Some sort of a review (because I can!)
Posted: June 07, 2014 • 5:09 pm
Late to the party, but I've stayed as far away as I could from this international interweb hostel until I'd experience every possible bits of the game. I've also since read a ton of reviews and nearly all of your posts, so I may skip the obvious now and then! Bear in mind, please, that whatever may sound negative is actually nothing but love, and constructive criticism to build upon, whatever BFG's next project may be!
It'd be an understatement to say how thrilled, grateful and generally giddy I am about this game existing. We've all been around long enough to know how we feel about this success!
Considering Pandora Directive is the gold standard, I was surprised (pleasantly, mind you) to find a style and tone much closer to UAKM. If Pandora was mature, and Overseer melodramatic, I did not expect Tesla to be an odd breed of Mature Clownishness, as if the last two titles never existed, and what we saw on screen was the direct evolution of a two-decade gap between Tesla and UAKM. A lot of this (most of it) comes from Chris Jones, and I'm delighted by his portrayal and most of the dialogue. I don't know how much of this is intentional, but it seems even in terms of throwbacks to the old games, UAKM was much more present than Pandora.
Gameplay is next, and this is where I have a problem. Unlike everything I read about puzzles, graphics and whatever else, my only puzzlement concerns gameplay vs narrative progression. I'm having a hard time explaining how the genius people who so easily solved the universal problem of story integration in games has managed to completely flunk it this time around and fall into the usual traps. Why, oh why, is 100% of the story spoon-fed through cutscenes? What happened to finding out most of the story through actual detective work, reading information spread across the world, putting two and two together and collecting clues?
Outlandish plot points were thrown at us in the most casual way in the same kind of cutscenes we'd get silly jokes. And we were never prepared for any of them, because none, absolutely none of it, was materialised in the actual gaming.
A huge missed opportunity here is the Blue Dragon warehouse. Considering this is a game, not a film, and seeing how they always managed to understand story-telling through gaming in the past, this "hidden content" should have rewarded the player who had found information about it through exploration and in-game content. The key to the sewers, or the ability to visit the warehouse, should have never been tied to a cutscene path for the pure sake of replayability. In a path most people would never take on their first or even second playthrough, no less!
That's one example, but the game is ridden with this issue. And so the gameplay is unfortunately reduced to puzzles, and it seems a lot of players skipped many of them. Which makes me wonder what they actually played! Or did some people just basically skip from cutscene to cutscene to get the story?!
Back to the positive! The glorious FMV. There is sooooooooooo much of it, even after Adrian teased us with how much footage there was, I still managed to underestimate how much they could put in this game, considering the budget. Everything they promised about in-engine integration also turned out to be true, a feat in itself considering studios are so prone to exaggerate, when they're not flat out lying (I'm looking at you, Watchdogs and Fallout 3!).
Story-wise, I can't wait to get my hands on the novel, which is next on my to-do list. It seems the game barely gives us 40% of everything Aaron has wrapped into his gorgeous head (hint hint, another reason why you need story-content in the actual gameplay!), and the more I think of it, the more I read on it, the more intrigued I am about all sorts of possibilities in the story ark. It questions absolutely everything we thought we knew, and leaves room for more!
I'm impressed this was made. I'm impressed this is what came out of this Kickstarter adventure, and I'm very glad we all hung around long enough to see it! And if it means more content in the future, whatever format, I'll stick around for many more years, because I love this odd little world the guys have come up with over the years, and I don't see a single reason to leave it!
PS: As usual, the musical score was a delight!
It'd be an understatement to say how thrilled, grateful and generally giddy I am about this game existing. We've all been around long enough to know how we feel about this success!
Considering Pandora Directive is the gold standard, I was surprised (pleasantly, mind you) to find a style and tone much closer to UAKM. If Pandora was mature, and Overseer melodramatic, I did not expect Tesla to be an odd breed of Mature Clownishness, as if the last two titles never existed, and what we saw on screen was the direct evolution of a two-decade gap between Tesla and UAKM. A lot of this (most of it) comes from Chris Jones, and I'm delighted by his portrayal and most of the dialogue. I don't know how much of this is intentional, but it seems even in terms of throwbacks to the old games, UAKM was much more present than Pandora.
Gameplay is next, and this is where I have a problem. Unlike everything I read about puzzles, graphics and whatever else, my only puzzlement concerns gameplay vs narrative progression. I'm having a hard time explaining how the genius people who so easily solved the universal problem of story integration in games has managed to completely flunk it this time around and fall into the usual traps. Why, oh why, is 100% of the story spoon-fed through cutscenes? What happened to finding out most of the story through actual detective work, reading information spread across the world, putting two and two together and collecting clues?
Outlandish plot points were thrown at us in the most casual way in the same kind of cutscenes we'd get silly jokes. And we were never prepared for any of them, because none, absolutely none of it, was materialised in the actual gaming.
A huge missed opportunity here is the Blue Dragon warehouse. Considering this is a game, not a film, and seeing how they always managed to understand story-telling through gaming in the past, this "hidden content" should have rewarded the player who had found information about it through exploration and in-game content. The key to the sewers, or the ability to visit the warehouse, should have never been tied to a cutscene path for the pure sake of replayability. In a path most people would never take on their first or even second playthrough, no less!
That's one example, but the game is ridden with this issue. And so the gameplay is unfortunately reduced to puzzles, and it seems a lot of players skipped many of them. Which makes me wonder what they actually played! Or did some people just basically skip from cutscene to cutscene to get the story?!
Back to the positive! The glorious FMV. There is sooooooooooo much of it, even after Adrian teased us with how much footage there was, I still managed to underestimate how much they could put in this game, considering the budget. Everything they promised about in-engine integration also turned out to be true, a feat in itself considering studios are so prone to exaggerate, when they're not flat out lying (I'm looking at you, Watchdogs and Fallout 3!).
Story-wise, I can't wait to get my hands on the novel, which is next on my to-do list. It seems the game barely gives us 40% of everything Aaron has wrapped into his gorgeous head (hint hint, another reason why you need story-content in the actual gameplay!), and the more I think of it, the more I read on it, the more intrigued I am about all sorts of possibilities in the story ark. It questions absolutely everything we thought we knew, and leaves room for more!
I'm impressed this was made. I'm impressed this is what came out of this Kickstarter adventure, and I'm very glad we all hung around long enough to see it! And if it means more content in the future, whatever format, I'll stick around for many more years, because I love this odd little world the guys have come up with over the years, and I don't see a single reason to leave it!
PS: As usual, the musical score was a delight!