Hey, I played the game from the very beginning as well.
Guess I prefer complex stories more than you then.
I never truly gotten into the story until 358 days because of how sad Roxas's story is.
It actually to me ruins the fact that sora has to save everyone ending the sadness of when they die.
I mean the walking dead wouldnt be that good if everyone magicaly gets revived(and are not turned into zombies)
That is exactly what I was looking for. I guess sometimes its frustrating to see folks just say things like "this game is full of design flaws" or "this game sucks" but then when you ask what the flaws are, or why the game sucks, it's often just a "it just sucks" response.
Seriously, I appreciate you (and others) fleshing out the concerns you have, and that's what I'm here for, to pass those concerns on here!
I don't think I've ever made it all that unclear as to why I feel the way I do. Contrary to what some may believe(due to my views on recent Telltale projects), I don't arbitrarily hate things as a hobby. There is a very distinct and actual reason for disliking the things that I dislike, and I'm not entirely alone in that assessment(though I don't have access to the means to produce a survey that might show how widespread this criticism is). I'd personally start by asking not whether or not a person liked the game, but whether or not they found the gameplay to be fun and engaging. And, if they did, why, because I still don't understand why anyone would find the actual game, the mechanical thing with which the player is intended to interact, something that's engaging and worthwhile. Even Heavy Rain has an understandable value in that it immerses you into the world in a real and interactive way(the importance of this value is disputable, but not its existance), but Back to the Future offers so little in terms of interactions to keep people from potentially getting off the right track that I don't know how someone can enjoy the actual player interaction.
Im a little complicated on my gaming.
I do think telltale can do better, but I still like it.
I do see games for more than gameplay, and Im more or less playing this for the story.
See, to me, that(at best) constitutes "A bad game with a good story". Not that narrative elements don't count as part of games at times, but when the gameplay feels divorced from the narrative in that the fact that the player does a thing rather than the character doing it feels entirely arbitrary(because the point isn't the player interaction, which seems to be more universally panned than the product as a whole), then the "story" and "gameplay" feel really separated to the point that they feel like different entities, and that leaves the non-story aspect looking like a fascimile of a game made by someone who didn't "quite" understand what games are or what the point is.
See, to me, that(at best) constitutes "A bad game with a good story". Not that narrative elements don't count as part of games at times, but when the gameplay feels divorced from the narrative in that the fact that the player does a thing rather than the character doing it feels entirely arbitrary(because the point isn't the player interaction, which seems to be more universally panned than the product as a whole), then the "story" and "gameplay" feel really separated to the point that they feel like different entities, and that leaves the non-story aspect looking like a fascimile of a game made by someone who didn't "quite" understand what games are or what the point is.
I guess bad game with good story would be a way for the way I think of BTTF game, but Interactive movie also was a good choice of words, and personally I think either does fit the description.
I still classify a game as "good" even if the gameplay isnt at its best.
And if we REALLY nitpick and are extreamly specific on gameplay, I would say the gameplay is good but the "puzzles" are terrible.
Of course that is REALLY nitpicking there.
I do see your point, really I do, but I still think the story alone is a good thing to reccomend this.
Seriously, I appreciate you (and others) fleshing out the concerns you have, and that's what I'm here for, to pass those concerns on here!
What's the point? Way before Tales of Monkey Island, I & other people expressed our concerns on the new "cinematic" approach of Telltale Games.
We were met with head-on refusal by the people working in the games to acknowledge that a video GAME is NOT cinema, rampant fanboyism of the majority of forum posters that wanted to pretend that they were friends with the Telltale team & I was ultimately banned (twice) by a Team Fortress 2 fanatic that doesn't take well to people disagreeing with him.
Some of us supported Telltale in the beginning because of their promises that they would NOT be like LucasArts & that they'd be delivering good old fashioned point & click games for the Adventure fan.
Now it seems that all our money was used to create a monster that tells people what they should like & refuses to listen to what people do like.
It even got to the point that I saw a post from a non-widescreen user complaining that the game only uses a third of his monitor. His complain was waved aside like he shouldn't've even bothered the staff with his pettiness.
You know, because Telltale Games are supposed to be cinematic, so what's the point of bothering with people who don't buy widescreens? It's their problem, right?
And what's so cinematic about clunky, horrible & jerky camera angles all the way from ToMI until Get Tannen? Are those horrible dials that take most of the screen on the Back to the Future games supposed to be immersive & cinematic?
The problem is, you people somehow do manage to get your hands on interesting franchises & that gets people's interest, but then you shouldn't wonder why your customers complain when what you deliver is a faulty product.
Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Back to the Future & especially Monkey Island keep me - and others - coming back (very sporadically), but for how long?
I never should've bought The Devil's Playhouse... I did. The story was brilliant, but the games were filled with "hip" internet references that sucked all the way through. Something that started on S&M's Season 2 & went out of control.
At this point I ask you... to whom is Telltale making these games?
The whole thing is starting to reek of an horrible, long in-joke by now.
And people, please... I read a few posts where you were moaning that Telltale staff was absent from the forums & that it was the community's fault because they were rude. Get something: They are NOT your friends, they're people selling a product & if that product is faulty it is YOUR RIGHT & DUTY to complain.
It's funny how some people are afraid of hurting the team's feelings when the team is hurting their pockets...
To sum it up - neither is a video game a film in any shape or manner, nor are you delivering the "cinematic experience" we've heard so much about.
The closest to that was Wallace & Gromit. It's been freewheelin' downhill ever since.
And if we REALLY nitpick and are extreamly specific on gameplay, I would say the gameplay is good but the "puzzles" are terrible.
I dunno about that. I feel like the interface is clunky(giant icons, a whole separate screen for the inventory, huge notifications, lots of steps to do simple things...), and it feels like they just ported over something designed for the consoles, but gave it to the PC audience. I mean, we're sitting close to the screen, why do our icons need to be big? Why do we need this huge screen for the inventory adding two steps to every item-based action? Also, the camera angles can be a pain, and can make actually interacting with the game painful. Did you see the part above, where to get to Doc Brown's room in the past, I kept walking into the center of the Town Square rather than to the building itself? That's a huge detour to make just because getting to the thing is otherwise either impossible or really difficult. There's also a lot of invisible walls around the place for seemingly no reason, and Marty's walking animation is awkward and slow, and his running animation is even more awkward and not noticeably faster. I seriously think that just about everything about player interaction in these games is simply awful in the worst possible way, but the puzzles are easily the most important concern. I've dealt with terrible interfaces before to solve great puzzles, we all have, but if the content I'm dealing with is bad then wrestling with the interface is even more annoying.
What's the point? Way before Tales of Monkey Island, I & other people expressed our concerns on the new "cinematic" approach of Telltale Games. I really see now problem with change
We were met with head-on refusal by the people working in the games to acknowledge that a video GAME is NOT cinema, rampant fanboyism of the majority of forum posters that wanted to pretend that they were friends with the Telltale team & I was ultimately banned (twice) by a Team Fortress 2 fanatic that doesn't take well to people disagreeing with him. I actualy am confused here, what happened?
Some of us supported Telltale in the beginning because of their promises that they would NOT be like LucasArts & that they'd be delivering good old fashioned point & click games for the Adventure fan.
once again change happens so far BTTF is the only thing I wouldnt reccomend to an adventure game
Now it seems that all our money was used to create a monster that tells people what they should like & refuses to listen to what people do like.
I will admit they have yet to do anything about BTTF's difficulty after 2 months of us telling them that
It even got to the point that I saw a post from a non-widescreen user complaining that the game only uses a third of his monitor. His complain was waved aside like he shouldn't've even bothered the staff with his pettiness.
Please post a link
You know, because Telltale Games are supposed to be cinematic, so what's the point of bothering with people who don't buy widescreens? It's their problem, right?
goes with the last part
And what's so cinematic about clunky, horrible & jerky camera angles all the way from ToMI until Get Tannen? Are those horrible dials that take most of the screen on the Back to the Future games supposed to be immersive & cinematic?
Jerky camera, Ok I have never had one problem with the camera, with the exception of BTTF panning in on important items
The problem is, you people somehow do manage to get your hands on interesting franchises & that gets people's interest, but then you shouldn't wonder why your customers complain when what you deliver is a faulty product.
That is true, how the crap do you get these
Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Back to the Future & especially Monkey Island keep me - and others - coming back (very sporadically), but for how long?
Yeah these do keep me here, along with how the crap you guys get these
I never should've bought The Devil's Playhouse... I did. The story was brilliant, but the games were filled with "hip" internet references that sucked all the way through. Something that started on S&M's Season 2 & went out of control.
I only know of the TF2 dispencer and max saying "for the lulz" what memes are you talking about
At this point I ask you... to whom is Telltale making these games?
The whole thing is starting to reek of an horrible, long in-joke by now.
And people, please... I read a few posts where you were moaning that Telltale staff was absent from the forums & that it was the community's fault because they were rude. Get something: They are NOT your friends, they're people selling a product & if that product is faulty it is YOUR RIGHT & DUTY to complain.
Freedom of speech FTW
It's funny how some people are afraid of hurting the team's feelings when the team is hurting their pockets...
To sum it up - neither is a video game a film in any shape or manner, nor are you delivering the "cinematic experience" we've heard so much about.
The closest to that was Wallace & Gromit. It's been freewheelin' downhill ever since.
Cheers!
Comments in bold.
I disagree, and agree with you in some parts.
Every gamer has to start somewhere. Why would baby's book authors write a book for people who can't read? Why would Why would JJ Abrams make a Star Trek movie for people who don't like Star Trek? :P
People will always have natural inclinations to certain hobbies. We naturally grow into them. Some people like reading, some people like football, and some people like both. Fact of the matter is that when someone writes a book about football, the vast majority of the readers will be those who are inclined to both football and reading. That is the same with BttF the game. The vast majority of those playing this game are likely to be those who are already familiar with games. To say that this game will convert non gamers into gamers is just plain silly. Those who avoid video games will avoid this one as well.
Guess I prefer complex stories more than you then.
Um. There's a difference between stories that are complex and stories that are just a overly pretentious convoluted mess. However, I understand that this isn't everyone's view, and respectfully back off on any further discussion about something not pertaining to the topic at hand.
I dunno about that. I feel like the interface is clunky(giant icons, a whole separate screen for the inventory, huge notifications, lots of steps to do simple things...), and it feels like they just ported over something designed for the consoles, but gave it to the PC audience. I mean, we're sitting close to the screen, why do our icons need to be big? Why do we need this huge screen for the inventory adding two steps to every item-based action? Also, the camera angles can be a pain, and can make actually interacting with the game painful. Did you see the part above, where to get to Doc Brown's room in the past, I kept walking into the center of the Town Square rather than to the building itself? That's a huge detour to make just because getting to the thing is otherwise either impossible or really difficult. There's also a lot of invisible walls around the place for seemingly no reason, and Marty's walking animation is awkward and slow, and his running animation is even more awkward and not noticeably faster. I seriously think that just about everything about player interaction in these games is simply awful in the worst possible way, but the puzzles are easily the most important concern. I've dealt with terrible interfaces before to solve great puzzles, we all have, but if the content I'm dealing with is bad then wrestling with the interface is even more annoying.
