The TSL critique thread

[DeadPoolX]

What's the memory and clock speed on your video card? It being AGP instead of PCI-E can certainly have a negative effect, but you might be able to tweak some settings in the CCC.

Since this problem is entirely graphics related, the CCC might not help. Usually that can help with framerate. Even so, I'd give it a go as there are many graphical settings there.

[MusicallyInspired]

I don't have a problem with framerate, as everybody else seems to have, just that the wireframes are visible through the textures and stuff. But there's nothing in the CCC that'll help that. And I don't feel like installing third party drivers or ATI Tray Tools. I'll live.

[DeadPoolX]

What do they care? This is their game, not the fan's. Apparently there was a huge public argument between Cesar and Josh on the Adventure Gamers forum.

Seems to me that if they want to make THEIR game, they should design one from the ground up, including original characters. That's what I'd do. That way no one could yell "So-and-so isn't like that" or "that's not the right voice." How would they know?

[El Ravager]

Hmm. Ok, I just finished playing it through, so I guess I'll give my feedback.

I saw this thread before I played it, so I went in fully expecting to be sorely disappointed. Quite to the contrary, I was very impressed. The graphics, music, voice acting, etc. were all superb (certainly miles better than anything AGDI has put out). I also quite liked the interface...retaining the old point & click system but incorporating a "roaming camera" feature in certain scenes, was a really nice touch. The opening cutscene was very touching, and seeing the Green Isles so lovingly (and faithfully, for the most part) recreated gave me chills. For the most part, I felt very much like I was playing an official sequel. I also rather liked the incorporation of a dialogue tree system...this was something the other King's Quest games lacked badly, in my opinion.

Of course, it's not perfect. A couple of minor gripes come to mind. First, what's the deal with Alexander's hair? Looks like he just got out of bed and didn't have time to brush. And second, what were they thinking when they cast the actor for Oberon? Seriously, the guy sounds like he's got a perpetual plugged nose. I understand that there's going to be some incongruity between TSL voices and voices of the same characters from earlier games, but you'd have thought they could've at least tried to arrive at some level of similarity. Oberon in Kq7 had a deep, solemn voice, whereas this guy just sounds like Big Bird from Sesame Street. Also, why can't the guy pronounce his own wife's name correctly?

Granted, those are relatively minor complaints. I also have two gripes that are a bit less pedantic. First, the game is way too short. Now, if this shortcoming (no pun intended) proves only to be true of this episode and not the four forthcoming, then I suppose it's forgivable since episode 1 might be seen as more an introduction to the game than part and parcel of the game itself. On the other hand, if the remaining episodes are equally abbreviated, I will be thoroughly unimpressed. Still, even if we are to view this episode as a prologue, it definitely felt more like an interactive video than an adventure game. This would be a great deal less vexing were it not for the many years and much hype that has gone into this project. Let's just hope the remaining episodes are heavier on the interactive and lighter on the movie.

Second, and this is pretty annoying, the game is very buggy. Playing on Win 7 64-bit, I had quite a number of inexplicable crashes. This always happened when I tried to save my game (thankfully the save was successful despite the consistent crashing), as well as sporadically throughout the episode. Now, I haven't bothered posting on their forums yet, but if they're essentially ignoring technical issues such as this one, then that's a HUGE problem. A technical issue isn't resolved until it's actually solved...I thought that should have been self-evident to everyone.

However, despite those few gripes, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the game and am eagerly looking forward to future installments. Here's why I don't entirely agree with some of the gripes other people have brought up:

1.) Long-winded narrator comments. A bit excessive, I'll agree, but they didn't really bother me this early in the game. Again, a large part of whether or not this is acceptable has to do with whether we're meant to view episode 1 as more of a prologue or as a good chunk of the main game. If the former, I can't say it bothers me...the comments, while long-winded, did provide a bit of detail as to the events preceding the intro cutscene, and in my opinion helped set the mood. Graham is obviously feeling a bit introspective and moody, so reflecting on the happiness of the past few weeks fits the mood well I think. On the other hand, if these long-winded narrator comments persist into the remaining episodes, they'll quickly become unbearably annoying.

2.) The game is too dark. I see where you're coming from, but for my part I'm grateful for a slightly more serious look at the King's Quest world. Frankly, the lighthearted bits of the KQ series were always a little too over-the-top for my tastes. Goldilocks and the three bears? Jack and the beanstalk? Hansel and Gretel? The lightheartedness of the King's Quest games is precisely why I almost never play them anymore, despite having a very great fondness for them. I'd just rather spend my time on games that require less suspension of disbelief, like Gabriel Knight or Quest for Glory.

