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[twillight]

I think a free-roaming game does best when you can "re-play" it for good after all the leveling, equipment-gathering, questing; without actually restarting from scratch.
So, we'll see how being Lord of Deadside works here. Long way ahead, but keep it in mind. The point was, replay-value can mean two different things.

Let's take a look on the ~game mechanics, aka. what you collect and how does that effect you:
- you gather equipment to have stronger weapons and to be able to do stuff, as almost all equipment is only weapon as secondary function.
- you gather cadeauxes to gain higher maximum HP (most reviews forget this feature).
- you gather dark souls to rise your "shadow level", what allows you to enter more areas, and expands your maximum mana, and maximum charge of your basic weapon.
- you collect mana separately.
- you collect med-kits and ammo cartidges (yet to see this later for me though).

New secret:
You'll need the Touch-gad. Port to Asylum: Cageways, drop down at the entrance to the left, and go until you reach the first rooms after the lava. Go right, climb up the boxes, jump to the second plank. Go to its middle, and jump on/through the third plank to gain Trippy Mode.
What'd even look good, if they wouldn't shake the screen.

New movie: talk NPC1 after gaining La Soleil

What else could you remember more that this is a 3D game than an UNDERWATER CITY?

New secret: Invisible man mode: in Asylum playground there is a corridor with 5 prison-cells on it. In one of the two empty you gain it.
I don't like Asylum: Playground. It is vast, it is twisted but straightforward (mostly), and the noises are really disturbing. I mean they are literally maddening, so perfect they are. Giggles slipping into screams, squeaking of puppies transformed into drill-screams... It'snot easy to have an effect on me, but these ARE disturbing.

After passing the WHOLE of the Playrooms, except thelast part which demands Marsher Gad (= walk lava) I possess 118 cadeaux, and 41 dark souls. This means porting for more max. life, than going for the enseigne,and THAN passing forward.
Btw, I really dislikes Playrooms, if nothing else for a battlewhere you just emerge from water, and are attacked before being able to climb out by no less than 5 shooters. You have to know some things to understand the problem: if you are hit when in water/climbing rope you'll submerge/fall down. You can not shoot/aim a target form underwater, but the enemy can shoot you, at least for a limited dive. So this is totally ridiculous. Fortunately for when coming back most passes could be turned into circles meaning they have 2 enterances - but this took a LONG time here.
Heck, after completion I'll even try to install my old scanner and scan my own maps just to show you

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After collecting what I mentioned there'll be 3 open routes, two leading to lvl 7 doors, which I cannot open yet, so for the first time I'll not cleansweap all possible flicks, but go straight for the Marsher Gads in the Temple of Prophecy.

What first looks very straightforward, than it throws you zounds of rooms and passes, and you'll be glad to barely pass to the Gad (tattoo) and go on backtracking.

New Secret: in the Temple of Prophecy in the "flambeau maze" (pretty evident when you are there) I gained Play as Nettie. Very deep voice this Nettie has

When I collected enough dark souls to be lvl 7 I ported to get the Marteau, and restart the backtrack.
What actually rises a question, and gives some real free-roaming aspect for the moment.

There are still places I can not open lacking the equipment. I wish the "acid pools" would be more distinguishable from "lava pools" on the top of it, as learning the hard way is frustrating (especially when I forget to save, fortunately no lost data until now).

So, the choices come this way:
- I could go for a single dark soul to the Playrooms, but that seems redundant, as right next to it will be another, not to mention a new weapon, but the weapon will require an accumlator, but to gain that I'll first assemble The Eclipse, kill one of the BOSSES... You see my point.
- I could open a new territory and try to go for the last piece of the Eclipse
- I could do some minor backtracking in Asylum: Gateway, but why go there before gaining The Eclypse?
- before you say "than go for that Ecplipse-thingy" I have to consider 1 redundant passages, to walk them for the purpose being there.
- there is again the Asylum: Cageways just for progressing there too for a while (according to the map of the manual that's the way to the final boss after a while)
- there is also the (Asylum Lavaducts, what I heared tended to confuse those who played the game having two identical area (?).
- finally I could go again against the Temple of Prophecy to map it correctly.

Man, I really needed to write all this down, else I'd got lost

So, finished the redundant passage, got The Eclipse, and licked the Swamp (this is where you gain the first shotgun).

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Glitches:
- when reloading, many times a bunch of mana-skulls pop up at random location.
- grids can stuck into each other, as for ALL 3D games. Simply jump to solve it.
- the dogs after The Ritual become hostile from neutral. The glitch here is, the aim tends to forget them, and shoot above them, they being low-height critters.

[twillight]

Ok, so killed the first boss (military guy with machine gun), and there found a machingun for myself.
Yes, the tactic was to hide in cover when he shoots, and shoot him when he don't. Pretty obvious.

Than ported to the PlayRooms, turned out I can't get the heavy machine gun (violator), as it requires 3, and not 1 accumlator. Doing.
Still, got the remaining two darksouls there, including one local bossfight.
This giant monster has some self-guided missile launcher or what, but the projectiles are slow, and most of it will hit the wall if you don't come out from the ventilator duct for the battle.

NOTE: strange, but true, that the official map lacks marking one of the equipments-to-collect.
Also, could use some ingame info how to use those retractors...

Seems I found a bug. While clearing the Temple of Prophecy the last darksoul appeared outside its sigil. It should have been in under the glyph only accessible by the Calabash (yet to find), but it just appeared in mid-air.

