SHP Forums

I keep on writing rants and deleting them when trying to reply to you.

Here is why I get cross when I read your posts:
1: You apply your 2016 gaming standards to old games, it's unfair and pointless;
2: You present your opinion as fact.

These two things that I continue to read in your posts, annoy me to no end. I'm here because I love old Sierra. I'm not sure why you are here, it doesn't look like you enjoy Sierra at all. Why do you keep lashing out at these games in a place where you know people love them?

At least there are over ten thousand backers to prove your opinion of LSL1 could perhaps not be based entirely on the right things.

I don't think I'm being unfair to old games. I've repeatedly said that they're a product of their time and that this explains a lot of what I see as deficiencies. However, I don't think it's wrong to use 2016 standards when talking about playing games in 2016. If old games are really just as good as new games, then it's fair to use the same standard for both. But if new games are better than old, it's fair to prefer new games, and one shouldn't feel obligated to like the old games just because they couldn't do any better at the time. And if the opposite is true, and the old games are actually better than new ones, it really doesn't make sense to hold those old games to a lower standard.

Remember that all I said initially was "I can't really recommend playing LSL1 at all, though." and that Rath explicitly asked me for elaboration. I was giving my opinion, and I don't think I need to preface every sentence with "in my opinion" to get that across.

I'm really getting the impression here that the Sierra games are placed on such a pedestal that any criticism of them at all is taboo (perhaps even to the point of being seen as a personal attack on those who like them) I disagree with that attitude. I think it's important to be able to critically examine even things we like, and I think that even things we remember fondly may not hold up to scrutiny. I also don't think old Sierra games are single monolith. I think there are better and worse games among them (as well as games that do certain things better or worse than others). They can't all be the best.

I don't think you've engaged with the substance of any of my criticisms of the game. Instead, you've said that we shouldn't expect better of it, that it was popular then, that it's popular now (though I must say that 10,000 people isn't a lot in today's game market), and that you personally like it. None of that tells me that it did, after all, have a good story, good characters, and good puzzles.

Is there a consensus that I really am unwelcome here? I like commenting here from time to time, but I don't want to be where I'm not wanted.

I don't want anyone to feel unwelcomed here. I guess emotions can get to be rather high when dealing with things that we passionate about. Not directed at anyone, but all I can ask is for people to be respectful of others, even when there are strong disagreements.

You were indeed personal and I apologize for getting cross.

You are right about Sierra games being put on a pedestal by those who'll love them, and you'll find that people like that are on a website about Sierra games like this one.
But, as I stated in a rant I deleted, the pedestal is not universal. Check TVTropes for instance and see how many pages lash out at Sierra. Hardly fair.

The reality is that very few games of yore can cope with today's standards. Complaining about the abundance of, say, unwinnable situations, is to me like complaining Mozart doesn't have a beat. There's a limit to what extent I can/want to argue in favour of any of the niche things I appreciate. If you think that LSL's puzzles are bad - I find it hard to argue for or against that, you don't know how much trouble we had with Faith or Fawn.
It's "short" in the sense that you can finish it in two hours, but I busted countless hours with LSL. Besides since when does size matter? Better to have a good 2 hour Larry than to have Time Zone or Dino Zombies From Zeltoid. Or Lost Eden (repetitive actions) or Broken Sword 3 (filler block puzzles, filler stealth sections) or Frankenstein (6 mazes, huge area to navigate) or anything with obvious filler.
Minigame BlackJack? I loved that. Savescum necessary at Blackjack - felt more naughty than annoying. Only driving around? Not really, though I did find getting in the cab rather difficult. Sexism? In a game about sex? Go figure. It's there of course, but the sexism in the game is more making fun of Larry and the people in his universe than taking the mickey at women.

So that's why I can't deal with your arguments, it's in the eye of the beholder too much.

I disagree with a lot of that, and I think I can make a good case for my own position. However, I feel that would be taken as an attack, and I don't want that. At the same time, though, I don't want my silence to be taken as agreement (I don't think LSL actually succeeds at making fun of sexism rather than just being sexist). So if you want, I can go into details, but if not, I'm content to leave it at "I disagree".

On the subject of "good short game" vs "long game that's only long because of boring filler", I certainly I agree that the former is better. I just don't think LSL1 is a good example of that, both because I don't think the content it does have is good and because I do think the gambling counts as boring filler.

I stand corrected on one thing: there IS BlackJack in the Casino.
Bets can run very high there, but you have to press a lot of buttons to raise them - plus saving the game won't save the height of your bet and if you're savescumming you'll end up pushing it back up every time you restore.

Heh - being on vacation, I missed this thread growing. Catching up - it has a very familiar feeling. Like we've discussed this before.

(In regards to the mechanics of the "adventure" games of yesteryear).