First of all, we're dealing with a mock horror franchise. Death of the main cast must be involved, or it just doesn't work.
Mock horror game, not franchise - Tentacle is a different beast entirely and they made no attempt to disguise that. Neither game holds up too well if you try to judge one by the standards of the other.
I think both games have merit. In Maniac Mansion figuring out how the game works (what events occur, how they are related, what actions are possible with which characters, et cetera) is part of the game mechanic and there is no fixed/preferred way to solve the game. That gives a lot of freedom, if you're up to the challenge. By comparison, Day of the Tentacle is more straightforward, and I can see how some find it less engaging as a game, but it does play more smoothly. It gives "lesser" players the opportunity to actually finish the game and enjoy the story as it unfolds.
Like many others, I always got stuck with Maniac Mansion pretty quickly, so I personally enjoyed Day of the Tentacle more. But I can imagine how it's rewarding to win at a game that's hard and open-ended like Maniac Mansion, so I can see why people who actually finished it prefer it over Day of the Tentacle...
Just because you can die doesn't mean it's going to be a Sierra-style unfair death.
For the record, I quite enjoyed Sierra-style games, at least the Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory series. You need to keep a lot of saves, true, but I didn't feel your character got killed off too quickly or unfairly. When there is a chance that you may die, there are usually ample clues that what you're trying to do is going to be dangerous, or it should be common sense (like not picking fights with people who are stronger than you are). The fact that your character can die means that your actions have consequences in the game's world, and that adds to the atmosphere, in my opinion.
sorry but this is like ... vhs vs dvd.. or... radio vs TV...
you cant really compare as A. the era's were so far off.. the graphics are different..
for me maniac mansion was one of the most original games on earth. thought out well, many characters, crazy locations.
now DOTT has all this and a bag of chips too but.. it lost points in originality as it just placed the old characters into newer roles or replaced old characters that were benign with new ones that had some humor.
I love DOTT.. and i love maniac mansion.. so I picked both. But if you were to ask me to choose one or the other in terms of (one wouldnt exist if I picked the other) I would pick maniac mansion. As it lead the path to great games LIKE dott.. and the entire friggen slew of point n click to come.
bad poll.. imo..
decent topic but , polling it... you just .. shouldnt contrast and compare such titles..
always ends up like this
quick whats better... old or new star wars(movies) ? lol.. catch my drift?
quick whats better... old or new star wars(movies) ? lol.. catch my drift?
The old ones, easily! While the new ones are shinier, they are widely considered to be inferior. The prequels are bad contemporary films, and the originals are timeless classics.
quick whats better... old or new star wars(movies) ? lol.. catch my drift?
Bad example!
I think of it more like comparing Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, or even comparing a Romero movie to Shaun of the Dead: one may draw from the other, but it could hardly be classified as a direct sequel.
One would think that under any other circumstances(as long as you mean in-universe chronology), but here they are speaking of technical progression creating unquestionably better experiences(DVD from VHS, supposedly Day of the Tentacle from Maniac Mansion).
How can you choose between those two gems?
Ok, MM looks dated but if you see past that small insignificant thing: The game marked the beginning of an era. If you don't know why just check what SCUMM(tm) means
And you had so many ways to finish the game (Even by blowing up the house!)
I also remember my first take on reverse engineering by analyzing those LFL files (trying to get the freaking chainsaw operational!)
Good memories...
On the other hand you can see that, I feel like.... I feel like, ... I feel like, I CAN TAKE ON THE WORLD!.... And to me DOTT did it. That was my first take on "modern" adventure games, and that's special to me. Plus Hoagie's take on LR Compilers still cracks me up (I still don't know what's the Krungie factor or why it can be ignored)
I don't know how a third game could be made story wise, but if someone (hint hint, cough, cough) does it, I'll be buying it no time (even if it is made "episodic" - although that would be weird)
DotT by far. I'll be going with the opinion of most here, which incidently is mirrored in the mainstream games media too: most of them rank DotT as the best of the entire LucasArts era because of its design, writing and cute graphics.
...It's amazing how many people HATE Maniac Mansion, but seem to have NEVER PLAYED IT from how much they have wrong about it.
They aren't even the same genre. One's a survival adventure game, whatever you'd want to even call that.
The other is a puzzle, 90s, Lucas Arts comedy game...
First of all, you'd call it survival horror. Second of all, survival horror games actually share a very common history with adventure games. Third of all, Maniac Mansion is not survival horror, though it does share a few of that genre's conventions.
Maniac Mansion is a comedy adventure game. It's very obvious that the events, characters, and the whole atmosphere are not meant to be taken seriously. It's obvious that puzzle-solving is the main focus of gameplay. If the product itself is not evidence enough, you can gleam this from the promotional materials. Note the quotes they chose to represent the game: "As funny as it is fun", "A cross between Rocky Horror Picture Show and Addams Family", "ingenious puzzles". Notice that a lot of the flavor text is littered with jokes. Notice that the hintposter is covered with gags and jokes that constitute hints for various puzzles throughout the game. It is, at its VERY CORE, an adventure game, and the FOUNDATION upon which all LucasArts adventure games from that point on is built.
