"Get Tannen!" REVIEW thread

Hey all, Just finished Get Tannen and thought is was pretty awesome.

The ending seemed pretty weird, but whatever. It is a time traveling story after all. Leave your commentes about what you thought of episode 2.
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Comments

  • edited February 2011
    Just like the ("It's About Time" REVIEW thread), post you impressions and reviews here.
    Don't forget the spoiler tags!
  • edited February 2011
    I am up to this point at the moment.. but couldn't help but vent here..

    That dialog trap outside the speakeasy.. really.. it that what its down too now? Horrible excuse for gameplay.. almost a guaranteed timewaster to boost the overall time it takes to beat the game..

    not a shred of logic involved.. you basically just have to randomly guess the answer.. i'll forgive the fact that you keep going up to to the same door with the same guard keeper with the wrong answers.. but.. lame is lame..

    EDIT: yes i spelled it wrong.. cant correct
  • edited February 2011
    It's not random. Don't blame the designers if you couldn't solve it yourself.

    You have to pick the answer that BEGINS with the same word or partial word as the doorkeeper's line ENDS.
  • edited February 2011
    Just finished episode 2... Loved the storyline in this episode just like the first... There was a couple situations where I was stuck for a bit but was able to figure it out!

    I don't really want to say more as i don't want to spoil anything.

    Otherwise, I found it shocking that I actually finished the episode in 3 hours... A little too quick.... I'll probably replay it again to see what the other choices lead me to...

    All in all another great episode
  • edited February 2011
    The note that you get left on the bar before the speakeasy opening pretty much shows what you need to say to get in without guessing...
  • I wont spoil anything you couldn't get from the trailer;

    the flying delorean was cool. Similar game play to the first episode. Overall I am enjoying these episodes.
  • Nothing too shocking i guess, if you read the predictions thread, most of the things that happen in the episode were predicted by fans but the flying delorean was a pleasant surprise. It does kind of suck that we will inevitably have to be back in 1931 in episode 3 or 4 but at least we are getting different looks at 1986.
  • EmilyEmily Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2011
    That dialog trap outside the speakeasy..

    This was actually my favorite puzzle in the whole game. :p

    (And I didn't see the note. Still managed to figure it out, and appreciated that I had to use my brain a little!)
  • edited February 2011
    I thought, it was alright, not the best not the worst just..alright.
  • edited February 2011
    I liked the story for this one better than episode 1, though I felt episode 1 had more to do. But so far the game has been pretty fun.
  • edited February 2011
    Yeah, it was pretty easy to figure out what was going on even without the note.
  • edited February 2011
    I don't think it quite captured the BttF feel as well as the first episode, but the story, characters, and dialogue were still fun. The puzzles were a little bit more interesting and complicated than in the first episode, but still not that difficult. Overall, it was really entertaining, and I'm looking forward to episode three.
  • edited February 2011
    I happened to like the puzzle, it reminded me of the gamblers club door puzzle in Monkey Island 2. (good times)
  • edited February 2011
    Things I noted throughout the game:

    - Emmett is an all-around good guy, science freak though he is, at this age (which, as the movies show, does carry over into his old age, First Citizen notwithstanding). Notice that, when Einstein gets stuck on the roof and his flying car has crashed, his FIRST priority is getting the dog down; not for a moment does he consider doing anything else until he's sure the dog is safe (now, once the dog's safe, the car does, of course, become priority 2...)

    - I actually had trouble finding the path to the speakeasy/soup kitchen.

    - Did we really, really, REALLY have to hear all of Edna's song? Ugh. I'm a (non-professional) music writer and singer. It was torture. I seriously had to plug my ears.

    - Both Emmett's flying car and the DeLorean wind up crashed into billboards the exact same way.

    - If you talk to Doc and ask him to explain the plot, even he seems a little confused as to how Einstein wound up in the DeLorean at just the right time. I'm suspecting this is no coincidence, but we probably won't find out until episode 5.

    - You keep the chloroform bottle after emptying it but never use it. I don't think this is a red herring item, but a chloroform bottle? Is that going to be a recurring-between-episode item when the tape recorder isn't???

