Sunday, April 26, 2009

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island Revealed

Autumn Moon's mystery game, formerly known by the tongue-in-cheek codename Teal Harvest, now has an official name. Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island follows three pirates who have become ghosts and are trying to deal with their unique situation, much like Mona the vampire in A Vampyre Story.

The German adventure site Adventure-Treff has the scoop, and Haggis from The Pumpkin Post has translated it:

The source of inspiration for Ghost Pirates is the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney World. The game, however, will not at all be a copy of Ron Gilbert’s Monkey Island. The three protagonists will find themselves in a spectral form, and this will play a major part in the puzzle design. For instance, collecting objects isn’t possible at first, so the player has to find different ways to deliver an object to its destination. Similarly, communication with non-ghosts is only possible indirectly. Special skills like the option to walk through walls, will also play a part in puzzles. There will also be cooperative puzzles, similar to those in Day of the Tentacle, for instance.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Strong Bad Collector's DVD Pre-Order

The Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Collector's DVD is now available for pre-order. People who ordered the season bundle for PC can get the DVD for just the cost of shipping. The DVD comes with neat extras like the full "Behind the Bad" documentary, never-before-seen footage from our panel at PAX 2008, and a bunch of hidden surprises and Easter eggs. There's no custscene footage here, and no commentaries, unlike the Sam & Max Collectors DVDs, but the extras should still be a lot of fun, especially for the price. :)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Grim Sculptures

I took a peek over at The International House of Mojo, and saw a post about these cool Grim Fandango sculptures by artist Iain Reekie. They are made with Sculpey modeling clay, which is the same clay I'm using for my Telltale fan projects. My sculpts definitely aren't as awesome as these though. I love the detail, especially on the Glottis one. :)

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Telltale has a weekend only deal going on for Sam & Max Season One! If you order the game from their website this weekend, you can buy the game for only $19!

They have a similar deal going on for Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. Nintendo raised the storage limit by allowing SD Cards to save and load games directly on the Wii, so now users can store as much as 2GB of data on a single SD card. As a direct result of Nintendo's raising of storage limits, sales of the Wii version of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People have doubled. As a celebration, Telltale is offering the PC version of SBCG4AP for only $19.99 if you buy the game through the game demo.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Fate of Atlantis Wii Preview

In actual LucasArts adventure game news (I never thought I'd post these words when I created this blog!!) I previously mentioned here that Fate of Atlantis was going to be an unlockable in the new Tomb-Raideresque Staff of Kings game. At the time, it was just a blurb on LucasArts' webpage, so I didn't know if it was the adventure game or the action game, and what platforms was going to get it. Now GameSpot's preview of Staff of Kings sheds some more light on the subject. The Fate of Atlantis game is in fact the adventure game, and it will be an unlockable extra only in the Wii version of the game. Still, though, great news that LucasArts is bringing one of their classic adventure games out of retirement!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Point-and-Click Adventure Game Review: Sam & Max Save the World - Situation Comedy


The second episode of Sam & Max Season One continues right where the last one left off and feels a little bit like deja-vu in the process.

In Situation: Comedy, Sam & Max find out that talk show hostess Myra Stump has been holding her audience, hostage, while she films her show non-stop 24 hours a day. They have to get their 15 minutes of fame at the WARP television studios in order to be let into the set of the show, so they can stop Myra and free her captive audience.

The episode starts out great. The owner of the inconvenience store, Bosco, is even more paranoid than ever and has resorted to disguising himself in order to throw the people that he is sure are watching him off his tracks. I won't spoil the fun here, but I'll just say that Bosco's disguise is hilarious. I went through all the dialog options with him just to hear what he'd say next. The sign outside Sybil's in Culture Shock showing that she has had many different jobs comes into play here. She is no longer a licensed psychotherapist. Now she runs a tabloid magazine. I'm really starting to enjoy Sybil as a character. It's a lot of fun watching her become passionate about something, only to do something new the next month. She must be doing fairly well too, considering she still has enough money to pay for her office. In a way, she's living the life that I'd love to be able to live myself.