3.) The music doesn't seem like King's Quest. Eh...I dunno. The music differs quite a bit from game to game already. Compare the soundtracks of 5, 6, and 7...stylistically, they're very different. Personally, I was blown away by TSL's score (at least, so far) and thought it worked quite well. (Of course, far be it from me to get embroiled in a debate over something as subjective as musical taste.)

4.) They didn't use Josh Mandel for Graham. This would have seriously pissed me off were it not for the fact that the guy they did get to voice Graham sounds exactly like Mandel's Graham, just better acted. I can't say that bothers me (although it is a shame that this had to be a big controversy...I really like Josh Mandel and hope he didn't get his feelings hurt, but I am inclined to agree that his voice acting isn't exactly stellar).

So, to sum it all up, I was overall quite impressed and highly entertained. However, I can definitely see where my less thrilled colleagues and friends are coming from. If those more-complained-about trends continue into the remaining episodes, I think I'll sour to this project pretty quickly. But if things like shortness, lack of interactive puzzles, and long-winded narrator comments are confined to this initial episode so as to make it a prologue of sorts, then I can't say any of it really bothers me. I hope the team continually improves as this project progresses, and that they get the bugs worked out. That's the most disheartening thing in my opinion...constant inexplicable game crashes are inexcusable, especially after having waited for this many years.

[JasefWisener]

El Ravager, I completely agree with everything in your post. I had been trying to find a way to say it in the right way, and I think you managed to accomplish that.

All in all, the way I see it, nobody told them to make this game. They did it for the fans, yes, but they mainly did it for themselves to see their interpretation of what they wanted the future of King's Quest to be. You can't fault them for that, and it's senseless to complain. The only other option would have been no release, and, honestly, I'm glad that we'll be seeing a final conclusion to the series, even if it isn't the exact way one might have imagined it.

[MusicallyInspired]

They're not canning the long-winded narrations. Instead, they're implementing a "solution" where there'll be an option in the menu to keep them as they are or shorten them. And by shorten them, they mean simply cut off paragraphs and edit what's already there. They said they won't be rerecording any dialogue lines or rewriting anything. It's just a quick fix to quiet the "whiners." Cesar seems pretty high on himself about his writing and as such has openly declared that he's not doing anything about it.

I also can't really agree that the new Graham sounds like Mandel's Graham. But he certainly isn't bad. In fact I enjoy his delivery. But Mandel isn't that bad either and I would have loved him to reprise his role once again despite this, but the team specifically didn't want him. In fact, there was a huge outburst on the Adventure Gamers forums between Josh and Cesar apparently a few years back.

[Collector]

54 threads with 672 posts for technical support requests have been moved into the "Resolved Issues" folder, by far the vast majority of them with the [NOT-FIXED] label.

[Tawmis]

Huh.

I guess I am alone here, pretty much. I thought the game was short, yes - but fantastic. The long narration - so what? Click the mouse past it, just like you probably did with the talkie Sierra games when you clicked on something and discovered the narrator was repeating themselves.

I personally enjoyed the long bits of conversation. It's not like it's forced on you all that much - only when you're clicking to look at something or get something (there isn't much to "get" in the first chapter).

Yes, the game was short. Very short, and not much on puzzles. So what? It's to me - just the intro. It's setting up everything. It's only got like one or two real puzzles (that are very easy) so that ANYONE can do it. This should - I'd imagine - whet the appetites of folks who may want to see what's coming next.

The voice acting was great to me - except for one person. There was one person - the guy who is sitting out there with Edgar's mother - Edgar's father (whose name is slipping my mind? Was he ever mentioned before this game?) Anyway - the person that did their voice needs some work on properly conveying emotion via voice acting. Everyone else (the few scant other bits of dialogue) actually did all right. Only that one person's voice actually ever bugged me throughout the first chapter.

Anyway. I had no real complaints with it (other than the one voice, that is...)

[Rudy]

The voice acting was great to me - except for one person. There was one person - the guy who is sitting out there with Edgar's mother - Edgar's father (whose name is slipping my mind? Was he ever mentioned before this game?) Anyway - the person that did their voice needs some work on properly conveying emotion via voice acting. Everyone else (the few scant other bits of dialogue) actually did all right. Only that one person's voice actually ever bugged me throughout the first chapter.