    Bugs I noted:

    - Cue ball came down while Matches was fumbling for the switch, which messed up the scene a little; the "ice cream" decorations did not disappear before Matches went back to interrogating. Nothing major, gameplay-wise, though.

    - Early in the episode, people kept calling me different names! Edna was the worst case of this; she called me Sonny Crockett several times, and I'm pretty sure I was Michael Corleone at once point too. Eventually, they settled on Harry Callahan (the last time Episode 1 was played on my computer, Harry Callahan was the choice made, although that game was not completed.)

    And this was just weird:

    - When Emmett was on the speakeasy roof, how did he manage to teleport down every time I looked at his flying car controls, and then teleport back?
  • edited February 2011
    Okay story, but both easier and shorter than the first episode. I only got stuck a few times, all of which were either because I managed to miss something totally obvious or because of something that was just poor design. The penultimate puzzle was an egregious example of the latter (to be specific, the part with
    getting Edna out
    ). For the most part, the game told me exactly what I needed to do and I just followed along on rails. I can think of exactly one puzzle that struck me as having a decent solution, both because it wasn't immediately obvious and because it required an inventory item that had been mostly forgotten, and even then it wasn't exactly great, it just stood out above the rest.

    tl;dr: Telltale's done it again, and I don't mean that in a good way.
  • edited February 2011
    My only gripe was the bugs with people calling me by different names all the time. I mean, I love this game so far, but stuff like that just brings you out of the game. It just seems like a flaw that could have been easily fixed but was looked over. If Harry Callahan is the correct choice for the name, then don't make the other options even available =/ Just think this could have been an avoided bug.

    And yes, I agree with the bug about Emmet's teleporations. Maybe he invented something we don't know about :O

    Aside from that, I'm pretty happy with the story so far. As far as constantly going back to 1931, I kinda of assumed this would happen, as it seems to be the focal point of the story. So it only makes sense. Would I like to see more time periods? Of course! But I would rather them focus on one good story at a time. And maybe, they will make more back to the future games down the line ;)

    All in all, I enjoyed this episode, I love the characters, and I can't wait for the next episode :)
  • edited February 2011
    Btw who is according to the credits responsible for the episode (direction, game design)?
  • edited February 2011
    I thought it was better story-wise than Episode One but the puzzles played themselves again. Still, I enjoyed the story enough that it didn't irritate me as badly as it did in Episode One.
  • edited February 2011
    I love the fact that
    Kid Tannen's caricature-drawing goon is named Zane, an obvious reference to Billy Zane, who portrayed one of Biff's posse in BttF I&II
    .

    The puzzles were fun, though not terribly hard. I thought there was going to be a puzzle involving the
    roulette table in the Speak Easy, so I was slightly disappointed when nothing materialized.

    Emmett's
    rocket car crashing into the billboard moon was a great Jules Verne reference.

    And the cliffhanger, oh man, the cliffhanger...!
    but does this mean that the
    "Lord of Time" design from the concept art wallpaper has been eschewed in favor of this bald version? that would make me very sad :(
  • edited February 2011
    Soup wrote: »
    I thought there was going to be a puzzle involving the
    roulette table in the Speak Easy, so I was slightly disappointed when nothing materialized.

    Yeah, that bothered me too, especially after
    Kid Tannen made use of it toward the end
    . The way the game basically spent half the time going "HEY, LOOK AT THIS, USE THIS, THIS IS THE ANSWER", I thought there would be a puzzle involving that for certain.

    Also, Einstein sniffing puzzles: they're the new hook hand lock pick puzzle!
  • edited February 2011
    SPOILERS
    Pretty good episode. I think our predictions thread was pretty close to the mark, with a few exceptions. I'm already hooked so I'll start on the gripes first.

    2 more Einstein sniff puzzles? Would have been more fun to search for that button or finding some other way to seek out Arthur at the theatre. Also what was the point of the roulette table in the speakeasy? I thought for sure this was a puzzle, did I miss something there or what? Also I agree that Edna's song went on just a little to long. I got what I was supposed to do within the first couple lines of the song, and the rest was a little hard to take.