Ok my only complaint on gameplay is the seperate screens for items. I personally have no issues with cameras or anything else here.
Of course my opinion over yours.
It even got to the point that I saw a post from a non-widescreen user complaining that the game only uses a third of his monitor. His complain was waved aside like he shouldn't've even bothered the staff with his pettiness.
You know, because Telltale Games are supposed to be cinematic, so what's the point of bothering with people who don't buy widescreens? It's their problem, right?
I don't have a widescreen monitor and I have never noticed a real problem with that. There's something obviously wrong on his end, or his exaggerating the one third part.
There's a difference between stories that are complex and stories that are just a overly pretentious convoluted mess. However, I understand that this isn't everyone's view, and respectfully back off on any further discussion about something not pertaining to the topic at hand.
taking my mind off of defending BTTF the game.
A convuluted mess would be Soulcalibur 4's story.
Quoting Zero Punctuation "its so complicated you need a flowchart which conviently the game supplies"
KH can be figured out, but this really confuse me.
This is about this guy who was evil from a sword, but now is good and must destroy the darkness from the sword, and he has to face this guy and a then there is his daughter who is after the sword as well, along with this guy who wants the sword for good, and then there is the guy with no soul who needs the sword, and then there is darth vader who magicaly came after the sword as well AGGGHH.
The vast majority of those playing this game are likely to be those who are already familiar with games. To say that this game will convert non gamers into gamers is just plain silly. Those who avoid video games will avoid this one as well.
Perhaps you're right. I don't have any conclusive data about the overall demographics of people who bought the game.
From my limited experience, I only personally know one non-gamer who played BTTF, but I *do* know several other-genre-gamers who, having never played an adventure game before, are enjoying BTTF and are interested in checking out other Telltale titles. I have no way of knowing if my tiny little frame of reference is actually indicative of larger trends, but for at least my handful of friends, BTTF is an effective gateway drug. :P
Perhaps you're right. I don't have any conclusive data about the overall demographics of people who bought the game.
From my limited experience, I only personally know one non-gamer who played BTTF, but I *do* know several other-genre-gamers who, having never played an adventure game before, are enjoying BTTF and are interested in checking out other Telltale titles. I have no way of knowing if my tiny little frame of reference is actually indicative of larger trends, but for at least my handful of friends, BTTF is an effective gateway drug. :P
Yeah this is a great "my first adventure game" so someone gets a taste, but the taste would be more of a crumb if anything.
A good first adventure game would be teltales own SBCG4AP(it was my first adventure game anyway)
If people are playing this game, going "Hey! If all adventure games are like this, I wanna play them!" they're going to be overwhelmed by the difficulty.
By no means am I unwelcoming to those who are new to adventure games. I was introduced to them almost 2 years ago now with SoMI. However, if people play other adventure games and complain about how the games are too hard, demand more easy games like BttF from TTG and their wishes are granted, I think I will cry.
People will always have natural inclinations to certain hobbies. We naturally grow into them. Some people like reading, some people like football, and some people like both. Fact of the matter is that when someone writes a book about football, the vast majority of the readers will be those who are inclined to both football and reading. That is the same with BttF the game. The vast majority of those playing this game are likely to be those who are already familiar with games. To say that this game will convert non gamers into gamers is just plain silly. Those who avoid video games will avoid this one as well..
Wow, it's a good thing Nintendo didn't share your philosophy otherwise their success at innovativing a game play design that was more intuitive and less intimidating to the non gamer would've never happened with the Wii.
If people are playing this game, going "Hey! If all adventure games are like this, I wanna play them!" they're going to be overwhelmed by the difficulty.
By no means am I unwelcoming to those who are new to adventure games. I was introduced to them almost 2 years ago now with SoMI. However, if people play other adventure games and complain about how the games are too hard, demand more easy games like BttF from TTG and their wishes are granted, I think I will cry.
Well yeah, but people who want to join a new genra of gaming tends to go for the easier ones to get somewhat of the flow for the taste, which yet again here would be a crumb gameplay wise.
That was nintendos idea behind New Super Mario Wii.
Why is it fun? Nobody who actually says they enjoy this game actually gives a solid, analyzed reason that this game is fun. Specifically, nobody gives a reason that this shouldn't just be an animated film, rather than a game. How is it fun as a game? How is the player interaction important? How is the player interaction enjoyable? The one thing I've noticed that couldn't translate to a non-interactive medium is the choice of what name you're called for the rest of the games. Is that the fun part?
People who dislike the game can and have come up with huge lists explaining the qualities of the game that simply have no merit. Where's the person who loves it that can match this? Is it because the game doesn't have any merits, or is it that people who enjoy casual garbage aren't the sort that can analyze casual garbage and extract the parts that have value? Or are we just unlucky, and that nobody who enjoys it wants to explain why?
Wow, it's a good thing Nintendo didn't share your philosophy otherwise their success at innovativing a game play design that was more intuitive and less intimidating to the non gamer would've never happened with the Wii.
Let's take a look at the top 5 best selling games for the Wii, shall we?
Wii Sports (75.66 million)
Wii Play (27.38 million)
Mario Kart Wii (26.50 million)
Wii Sports Resort (26.35 million)
Wii Fit (22.61 million)
Damn, those are good numbers, now aren't they? Problem. Those buying games among the likes of Wii Sports or Wii Fit aren't doing so because they are intrested in gaming. They got it because it was the hot new novelty. And you know what? It worked for a while. They were in the money for a few years. Did the people who buy the wii for the novelty become proper gamers? For the most part, no.
In fact, last year when Nintendo started actually releasing games for the gaming masses, all the people who bought the Wii for sports and fit started to wonder if there was any "games" for them.
Talking to my Aunt who has a Wii, I recall my cousin asking if he could have my gamecube. I told him that he could use his Wii to play gamecube games if he had a controller. My aunt was all, "Oh we don't play those kinds of games. They're not like Wii sports or Just Dance. We only play games like that."
Watering something down may get more people to buy something, but the chances of those folks genuinely extending their intrests because of the watered down mainstream is not likely. Will it make more money? Sure. If that's all you care about, then by all means, support that.
Rather Dashing, I have to say I agree with you...and it really tears me apart. I'm enjoying the game mainly because of the universe that it's in and the voice acting has been really great, but it leaves a lot to be desired. I feel confined playing the game. I realize that most of the BttF movies take place in fairly confined areas but just walking around the courtyard for the better part of two episodes is fairly ridiculous. I don't like the idea of only having a few places to go to solve the puzzles. One of the great things about games like LeChuck's Revenge is the vast amount of places you had to go to try to solve the puzzles. You could be on the completely wrong island and not even know it. But this game puts you in an area with 4 or 5 areas to visit to try to solve the puzzle.
And with your argument about having it yelled out at you, that was the point that I realized that I was laboring through this game rather than playing it for fun. I just wanted to hear the pattern one more time, not have it yelled right at me. I turned the hints off for a reason.
I don't mind games being fairly streamlined, I don't even mind them being fairly easy. But these have the problem of being both easy, streamlined, and short, but the shortness might be a product of the easiness. By the end of the second episode, I had the distinct feeling that I hadn't actually done anything and the episode was ending. Also, not only are puzzles easy, they're being blatantly repeated.
Basically, I'm enjoying this game because I'm really trying to. I'm playing this game because being such a huge fan of BttF, I feel like I need to. But the more and more I play it, the less and less I feel loyalty to it. I really don't get it. I showed up after you did, Rather, around the release of ToMI...but I, too, now own all of their past endeavors and feel as though this does not live up to it. Which is sad, because it has so much potential. I've lost my respect for Nintendo by abandoning their core fans and I feel as though I'm on the verge of feeling the same way towards Telltale, a company that I once had so much faith in.
I'm not going to let a little disappointment turn me a away from a company altogether nor let a downward trend cause me to give up. That's just narrow minded. To use Nintendo as an example again, they release very forgettable titles this generation like Wii Play and Wii Music, but Super Mario Galaxy was fantastic, in my opinion.
While recent games have not been as difficult as Season 2, I still really enjoy Tales of Monkey Island and The Devil's Playhouse. Both had great dialogue, music, story, and humor that made them fun. I recently replayed Lair of the Leviathan. While I still remembered how to solve everything, I enjoyed doing them again because the puzzles and scenes were fun and memorable, such as Morgan's trivia, Murray, the pirate 'face-off', playing with tarot cards, and making witty conversations in manatee.
Back to the Future has some good parts: the story, voice acting, and attention to detail in referencing the movies. However, the game does not feel very polished. Even while the game felt like a movie, graphical and audio bugs really takes away from the experience: the animations were more stiff and lip sync wasn't strong, camera angles cutting off the character's face, clipping, teleporting characters and specifically the static during Edna's song. The puzzles feel not only easy but very straightforward. I think this is because the world is so bare. Even though there are cars and people walking by in cut scenes, Hill Valley 1931 feels empty. Aside from the population, there are very few items to click on. Almost everything selectable is used to solve a puzzle somehow. In the second episode, in the square there are only a few things to look at: buildings, Edna's table, and Emmet's controls. In front of the speakeasy, there are only posters and trash to look at. There should be more to look at, more to interact with. The puzzles themselves should be more creative to up the difficulty and to be more fun like the tarot cards in ToMI Episode 3. I know a lower difficulty is better to keep new players from getting discouraged, but that why they have hints when they ask. The hints included in the cut-scenes, like panning to an item, just makes it that much easier and feels like it's going from point A to B like a movie.
I think the game is in a bit of a gray area for the audience. The game very clearly feels marketed for a causal gaming audience. I not saying marking to casuals is a bad thing nor is an indicator for a bad game. Some games can bridge causal and frequent very well like Puzzle Agent and Plants vs. Zombies. While Back to the Future is Telltale's biggest property to date, it doesn't seem to be the ideal game to get people into gaming. To me, the ones interested in a BttF game would be those who grew up in the 80s and 90s and already have decided whether or not they will play games.
I also have to agree with the clunky interface. The game on PC/Mac feels like the iPad version with the large clunky buttons and a separate screen for inventory. I noticed this a bit in The Devil's Playhouse but it wasn't as awkward to use. I also want to blame the iPad for the lack of polish for this season: the few characters, few selectable things, graphical bugs, and over compression on sound.
I've enjoyed the story so far and will play the rest and I am optimistic about Jurassic Park. I'm still glad I bought the season but I wish this season had the polish that Tales and the S&Ms had. I think the animations in Season 1 might have been sharper. I don't know what could have caused the quality decline: the iPad, marketing, Universal contracts, lack of risk taking, low price point, a mixture of those, or something else.
I really have to ask, both Taumel and Rather Dashing, what is your angle? Totally understand you guys aren't crazy about Back to the Future, etc. and that's fine, but you spend a lot of time on our forums talking about the game. So I guess I'm just wondering what the purpose is.
Alan, just FYI these guys are really killing the community feel of TTG for me and many others (who it is not fair for me to name).
Before the dust settles on this thread, I have to chime in.