And how did you like the voice of the Archdruid? Same voice actor .

[El Ravager]

Both characters sounded like they had clothespins over their noses, but the Archdruid wasn't nearly as annoying as Oberon.

As for all those technical support requests being moved...well that's just messed up. I don't know what their hoping to achieve. The game is very good, but their PR approach could certainly use a little tweaking, or they're going to lose their fanbase pretty fast.

[MusicallyInspired]

Yes, you can skip dialogue but I don't want to skip it. That's half an adventure game's experience. I'm forced to skip it (or avoid it) because I never know when a 3 or 4 paragraph description about a blade of grass is gonna pop up or not. It's bad game design. Or more appropriately, bad writing. Amateurish fanboy writing. It's all so cringe-worthy that I may faint.

Once I found out what their "solution" was I said my goodbyes and haven't been back to their forums since.

[AndreaDraco]

As long as they don't touch Gabriel Knight without Jane Jensen at the helm...

Anyway, I'm still waiting to play the game, so I don't have a precise opinion yet

[Tawmis]

The voice acting was great to me - except for one person. There was one person - the guy who is sitting out there with Edgar's mother - Edgar's father (whose name is slipping my mind? Was he ever mentioned before this game?) Anyway - the person that did their voice needs some work on properly conveying emotion via voice acting. Everyone else (the few scant other bits of dialogue) actually did all right. Only that one person's voice actually ever bugged me throughout the first chapter.

And how did you like the voice of the Archdruid? Same voice actor .

Nowhere near as annoying as the Archdruid, other than sometimes being OVERLY raspy...

Yes, you can skip dialogue but I don't want to skip it. That's half an adventure game's experience. I'm forced to skip it (or avoid it) because I never know when a 3 or 4 paragraph description about a blade of grass is gonna pop up or not. It's bad game design. Or more appropriately, bad writing. Amateurish fanboy writing. It's all so cringe-worthy that I may faint.

Wow. Just... wow. I couldn't disagree more. It's been... since 1994 (or 1998, if you want to cringe and count MoE) since there's been a King's Quest game. That's over 10 years ago (if you go with KQ7) and just shy of 10 years ago (if you want to count MoE).

This made me WANT to hear about everything. Because it's been so long since we had a real King's Quest game - it was nice to have these bits of dialogue (for the first time around) to explain things. So hearing the long dialogue the first time didn't bother me - at all. If I accidentally clicked something and started to hear it a second time, a simple mouse click or two got me past it.

[JasefWisener]

Yes, you can skip dialogue but I don't want to skip it. That's half an adventure game's experience. I'm forced to skip it (or avoid it) because I never know when a 3 or 4 paragraph description about a blade of grass is gonna pop up or not. It's bad game design. Or more appropriately, bad writing. Amateurish fanboy writing. It's all so cringe-worthy that I may faint.

Wow. Just... wow. I couldn't disagree more. It's been... since 1994 (or 1998, if you want to cringe and count MoE) since there's been a King's Quest game. That's over 10 years ago (if you go with KQ7) and just shy of 10 years ago (if you want to count MoE).

This made me WANT to hear about everything. Because it's been so long since we had a real King's Quest game - it was nice to have these bits of dialogue (for the first time around) to explain things. So hearing the long dialogue the first time didn't bother me - at all. If I accidentally clicked something and started to hear it a second time, a simple mouse click or two got me past it.

This.

And again, not to sound redundant, this is their game the way that they want it to be because they designed it. Yes, it's for the fans. But overall it's personal satisfaction and a way for them to conclude a series that they know and love. No matter how pompous they sound or how bad they are at fixing things (although I'll agree that they should work this out a little more), you can't fault them at all for doing things their way.

[Collector]

When I started this thread I want to have people post impressions, both the good and bad. I don't want to kill this thread, but please let's avoid piling on. There is much to be said for their effort, but like all games, and maybe especially fan made games, there are flaws. With the limited resources and experience of fan games I am willing to overlook more flaws than I would a commercial game, but that does not mean that I don't notice the flaws. It is too early to say how well done the game will be. I am mostly reserving judgment on TSL until more episodes are released.

That said, KQ is a very high standard to try to measure up to with one of the games having been given a treatment by Jane Jensen. A bar that even Sierra itself failed to reach twice since.