Review of A5 on Inside Mac Games

[Acky]

I think it was fair.

[Earth]

yea even it had bad spoiler.

[Callie]

Meh, they care too much about graphics. We were "@" symbols back in the old days.

[The Mystic]

Which was updated to a small colored square when the first console games came out.

[Marak]

I guess I'm biased in the opposite direction. I grew up playing FFI and Dragon Warrior I and II on the NES. This was a time when "bad" graphics were the norm, and you enjoyed the game based on more important things like the quality of the game's transration, the combat system, character growth, and dungeon design (such as it was in those days).

 

Avernum and Geneforge represent my absolute favorite type of game to play, period. And then I see people putting all of Jeff's games down because of their graphics, the hands-down LEAST IMPORTANT element of an RPG, and it makes me sad. I mean, look at the graphics of the most influential RPG of all time: Dungeons and Dragons.

 

Oh, wait.

 

I rest my case

[Sleeping Dragon]

I'm surprised the best thing they could find to write about in their article was the nephilim artifacts glitch.

[Earth]

they prolly played it around 5 mins and then read walkthrough and made a review.

[Øther]

It seems as if the reviewer didn't like the fact that people said things. Weird, speaking usually gives a story its plot.

[ex post slarto]

Marak: props for mentioning DW2 specifically. That was a gem.

[Marak]

4 is still my favorite though.

[ex post slarto]

4 is high on my list, and is certainly one of the most elegantly constructed NES games of all time. but it loses to 2 for me simply due to the perfect game balance 2 presented -- one of the few RPGs I have ever played that it is impossible to 'break' in some way, but which still presents interesting and varied combat.

 

that said, I think 8 is actually my favourite now.

[Marak]

1,2,4, and 8 are all solid titles. Hard to go wrong with any of them. Well, 1 not so much, but it's still a classic.

8 was also a blast, I bought a used PS2 just to be able to play thru it after renting it and loving it.

 

Re: Doom Warrior, that ties into my point/rant above (sort of). I mean, why do something archaic like read when the Developers are supposed to spend millions of dollars making a 132 second CG Cut-scene that takes up more disc space than the world map? Right? Right?

[ex post slarto]

I haven't read the review, but perhaps the reviewer just got annoyed at having to wade through pages and pages of townspeople giving the irrelevant details of their daily lives. some people like that, some don't. personally I found it much more engaging in the trilogy than in A4-5, not sure why.

[Randomizer]

I thought that Jeff's sense of humor in the details has improved with age. The generic merchants of A3 and the guards with the same dialog description block are finally gone.

 

Except for saying intense instead of torment for the highest difficulty level, the review is accurate. The reviewer has played the game at least through Tranquility or read lots of threads detailing how to play the game and get around problem areas.

[Rowen]

Quote:

Pros
• Detailed storyline
• Long length
• Strategic fight system
Cons
• Low-budget graphics
• Text-heavy dialogue sequences

Call me crazy but those are the pros that make a game worth playing. I don't replay FFVII because I love the blocky look, it's because the story keeps me interested and takes time to get through. Jeff has the RPG thingy down to a science it seems, and that keeps me coming back.

[Marak]

Naw, he started bellyaching that he had to *gasp* READ the game's set-up (you know, those 6 grueling paragraphs that explain why your Party starts the game where they do) and things just went downhill from there.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Marak

he started bellyaching that he had to *gasp* READ

That's what turned my friends off to the games. Those poor fellows, they have absolutely no idea what they're missing.

Quote:

Cons
• Low-budget graphics
• Text-heavy dialogue sequences

Those are actually pros because they make you use your imagination a bit to figure out what's going on instead of having everything handed to you in full detail.

[Alorael at Large]

No, Avernum would benefit from nicer graphics. Maybe not full 3D (although why not?), but even Baldur's Gate-level pre-rendered maps would be prettier.

 

—Alorael, who thinks some of the areas could especially use artistic representation, with emphasis on the artistic. Imagine actually seeing the Great Cave the first time you walk into it in A1. The text works, but imagine text with some visuals to go with it. It could be a whole multimedia experience!