First, Dashing's long post has made a lot of good points. I'm not sure if the word was in it, but disappointment seems to be what gets many people up in verbal arms here. It's the very same when I look at my own recent posts, and Alan might have asked me just as well: "What is your angle". Disappointment is something preceded by expectations, and expectations are founded on the solid belief that something good might emerge.
Now I'll try and keep it short, but I have to repeat: TTG and BTTF. When this pairing was announced, I was ecstatic. I kept writing in e-mails that TTG seems to have begun making games exclusively geared towards me personally as their target audience. Back to the Future plus the gameplay of Sam & Max or Monkey Island, my expectation was quite frankly that it could not get any better. You can see this from my art output at the time, my sketchpad hardly had other characters on it from July to December!
Now, Back to the Future comes out. It's bad. But it's not just bad, it's bad in a way that's obviously intentional. It's broken in such a beautifully methodical way.
It is this part where I agree most with Dashing. I don't "hate" BTTF. I see how much love has gone into the production of it, how much careful thought was put into keeping the franchise's distinct feel. I won't repeat in detail what the reasons for my disappointment were. They're spread in this forum enough as it is. But let me point out the specific reason why I keep criticising BTTF in these parts: Because TTG is not heading in my direction any more. I say "my direction" instead of "the right direction" on purpose. TTG has decided to put story/cinematics in place of gameplay, while my solid belief is that BOTH can be done at the same time. Jurassic Park is heading into this very same direction with a vengeance. Mind you: A LOT of people like that kind of "gameplay" obviously. So it IS an individual thing... sad to say.
The faint hope is, the more criticism you voice, the more Telltale might hear you. I think that's why people get loud in here, some even ugly. They want to change things and lead the path a little more in their direction, and they feel cheated because BTTF is not accidentally like that, but carries a visible philosophy with which they can not identify any more.
Alan, just FYI these guys are really killing the community feel of TTG for me and many others (who it is not fair for me to name).
It is indeed not fair to "name" people killing the community feel for you, it really is not. As one poster in this thread might specifically tell you, I am not always content with the way some posters address issues. The line is crossed when other community members are called stupid or tasteless, or insulted personally in any other way. But as far as I can see, nothing like that happened in here. It is "fair" to find BTTF stupid as a game, and it is "fair" to give this belief a voice. There are a lot of arguments to be heard concerning this disappointment.
Compared with other forums, I find that this one has relatively few posts which cross the line. You might well feel that the community feeling is damaged a little, but I propose that this is because long-term posters and "community founding members" simply don't like BTTF.
…intro
I don't have this much time today, so i'll only address a few points. If you want more in depth critics, suggestions, then pm or hire me. ;O) I partly see this as a waste of time because if one has followed what people had written on the forum, then it should be pretty obvious what's going wrong for some of us and if you're able to listen, are a experienced gamer/developer, then it shouldn't be too hard to know which steps would be needed to improve the situation. Anyway here we go...
…were we are coming from
To some degree i feel betrayed by TT and that people like me were used as a financial spring board to get things started. The larger TT gets, the more they are turning away from what i thought this company would be about, great adventure games.
Due to their most probably limited resources i kind of understood the design decisions in the early days of TT, easy, episodic, accessible adventure games with a focus on popular licences in order to reduce the financial risk. Not the perfect approach for someone who is mainly interested in great adventure games but good enough to give it a try, support it, care about it and still hope for some better future.
In the beginning the iteration of the introduction to new gamers and the lack of greatness was understandable but as things haven't improved a lot over all those years in aspects i do mostly care about like unique and challenging puzzles, a great story, characters with some depth, interesting dialogues, perfect interface&steering method, it got kind of annoying. At some point it's just enough and you finally want one great game instead of five mediocre ones.
Moreover things even got worse with a lack of communication, games getting buggier and petty due to their permanent lack of quality and taking this movie direction some at TT seem to be so very fond of.
…cinematic experiences
For a videogame Heavy Rain shines on the visuals, the story and partly on some characters. It's horrible on the gameplay/-design side and compared to the better examples from other media like books, comics and movies, the characters aren't convincing as well. Heavy Rain is best consumed as a movie but not as a video game.
Now if TT tries to step into Quantic Dreams footsteps they dramatically have to improve the visuals, the story and the characters as otherwise this will flop at least for me. Let's assume they succeed, then you're still left with something which is better consumed as a movie instead of a game.
I still favor watching a movie without any interaction, passive mode, and playing a game on my own where i also have to use my brain, active mode. Having to interact in a movie annoys me the same like having not to use my brain in an adventure game.
I think it's possible coming up with a game which tells a rich story and delivers interesting and challenging gameplay but this needs resources, time and talent for coming up with something unique and maybe offering working difficulty levels for a change.
Enlarging TT's portfolio also is a way to go. Instead of trying to make every TT product interesting for the whole audience they also can produce series for different minded audiences. But if they do so, they also need to communicate this upfront and label the products accordingly (red=experts, yellow=moderate, green=beginners) and maybe try to cover two levels via the settings in a game. For instance it's still unknown to me who the target audience for Jurassic Park will be, although it's available for pre-order already. That's no serious and trustful business.
There are quite some ways to do this right. Difficulty levels so far never really worked out in all the TT products i've played. I once suggested the idea on my own that other characters suggest some help if you got stuck but if you're going this route you also need to implement it properly (subtile but obvious enough to be helpful) as otherwise hint systems like in the second editions or Broken Sword are the easier and more effective solutions.
In the end i think each licence or game can also take a completely different approach in gameplay, visualisation and interaction but no matter how you do it, the result must be convincing.
…puzzles
I want to explore and solve unique/interesting/challenging puzzles. Easy puzzles are fine to some degree as well but they need to be more unique, again like the monkey business in the lab was, easy but great. Most TT games completely lack such quality puzzles. I also would be fine with a more story driven content for a change as long as dealing with characters and the consequences happens on an intellectual interesting level. If done right this could be quite interesting. From time to time i still want to play adventure games but with an enlargement of TT's portfolio something like this could be possible.
The quality just must be convincing. Looking at some of the more adult like content i hope that TT really has the right people to do such jobs in a convincing way. To write certain moments in Heavy Rain you need some life experience, you must have experienced ups&downs and experienced great losses on your own, otherwise this won't go beyond scratching on the surface.
…steering
And as i'm talking about surfaces the interface and the way you steer a game is very important as it's part of how much you enjoy a game. Point&click is a fantastic method for many devices (computers and touch devices) in 2/2.5/3D worlds,as long as it goes hand in hand with the camera angles. Direct control can be an option for 3D but only if it's implemented properly. TT never had a serious try with point&click in 3D space and their direct control is dissapointing in aspects like badly chosen camera angles, bumping into objects/invisible walking borders, lack of fast travel hotspots, switching movement keys isn't always convincing. Moreover being in direct control of a character can drag you more out of a puzzle minded state. There should at least be support for one perfect implemented method or at best both of them.
…bugs
Lately TT releases games with way to obvious bugs, enhancing QA would be very much welcome.
…things i appreciate
I'm running out of time, i have so much in my head about this topic that i could go on for hours but half an hour is already over so enough with the critics. What i appreciate is that TT sometimes also listens and that a) Jurassic Park comes with a real benefit in form of a price discount, b) that they at least offer crosslicences for PC and Mac and c) that BTTF not only came with localised subtitles (which is a must) but also with localised dubs (which is nice to have). I'm also looking forward to a broader variety of games.
I feel I have said enough here on this subject, but I must conclude.
I am defenently a fan of the story and do want to know what happens next, and dont honestly have complaints on how you play the game, but come on telltale, this is not your best by far(season 2 wins that) please tell me your telltale 5 will not be like this.
I defenently am going to be a little more cautious with you guys and go for demos before preorders now(which is a shame). The only way you cna turn this game around is to BUMP UP THE DAMN DIFFICULTY!!!!!! Gosh Rather Dashing is being kind on his gameplay breakdown. This is an interactive longer movie than it is a game!!
If you guys turn into an animated film company, I wouldnt blame you(but you would have to change your name to telltalefilms) you guys are great with animation and story, but for now YOU ARE A GAME COMPANY!!!! Make games, with challange(ok If you nitpick there is challange, but it is so small germs laugh at it) I love the game, but story will only keep me with you guys for so long, thats why I applaud Kingdom Hearts for at least trying to change it up, even if I hated Codeds RPG mode and disliked the platforming(too easy for once in a KH game).
I know the company I love is still here, I know you guys can easily pull off these new games, but please telltale you are loosing customers fast.
Back to the Future: The Game is not a challenging game. Aside from two particularly good puzzles (the password puzzle and the caricature puzzle from Get Tannen), it's easy as dirt.
That said, this isn't a game in the traditional sense. It's a rather strange game/movie hybrid, mixing the cinematic feel of a movie with some easy gameplay. For what it's trying to be, I feel that it works. I'm not exactly a fan of it, but as evidenced by the people that like BttF: The Game, it has an audience. And quite frankly, I don't blame Telltale for trying to appeal to this audience. Financially, it seems to be working out for them. I'd probably start making this style of game more often too if I was them.
However, I'm still upset with what Telltale's doing. In going after this new audience, they seem to be forgetting their old audience. That is, the people that enjoy a good, challenging LucasArts style adventure game. I don't mind seeing Telltale make these cinematic game/movie hybrids, but for goodness sake, don't forget about the people that helped start you off.
If Telltale can put out great games for adventure gamers while still giving the more casual audience what they want, then I'll be happy. But if they keep pouring out things like Back to the Future, I'm afraid I'll be looking elsewhere for my adventure games.
Well I have to say that I enjoy BTTF. The puzzles are indeed very easy, and I hesitate to even call them puzzles. The story, voice acting and atmosphere however still make them enjoyable for me. I do feel that the game would be better if it provided more of a challenge, which would would engross me in the game more and hold my attention. I just want to say though, that I do not really think that the ease of the puzzles in BTTF is an indication of the overall direction of TTG.
I have not played The Devil's Playhouse yet, so I can't really comment on that, but I did find Tales of Monkey Island to enjoyable on pretty much every level. I felt that the puzzles in TMI were a mix of fairly obvious and challenging, and on par with the previous entries in the series. Sure, the game isn't perfect (awkward controls), but the others were also flawed in ways, such as the terrible ending in Monkey Island 2.
Perhaps the designers simply felt whether right or wrong, that the BTTF simply called for easier game play, and Jurassic Park needs a certain style as well. I do not feel that the execution of BTTF is an indication of what approach they will take for King's Quest, because we can already see that they take different approaches to different properties (S&M, Puzzle Agent, Jurassic Park).
So in short, I feel that BTTF is worth it. It would be a much BETTER game if it provided a challenge, but it is still enjoyable enough on other levels to be worth playing.
Edit: Sorry if this post seems too long, but I just wanted to add one more though to try and make it constructive. As has been stated previously in this thread, the reason that puzzles are important to any adventure game, is because they are the most fundamental game play element. Just ike an action game needs to have intuitive controls, with logical button layouts and good response, or an RPG needs to have a logical leveling system, an adventure game needs to have at least moderately challenging puzzles.