There are a few new characters here, but one new character, in particular, is a lot of fun. Hugh Bliss is a former magician turned author who wrote a book called Emetics, which is a set of principles for a happy life based around colors. I enjoyed his excessive happiness and the way Max seemed to be drawn to happiness around him. The interchange between the two characters, along with Sam's contrasting serious attitude was a lot of fun.

The first television show that the duo is a part of to get their 15 minutes of fame was a blast. This was a great parody of American sitcoms, showing that the plotlines are so hollow that Sam & Max simply adlibbed through it. The guest star of the sitcom, in particular, was very funny. He had a different personality on and off the set, and both were very funny to watch.

However, the rest of the television shows in the studio didn't match the humor of the first. One show featured all three soda poppers, and they seemed even more annoying than before. Spec's voice is bearable, and Whizzer is at least humourous as a character. In one puzzle, I did enjoy the subtle play on his catchphrase. But Peeper's voice really grated my nerves. It was bad in Culture Shock, but he seems even whinier now.

The biggest disappointment though was that the previously visited locations haven't changed at all since the last game. Sam & Max's office is still decorated the same, except for a fun souvenir of their last case in the closet. In adventure games, a lot of fun comes from clicking on the objects and hearing what the characters have to say about them. However, the quips that Sam makes about the objects are exactly the same as in the last episode. They were funny once, but the jokes feel stale the second time around.

Situation: Comedy is a fun game, but it's not quite up to the level of Culture Shock. It is still worth playing despite its shortcomings. There are a lot of funny moments here, especially in the first half of the game. With a little more variation, and either fine-tuning the Soda Poppers or dropping them altogether, the rest of Season One could be a blast.

Update February 4, 2023: There is now another way to play the game. Sam & Max Save the World Remastered by Skunkape games updates the game to the latest version of the Telltale Tool. It also has improved lighting, high-definition graphics, and a remade title song. Because of changing views on various culture-related issues, Bosco has a new voice actor and some of the lines of dialog were changed. Because the new Bosco fits the game well, and the script changes are minor, this is now my favorite way to play the game.
 
Final Verdict:

3 out of 5

Episode One ReviewEpisode Three Review

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

10 Things You Don't Know About Brütal Legend

1UP's week long celebration of Brütal Legend continues! Today, they've posted 10 Things You Don't Know about the game, as written by Tim Schafer - for April Fools Day. So, expect them to be funny, if not really accurate. They also have four new never before seen screenshots of the game in action!

APRIL FOOLS!

Update: 7/1/17: I forgot about this post, as it was the first and only time I ever did an April Fool's joke on this blog. ;)

Sure, it's not the PSOne, but Grim Fandango actually is now available on PlayStation consoles, namely the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, thanks to Double Fine's Grim Fandango Remastered.

Update: 1/2/09: Yeah, this post was an April Fool's joke. I'm sure no one fell for it, but I kept it subtle since I wanted it to be semi-believable. I was inspired by The International House of Mojo's Genesis version of Monkey Island 1 from last year. I'll see if I can come up with something a little more creative next year. :)

Here's the post as it appeared on April 1:

Grim Fandango for PlayStation Surfaces

Grim Fandango seemed like a game that was made for consoles, yet for some reason it was only released for Windows. It turns out that it was developed for a console after all, the original PlayStation. Grim Fandango was released on the PC in 1998, at the end of the PlayStation's life cycle. The PlayStation 2 was right around the corner, so LucasArts dropped their plans for releasing the game to the PSOne.

But, now, Grim Fandango for the PlayStation appears to have hit the internet. Reportedly, it is in a fairly finished state, and it is completable to the end. I can't post a link to this here due to the fact that it's an unauthorized leak, but it shouldn't be too hard to find with a quick Google search.