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I was expecting an aeroplane segment but I wasn't expecting this...
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# ? Apr 19, 2023 11:18 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 16:07 |
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Well, if their intention with this segment was to portray Zak as a total raging rear end in a top hat, they certainly succeeded.
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# ? Apr 19, 2023 23:02 |
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Some people get grumpy without coffee, I guess, but this takes it to a whole new level
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# ? Apr 20, 2023 04:45 |
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I hope that this is just a blip. I've played and recorded the next segment, it seems to be somewhat back on track but I'm still having some concerns. Broken Sword 2.5 had potential but they went completely off the rails with the characters. It was also marred with some absolutely horrendous puzzles and adventure game logic.
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# ? Apr 20, 2023 17:31 |
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Carpator Diei posted:Well, if their intention with this segment was to portray Zak as a total raging rear end in a top hat, they certainly succeeded. To be fair, half of what he did in the first game was to annoy people and gently caress with their things. Remember the air plane sequence in the first one?
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# ? Apr 21, 2023 10:25 |
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Zak arrives in Mexico to find out what happened to the archaeologists. As he explores the excavation site he uncovers even more weird things happening, some of this things we may never get an explanation for. Such as: Why is an American boy scout group camping in the jungle next to an ancient monument in the heart of Mexico? This segment is a lot more straightforward compared to the previous one, thankfully. This isn't the same pyramid from the first game but it seems just as important in this game. Is this game really set twenty years after the first one? PurpleXVI posted:To be fair, half of what he did in the first game was to annoy people and gently caress with their things. Remember the air plane sequence in the first one? He was a dick to the flight attendant in the first game as well in an effort to steal some objects, but he didn't slip anyone a roofie. As far as I'm aware we do need one of the objects from the aeroplane for a later puzzle, but it's not one that was required to scare the poo poo out of the cabin crew.
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# ? Apr 21, 2023 23:09 |
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:
for someone who is 20 years older, zak has really taken good care of himself also, if someone is a world-renowned botanist, surely they can be easily tracked down via a workplace rather than a stakeout at every fish restaurant in Paris unless, in this outlandish alternate universe, there is only one good fish restaurant in Paris
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# ? Apr 22, 2023 03:16 |
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Man, this game is embarrassing. The incredibly extended Murray scene, and then the plane bit (and especially the voice acting on the plane). And the "Italian", good lord.
gschmidl fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 22, 2023 |
# ? Apr 22, 2023 20:31 |
Murray was funny at least, but the plane section was terrible and the game would've been better without it if they couldn't actually revise it into something decent.
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# ? Apr 22, 2023 23:02 |
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I suspect this is more a problem with fan games - when there’s no real QA involved things like this get through. It’s a real shame, as the game has been really well made so far and has only been let down by the disappointing writing! Although I can’t tell whether The King is doing an Elvis impression or a Hank Hill impression…
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# ? Apr 22, 2023 23:22 |
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I've just come out of testing out the next couple of areas to get an idea of pacing for another recording. The next video may be shorter than usual as the next area has a lot of dialogue. I'm going to attempt a recording tomorrow and I'll see how it goes.gschmidl posted:Man, this game is embarrassing. The incredibly extended Murray scene, and then the plane bit (and especially the voice acting on the plane). And the "Italian", good lord. Ignatius M. Meen posted:Murray was funny at least, but the plane section was terrible and the game would've been better without it if they couldn't actually revise it into something decent. Zaroff posted:I suspect this is more a problem with fan games - when there’s no real QA involved things like this get through. The bar was set very low with the aeroplane segment. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking of when they wrote it, let alone put the time and effort into developing it into the game. The second part of Mexico is fairly standard adventure gaming but it still suffers from some weird logic to a couple of the puzzles. The one thing that I am concerned with is the female characters. The only women in the game so far have been an escort call handler and a secretary in a skimpy outfit. The dialogue for both of these characters has been fairly questionable so far. I decided to visit Hawaii earlier and spoke to Annie, I can't say that things fared much better with her considering that she's meant to be a respected scientist. Zaroff posted:Although I can’t tell whether The King is doing an Elvis impression or a Hank Hill impression… I had this exact same thought, I did think about doing an impression of Hank Hill but with my accent it wouldn't have been pretty.
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# ? Apr 22, 2023 23:33 |
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This video is the second part of our time in Mexico but not our final time here. If we were playing on easy mode we could have completed this area but we will need to return here later on once we have collected another object.
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# ? Apr 23, 2023 14:21 |
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I half expected Zak to destroy the egg inadvertently before the end of the segment and I'm glad that this didn't happen
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# ? Apr 24, 2023 21:21 |
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Zak visits Annie in Waikiki, there is a lot that I want to say about this segment but I would spoil any surprises. This section of the game definitely lowers the bar at several points, it's not as bad as the aeroplane segment but it still has some issues. sb hermit posted:I half expected Zak to destroy the egg inadvertently before the end of the segment and I'm glad that this didn't happen I'll return to it as soon as I find a giant bobby pin.
