Rebus wrote:
Frogacuda wrote:
I really do feel like these games were ahead of their time in a lot of ways, even if the rest of the adventure genre didn't go in that direction, and that's why they hold up even better than most modern adventure games.
In my opinion FMV industry did not have the time to mature, as video games abandoned its trend and found the Holy Grail in 3d technology. Pandora shows that FMV games did mature away from campiness. Pandora is an immersive FMV game of high quality, which makes you feel and care about the characters on the screen.
This is actually kind of the opposite of what I was saying. To be clear, I was NOT talking about FMV. And UAKM found that holy grail in 3D technology long before most of the rest of the genre (with the exception of some of the Freescape games, I guess). And to this day, it's among the very few 3D adventure games that actually use the third dimension for more than just looks, and allow you to look in and under things and really enhances the gameplay beyond what was possible in 2D.
I would never imply that other games should have all gone FMV. That's a very specific sort of style that suits Tex but certainly wouldn't suit, say, LucasArts' games.
But it would have benefitted Lucas and Sierra to find a way to use 3D to actually make their games better. Lucas went into 3D dragging their feet, and Grim Fandango was worse playing and controlling than their 2D games and still had the same fixed camera angles and no real advantages. They also should have been making more extensive use of cutscenes (animated or otherwise), experimenting with branching paths, multiple puzzle solutions, and other ways to enrich these games and bring them up to modern standards, rather than just simplifying them out of contempt for what they saw as a gradually stupider audience.
The FMV thing has always obscured so much of what is truly great about these games. The reason they are so good is because they always put the gameplay first, and just used the FMV to build up the story and characters. Unfortunately, the FMV is all anyone talks about these days.
We don't call "Day of the Tentacle" a "cartoon game" or a "pixel game" and we shouldn't call Tex an "FMV game." It's just a visual style. The "FMV game" label is better suited to games whose primary gameplay used FMV, not just the cut scenes.
. That being said, I do have a pretty high tolerance for (or immunity against...) ramen noodles. Anyways, I'll keep you guys posted on my experience playing the games!
? It reminded me of those nightmare-inducing orbs from Manhunter, if you remember that game. I liked the GRS part - there was a lot of running around, but the puzzles were logical, and I never felt that it was unfair. I also loved the creepy-as-hell ending of Day 4, and then the hilarious opening of Day 5 to offset the gloom!