The only think they have in common AT ALL is some character names and a tiny tiny bit of story.
Yeah, it's true, Day of the Tentacle IS a horrible sequel.
It's almost as bad as comparing Final Fantasy the Spirits Within to Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, lol.
It's worse, because Day of the Tentacle actually poisons and destroys any chance of a proper sequel ever being made again, whereas Spirits Within will remain forever obscure and never negatively affect anything to the extent that Day of the Tentacle has.
I might try playing it again some time. I'm actually not going to argue this. He's right...
He's just plain and simple right. He didn't attack me either. I did play it, but forgot about the tentacles. I don't remember them being important but I never completed the game.
I still enjoyed DOTT. I hadn't played Maniac Mansion first though and I wasn't expecting anything from DOTT.
I didn't mean to attack you, just the inaccurate ideas you had about Maniac Mansion as a product.
Find and read scans of the manual, the box, and the hint poster. These things came with copies of Maniac Mansion and you were expected to read them. I understand it's a convention now to just jump in, but PC games did at one point generally have manuals that were intelligently written, helpful, and oftentimes necessary. This isn't a fault of the games themselves, but a different philosophy on the use of supplemental materials. Personally, I think it's dumb to chop down trees just to tell folks that you should be careful of video games if you're diagnosed for seizures and that the directional buttons like up and down move things in directions like up and down.
Listen a bit and it states, rather implies, that the first game is not so much a sequel to the second as it is some sort of game in a game. This is also seen in DOTT when you go to Weird Ed's room and play his computer you can play the first "game" there in his room.
So, I don't know what to make of that but it sort of wedges the two apart from being a attempted sequel. It becomes something different. Not sure what to call it.
The beginning of DOTT is misleading as well, there's lots of inconsistencies. It starts with Bernard talking about going back to the mansion...
And there's a letter from green tentacle.
The whole thing is a mess for some one like you who wanted a proper sequel, I agree.
I agree with Rather Dashing about a lot of things. The voice-acting in DotT was really terrible. The tone, atmosphere, and humor were a complete departure from its predecessor. The game was ridiculously easy and simple in terms of its puzzle structure and gameplay mechanics compared to the original.
I prefer Day of the Tentacle though. The humor, atmosphere, and premise were a lot more in line with my personal tastes. Maniac Mansion is still a fantastic game and I love it a lot, but I've always found DotT to be a funnier and more entertaining game.
I thought the puzzles in DOTT were pretty stupid for the most part, and I never played all the way through Maniac Mansion because the getting caught and dying stuff always just made me stop playing whenever it would happen.
I thought the puzzles in DOTT were pretty stupid for the most part, and I never played all the way through Maniac Mansion because the getting caught and dying stuff always just made me stop playing whenever it would happen.
You do realize that the dungeon isn't an "end-game" scenario, right? In fact, it's sometimes BETTER to be caught and put inside the dungeon.
It seems weird to me. It's like complaining about the(Tales of Monkey Island spoilers)
final, climactic battle with LeChuck in Tales of Monkey Island, about LeChuck always hitting you all the time, when it's designed in such a way that you use that as transportation to get to the various parts of the puzzle.
It's a very similar situation with Maniac Mansion, just with a more open structure.
Comments
Mock horror game, not franchise - Tentacle is a different beast entirely and they made no attempt to disguise that. Neither game holds up too well if you try to judge one by the standards of the other.
Like many others, I always got stuck with Maniac Mansion pretty quickly, so I personally enjoyed Day of the Tentacle more. But I can imagine how it's rewarding to win at a game that's hard and open-ended like Maniac Mansion, so I can see why people who actually finished it prefer it over Day of the Tentacle...
For the record, I quite enjoyed Sierra-style games, at least the Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory series. You need to keep a lot of saves, true, but I didn't feel your character got killed off too quickly or unfairly. When there is a chance that you may die, there are usually ample clues that what you're trying to do is going to be dangerous, or it should be common sense (like not picking fights with people who are stronger than you are). The fact that your character can die means that your actions have consequences in the game's world, and that adds to the atmosphere, in my opinion.
you cant really compare as A. the era's were so far off.. the graphics are different..
for me maniac mansion was one of the most original games on earth. thought out well, many characters, crazy locations.
now DOTT has all this and a bag of chips too but.. it lost points in originality as it just placed the old characters into newer roles or replaced old characters that were benign with new ones that had some humor.