The puzzles need to feel like they are part of the narrative, and are there to drive the story forward. If the puzzles are challenging, it pulls the player in and makes the game more engrossing. Sure, the game can still be somewhat engrossing just by having a good story, but lack of challenging puzzles will prevent it from being as good as it can be. Hope that makes sense.
I do not feel that the execution of BTTF is an indication of what approach they will take for King's Quest, because we can already see that they take different approaches to different properties (S&M, Puzzle Agent, Jurassic Park).
I very much agree with this.
When a game is developed, smart game developers do not just try to please their current customers, they try to please the people who would be interested in the property at hand by tailoring the game to what they see as those people's wishes.
Let me try to make sense of my previous sentence:
When Telltale makes a Sam & Max game, they don't just make it for fans of the comics, but also (and probably more so) for fans of adventure games because Sam & Max has an adventure game past.
The same goes for Monkey Island (except that Monkey Island doesn't even have a comic book past, apart from Paco Vink's superb in-progress adaptation of the first game).
However, when they have a property with no adventure game past whatsoever and a huge fanbase (say, Back to the Future), most of which probably never played a point-and-click adventure game in their life, they will necessarily lean towards an easier kind of gameplay, at the risk of alienating their loyal customers.
The real problem IMHO is that after having released almost exclusively adventure games, Telltale Games are seen as an adventure game company and their first hour fans expect all of the company's games to cater to them.
Is there any game developer who has produced as many different games as Telltale Games and about which you can say "every last one of this company's games appeals to me"?
To me, it's quite simple: if Telltale makes a game I'm interested in, I'll buy it. Otherwise, I'll just save my money and possibly buy the next one.
And for the record, I love Back to the Future. Sure, it doesn't offer much of a challenge as a game (at least for experienced adventure gamers), but it certainly delivers (IMHO, again) in terms of atmosphere and story.
Can't wait for the next episode (but I wouldn't mind if it was a little harder )!
I think someone can agree or disagree with Rather Dashing or others like him. BUT.
Having too many negative posts everywhere repeating the same things, it's propaganda, and not too great to follow. I don't want to skip some people posts only by reading the name of the poster, that would be pretty sad. I don't like this extremism here.
Adding my two cents: I think that when TT released their firsts games we believed that TT have a huge chance to make adventures as we like it. So we supported it. The problem is that, now that TT are quite bigger, each player likes different things, and we ask: "why doesn't TT make the games they promised us?". The answer: "because everyone wants a different things and games and after all they haven't promised anything to anyone".
So stop pointless posts-crusading. Be contructive, without costantly repeating yourself every thread started. This behaviour is not creating anything good - they make developers run away from the forum (and i can understand this) because working everyday with the people's hate is not good for anyone.
And if you don't like their games simply don't support it - it's not TT fault if you don't like stunning easy games as BTTF. I don't like easiness too, but that's the simplified game style they advised way before the 1st episode. Some young kids will love it much more than the Tales's harder difficulty .
One things are suggestions, other things are ORDERS that we give to Talltale because of the spirit that "we supported from the beginning". This is just being dumb.
Even if you buy them, the games are not yours and they'll never be, they'll forever be by TT. And Telltale doesn't owe us anything aside the games we've paid for (and their full functionality). Leave them their choices, give suggestions, and then do what you want. You're not married with Telltale, you can skip buying one game or two.
I've sometimes being hard on Telltale, yeah, that's for sure, but I think that now we've crossed the line. And reading some insensitive and verbally violent posts here, even before the games are out, sometimes makes me wish they move to FPS or Flight Simulator.
So stop pointless posts-crusading. Be contructive, without costantly repeating yourself every thread started. This behaviour is not creating anything good - they make developers run away from the forum (and i can understand this) because working everyday with the people's hate is not good for anyone.
What about those who keep repeating how they love the game and what Telltale has done? What's your opinion about them? Often times people express their criticism because someone else is spouting about how they absolutely love the game without fault. That or someone is asking about other's opinions about the game.
And who is to say the decline in developer involvement in the community has to do with the fact that people are critical of their work? I'm sure they're involved less not because they're butthurt. They're better than that. They should be pushed to do their best work.
When Telltale makes a Sam & Max game, they don't just make it for fans of the comics, but also (and probably more so) for fans of adventure games because Sam & Max has an adventure game past. The same goes for Monkey Island ...
However, when they have a property with no adventure game past whatsoever and a huge fanbase (say, Back to the Future), most of which probably never played a point-and-click adventure game in their life, they will necessarily lean towards an easier kind of gameplay, at the risk of alienating their loyal customers.
It would be nice if this hypothesis were true, but the problem is that the trend started before BTTF, at least going back to Sam & Max 3 (one could argue it goes back even further). There was a strikingly noticeable drop in the difficulty of the puzzles and the complexity of the gameworld, and an increased emphasis on cinematic presentation, in S&M3 compared to previous series. Moreover, it looks like the trend will get worse: with the next series, Jurassic Park, it appears -- given the gameplay video TTG chose to release -- they're dropping any pretense of a player-character exploring a gameworld and using various abilities to take on the challenges therein, and instead just overlaying the graphics with icons of what buttons we should press on the controller. So my concern is with this trend, not with BTTF in particular, and I guess that answers the question of where I'm coming from.
You're right, of course, that one should ordinarily just ignore games that don't suit them, even those coming from their otherwise favorite game company. And I probably would have never bothered commenting on BTTF were it not for the fact that Telltale still has interest in producing titles based on well known adventure-game (as opposed to movie-oriented) properties. (Prior to Feb. 17 I would have cited Monkey Island, as the possibility of TTG getting another license is not entirely foreclosed AFAIK, but now it's an even more pressing concern as they've acquired rights to at least one Sierra franchise.) So while I don't mind that TTG is making interactive entertainment experiences instead of games for some properties, I have little reason to be confident that the dumbing-down trend won't also be applied to their adventure-game titles.
Having too many negative posts everywhere repeating the same things, it's propaganda, and not too great to follow.
Negative posts everywhere? Propaganda? Really??
I look at this or any other game forum here and I see plenty of stuff for everyone -- polls, predictions, plot discussions, fan contribution projects, TTG ass-kissing, etc. etc.
Why is it fun? Nobody who actually says they enjoy this game actually gives a solid, analyzed reason that this game is fun.
It's fun because I get to spend a few hours every month with a product that makes me smile. It's not a difficult game, I never expected it to be difficult. I am with you that this game is too easy. I think ALL of TT's games are easy. Also I play ALL SORTS of other genres and styles of games for ALL SORTS of reasons. (You name it) What I get out of THIS game is a simple pleasure that I feel I payed a reasonable price for. I think you can say all this stuff is broken or that completing an episode doesn't give any valid fun whatsoever. I think your standards are different than mine.
I don't find the game to be an abomination. I believe that there are way worse games out there that do deserve such a passionate loathing. No matter what anyone says I'm not going to hate this game...sorry :rolleyes:
So stop pointless posts-crusading. Be contructive, without costantly repeating yourself every thread started. This behaviour is not creating anything good - they make developers run away from the forum (and i can understand this) because working everyday with the people's hate is not good for anyone.
I'd like to note that:
1) My original post was not even aimed at TTG directly, but was a clear answer to the thread's opening post. "Is this game worth it?" It was asked by a person that clearly identified themselves as a long-time Telltale fan that has played every game so far. That clearly puts them into the "Adventure gamer" demographic. I spoke frankly about my opinion of the game, from one adventure gamer to another, and even provided a link to the one-episode trial, saying that my views don't have to be taken at their word, you can actually play it for yourself. It seems the OP got some idea of what to expect from posts like mine, and that's the important thing. By all accounts, I was being honest and helpful.
2) The second post was a direct result of Alan specifically asking me to elaborate. I didn't make two posts out of the aether, the second was a direct result of a Telltale employee asking for clarification. Everybody else joining in was either replying to the OP, replying to Alan's directly requested explanation, or replying to me or any of the other posts that have added to the discussion. At no point was any other forum member directly attacked(until these posts, anyway), so I believe the idea of a "Community" was pretty well-preserved; that is, a community of varied individuals with different opinions and viewpoints. If you have constructive suggestions though, I'm sure we could have a discussion about forum etiquette, though I'm not sure this is the thread in which to have that conversation.
And if you don't like their games simply don't support it - it's not TT fault if you don't like stunning easy games as BTTF. I don't like easiness too, but that's the simplified game style they advised way before the 1st episode. Some young kids will love it much more than the Tales's harder difficulty .
I remember a gameplay video where they advertised the first puzzle in Episode 1, the electric guitar Biff puzzle. It was advertised as the very first "Tutorial" puzzle, and(if it didn't have prompts telling me where to go and what to do, and not that's not exaggeration, it's quite literal) it would be the most difficult and intelligent puzzle in the past two games. They also clearly advertised it as an adventure game, a game that would have puzzles, and it isn't that.
Also, I don't know about other small children, but I was playing Maniac Mansion when I was four. I've introduced children 10 and under to Secret of Monkey Island(not even the Special Edition, I'm talking about the original pixelated game), and they loved it. Children are very good at picking something up and learning it. They have an incredible intuition and a way of piecing together systems. They have to be, because they live in a world full of systems and ideas that they don't have the experience to understand. They have to take in so much, and they do, and it's quite incredible. I've yet to see a child 10 or under even be bothered by a graphical difference between a more modern game and something like Secret of Monkey Island. Back to the Future kind of goes against that natural curiosity that children have, but hey, that's fine. Plenty of children's media refuses to engage that curiosity, plenty of things look down at them, so hey. And of course, it hardly makes sense to make a game that only children could find engaging based on a 25 year-old license that hasn't had an installment in 11 years.
You're not married with Telltale, you can skip buying one game or two.
Well, I'm certainly married to this season of Back to the Future. I can see now why they switched to the full-season-only model, so they could get the money up front for shoddy work. I'm stuck playing the rest of these, so I might as well speak up and try to get an improvement in later episodes, so I can not hate maybe 2/3rds of the product I've paid for. And hey, others seem to be with me on this one, at least on the side of the gameplay. And hey, Alan seems to want feedback(and not only that, but detailed, well-explained feedback, and my previous efforts had apparently not been enough). So I'd like to be entirely clear here: at least in this thread, I posted because I was asked, first indirectly and then *quite* directly.
No matter what anyone says I'm not going to hate this game...sorry :rolleyes:
You completely misunderstand me. I'm not tryin to "make" people hate anything. I literally meant exactly what I asked: Why do people enjoy this? And hell, I still don't get it. I don't get what's fun about the gameplay out of this. I don't get why people don't wish this was a movie. I don't get why people don't see the part where the cutscenes stop and you're asked to do something(quite directly, with instructions, and little else to do otherwise), why people consider that part fun.
This part is actually genuine curiosity on my part, not an attempt to forcefully brainwash anyone.
You vaguely define "fun". I dunno, it just doesn't make sense to me. It's like praising the camerawork of a movie that has a brilliant script and sets but keeps the camera firmly pointed at everyone's feet, sometimes randomly panning around in circles. It's a mess, and I don't know if I've seen any reasonable argument as to why it's not a mess. I've seen people argue, without much logical backing, that I'm a "cancer" to the community, but that's hardly an engaging discussion to be had.
