Is TOMI a new standard for Adventures?
I was thinking how much Telltale is doing not only for the Monkey Island series, but also for the adventure games genre.
I see lip-synch. I see camera angles. I see *rythm* in dialogues. I see a lot of facial expressions. I see original puzzles.
I recentely played Tunguska 2.... It's a good adventure, but if you play it after TOMI.... well it seems OLD. Almost no face expressions, poor cameras, no dynamic at all, predictable dialogues and not deep voice acting.
So I was thinking: how many adventures can be cinematically/tecnically/artistically compared to TOMI? At the moment I can't find any.
On the other side I think that TOMI has only 2 problems: WII heritage (low polygons, few meshes, MIDI-sh audio) and childish easy puzzles.
Aside those I can say that TT created a new standard.
Don't you think?
I see lip-synch. I see camera angles. I see *rythm* in dialogues. I see a lot of facial expressions. I see original puzzles.
I recentely played Tunguska 2.... It's a good adventure, but if you play it after TOMI.... well it seems OLD. Almost no face expressions, poor cameras, no dynamic at all, predictable dialogues and not deep voice acting.
So I was thinking: how many adventures can be cinematically/tecnically/artistically compared to TOMI? At the moment I can't find any.
On the other side I think that TOMI has only 2 problems: WII heritage (low polygons, few meshes, MIDI-sh audio) and childish easy puzzles.
Aside those I can say that TT created a new standard.
Don't you think?
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Comments
Shudder
Sure the puzzles aren't the most challenging, but so what?
TTG is, as we know, probably the best adventure game developers around.
and ToMI is the pinnacle of their knowledge thus far.
this is not to say (even though I do) that I think ToMI is going to be hard to beat, as TTG is known for learning from their previous outings so it only follows that they are getting better as they go.
ToMI is setting new heights even in the MI series when it comes to Epicness of scale and sheer Storyline.
But as far as achieving a working modernization of the genre, ToMI's way up there.
Unless you mean that from now on adventures games are all gonna be easy and more accesible to people that dont like to think much, and want everything fast. So in that case it would be a new standard, but it wouldnt be something positive in my opinion.
I'm not saying that we go back to the frustratingly illogical puzzles of games like Discworld, where you literally walk around trying anything with everything, but that maybe the puzzles should be extended and drawn out a little more, or perhaps a little more subtle and less obvious.
I always end up going back to the argument against episodic releases too, they always seem to end up being too easy and a little disjointed as a consequence.
Do you think telltale will ever pull some talent aside and task a team of people to work on a full length adventure that we can really sink our teeth into?
I bought Ceville and Vampyre Story on the same day, I thought Ceville was absolute cack, can't even bear to look at Vampyre Story seeing as I hear Ceville's better
http://machinarium.net/
Its out in a few weeks and looks likely to be pretty damn good in my opinion!
Telltale has been setting the bar for episodic adventure games, and episodic games themselves. They've shown it works and delivered excellent games.
TOMI is really good, but I think they already set the standard with sam and max. TOMI is an improvement for sure, but I'll wait til the whole thing is complete before I make any judgements. Mariachis may still show up.
Just played the demo and immediately placed my pre-order! The design of the game is eye meltingly amazing and the sound track is brilliant!
Anyone played any other games by this developer?
There's a demo, I think you should check it out.
There are little things they could do. More red herrings is a good example. Like, in Chapter 3, the Voodoo Lady puzzle would have been better with 5 cards instead of 3. It wouldn't have been ridiculously hard, but it would have meant there was at least some challenge to a puzzle that was pretty clever in its mechanics.
Think how long it would take to program the extra combination.
(BTW, Golden Stan statue to whoever can do the math of how many extra combination that would create. We gotta get rid of them quickl... they are a limited time only collectors edition!)
54 combinations more. As it was 3p3 = 6 and 5p3 = 60... woah, that's quite a lot
I'm not saying the game is a guaranteed success, I'm just talking about presentation.
You are right....
But if you think about it, this ridiculous difficulty makes TOMI sooo weak....
It seems to me like a Pixar movie melted with a casual game...
Yes, sometimes it's like an interactive movie, like the initial part of ch.3 is completely forced and full with useless intearaction
Yes, you are right, way tooo easy.....it's childish.
After all, they finally manage to make a real use of 3D. In all other 3D adventures (including SamnMax seasons), 3D didn't have any bigger purpose. All of them could just as well be 2D (or 2,5D) and there wouldn't be much difference.
TOMI on the other hand really takes advantage of another dimension- from interesting camera angles and very dynamic, movie like, gameplay and storytelling elements to fantastic puzzles that work great in 3D (don't really find them too easy- just not frustrating and very enjoyable) and superb facial animation.
