Tawmis wrote:And Rath - if you're looking for something with some substance (and I don't mean the sticky kind!) in something called "F-Quest" - then Rath, my friend, you are sorely optimistic. It should have been given in the name of the game itself, that it was going to lack any form of story substance. With a game title like that, they're not trying to play it off that they put a lot of thought and time into the story and development of the character.
I have played Sierra's "Softporn" text based game - but never got very far in it.
Sigh... I don't know. I knew when I tried "F-Quest" that I wasn't going to get something with actual substance. I thought maybe it was like LSL, but on a lesser scale. I certainly wasn't prepared for what it turned out to be - an endless series of knob jokes and breast jokes. Now I don't mind the occasional knob joke, but in my not-so-humble, it needs something a little more substantial built around it. For instance, take this exchange from the classic BBC comedy,
Blackadder the Third:
Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson wrote: wrote:
Baldrick: My uncle Baldrick was in a play once.
Blackadder: (faking interest) Was he really?
Baldrick: Yeah. It was called Macbeth.
Blackadder: What part did he play?
Baldrick: Second codpiece. Macbeth wore him during the fight scenes.
Blackadder: Ah! So he was a stunt codpiece, then?
Baldrick: That's right.
Blackadder: Did he have a large part?
Baldrick: Depends on who was playing Macbeth.
Now obviously those are knob jokes, but they're knob jokes with a bit of intelligence!
I guess maybe I was spoiled, having watched stuff like
Blackadder and being used to intelligent and witty comedy (such as
Yes Minister,
Porridge etc.) or adventure games like the Sierra Quest games and the LucasArts/LucasGames games - basically games with a good plot, well-developed characters, and more than just gags but also a bit of heart. In other words, games that don't just make you laugh, but also know how to put a lump in your throat. (Remember Toby's sacrifice in QfG4, or Wolfgang's sacrifice in GK1? etc.) I've also read a huge heap o' books, and also wrote a whole heap of stuff - poetry, song parodies, short fiction, long fiction, whatever - ever since I finished high school, and that was a
long time ago - so I guess I know what, for me at least, makes a story work.
I guess maybe what I'm trying to say, in a roundabout way of saying it, that for me, a game is worth playing
much more if the story of the game is interesting and if the characters are interesting. Just humour (toilet humour or otherwise) isn't enough, if the story sucks or if the people in the story behave in ridiculous ways. For instance, if the following happened in a story, would you believe it?
Just something I'm going to make up on the spur of the moment: wrote:
And suddenly John pulled out a 50-foot long missile launcher out of his backpack, and Lisa gasped in shock! And John smiled devilishly, and said, "If you think that was big, just wait until you see what I have in my pants!" And out of his pants pocket, he pulled out..
...a chocolate bar.
Hurray, it's a knob joke!
But obviously it has absolutely nothing to do with reality, so the whole thing just falls flat.
That's basically how
F-Quest and
QfG 4.5 and other such games came across to me - I basically thought, "Well, it's an idea - but it's just too far-fetched - and therefore, it all just falls flat."
Anyway, I didn't mean to rant. I guess I'm just an old-school gamer who still believes that an adventure game exists to tell a story, and a story should (by definition) have a good plot and believable characters. You take those out, and all you have left is tasteless knob jokes.
And those are my two (very large) wooden kopeks. *drags his soapbox away*