But no, my intention wasn't to change what you think, but to understand why you think that.
But no, my intention wasn't to change what you think, but to understand why you think that.
Here's the deal. Let me try to elaborate. I'm a pretty big Bioware fan (drooling over TOR) I LOVE the way they have modernized the RPG. Mass Effect 2, IMO, was a masterpiece of entertainment as a whole and not just videogames. Yes, I can still make criticisms about it. I'm not going to defend every aspect of that game.
There's another side here though.... I felt the same way when I played Baldur's Gate 2 like 10 years earlier. I can honestly say I miss the way games USED to be played. That game would cripple your average Call of Duty player, I imagine. They just wouldn't have the patience required. They would say it's tedious and monotonous and probably just say it sucked. Mass Effect 2 (among others), in a way, was Bioware "refining" the experience into a more palatable thing for the average joe. The hardcore gamer in me wants to cry foul, for the death of my old experiences. When I could say "hey, I just beat Baldur's Gate, or Jagged Alliance" and people would be like "whoa, thats awesome."
Now with the way adventure games are today, I feel a lot of the same stuff. I have NEVER come across a TT game that has risen to the difficulty of some of the classics. I'm sorry but SoMI and so on are unmatched. I could probably tell you how to complete every single Lucas Arts or Sierra adventure game, just because I spent so much time trying to figure it all out. When all is said and done, and the most mind twisting adventure game awards are given out, I guess I say my favorites are the ones with interesting characters and stories and writing. Yes, Gabriel Knight was tough, but the main thing that sticks out is how awesome the story was.
With TT and BttF the game. I was NEVER expecting a mind twisting difficulty (as I said, I think ALL TT games are easy easy.) I got exactly what I was expecting. I could shake my fist and say why can't this game be exactly like my favorites from the past that had all those elements put together. It's just simply ANOTHER GENRE. Its a genre with many elements of past adventure games, but its just not the same. Just like with modern RPG's.... I"m not going get mad about my genre of game being dead. It's just a new thing. What I get out of it, is a nicely written story (this is all my opinion by the way) with some branching conversation trees, an interactive story featuring some of my favorite movie characters. I also get, arguably, the first real attempt at doing a decent BttF game. Maybe the more appropriate word for this genre would be, interactive story or something, I don't know. Maybe there's bugs but thats not anything new. (Took me forever to get some old games to even run) These things don't take away my enjoyment of a game. I can honestly say I am looking forward to how this game pans out, In terms of story line. I'm not expecting any huge puzzles or actually anything different in terms of gameplay that we haven't already seen in the first 2 episodes.
Thats it. By the way fun is fun. I find cleaning my house to be fun sometimes, but other times it sucks (most times). And I'm not comparing this game to cleaning up btw :P
Now with the way adventure games are today, I feel a lot of the same stuff. I have NEVER come across a TT game that has risen to the difficulty of some of the classics. I'm sorry but SoMI and so on are unmatched.
To quickly preface my post, I want to say that I grew up playing adventure games, became aware of Telltale in early 2008 and am a regular pre-orderer as of SBCG4AP. I’m sure everything I’m posting has already been said, and said better than whatever I can write, but I guess it can’t hurt to voice my opinion.
Like most other forum members, I felt that the first two episodes of Back to the Future were easily the worst games Telltale has produced. It’s disappointing to see one of my favorite films turned into a game with so much going for it (good concept art, excellent music, an incredible sound-alike for Marty, Christopher Lloyd, a great premise) and then marred intentionally by the developers. In my opinion, the two biggest problems with the game are the animation and the puzzles (or lack thereof). I’m only going to write about these two problems because I don’t want to waste your time with petty whining.
The animations are without a doubt the weakest I’ve seen in a Telltale game. While I can understand Doc and Emmett using the same animations, the reuse got a bit excessive once I saw nearly every character make the same gesture. Linguistics fail me here, but you know that thing where you sorta clap the back of one hand to the palm of the other in front of you? Nearly every character does this. Every. One. Doc and Emmett do it as an “Aha!” gesture, Kid does it to show he means business, and Marty does it when he’s thinking.
The animation problem is infinitely more apparent when Doc is in frame moving around. The cynical part of me thinks the team realized they couldn’t make Doc as animated as he is in the movies and decided to stick him in a little box for the entire game. He moves from a cramped prison cell to an even more cramped police car in episode one and spends the entirety of episode two in a small room, rarely moving for his dialogue.
Maybe that’s for the best, because the one time he did move about the room it was probably the most embarrassing thing ever. While explaining to Marty about the five timelines they had created through their tomfoolery in 1931, he slowly walks around the room, occasionally coming to a complete halt to turn in place, raise an arm in the air, and point at nothing in particular. Compare this to when he explained the timelines in 1985-A, gesticulating wildly while scribbling on a blackboard. The robotic motions of Doc in episode two capture don’t capture the essence of the character -- the manic genius that makes the Doc such a unique and memorable character. It would have been nice if Christopher Lloyd's movements were motion-captured and translated to Doc’s model, but I guess that kind of technology is a bit beyond a small company like Telltale. What’s that? Jurassic Park uses mo-cap? Oh. Oh...
Every possible combination of words has already been used to describe the puzzles in this game, so I’ll try to keep this short. They are easy. Ridiculously simple. I know that Telltale is aiming for the lowest common denominator when designing these puzzles, but I think even they would feel insulted. Back to the Future isn’t really popular among kids these days, so I can't imagine that Telltale would aim for the "8 and under" crowd. The average fan has been through college at this point, has a job, etc. I really doubt having slightly challenging puzzles in your game will trouble them too much.
The Einstein puzzles are another beast completely. I thought the first was alright. It was still in the “tutorial” section of the game, so at the time I made no note of it. After the second I already felt the game was over-saturated with them. Now that there have been four of this sort in half as many episodes I can’t help but find it comical.
CALLING IT NOW: The final puzzle of the season will be one of these.
I’m sure everyone’s sick of me by now so I’m going to wrap it up. I don’t hate the game, I’m simply disappointed by it. Telltale is capable of much better things and to see them squander their talents to make a game like this is disheartening. I could go on and complain that the game is more of an interactive movie or complain about the hint systems, but I’ll stop here. I truly believe that the game would be exponentially better if you were to fix these two issues, and hope that Telltale will listen to the near universal complaints when making King’s Quest, The Walking Dead, King’s Quest, Fables, and King’s Quest.
It's unfortunate that my first post here has to be so negative and I can’t wait to be given reasons to be more optimistic with the coming games.
A free expression of opinions and tolerance for sure aren't the most positive attributes of this forum.
Surprisingly this forum rather quickly has turned into a place where threads are getting closed or posts are beeing modified/deleted because some mods don't act like grown ups beeing up to the job. Users who state their opinions in form of critics and concerns are often more attacked on a personal level instead of regards to the content, in some cases even by TT, and consistently have to justify their posts and/or their participation on the forum.
Such low standards of manners, tolerance and conflict management are quite dissapointing.
Comments
Guess I prefer complex stories more than you then.
I never truly gotten into the story until 358 days because of how sad Roxas's story is.
It actually to me ruins the fact that sora has to save everyone ending the sadness of when they die.
I mean the walking dead wouldnt be that good if everyone magicaly gets revived(and are not turned into zombies)
See, to me, that(at best) constitutes "A bad game with a good story". Not that narrative elements don't count as part of games at times, but when the gameplay feels divorced from the narrative in that the fact that the player does a thing rather than the character doing it feels entirely arbitrary(because the point isn't the player interaction, which seems to be more universally panned than the product as a whole), then the "story" and "gameplay" feel really separated to the point that they feel like different entities, and that leaves the non-story aspect looking like a fascimile of a game made by someone who didn't "quite" understand what games are or what the point is.
I guess bad game with good story would be a way for the way I think of BTTF game, but Interactive movie also was a good choice of words, and personally I think either does fit the description.
I still classify a game as "good" even if the gameplay isnt at its best.
And if we REALLY nitpick and are extreamly specific on gameplay, I would say the gameplay is good but the "puzzles" are terrible.
Of course that is REALLY nitpicking there.
I do see your point, really I do, but I still think the story alone is a good thing to reccomend this.
What's the point? Way before Tales of Monkey Island, I & other people expressed our concerns on the new "cinematic" approach of Telltale Games.
We were met with head-on refusal by the people working in the games to acknowledge that a video GAME is NOT cinema, rampant fanboyism of the majority of forum posters that wanted to pretend that they were friends with the Telltale team & I was ultimately banned (twice) by a Team Fortress 2 fanatic that doesn't take well to people disagreeing with him.
Some of us supported Telltale in the beginning because of their promises that they would NOT be like LucasArts & that they'd be delivering good old fashioned point & click games for the Adventure fan.
Now it seems that all our money was used to create a monster that tells people what they should like & refuses to listen to what people do like.
It even got to the point that I saw a post from a non-widescreen user complaining that the game only uses a third of his monitor. His complain was waved aside like he shouldn't've even bothered the staff with his pettiness.
You know, because Telltale Games are supposed to be cinematic, so what's the point of bothering with people who don't buy widescreens? It's their problem, right?
And what's so cinematic about clunky, horrible & jerky camera angles all the way from ToMI until Get Tannen? Are those horrible dials that take most of the screen on the Back to the Future games supposed to be immersive & cinematic?
The problem is, you people somehow do manage to get your hands on interesting franchises & that gets people's interest, but then you shouldn't wonder why your customers complain when what you deliver is a faulty product.
Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Back to the Future & especially Monkey Island keep me - and others - coming back (very sporadically), but for how long?
I never should've bought The Devil's Playhouse... I did. The story was brilliant, but the games were filled with "hip" internet references that sucked all the way through. Something that started on S&M's Season 2 & went out of control.
At this point I ask you... to whom is Telltale making these games?
The whole thing is starting to reek of an horrible, long in-joke by now.
And people, please... I read a few posts where you were moaning that Telltale staff was absent from the forums & that it was the community's fault because they were rude. Get something: They are NOT your friends, they're people selling a product & if that product is faulty it is YOUR RIGHT & DUTY to complain.
It's funny how some people are afraid of hurting the team's feelings when the team is hurting their pockets...
To sum it up - neither is a video game a film in any shape or manner, nor are you delivering the "cinematic experience" we've heard so much about.
The closest to that was Wallace & Gromit. It's been freewheelin' downhill ever since.
Cheers!
Comments in bold.
I disagree, and agree with you in some parts.
People will always have natural inclinations to certain hobbies. We naturally grow into them. Some people like reading, some people like football, and some people like both. Fact of the matter is that when someone writes a book about football, the vast majority of the readers will be those who are inclined to both football and reading. That is the same with BttF the game. The vast majority of those playing this game are likely to be those who are already familiar with games. To say that this game will convert non gamers into gamers is just plain silly. Those who avoid video games will avoid this one as well.
Um. There's a difference between stories that are complex and stories that are just a overly pretentious convoluted mess. However, I understand that this isn't everyone's view, and respectfully back off on any further discussion about something not pertaining to the topic at hand.
Ok my only complaint on gameplay is the seperate screens for items. I personally have no issues with cameras or anything else here.
Of course my opinion over yours.