I love DOTT.. and i love maniac mansion.. so I picked both. But if you were to ask me to choose one or the other in terms of (one wouldnt exist if I picked the other) I would pick maniac mansion. As it lead the path to great games LIKE dott.. and the entire friggen slew of point n click to come.
bad poll.. imo..
decent topic but , polling it... you just .. shouldnt contrast and compare such titles..
always ends up like this
quick whats better... old or new star wars(movies) ? lol.. catch my drift?
The old ones, easily! While the new ones are shinier, they are widely considered to be inferior. The prequels are bad contemporary films, and the originals are timeless classics.
Bad example!
I think of it more like comparing Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, or even comparing a Romero movie to Shaun of the Dead: one may draw from the other, but it could hardly be classified as a direct sequel.
I assume you mean chronologically?
Ok, MM looks dated but if you see past that small insignificant thing: The game marked the beginning of an era. If you don't know why just check what SCUMM(tm) means
And you had so many ways to finish the game (Even by blowing up the house!)
I also remember my first take on reverse engineering by analyzing those LFL files (trying to get the freaking chainsaw operational!)
Good memories...
On the other hand you can see that, I feel like.... I feel like, ... I feel like, I CAN TAKE ON THE WORLD!.... And to me DOTT did it. That was my first take on "modern" adventure games, and that's special to me. Plus Hoagie's take on LR Compilers still cracks me up (I still don't know what's the Krungie factor or why it can be ignored)
I don't know how a third game could be made story wise, but if someone (hint hint, cough, cough) does it, I'll be buying it no time (even if it is made "episodic" - although that would be weird)
They aren't even the same genre. One's a survival adventure game, whatever you'd want to even call that.
The other is a puzzle, 90s, Lucas Arts comedy game...
The only think they have in common AT ALL is some character names and a tiny tiny bit of story.
It's almost as bad as comparing Final Fantasy the Spirits Within to Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, lol.
...It's amazing how many people HATE Maniac Mansion, but seem to have NEVER PLAYED IT from how much they have wrong about it. First of all, you'd call it survival horror. Second of all, survival horror games actually share a very common history with adventure games. Third of all, Maniac Mansion is not survival horror, though it does share a few of that genre's conventions.
Maniac Mansion is a comedy adventure game. It's very obvious that the events, characters, and the whole atmosphere are not meant to be taken seriously. It's obvious that puzzle-solving is the main focus of gameplay. If the product itself is not evidence enough, you can gleam this from the promotional materials. Note the quotes they chose to represent the game: "As funny as it is fun", "A cross between Rocky Horror Picture Show and Addams Family", "ingenious puzzles". Notice that a lot of the flavor text is littered with jokes. Notice that the hint poster is covered with gags and jokes that constitute hints for various puzzles throughout the game. It is, at its VERY CORE, an adventure game, and the FOUNDATION upon which all LucasArts adventure games from that point on is built.
Yeah, it's true, Day of the Tentacle IS a horrible sequel.
It's worse, because Day of the Tentacle actually poisons and destroys any chance of a proper sequel ever being made again, whereas Spirits Within will remain forever obscure and never negatively affect anything to the extent that Day of the Tentacle has.
I might try playing it again some time. I'm actually not going to argue this. He's right...
He's just plain and simple right. He didn't attack me either. I did play it, but forgot about the tentacles. I don't remember them being important but I never completed the game.
I still enjoyed DOTT. I hadn't played Maniac Mansion first though and I wasn't expecting anything from DOTT.
Find and read scans of the manual, the box, and the hint poster. These things came with copies of Maniac Mansion and you were expected to read them. I understand it's a convention now to just jump in, but PC games did at one point generally have manuals that were intelligently written, helpful, and oftentimes necessary. This isn't a fault of the games themselves, but a different philosophy on the use of supplemental materials. Personally, I think it's dumb to chop down trees just to tell folks that you should be careful of video games if you're diagnosed for seizures and that the directional buttons like up and down move things in directions like up and down.
No, I'm cool with this. You're really a fan of the oldies though.
Check this video out, I found something interesting about the two games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RyvvwRPlc
Go to about 7:14
Listen a bit and it states, rather implies, that the first game is not so much a sequel to the second as it is some sort of game in a game. This is also seen in DOTT when you go to Weird Ed's room and play his computer you can play the first "game" there in his room.
So, I don't know what to make of that but it sort of wedges the two apart from being a attempted sequel. It becomes something different. Not sure what to call it.
The beginning of DOTT is misleading as well, there's lots of inconsistencies. It starts with Bernard talking about going back to the mansion...
And there's a letter from green tentacle.
The whole thing is a mess for some one like you who wanted a proper sequel, I agree.
I prefer Day of the Tentacle though. The humor, atmosphere, and premise were a lot more in line with my personal tastes. Maniac Mansion is still a fantastic game and I love it a lot, but I've always found DotT to be a funnier and more entertaining game.
It just bothers me that they grab me and throw me there all the time, and I've never cared enough to keep playing.
http://www.night-of-the-meteor.de/en