[Marak]

I'd rather Jeff go the safe route, buy up artwork within his budget, and imagine the glory of the Great Cave in my head than have him hire a team of artists capable of producing Baldur's Gate quality graphics and end up going bankrupt because of it.

 

I enjoy pretty graphics as much as the next guy but given the choice between looks and more story and more quests and more gameplay, I'll take more story/quests/gameplay.

 

The reviewer on the other hand, will never "get" Jeff's games and will end up blowing $60 on yet another fluff-over-substance Final Fantasy title.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Preposterous Phlebotomist

No, Avernum would benefit from nicer graphics. Maybe not full 3D (although why not?), but even Baldur's Gate-level pre-rendered maps would be prettier.

—Alorael

I never said it wouldn't; better graphics can only help Jeff's games. I think Marak sums it up rather nicely above.

[Erebus the Black]

The things that bug me graphically is that all the towers in A4 and A5 are two stories high (cellar not included) which is to me a very big let down, and that all non playable humanoids are the same graphic with different colours.

(oh, and did I mention the lack of kids?)

How about adding an extended graphics addon for an extra 5-10$?

Couldn't that work budget wise?

[Alorael at Large]

Probably not. If Jeff charges an extra $5, he loses customers. Would he really gain appreciably more customers by adding in a few more graphics? Doubtful.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't know what the going rate for freelance graphic work is. He'd bet that it's non-negligible.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I think he means the game is the same price with the same graphics, but SW charges an additional $5 or so if you want the optional, fancy extra graphics. Not sure how well that would work business-wise, but it's an interesting thought.

[Alorael at Large]

As I understand it, Spiderweb pays a lump some for its graphics. It needs to recoup those losses. If the extra cost were added optionally, many people might choose to forego flashy graphics, but that would only reduce Spiderweb's profits, not its costs.

 

—Alorael, who thinks Spiderweb could bring in extra money more easily and with less risk by offering slightly more expensive "premium" editions with some meaningless enhancements. A "making of" document, perhaps? More easter egg bonus dungeons?

[Student of Trinity]

A MST3K feature! For an extra $10, a steady stream of hilarious zingers pops up in the little message space.

[Callie]

Originally Posted By: avatar42

(oh, and did I mention the lack of kids?)

I don't like this as well, though you have to consider how dangerous the lands in A5 are, and just how long those settlements have been around.

[Marak]

A3 had kids! And just like kids in real life, they ran around outside, poking the Slime Invasion Slimes with sticks, and making simplistic conversation(s) with you.

 

Also, I'd LOVE to see MST3k Avernum. Good stuff. It'd be like every game having an Xian Skill, only more so.

 

"Hi. I'm a talking skull."

"I wanna be your friend."

 

Does anyone else imagine the GIFTS sounding like that, only less creepy and more high-pitched?

 

Lastly, since Jeff flat-out buys the artwork used in his games from the creators of said artwork, that's an up-front cost that he has to rely on sales to overcome. This is one of the main reasons why his games recycle so much of the artwork: recycled artwork is artwork that isn't adding to the game's development cost(s).

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Marak

"Hi. I'm a talking skull."
"I wanna be your friend."

"Hi. I'm a giant club."
"I wanna make a big impact on you."

That's my opinion of the Xian Skull. The reason is that during my battle against Rentar-Ihrno, I got about five messages pop up, all from the Xian Skull, all telling me to buy it a hat. Does that thing ever have anything useful to say?

[Callie]

I usually get rid of the skull after awhile because its sudden talking startles me, and then I bang my knee on the desk. Next time I play A3, I'm going to make sure it dies a fiery death in the roach pits.

[Marak]

The Xian Skull IS quite annoying but for some reason he/she/it has grown on me. And yes, 2 or 3 of his 17 random quotes are sorta kinda helpful... assuming you bother to read them anymore.

[Earth]

IF bothers to read any of those.