Their biggest accomplishment, in my opinion, is that they pour some life&dynamic to very stale&static classic adventure genre. Similar to Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) and I guess Heavy Rain.. but the differnce is, that TOMI still feels like a classic adventure, while being able to look and play like a modern game.
But TTG have been getting gradually better. Does anyone remember Sam and Max Episode 101? It was short and rather poor in comparison. And the first three S & M episodes were all so similar it was shameful.
Now we have objects combinations, more locations, but there's a lot missing to get to a new standard, but with the success of TOMI I'm really looking forward for innovation in TTG.
But TT really deserves a standing ovation in their successful episodic game system. They are the only company that made it right. Really, years between each Half-Life episode? This is episodic gaming how it should be and in that they have set a very high standard.
It is worth of mention the 3d graphics with camera movement and great facial expression which are possible the best in that in all adventure genre. Compare something like EFMI or Gabriel Knight 3 and this is obviously better.
Original puzzles are something which only come up in very rare cases. My fist association in this respect is that they are often far too easy although they still have a polished feeling. I can't think of a lot of great puzzles in TTG games so far. Average to nice ones, no problem, but great or complex ones, not this many.
Camera angles, lip sync, ... are all nice ingredients but not the bread and butter of a story/puzzle driven game. Playing minimalistic but great games like The Blackwell Conspiracy make this pretty obvious. One aspect they lack, is the steering and they really managed to screw this one up and went from "yeah point&click" to turning their games into some "testing chambers" people have to pay for. Improvements in this aspect due to the episodice nature and as earlier suggested also never have happened.
The scoring and the animations mostly are great, the texture work could be often better. Interesting story isn't one of their strengths so far as well. To a certain degreen the games come around too flat and childish without beeing funny. Kind of too well-behaved and without the right spicy kick.
...
TTG is awesome and dissapointing at the same time. I'm very happy that they are around as without them the adventure games world would be missing a significant force but i almost become desperate because they just keep on making good games instead of awesome ones. They have all the potential but they aren't doing it yet! And give us some original content as well. I hope that they won't run into their own little version of what once happened to LucasArts.
Ceville's voice acting is almost as good as the LucasArts stuff. I just can't understand the LOOOOOONG loading times (I purchased it online via direct download) and the game has a nasty habit of freezing in the map mode. :mad:
Wallace & Grommit.
While I LOVE most of the telltale adventures, I can't help but think that the original controls and 2D graphics are still superior to 3D adventures.
taking the playtime of all the episodes together these seasons are even longer then a normal adventure game.
The graphics are. But the controls are not imho. I don't wanna go bach to pure point & click.
And here is your gold stan :
All sales are final.
Now get out of here. Shoo!
This is the first TT game I have bought (the whole five episodes), and to be honest, based on the ease of the puzzles, I'm not entirely sure I would purchase another one. I wanted an adventure game, not an interactive storybook - which sounds harsh, I actually enjoyed the games for what they were (the first 3, anyway) - but I like to have a brain challenge, and then the all-important "a-ha" moment, which for the most part has been somewhat lacking from these "adventures".
There was maybe 1 challenging puzzle per chapter thus far for me
I'd rather play an adventure game like TMI than one where the puzzle solutions make absolutely no sense to someone who isn't on LSD.
Oh, I agree. Maybe the puzzles are easy because they are logical. No ladders or dogs in the inventory and stuff like that. It flows better and even now I get stuck once or twice a chapter (Coronado's Goggles is the freshest example).
Imagine how much harder Episode 2 would be, if you had to travel between Floatsam AND Spinner Cay and collect items and solve puzzles on both islands.
But this is why I'd prefer a full-blown non-episodic Monkey Island. If they can find a way to do this, for example make each episode work as an expansion pack or something instead of standalone, episodic gaming could get much more interesting.
I don't mind the episodical nature of the game, and I can actually make each episode last, since I forced myself to only play them while commuting to and from work. But with all that being said, I sadly feel that the puzzles are way way too easy. More red herrings (as someone said) and more in depth puzzles would be great. Now it's mostly a pick up item and put item somewhere, puzzle done.
In any case, I'll continue supporting the TTG team if they make more MI games
This is an interesting idea, but unfortunately I don't think it'd be possible with the way XBLA and WiiWare are set up, which are very important platforms for them to release on.
Well, they could still do stuff like this. Solution: make the items compulsory to pick up. A bit like the crown and doubloons in Lair of the Leviathan: imagine if these came in handy in Chapter 4 or 5, but a whole inventory full of items like this. Or imagine, say, the seahorse was only used in Chapter 4. It's relatively easy to force Guybrush to pick up red herrings without the player even noticing.