    It seems a little weird to me that Doc and Marty would just leave 1931 AGAIN without finding it strange that Arthur and Trixie were together, are we supposed to assume that Trixie is actually Marty's grandma? Seems like there were more things you'd think they'd want to make sure of. (Why doesn't Marty go back to when Doc originally arrives in 1931 and talk him out of investigating the speakeasy fire in the first place, which would make the most sense, but whatever....)

    Saw a few bugs such as lips moving but no words when talking, also anyone else see the glass in the speakeasy being "drunk" by an invisible person? It happened right when Parker was clearing out the speakeasy.
    .
    LOL moment: "Make like a tree and die."

    EDIT: OK this was originally in a "spoilers" thread but it got moved, and Im not adding all the tags :P
  • edited February 2011
    -Danny Parker might be the worst cop, ever. Yeah, don't bother having your gun drawn when you see someone (you know) tied up and the #1 gangster right next to her. No need for that.

    -Trixie Trotter is a real good character. Whoever voiced over for her really did well.

    -Called Edna burning down the speakeasy (as many others probably did, as well).

    -Einstein sniffing and Emmett just showing up eighty feet away was kinda stupid, but whatever.

    It'll be interesting/different to see what elitist/dictator Doc is like.

    Oh and I give it an 8.5

    First episode an 8.
  • edited February 2011
    Non Spoiler Review...
    Good story and dialogue as usual. Same nostalgic goodness....
    Episode 2 is shorter than the first for sure. Seems like they cut out some puzzle ideas, because your basically lead along a very very obvious path (seriously we don't need the hint button) and then you are confronted with basically an unintentional red herring. There is no solution though, and this made a couple of parts confusing.

    The "action" sequences this time around felt flimsier, because of the total lack of depth to the puzzle. I mean, I say puzzle but this is like one of those jigsaw puzzles with 4 pieces. It so easy its almost offensive. These sequences (of which there are a few) all share the same "no wrong answer" philosophy. You just do something and Marty basically says out loud what the answer is. A couple of these were actually fun and worked well, the final one was just a flop.

    It's a good thing this game has charm in spades, becuase I'm sure not playing it for the puzzle depth.
  • edited February 2011
    The story seems to be getting interesting, now that Marty and Doc screwed with the same timeline I think 5 times in a row.

    Puzzles aren't as big of a disappointment this time, but only because I don't expect anything good in that department from TT anymore.
  • edited February 2011
    Got through it last night, I got a hold of the game probably "too soon", (around 00:00-01:00AM, it's 12:00PM here now). Looked at the game launcher and there it was though the website was down. I probably had already cleared the game before it was officially launched here.

    Get Tannen was quite an easy game. You didn't have so many places to go and the inventory items were obvious to pick up / to use. I didn't need to use the hint system at all, like in "It's about time" I had to.

    With easy I mean like when you are in the speakeasy and didn't seem to have anything to do there, you go to the streets and blam new things happen that then do new things in the speakeasy.

    I also noticed this little bug with young Emmett. Him suddenly appearing in the gazebo when you try to fiddle with the controls even though he is at the speakeasy roof trying to remove the rocket car from the billboard.
  • edited February 2011
    I don't know why people are saying the story was good this time around. The scenes with Edna and Emmett together, entirely undone two months later. The whole episode spent time saying that everything you did in the first episode didn't matter in the slightest. The sad scene with young Emmett feeling betrayed by you, entirely undone by the second episode. This one is particularly unforgivable, because Marty's betrayal of young Emmett and the scene where they parted ways was easily the most effective dramatic sequence of the first episode, and they simply tore out its importance and value. The main message of Episode 2 is that nothing matters, and if it does we're just going to pretend it doesn't for a bit until we put it back together at the end so you don't have to actually deal with silly plot advancement and consequences.

    I've made a spoiler-filled thread about my assessment of the gameplay(DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE PLAYED GET TANNEN), but the spoiler-free version is that the puzzles are(on the whole) simply terrible. They're intended to be easy to the point that the game plays itself.

    Animation is also still weird in places. Trixie's performance and Marty's walking animations are the worst offenders in this, where I feel taken out by the awkward movements.