I don't have a widescreen monitor and I have never noticed a real problem with that. There's something obviously wrong on his end, or his exaggerating the one third part.
taking my mind off of defending BTTF the game.
A convuluted mess would be Soulcalibur 4's story.
Quoting Zero Punctuation "its so complicated you need a flowchart which conviently the game supplies"
KH can be figured out, but this really confuse me.
This is about this guy who was evil from a sword, but now is good and must destroy the darkness from the sword, and he has to face this guy and a then there is his daughter who is after the sword as well, along with this guy who wants the sword for good, and then there is the guy with no soul who needs the sword, and then there is darth vader who magicaly came after the sword as well AGGGHH.
Perhaps you're right. I don't have any conclusive data about the overall demographics of people who bought the game.
From my limited experience, I only personally know one non-gamer who played BTTF, but I *do* know several other-genre-gamers who, having never played an adventure game before, are enjoying BTTF and are interested in checking out other Telltale titles. I have no way of knowing if my tiny little frame of reference is actually indicative of larger trends, but for at least my handful of friends, BTTF is an effective gateway drug. :P
Yeah this is a great "my first adventure game" so someone gets a taste, but the taste would be more of a crumb if anything.
A good first adventure game would be teltales own SBCG4AP(it was my first adventure game anyway)
By no means am I unwelcoming to those who are new to adventure games. I was introduced to them almost 2 years ago now with SoMI. However, if people play other adventure games and complain about how the games are too hard, demand more easy games like BttF from TTG and their wishes are granted, I think I will cry.
Wow, it's a good thing Nintendo didn't share your philosophy otherwise their success at innovativing a game play design that was more intuitive and less intimidating to the non gamer would've never happened with the Wii.
Well yeah, but people who want to join a new genra of gaming tends to go for the easier ones to get somewhat of the flow for the taste, which yet again here would be a crumb gameplay wise.
That was nintendos idea behind New Super Mario Wii.
I have never seen anyone hate anything like some of these posters do. I suspect some of them are the same person.
People who dislike the game can and have come up with huge lists explaining the qualities of the game that simply have no merit. Where's the person who loves it that can match this? Is it because the game doesn't have any merits, or is it that people who enjoy casual garbage aren't the sort that can analyze casual garbage and extract the parts that have value? Or are we just unlucky, and that nobody who enjoys it wants to explain why?
Let's take a look at the top 5 best selling games for the Wii, shall we?
Wii Sports (75.66 million)
Wii Play (27.38 million)
Mario Kart Wii (26.50 million)
Wii Sports Resort (26.35 million)
Wii Fit (22.61 million)
Damn, those are good numbers, now aren't they? Problem. Those buying games among the likes of Wii Sports or Wii Fit aren't doing so because they are intrested in gaming. They got it because it was the hot new novelty. And you know what? It worked for a while. They were in the money for a few years. Did the people who buy the wii for the novelty become proper gamers? For the most part, no.
In fact, last year when Nintendo started actually releasing games for the gaming masses, all the people who bought the Wii for sports and fit started to wonder if there was any "games" for them.
Talking to my Aunt who has a Wii, I recall my cousin asking if he could have my gamecube. I told him that he could use his Wii to play gamecube games if he had a controller. My aunt was all, "Oh we don't play those kinds of games. They're not like Wii sports or Just Dance. We only play games like that."
Watering something down may get more people to buy something, but the chances of those folks genuinely extending their intrests because of the watered down mainstream is not likely. Will it make more money? Sure. If that's all you care about, then by all means, support that.
And with your argument about having it yelled out at you, that was the point that I realized that I was laboring through this game rather than playing it for fun. I just wanted to hear the pattern one more time, not have it yelled right at me. I turned the hints off for a reason.
I don't mind games being fairly streamlined, I don't even mind them being fairly easy. But these have the problem of being both easy, streamlined, and short, but the shortness might be a product of the easiness. By the end of the second episode, I had the distinct feeling that I hadn't actually done anything and the episode was ending. Also, not only are puzzles easy, they're being blatantly repeated.
Basically, I'm enjoying this game because I'm really trying to. I'm playing this game because being such a huge fan of BttF, I feel like I need to. But the more and more I play it, the less and less I feel loyalty to it. I really don't get it. I showed up after you did, Rather, around the release of ToMI...but I, too, now own all of their past endeavors and feel as though this does not live up to it. Which is sad, because it has so much potential. I've lost my respect for Nintendo by abandoning their core fans and I feel as though I'm on the verge of feeling the same way towards Telltale, a company that I once had so much faith in.
While recent games have not been as difficult as Season 2, I still really enjoy Tales of Monkey Island and The Devil's Playhouse. Both had great dialogue, music, story, and humor that made them fun. I recently replayed Lair of the Leviathan. While I still remembered how to solve everything, I enjoyed doing them again because the puzzles and scenes were fun and memorable, such as Morgan's trivia, Murray, the pirate 'face-off', playing with tarot cards, and making witty conversations in manatee.
Back to the Future has some good parts: the story, voice acting, and attention to detail in referencing the movies. However, the game does not feel very polished. Even while the game felt like a movie, graphical and audio bugs really takes away from the experience: the animations were more stiff and lip sync wasn't strong, camera angles cutting off the character's face, clipping, teleporting characters and specifically the static during Edna's song. The puzzles feel not only easy but very straightforward. I think this is because the world is so bare. Even though there are cars and people walking by in cut scenes, Hill Valley 1931 feels empty. Aside from the population, there are very few items to click on. Almost everything selectable is used to solve a puzzle somehow. In the second episode, in the square there are only a few things to look at: buildings, Edna's table, and Emmet's controls. In front of the speakeasy, there are only posters and trash to look at. There should be more to look at, more to interact with. The puzzles themselves should be more creative to up the difficulty and to be more fun like the tarot cards in ToMI Episode 3. I know a lower difficulty is better to keep new players from getting discouraged, but that why they have hints when they ask. The hints included in the cut-scenes, like panning to an item, just makes it that much easier and feels like it's going from point A to B like a movie.
I think the game is in a bit of a gray area for the audience. The game very clearly feels marketed for a causal gaming audience. I not saying marking to casuals is a bad thing nor is an indicator for a bad game. Some games can bridge causal and frequent very well like Puzzle Agent and Plants vs. Zombies. While Back to the Future is Telltale's biggest property to date, it doesn't seem to be the ideal game to get people into gaming. To me, the ones interested in a BttF game would be those who grew up in the 80s and 90s and already have decided whether or not they will play games.
I also have to agree with the clunky interface. The game on PC/Mac feels like the iPad version with the large clunky buttons and a separate screen for inventory. I noticed this a bit in The Devil's Playhouse but it wasn't as awkward to use. I also want to blame the iPad for the lack of polish for this season: the few characters, few selectable things, graphical bugs, and over compression on sound.
I've enjoyed the story so far and will play the rest and I am optimistic about Jurassic Park. I'm still glad I bought the season but I wish this season had the polish that Tales and the S&Ms had. I think the animations in Season 1 might have been sharper. I don't know what could have caused the quality decline: the iPad, marketing, Universal contracts, lack of risk taking, low price point, a mixture of those, or something else.
Alan, just FYI these guys are really killing the community feel of TTG for me and many others (who it is not fair for me to name).
First, Dashing's long post has made a lot of good points. I'm not sure if the word was in it, but disappointment seems to be what gets many people up in verbal arms here. It's the very same when I look at my own recent posts, and Alan might have asked me just as well: "What is your angle". Disappointment is something preceded by expectations, and expectations are founded on the solid belief that something good might emerge.
Now I'll try and keep it short, but I have to repeat: TTG and BTTF. When this pairing was announced, I was ecstatic. I kept writing in e-mails that TTG seems to have begun making games exclusively geared towards me personally as their target audience. Back to the Future plus the gameplay of Sam & Max or Monkey Island, my expectation was quite frankly that it could not get any better. You can see this from my art output at the time, my sketchpad hardly had other characters on it from July to December!
It is this part where I agree most with Dashing. I don't "hate" BTTF. I see how much love has gone into the production of it, how much careful thought was put into keeping the franchise's distinct feel. I won't repeat in detail what the reasons for my disappointment were. They're spread in this forum enough as it is. But let me point out the specific reason why I keep criticising BTTF in these parts: Because TTG is not heading in my direction any more. I say "my direction" instead of "the right direction" on purpose. TTG has decided to put story/cinematics in place of gameplay, while my solid belief is that BOTH can be done at the same time. Jurassic Park is heading into this very same direction with a vengeance. Mind you: A LOT of people like that kind of "gameplay" obviously. So it IS an individual thing... sad to say.
The faint hope is, the more criticism you voice, the more Telltale might hear you. I think that's why people get loud in here, some even ugly. They want to change things and lead the path a little more in their direction, and they feel cheated because BTTF is not accidentally like that, but carries a visible philosophy with which they can not identify any more.
It is indeed not fair to "name" people killing the community feel for you, it really is not. As one poster in this thread might specifically tell you, I am not always content with the way some posters address issues. The line is crossed when other community members are called stupid or tasteless, or insulted personally in any other way. But as far as I can see, nothing like that happened in here. It is "fair" to find BTTF stupid as a game, and it is "fair" to give this belief a voice. There are a lot of arguments to be heard concerning this disappointment.
Compared with other forums, I find that this one has relatively few posts which cross the line. You might well feel that the community feeling is damaged a little, but I propose that this is because long-term posters and "community founding members" simply don't like BTTF.
I don't like the vaguely threatening nature of the implications of this post.
I don't have this much time today, so i'll only address a few points. If you want more in depth critics, suggestions, then pm or hire me. ;O) I partly see this as a waste of time because if one has followed what people had written on the forum, then it should be pretty obvious what's going wrong for some of us and if you're able to listen, are a experienced gamer/developer, then it shouldn't be too hard to know which steps would be needed to improve the situation. Anyway here we go...
…were we are coming from
To some degree i feel betrayed by TT and that people like me were used as a financial spring board to get things started. The larger TT gets, the more they are turning away from what i thought this company would be about, great adventure games.
Due to their most probably limited resources i kind of understood the design decisions in the early days of TT, easy, episodic, accessible adventure games with a focus on popular licences in order to reduce the financial risk. Not the perfect approach for someone who is mainly interested in great adventure games but good enough to give it a try, support it, care about it and still hope for some better future.
In the beginning the iteration of the introduction to new gamers and the lack of greatness was understandable but as things haven't improved a lot over all those years in aspects i do mostly care about like unique and challenging puzzles, a great story, characters with some depth, interesting dialogues, perfect interface&steering method, it got kind of annoying. At some point it's just enough and you finally want one great game instead of five mediocre ones.
Moreover things even got worse with a lack of communication, games getting buggier and petty due to their permanent lack of quality and taking this movie direction some at TT seem to be so very fond of.
…cinematic experiences
For a videogame Heavy Rain shines on the visuals, the story and partly on some characters. It's horrible on the gameplay/-design side and compared to the better examples from other media like books, comics and movies, the characters aren't convincing as well. Heavy Rain is best consumed as a movie but not as a video game.
