the beta test, and it should be 'approved'. If some details are incorrect, they would be noted by the committee. If a character acts 'out of character', it should be noted by the testing committee and fixed, or explained in the game why this character did this through dialog or something. It's late and I'm rambling, but I've though quite a bit about this in the last few days.created RON.

Hm, after seeing what happened to Au Naturel where there was a resistance to add it to the site originally I think we have to be careful with committees. If it gets established it should only judge if a game is canon and without bugs.

Yeah, but only German's make games for MMM. That's not competition in my eyes.

Maybe someone should do a crossover title. Actually, I had this idea for awhile now. I might tackle it sooner or later...

Oh, I thought it was wonderful in Rayman 2.
It killed a bit of the atmosphere when they changed it to real speech in Rayman 3...

I've got a few albums:

AC/DC Back In Black
Aerosmith's Greatest Hits
Kiss
and the Star Wars soundtrack

None of which were originally mine, I got them at a yard sale for 50 cents each I think it was.

I would love to find a place online somewhere where I can buy new records, but I can't seem to find a place. I'd really love to own the AC/DC box set which includes every one of their albums including Black Ice. This is of course just about $300..... maybe some day

gemm.com is a good place to buy old records. I found all albums, EPs and singles of a very obscure band there. Never had a problem.

Edit: Okay, the albums there aren't exactly new. Anyway....

I also recommend Prodigal. It's definitely worthwile to play it til the end.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

Well, if you're neutrally raised then you probably won't care much for religion either. It's pretty much the same, maybe only that more likely you would acknowledge religion and faith as a valid aspect in the life of some people.

Anyway, I can't help myself, I have to post this link! Jesus is my friend!

A lot of the time the answer is 'no'.  The majority of believers are only so because of their upbringing, and by the time they are old enough to ask questions they don't feel the need to, because they have faith and to question it would be doubting that faith (which they have naively and unwittingly inherited anyway, rather than making a concious decision about it).

And yes, before anyone argues, I'm aware that some people DO make the transition from non-believer to believer, but these people are few and far between.  They normally have some kind of special case such as they 'miraculously' survived an accident and suddenly have no way of explaining it other than to ask themselves if God did it (when most of the time if they asked an expert he could have explained it easily).

And if you raise your children as atheists then they will continue to be atheists, the majority at least. What a surprise, really.

I think it would be interesting to know then how many non-believers became believers and the other way around.