    Music and sound effects continue to be brilliant, voice casting and acting continues to be top-notch.

    Overall, the puzzles are slightly improved, but the story has lost my respect, which means the game has one point less in its favor than it did before.
  • edited February 2011
    I meanwhile watched a playthrough video from a friend of mine and it was fun as i tried to get through the gluey parts (in a more advanced form you would call it puzzles) faster than him, luckily with videos you can fast forward.

    Anyway i don't see a lot of reason in discussing the gameplay because that's not what this interactive content is about, at least for adventure gamers. I would be more interested in why it turns out this way.

    Is this the new level TT generally targets for all their future content? In this respect i remember Mr. Grossman's mass market hallucinations.

    Or is it more the lowest possible level of a series where TT wants to offer story driven interactive content to a broad audience ranging from zebras to astronauts? This could be interesting as this would enable them to finally offer real adventure games for adventure gamers without watering the gaming experience.

    Another option: Are the games done this way because Universal wants them to be this way? Maybe TT knows better but they just have to make it this way.

    Do things turn out this way due to a lack of talent/resources/interest? It's not done by one of the designer legends. The animations are horrible already, maybe there is even less time for the riddles/gameplay. It might just sell good enough so that every additional creative more polished bit would be wasted.

    Without a plan like that it's the easiest possible installment of future interactive content, which btw then would be communicated very badly, this also shows some disrespect for the audience whom supported them so far.
  • edited February 2011
    I don't know why people are saying the story was good this time around. The scenes with Edna and Emmett together, entirely undone two months later. The whole episode spent time saying that everything you did in the first episode didn't matter in the slightest. The sad scene with young Emmett feeling betrayed by you, entirely undone by the second episode. This one is particularly unforgivable, because Marty's betrayal of young Emmett and the scene where they parted ways was easily the most effective dramatic sequence of the first episode, and they simply tore out its importance and value. The main message of Episode 2 is that nothing matters, and if it does we're just going to pretend it doesn't for a bit until we put it back together at the end so you don't have to actually deal with silly plot advancement and consequences.

    I've made a spoiler-filled thread about my assessment of the gameplay(DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE PLAYED GET TANNEN), but the spoiler-free version is that the puzzles are(on the whole) simply terrible. They're intended to be easy to the point that the game plays itself.

    Animation is also still weird in places. Trixie's performance and Marty's walking animations are the worst offenders in this, where I feel taken out by the awkward movements.

    Music and sound effects continue to be brilliant, voice casting and acting continues to be top-notch.

    Overall, the puzzles are slightly improved, but the story has lost my respect, which means the game has one point less in its favor than it did before.

    I think the stuff you did in eps 1 were important, Doc says himself he never did experiments in public. Plus the scene at the end of eps 2 clearly shows that it had some impact.

    BTW about the cliffhanger
    Did Doc turned into a Slacker-hater Morality-man Strickland wanabee ? Except, he's the boss
  • edited February 2011
    I agree completely with the two posts from Taumel and Ratherdashing. As a faithful Telltale customer since the very, very beginning, I simply don't understand what Telltale is trying to accomplish with these games. It just feels like they're taking several huge steps backward in terms of pretty much everything - story, puzzles, graphics, animation, even music (yes, it's nice to have the original BTTF score, but compared to the epic music of The Devil's Playhouse or Tales of Monkey Island this is really forgettable). Really, I just don't get it. This new license is an opportunity to really shine before a much broader audience and instead they're stumbling. In an effort to please everyone they've pleased nobody. Why?
  • Took me 2-3 hours including the puzzles and some of which i did spend quite a long time on.

    I guess there were new types of puzzles in the sense that you needed to click in a certain sequence and failing to do so makes you start over; such as the 1986 scene with biffs brothers and the end shootout with Kid. Also the speakeasy password was different.
  • edited February 2011
    I liked the episode, although it was awkward that the DeLorean's seen by too many people.
    Yeah, that bothered me too, especially after
    Kid Tannen made use of (the roulette) toward the end
    .