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# ? Apr 27, 2023 07:47 |
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Razor and the SCUMMettes is a reference to Maniac Mansion. I kinda get the feeling that Annie's voice actress is French, attempting an American accent.
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# ? Apr 28, 2023 02:10 |
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also, it is a bit unnerving that Annie never turns around to talk to you At least, the game devs could have considered moving Zak in front of her when talking to her.
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# ? Apr 28, 2023 02:15 |
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Zak arrives in Paris and continues on with his path of destruction. sb hermit posted:Razor and the SCUMMettes is a reference to Maniac Mansion. I thought that it was a German actress trying to portray an English accent. sb hermit posted:also, it is a bit unnerving that Annie never turns around to talk to you I'm going to give this game a free pass for stuff like this as it's gratis.
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# ? Apr 28, 2023 22:49 |
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I thought that it was a German actress trying to portray an English accent. That's a good point. quote:I'm going to give this game a free pass for stuff like this as it's gratis. That's a good point. For the curious, "le pêcheur merveilleux" means "the marvelous fisherman".
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# ? Apr 28, 2023 23:36 |
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In this episode, Germans trying to put on even remotely convincing French accents. Incroyable! Did Zak constantly talk to the player in the original game? It's really annoying.
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# ? Apr 29, 2023 22:57 |
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This is the second part of our time in Paris and we are still trying to find a way for Dr Levy to speak to us. We also visit a brand new place and we actually help someone instead of ruining their life. Although this comes after we were responsible for causing l an incident that may have resulted in some serious injury. I asked a question about a cameo that happened in this video and it turns out that David Fox did actually lend his voice to the game. You can't really get more of an endorsement for the game than the creator of the original game making an appearance. Edit: This video is fairly lengthy but part of that is down to the inclusion of an extra clip. I went back and tried the other method of disposing of Jacques. We can also get the book from Annie by giving her the newspaper, when we do she suggests that they rekindle their romance. sb hermit posted:For the curious, "le pêcheur merveilleux" means "the marvelous fisherman". I was meaning to look this up. Thank you for the translation. gschmidl posted:In this episode, Germans trying to put on even remotely convincing French accents. Incroyable! Not really apart from the usual commentary with some actions and with inventory management. I know that I keep comparing this game to Broken Sword 2.5 but that game also made the protagonist overly talkative compared to the original games. The developers of 2.5 also didn't have a clue about British Geography either. Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Apr 30, 2023 |
# ? Apr 30, 2023 19:18 |
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at the alternate solution.
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# ? Apr 30, 2023 19:57 |
The alternate solution in the video is both hilariously over the top and horrifying. I'm not sure suffocation by sandcastle followed by defamation is really all that much better though; at least this way Zack sort of cares about murdering some poor guy whose only crime was incidentally making it harder to get ahold of a book to solve a later puzzle.
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# ? Apr 30, 2023 23:44 |
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Not only is Coventry not in Scotland, Zak also says that he rescued the scientists from New Mexico (9:10). Well, if it were really New Mexico, it would explain the Boy Scouts but not the jungle or the pyramids. To be fair, there are incredible ancient archaeological sites in New Mexico, but they aren't pyramids.
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# ? May 1, 2023 03:58 |
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Zak heads back to Mexico armed with glasses that he stole from his secretary. He then heads back to San Fransisco where the plane has to make an emergency landing, for reasons, where we have to bluster through another illogical segment, for more reasons. I'm not going to lie to you, the last ten minutes of this video is a lot of needless waffling which I think they were trying for comic effect. sb hermit posted:Not only is Coventry not in Scotland, Zak also says that he rescued the scientists from New Mexico (9:10). Well, if it were really New Mexico, it would explain the Boy Scouts but not the jungle or the pyramids. I completely missed the New Mexico part. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the developers got New Mexico and actual Mexico mixed up. Ignatius M. Meen posted:The alternate solution in the video is both hilariously over the top and horrifying. I'm not sure suffocation by sandcastle followed by defamation is really all that much better though; at least this way Zack sort of cares about murdering some poor guy whose only crime was incidentally making it harder to get ahold of a book to solve a later puzzle. We could have just given her the newspaper, she would have given us the book in return and Jacques would still be alive Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 10:55 on May 4, 2023 |
# ? May 3, 2023 11:47 |
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I suspect the blooper at the end of the video does a good job of summarizing our thoughts towards that hairdresser scene
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# ? May 3, 2023 23:36 |
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Ah, German humor. Second only to British cuisine on the cultural wasteland map.
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# ? May 4, 2023 07:55 |
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I'm sorry, I'm trying to delete it.