Now if TT tries to step into Quantic Dreams footsteps they dramatically have to improve the visuals, the story and the characters as otherwise this will flop at least for me. Let's assume they succeed, then you're still left with something which is better consumed as a movie instead of a game.
I still favor watching a movie without any interaction, passive mode, and playing a game on my own where i also have to use my brain, active mode. Having to interact in a movie annoys me the same like having not to use my brain in an adventure game.
I think it's possible coming up with a game which tells a rich story and delivers interesting and challenging gameplay but this needs resources, time and talent for coming up with something unique and maybe offering working difficulty levels for a change.
Enlarging TT's portfolio also is a way to go. Instead of trying to make every TT product interesting for the whole audience they also can produce series for different minded audiences. But if they do so, they also need to communicate this upfront and label the products accordingly (red=experts, yellow=moderate, green=beginners) and maybe try to cover two levels via the settings in a game. For instance it's still unknown to me who the target audience for Jurassic Park will be, although it's available for pre-order already. That's no serious and trustful business.
There are quite some ways to do this right. Difficulty levels so far never really worked out in all the TT products i've played. I once suggested the idea on my own that other characters suggest some help if you got stuck but if you're going this route you also need to implement it properly (subtile but obvious enough to be helpful) as otherwise hint systems like in the second editions or Broken Sword are the easier and more effective solutions.
In the end i think each licence or game can also take a completely different approach in gameplay, visualisation and interaction but no matter how you do it, the result must be convincing.
…puzzles
I want to explore and solve unique/interesting/challenging puzzles. Easy puzzles are fine to some degree as well but they need to be more unique, again like the monkey business in the lab was, easy but great. Most TT games completely lack such quality puzzles. I also would be fine with a more story driven content for a change as long as dealing with characters and the consequences happens on an intellectual interesting level. If done right this could be quite interesting. From time to time i still want to play adventure games but with an enlargement of TT's portfolio something like this could be possible.
The quality just must be convincing. Looking at some of the more adult like content i hope that TT really has the right people to do such jobs in a convincing way. To write certain moments in Heavy Rain you need some life experience, you must have experienced ups&downs and experienced great losses on your own, otherwise this won't go beyond scratching on the surface.
…steering
And as i'm talking about surfaces the interface and the way you steer a game is very important as it's part of how much you enjoy a game. Point&click is a fantastic method for many devices (computers and touch devices) in 2/2.5/3D worlds,as long as it goes hand in hand with the camera angles. Direct control can be an option for 3D but only if it's implemented properly. TT never had a serious try with point&click in 3D space and their direct control is dissapointing in aspects like badly chosen camera angles, bumping into objects/invisible walking borders, lack of fast travel hotspots, switching movement keys isn't always convincing. Moreover being in direct control of a character can drag you more out of a puzzle minded state. There should at least be support for one perfect implemented method or at best both of them.
…bugs
Lately TT releases games with way to obvious bugs, enhancing QA would be very much welcome.
…things i appreciate
I'm running out of time, i have so much in my head about this topic that i could go on for hours but half an hour is already over so enough with the critics. What i appreciate is that TT sometimes also listens and that a) Jurassic Park comes with a real benefit in form of a price discount, b) that they at least offer crosslicences for PC and Mac and c) that BTTF not only came with localised subtitles (which is a must) but also with localised dubs (which is nice to have). I'm also looking forward to a broader variety of games.
This is roughly exactly how I feel.
I am defenently a fan of the story and do want to know what happens next, and dont honestly have complaints on how you play the game, but come on telltale, this is not your best by far(season 2 wins that) please tell me your telltale 5 will not be like this.
I defenently am going to be a little more cautious with you guys and go for demos before preorders now(which is a shame). The only way you cna turn this game around is to BUMP UP THE DAMN DIFFICULTY!!!!!! Gosh Rather Dashing is being kind on his gameplay breakdown. This is an interactive longer movie than it is a game!!
If you guys turn into an animated film company, I wouldnt blame you(but you would have to change your name to telltalefilms) you guys are great with animation and story, but for now YOU ARE A GAME COMPANY!!!! Make games, with challange(ok If you nitpick there is challange, but it is so small germs laugh at it) I love the game, but story will only keep me with you guys for so long, thats why I applaud Kingdom Hearts for at least trying to change it up, even if I hated Codeds RPG mode and disliked the platforming(too easy for once in a KH game).
I know the company I love is still here, I know you guys can easily pull off these new games, but please telltale you are loosing customers fast.
Back to the Future: The Game is not a challenging game. Aside from two particularly good puzzles (the password puzzle and the caricature puzzle from Get Tannen), it's easy as dirt.
That said, this isn't a game in the traditional sense. It's a rather strange game/movie hybrid, mixing the cinematic feel of a movie with some easy gameplay. For what it's trying to be, I feel that it works. I'm not exactly a fan of it, but as evidenced by the people that like BttF: The Game, it has an audience. And quite frankly, I don't blame Telltale for trying to appeal to this audience. Financially, it seems to be working out for them. I'd probably start making this style of game more often too if I was them.
However, I'm still upset with what Telltale's doing. In going after this new audience, they seem to be forgetting their old audience. That is, the people that enjoy a good, challenging LucasArts style adventure game. I don't mind seeing Telltale make these cinematic game/movie hybrids, but for goodness sake, don't forget about the people that helped start you off.
If Telltale can put out great games for adventure gamers while still giving the more casual audience what they want, then I'll be happy. But if they keep pouring out things like Back to the Future, I'm afraid I'll be looking elsewhere for my adventure games.
I have not played The Devil's Playhouse yet, so I can't really comment on that, but I did find Tales of Monkey Island to enjoyable on pretty much every level. I felt that the puzzles in TMI were a mix of fairly obvious and challenging, and on par with the previous entries in the series. Sure, the game isn't perfect (awkward controls), but the others were also flawed in ways, such as the terrible ending in Monkey Island 2.
Perhaps the designers simply felt whether right or wrong, that the BTTF simply called for easier game play, and Jurassic Park needs a certain style as well. I do not feel that the execution of BTTF is an indication of what approach they will take for King's Quest, because we can already see that they take different approaches to different properties (S&M, Puzzle Agent, Jurassic Park).
So in short, I feel that BTTF is worth it. It would be a much BETTER game if it provided a challenge, but it is still enjoyable enough on other levels to be worth playing.
Edit: Sorry if this post seems too long, but I just wanted to add one more though to try and make it constructive. As has been stated previously in this thread, the reason that puzzles are important to any adventure game, is because they are the most fundamental game play element. Just ike an action game needs to have intuitive controls, with logical button layouts and good response, or an RPG needs to have a logical leveling system, an adventure game needs to have at least moderately challenging puzzles.
The puzzles need to feel like they are part of the narrative, and are there to drive the story forward. If the puzzles are challenging, it pulls the player in and makes the game more engrossing. Sure, the game can still be somewhat engrossing just by having a good story, but lack of challenging puzzles will prevent it from being as good as it can be. Hope that makes sense.
When a game is developed, smart game developers do not just try to please their current customers, they try to please the people who would be interested in the property at hand by tailoring the game to what they see as those people's wishes.
Let me try to make sense of my previous sentence:
When Telltale makes a Sam & Max game, they don't just make it for fans of the comics, but also (and probably more so) for fans of adventure games because Sam & Max has an adventure game past.
The same goes for Monkey Island (except that Monkey Island doesn't even have a comic book past, apart from Paco Vink's superb in-progress adaptation of the first game).
However, when they have a property with no adventure game past whatsoever and a huge fanbase (say, Back to the Future), most of which probably never played a point-and-click adventure game in their life, they will necessarily lean towards an easier kind of gameplay, at the risk of alienating their loyal customers.
The real problem IMHO is that after having released almost exclusively adventure games, Telltale Games are seen as an adventure game company and their first hour fans expect all of the company's games to cater to them.
Is there any game developer who has produced as many different games as Telltale Games and about which you can say "every last one of this company's games appeals to me"?
To me, it's quite simple: if Telltale makes a game I'm interested in, I'll buy it. Otherwise, I'll just save my money and possibly buy the next one.
And for the record, I love Back to the Future. Sure, it doesn't offer much of a challenge as a game (at least for experienced adventure gamers), but it certainly delivers (IMHO, again) in terms of atmosphere and story.
Can't wait for the next episode (but I wouldn't mind if it was a little harder
BUT.
Having too many negative posts everywhere repeating the same things, it's propaganda, and not too great to follow. I don't want to skip some people posts only by reading the name of the poster, that would be pretty sad. I don't like this extremism here.
Adding my two cents: I think that when TT released their firsts games we believed that TT have a huge chance to make adventures as we like it. So we supported it. The problem is that, now that TT are quite bigger, each player likes different things, and we ask: "why doesn't TT make the games they promised us?". The answer: "because everyone wants a different things and games and after all they haven't promised anything to anyone".
So stop pointless posts-crusading. Be contructive, without costantly repeating yourself every thread started. This behaviour is not creating anything good - they make developers run away from the forum (and i can understand this) because working everyday with the people's hate is not good for anyone.
And if you don't like their games simply don't support it - it's not TT fault if you don't like stunning easy games as BTTF. I don't like easiness too, but that's the simplified game style they advised way before the 1st episode. Some young kids will love it much more than the Tales's harder difficulty .
One things are suggestions, other things are ORDERS that we give to Talltale because of the spirit that "we supported from the beginning". This is just being dumb.
Even if you buy them, the games are not yours and they'll never be, they'll forever be by TT. And Telltale doesn't owe us anything aside the games we've paid for (and their full functionality). Leave them their choices, give suggestions, and then do what you want. You're not married with Telltale, you can skip buying one game or two.
I've sometimes being hard on Telltale, yeah, that's for sure, but I think that now we've crossed the line. And reading some insensitive and verbally violent posts here, even before the games are out, sometimes makes me wish they move to FPS or Flight Simulator.
What about those who keep repeating how they love the game and what Telltale has done? What's your opinion about them? Often times people express their criticism because someone else is spouting about how they absolutely love the game without fault. That or someone is asking about other's opinions about the game.
And who is to say the decline in developer involvement in the community has to do with the fact that people are critical of their work? I'm sure they're involved less not because they're butthurt. They're better than that. They should be pushed to do their best work.
That's how I see it at least.
You're right, of course, that one should ordinarily just ignore games that don't suit them, even those coming from their otherwise favorite game company. And I probably would have never bothered commenting on BTTF were it not for the fact that Telltale still has interest in producing titles based on well known adventure-game (as opposed to movie-oriented) properties. (Prior to Feb. 17 I would have cited Monkey Island, as the possibility of TTG getting another license is not entirely foreclosed AFAIK, but now it's an even more pressing concern as they've acquired rights to at least one Sierra franchise.) So while I don't mind that TTG is making interactive entertainment experiences instead of games for some properties, I have little reason to be confident that the dumbing-down trend won't also be applied to their adventure-game titles.
Negative posts everywhere? Propaganda? Really??
I look at this or any other game forum here and I see plenty of stuff for everyone -- polls, predictions, plot discussions, fan contribution projects, TTG ass-kissing, etc. etc.