    You can
    use the roulette too: When you have to rescue Artie, there's a sequence of numbers behind the counter in which you're hiding from Kid's goons. When you're in the finished speakeasy, bet on those numbers and it'll open the secret passage Kid used: A shortcut to CourtHouse Square, exiting through the barber shop :eek:
  • edited February 2011
    also, einstein sniffing puzzles: They're the new hook hand lock pick puzzle!

    qft
  • edited February 2011
    Great episode!
    It had a good flow and good portion of action. The characters were really engaging and I really liked Trixie. I was much more glued to this one than episode 1. I finished it in one sitting. =)
    I felt the difficulty of the puzzles went up a notch and we probably can expect that trend to continue with following eps.

    My only gripes were:
    -They should've shown the model for Lorraine in this ep
    -Maybe 2 more new locations. It didn't feel like a rehash of ep 1 but I really wanted to see the interior of the cinema. We'll probably see the inside of the clock tower by ep 3.
    -Einstein puzzle used too many times.


    I really feel I am getting my money's worth though...In the span of 2 episode a lot of crazy things happened and I like it. Surprisingly the added story to the BttF universe feel like how the creators of the franchise would've done it. Little(or nothing) feels out of place. Anxious to see what's going to happen further.
  • edited February 2011
    The scenes with Edna and Emmett together, entirely undone two months later.

    Not entirely true. Before Episode I, Edna and Emmett never interacted at all. Now they have a relationship, even if it seems like one of mutual disdain. But I *did* find it odd that Young Emmett
    took care of Einstein no questions asked for a few months, and only gave Marty a casual "Hey!" when he returned
    .

    Anyway. I had fewer complaints about the puzzles this time around, but more complaints about the story. I'll play through it again to give a fair assessment.
  • edited February 2011
    zounds wrote:
    It seems a little weird to me that Doc and Marty would just leave 1931 AGAIN without finding it strange that Arthur and Trixie were together, are we supposed to assume that Trixie is actually Marty's grandma?

    They addressed this in-game; they assumed it was fine because Marty was not disappearing. And if she's not Marty's grandmother, that simply means that they broke up or that Trixie died before Artie met Sylvia. You don't marry the first woman you kiss (well, most people don't.)
    Weeeeee wrote: »
    -Called Edna burning down the speakeasy (as many others probably did, as well).

    I think the fact that Kid Tannen assumed Edna was the arsonist is the best piece of evidence against Edna being the arsonist imaginable. She still denied it. I suspect we still have an episode or three to go before the truth is revealed.
  • EmilyEmily Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2011
    If Harry Callahan is the correct choice for the name, then don't make the other options even available

    There is no "correct" choice. In episode 1, you could pick a name, and the characters called you that no matter which one you picked.

    In ep2 Edna called me Mr. Crockett once, but otherwise I was Mike Corleone, which I guess was what I picked in the last game (I actually don't remember). If the game is actually remembering what you picked and playing specific lines to reflect that, then good on Telltale for doing it (even if it's occasionally glitchy). That's a neat detail that was probably a pain to implement.
  • edited February 2011
    A little off topic, but hey Emily, nice to see you again!

    Back to the topic at hand though, I thought it was a great episode and
    I actually found the pass phrase part enjoyable even though it was a gripe to others
    . I thought the implementation of the "scene search" (for lack of a better term) was very neat and a new ability of the Telltale Tool. I also liked the nod to
    Sam and Max
    although quite obscure. Overall a great episode with great pacing. To those complaining about the lack of difficulty, I really think you'd alienate most of the Back to the Future fanbase if you made it much harder. There were still a few times when I had to scratch my head, and especially considering that most were after a sandbox game, you don't want to discount them completely as it's still income.
  • edited February 2011
    Now that I've read over the other posts in this thread, I'm surprised how many people thought this was shorter than Episode One. Episode One was the fastest I've ever beaten a Telltale chapter. This one felt a little closer to the average, length-wise.
  • edited February 2011
    jweir wrote: »
    A little off topic, but hey Emily, nice to see you again!
    Yeah, it's nice seeing her posts here and there. She always makes posts that I can respect, and I missed seeing her around. =P
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