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# ? May 4, 2023 07:58 |
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I've only just realised that the sound effect volume is at 0%, I'm not sure how it happened as I didn't do it myself and I'm not sure how long it's been there for. I'm saying this now as you may notice the sounds of doors opening and other sound effects in the environment where it was silent before. I was hoping to finish off this section of the game before we went on to the next one but there are going to be two more cutscenes before we reach the cutscene for the next segment.Zaroff posted:I suspect the blooper at the end of the video does a good job of summarizing our thoughts towards that hairdresser scene Blooper? gschmidl posted:Ah, German humor. Second only to British cuisine on the cultural wasteland map. gschmidl posted:I'm sorry, I'm trying to delete it. It's here forever now. British humour is a weird beast these days and it's quite hard to find anything that's even halfway decent. A good amount of British shows used to have some wit and intelligence behind them but television companies have been pushing reality stuff hard over the past couple of decades.
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# ? May 4, 2023 09:42 |
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:It's here forever now. British humour is a weird beast these days and it's quite hard to find anything that's even halfway decent. A good amount of British shows used to have some wit and intelligence behind them but television companies have been pushing reality stuff hard over the past couple of decades. German humor and British food are the two problems according to the ancient joke (I also wasn't actually trying to delete it, I humorously stand by it).
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# ? May 4, 2023 10:13 |
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gschmidl posted:German humor and British food are the two problems according to the ancient joke (I also wasn't actually trying to delete it, I humorously stand by it). Whoops, I misread. I don't really have a lot of arguments against this statement. Edit: I've recorded the next update, I'll post it tomorrow. I seem to be having a lot of opportunities to record lately, which is a refreshing change compared to last month.
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# ? May 4, 2023 10:30 |
Rocket Baby Dolls posted:Blooper? At the very end of the video there's a cutscene with the Caponians that got seemingly skipped by accident (starts around 27:57, looks to have skipped at 28:07) and you say "Ugh, god". Everybody who made it there nods in understanding because the dev/hair brother just would. not. shut. up
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# ? May 4, 2023 10:39 |
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:At the very end of the video there's a cutscene with the Caponians that got seemingly skipped by accident (starts around 27:57, looks to have skipped at 28:07) and you say "Ugh, god". Everybody who made it there nods in understanding because the dev/hair brother just would. not. shut. up Holy poo poo, I uploaded the wrong video! Edit: I'm re-uploading the correct video and will replace this one. I'll post once it's done. Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 10:50 on May 4, 2023 |
# ? May 4, 2023 10:47 |
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This video is a re-upload and it's the edited version of this update as I originally uploaded the unedited version of this update by mistake. I don't know how it happened as I uploaded the timestamped video instead of the one that I actually named but at least there was nothing too embarrassing in it. At least it's not as bad as the one that I accidentally left in during the Return To Monkey Island LP. That cutscene will be seen in full in the next update, I was planning to finish off this segment in this update but there are seven and a half minutes of content in the apartment at the start of the next video.
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# ? May 4, 2023 11:10 |
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There's quite a variety in this update. We spend some time in Zak's apartment as he attempts to create a disguise, then Zak revisits some old ground and then we move on to pastures new.
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# ? May 5, 2023 08:15 |
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:
The cringe levels are going off the chart with this one. Poor David Fox. Poor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also that's not how you pronounce Diogenes. They clearly have audiovisual talent, just... the writing and puzzle design are atrocious. gschmidl fucked around with this message at 08:54 on May 5, 2023 |
# ? May 5, 2023 08:50 |
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gschmidl posted:They clearly have audiovisual talent, just... the writing and puzzle design are atrocious. That was my main complaint with the game. All the design elements were there, and at times they come together to a satisfying result -- but the writer was just a little too in love with their own ideas and the puzzles come straight out of the Roberta Williams school of nonsensical puzzle design. If only there had been an editor somewhere in the mix to rein things in.
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# ? May 5, 2023 18:08 |
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The only other fan game I can think of that was based on an adventure game is The Silver Lining which aimed to be a conclusion to the Kings Quest series. It's an episodic series that has yet to be concluded. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Lining_(video_game) Apparently comments on metacritic about the first episode complained about the voice acting and the writing. I guess you could say something similar about this (Zak's) game, but this game has been nice so far. Can't beat free!
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# ? May 5, 2023 18:39 |
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Maybe I'm grumpy or overly harsh, but I also found all of Phoenix's remakes of older Sierra games terrible.
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# ? May 5, 2023 18:46 |
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I'm fairly certain that I have The Silver Lining on my hard drive already. I've pretty sure that I downloaded it during one of my splurges for free adventure games. It's looking bleak that it'll ever be completed though. I am planning to do an LP of the King's Quest reboot some time after The Walking Dead LP is over. I'll try to fit The Silver Lining in around it.
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# ? May 5, 2023 22:21 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 16:07 |
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I've just returned home from work. I downloaded The Silver Lining in July of last year. It was one of the big fan-made games that have been on my list for a while. The others were Broken Sword 2.5, this Zak McKracken game, and a couple of Space Quest games. I've found a new list of games to take a closer look at, something that I'll do when I have a bit more free time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Arj0nAGS I downloaded a few from here last year: https://mixnmojo.com/media/filecategories/Fan-Games. I only played a handful, the idea of having some fun with them faded very quickly.
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# ? May 5, 2023 23:25 |