It's fun because I get to spend a few hours every month with a product that makes me smile. It's not a difficult game, I never expected it to be difficult. I am with you that this game is too easy. I think ALL of TT's games are easy. Also I play ALL SORTS of other genres and styles of games for ALL SORTS of reasons. (You name it) What I get out of THIS game is a simple pleasure that I feel I payed a reasonable price for. I think you can say all this stuff is broken or that completing an episode doesn't give any valid fun whatsoever. I think your standards are different than mine.
I don't find the game to be an abomination. I believe that there are way worse games out there that do deserve such a passionate loathing. No matter what anyone says I'm not going to hate this game...sorry :rolleyes:
1) My original post was not even aimed at TTG directly, but was a clear answer to the thread's opening post. "Is this game worth it?" It was asked by a person that clearly identified themselves as a long-time Telltale fan that has played every game so far. That clearly puts them into the "Adventure gamer" demographic. I spoke frankly about my opinion of the game, from one adventure gamer to another, and even provided a link to the one-episode trial, saying that my views don't have to be taken at their word, you can actually play it for yourself. It seems the OP got some idea of what to expect from posts like mine, and that's the important thing. By all accounts, I was being honest and helpful.
2) The second post was a direct result of Alan specifically asking me to elaborate. I didn't make two posts out of the aether, the second was a direct result of a Telltale employee asking for clarification. Everybody else joining in was either replying to the OP, replying to Alan's directly requested explanation, or replying to me or any of the other posts that have added to the discussion. At no point was any other forum member directly attacked(until these posts, anyway), so I believe the idea of a "Community" was pretty well-preserved; that is, a community of varied individuals with different opinions and viewpoints. If you have constructive suggestions though, I'm sure we could have a discussion about forum etiquette, though I'm not sure this is the thread in which to have that conversation.
I remember a gameplay video where they advertised the first puzzle in Episode 1, the electric guitar Biff puzzle. It was advertised as the very first "Tutorial" puzzle, and(if it didn't have prompts telling me where to go and what to do, and not that's not exaggeration, it's quite literal) it would be the most difficult and intelligent puzzle in the past two games. They also clearly advertised it as an adventure game, a game that would have puzzles, and it isn't that.
Also, I don't know about other small children, but I was playing Maniac Mansion when I was four. I've introduced children 10 and under to Secret of Monkey Island(not even the Special Edition, I'm talking about the original pixelated game), and they loved it. Children are very good at picking something up and learning it. They have an incredible intuition and a way of piecing together systems. They have to be, because they live in a world full of systems and ideas that they don't have the experience to understand. They have to take in so much, and they do, and it's quite incredible. I've yet to see a child 10 or under even be bothered by a graphical difference between a more modern game and something like Secret of Monkey Island. Back to the Future kind of goes against that natural curiosity that children have, but hey, that's fine. Plenty of children's media refuses to engage that curiosity, plenty of things look down at them, so hey. And of course, it hardly makes sense to make a game that only children could find engaging based on a 25 year-old license that hasn't had an installment in 11 years.
Well, I'm certainly married to this season of Back to the Future. I can see now why they switched to the full-season-only model, so they could get the money up front for shoddy work. I'm stuck playing the rest of these, so I might as well speak up and try to get an improvement in later episodes, so I can not hate maybe 2/3rds of the product I've paid for. And hey, others seem to be with me on this one, at least on the side of the gameplay. And hey, Alan seems to want feedback(and not only that, but detailed, well-explained feedback, and my previous efforts had apparently not been enough). So I'd like to be entirely clear here: at least in this thread, I posted because I was asked, first indirectly and then *quite* directly.
You completely misunderstand me. I'm not tryin to "make" people hate anything. I literally meant exactly what I asked: Why do people enjoy this? And hell, I still don't get it. I don't get what's fun about the gameplay out of this. I don't get why people don't wish this was a movie. I don't get why people don't see the part where the cutscenes stop and you're asked to do something(quite directly, with instructions, and little else to do otherwise), why people consider that part fun.
This part is actually genuine curiosity on my part, not an attempt to forcefully brainwash anyone.
You vaguely define "fun". I dunno, it just doesn't make sense to me. It's like praising the camerawork of a movie that has a brilliant script and sets but keeps the camera firmly pointed at everyone's feet, sometimes randomly panning around in circles. It's a mess, and I don't know if I've seen any reasonable argument as to why it's not a mess. I've seen people argue, without much logical backing, that I'm a "cancer" to the community, but that's hardly an engaging discussion to be had.
But no, my intention wasn't to change what you think, but to understand why you think that.
Here's the deal. Let me try to elaborate. I'm a pretty big Bioware fan (drooling over TOR) I LOVE the way they have modernized the RPG. Mass Effect 2, IMO, was a masterpiece of entertainment as a whole and not just videogames. Yes, I can still make criticisms about it. I'm not going to defend every aspect of that game.
There's another side here though.... I felt the same way when I played Baldur's Gate 2 like 10 years earlier. I can honestly say I miss the way games USED to be played. That game would cripple your average Call of Duty player, I imagine. They just wouldn't have the patience required. They would say it's tedious and monotonous and probably just say it sucked. Mass Effect 2 (among others), in a way, was Bioware "refining" the experience into a more palatable thing for the average joe. The hardcore gamer in me wants to cry foul, for the death of my old experiences. When I could say "hey, I just beat Baldur's Gate, or Jagged Alliance" and people would be like "whoa, thats awesome."
Now with the way adventure games are today, I feel a lot of the same stuff. I have NEVER come across a TT game that has risen to the difficulty of some of the classics. I'm sorry but SoMI and so on are unmatched. I could probably tell you how to complete every single Lucas Arts or Sierra adventure game, just because I spent so much time trying to figure it all out. When all is said and done, and the most mind twisting adventure game awards are given out, I guess I say my favorites are the ones with interesting characters and stories and writing. Yes, Gabriel Knight was tough, but the main thing that sticks out is how awesome the story was.
With TT and BttF the game. I was NEVER expecting a mind twisting difficulty (as I said, I think ALL TT games are easy easy.) I got exactly what I was expecting. I could shake my fist and say why can't this game be exactly like my favorites from the past that had all those elements put together. It's just simply ANOTHER GENRE. Its a genre with many elements of past adventure games, but its just not the same. Just like with modern RPG's.... I"m not going get mad about my genre of game being dead. It's just a new thing. What I get out of it, is a nicely written story (this is all my opinion by the way) with some branching conversation trees, an interactive story featuring some of my favorite movie characters. I also get, arguably, the first real attempt at doing a decent BttF game. Maybe the more appropriate word for this genre would be, interactive story or something, I don't know. Maybe there's bugs but thats not anything new. (Took me forever to get some old games to even run) These things don't take away my enjoyment of a game. I can honestly say I am looking forward to how this game pans out, In terms of story line. I'm not expecting any huge puzzles or actually anything different in terms of gameplay that we haven't already seen in the first 2 episodes.
Thats it. By the way fun is fun. I find cleaning my house to be fun sometimes, but other times it sucks (most times). And I'm not comparing this game to cleaning up btw :P
...secret of monkey island is considered hard?
To quickly preface my post, I want to say that I grew up playing adventure games, became aware of Telltale in early 2008 and am a regular pre-orderer as of SBCG4AP. I’m sure everything I’m posting has already been said, and said better than whatever I can write, but I guess it can’t hurt to voice my opinion.
Like most other forum members, I felt that the first two episodes of Back to the Future were easily the worst games Telltale has produced. It’s disappointing to see one of my favorite films turned into a game with so much going for it (good concept art, excellent music, an incredible sound-alike for Marty, Christopher Lloyd, a great premise) and then marred intentionally by the developers. In my opinion, the two biggest problems with the game are the animation and the puzzles (or lack thereof). I’m only going to write about these two problems because I don’t want to waste your time with petty whining.
The animations are without a doubt the weakest I’ve seen in a Telltale game. While I can understand Doc and Emmett using the same animations, the reuse got a bit excessive once I saw nearly every character make the same gesture. Linguistics fail me here, but you know that thing where you sorta clap the back of one hand to the palm of the other in front of you? Nearly every character does this. Every. One. Doc and Emmett do it as an “Aha!” gesture, Kid does it to show he means business, and Marty does it when he’s thinking.
The animation problem is infinitely more apparent when Doc is in frame moving around. The cynical part of me thinks the team realized they couldn’t make Doc as animated as he is in the movies and decided to stick him in a little box for the entire game. He moves from a cramped prison cell to an even more cramped police car in episode one and spends the entirety of episode two in a small room, rarely moving for his dialogue.
Maybe that’s for the best, because the one time he did move about the room it was probably the most embarrassing thing ever. While explaining to Marty about the five timelines they had created through their tomfoolery in 1931, he slowly walks around the room, occasionally coming to a complete halt to turn in place, raise an arm in the air, and point at nothing in particular. Compare this to when he explained the timelines in 1985-A, gesticulating wildly while scribbling on a blackboard. The robotic motions of Doc in episode two capture don’t capture the essence of the character -- the manic genius that makes the Doc such a unique and memorable character. It would have been nice if Christopher Lloyd's movements were motion-captured and translated to Doc’s model, but I guess that kind of technology is a bit beyond a small company like Telltale. What’s that? Jurassic Park uses mo-cap? Oh. Oh...
Every possible combination of words has already been used to describe the puzzles in this game, so I’ll try to keep this short. They are easy. Ridiculously simple. I know that Telltale is aiming for the lowest common denominator when designing these puzzles, but I think even they would feel insulted. Back to the Future isn’t really popular among kids these days, so I can't imagine that Telltale would aim for the "8 and under" crowd. The average fan has been through college at this point, has a job, etc. I really doubt having slightly challenging puzzles in your game will trouble them too much.
The Einstein puzzles are another beast completely. I thought the first was alright. It was still in the “tutorial” section of the game, so at the time I made no note of it. After the second I already felt the game was over-saturated with them. Now that there have been four of this sort in half as many episodes I can’t help but find it comical.
CALLING IT NOW: The final puzzle of the season will be one of these.
I’m sure everyone’s sick of me by now so I’m going to wrap it up. I don’t hate the game, I’m simply disappointed by it. Telltale is capable of much better things and to see them squander their talents to make a game like this is disheartening. I could go on and complain that the game is more of an interactive movie or complain about the hint systems, but I’ll stop here. I truly believe that the game would be exponentially better if you were to fix these two issues, and hope that Telltale will listen to the near universal complaints when making King’s Quest, The Walking Dead, King’s Quest, Fables, and King’s Quest.
It's unfortunate that my first post here has to be so negative and I can’t wait to be given reasons to be more optimistic with the coming games.
Next to ANY of the Telltale games, yes it is.
Next to any other classic adventure, no it is not.
BTTF, BTTF pts. 1&2 for the NES by LJN, for example.;)
Surprisingly this forum rather quickly has turned into a place where threads are getting closed or posts are beeing modified/deleted because some mods don't act like grown ups beeing up to the job. Users who state their opinions in form of critics and concerns are often more attacked on a personal level instead of regards to the content, in some cases even by TT, and consistently have to justify their posts and/or their participation on the forum.
Such low standards of manners, tolerance and conflict management are quite dissapointing.