As I (finally!) am lvl 8 shadow man, I decided to go for the last Gad (last part of the tattoo). I imagine it won't make me immun to fire despite I'll be able to swim in acid? lava?, I'll still suffer damage I bet from fireballs.
Stil, if I'll have that, and the Calabash, only items to kill the Final Bosses will remain to hunt, and those don't really effect the gameplay, heh. Definitely no more backtrack. That starts to be annoying, although there isn't much to backtrack anymore with all my thoroughness.

Strange, but I still don't have 300th cadeaux. That means more than 200 is still around.

Areas undiscovered at this point:
- Temple of Blood
- Lavaducts
- Undercity
- Gardelle Jail (3 of 5 bosses, 1 down)
- Merdant Street (1 of 5 bosses)
- Dower Street (1 of 5 bosses)
- second half of Asylum: Cageways
- Engine Block
- Legion (End Boss)
All this at worst 20-30% of the whole game (estimation).

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Well, things are harder than they look, as the Calabash has the requirement of lvl 9
Also, while the Temple of Blood is relatively simple, it is made on the thought "do it or die". So almost no threat - except constantly being consumed by fire. At least the maze is not confusing. Btw, there is absolutely nothing in the pool where the Gad is, so don't go and check (the room contains a massive battle).

On battles: with this high lvl it is less problematic even against hordes.

standard enemies are:
- dog: annoying, but not much threat being melee.
- "zombies": the first enemies(?) you come across. Being passive until you get close make them look not-so-nasty, but if you're forced to land in the middle of them that's bad, especially that their projectile(?) can not be avoided(?)
- slasher thingy: the second enemy you came across. Massive speed, and can shoot a very slow projectile from far (so it is not that much of a threat). Just strafe them.
- fat person with meathooks as palms: melee guys. After you have like lvl 5, your charged shots will stun them, making them almost negligable. Until then just back when they are coming and strafe when close.
- gunner fat man: single shot slow projectile.
- sisters: keep them in one side while your back is safe. Do not stay too close to any wall, as they projectile bump back. Strafe their projectiles. They are not that bad, and even in hugh number they fall when you reach lvl 7+.
- skinny red guy with SMG: they only burst periodically, and the projectile isn't fast, so strafe. Not much of a threat.
- robodog(?): dunno what they are, but are melee, hit harder than a dog, but has almost no life. Fun.
- chainsaw guy: the only thing good in them is they are melee. Only lvl 8 charged shots seem to start stunning it. Although melee, its weapon has a massive range. You might try backing, but that hardly helps. When gets close strafe, than back off fast, and you might not get hurt.

Hm, another detail missing from the manual's map: where is the soulgate trace from the Engine Room to Mordant Street?

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Anyway, got the 300th cadeaux, not that I'd need it (well, don't know about it), and preparing to infiltrate the Lavaducts. 16 dark souls until Calabesh.

Glitch: when swimming in acid for no appearant reason sometimes the game pushes me on the surface.

[twillight]

The difficulty of mapping the later levels comes partially that they instead of corridors work with rooms, and especially multilevel design, what is a nightmare to draw.

Than in the Lavaducts if you are not aware that TWO IDENTICAL mixers are working there, you'll easily get lost.

Although I really wanned avoid it, but after licking clean the LavaDucts I still possess insufficient dark souls, so I have to the Cageways.

Ok, so this game is so "nonlinear" as a Super Mario. Ok, I give to it you collect the wacchamacallings in an unfixed, not left-to-right order, but it still is only "free roaming" in the sense of levels, which includes backtracking previous levels. And every stupid last wassit must be collected (ok, technically you could leave out the cadeauxes, but c'mon, you have to look in every cracks, so they come naturally, and the few which don't are still right before your very eyes, so you'll collect them).
Ok, that was just my frustration.

On the good side the last gad DO makes you totally immun to fire - one less thing to worry about.
Noticed this when I went back to the Temple of Fire (I really did not want to start the Engine Room, ok?), there being the only remaining dark souls I somehow couldn't aquire. This time I even looked up a freaggin walkthrough - still no luck. So just started to aimlessly wonder around and kill stuff (as long as you don't port away they remain "dead"), when I missed a jump, and by that discovered an unfamiliar passageway - the rest is history. 96 drak souls on me, I RIGHT NOW go for the Calabash.

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With the stuff went blowing things up. Ended up with 103 dark souls and 82 cadeaux (130 is still unfound according to the manual. No idea why they put there 512 cadeaux when you can only use 500. Maybe forthe feeling you don1t have to collect EVERYthing,despite you must?). And yes, in Temple of Prophecy I found 14 souls from the available 13. Don't ask.

New secret: blowing up the sigil next to Nettie's church and entering the tunnel gave Play as a dog. SPOILER I wonder how many other game offers bestiality. SPOILER

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The horror-parts of the game:
- the start is like a ghost-story. Grey, lone spirits in a wasteland of eternity you see. Most people does not appreciate ghost stories, as they lackthe adrenailne-factor, but they can be nice.
- around the middle, particularly in the Aslyum-areas they were working with disturbing noises. You don't actually see the torture, but it is still vivid enough.
- in lategame, Asylum: Undercity they started to play peak-a-boo, the classic "monster jumps on you for scare" basic horrorfilm design. And it works too.

Glitch: re-play a movie, your location in your save will be at the front of Jaunty.

http://imgur.com/m71c6qk

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Nothing remains but The Five, the Engine Room, and The Evil from Beyond.
Current dark souls: 106
Current cadeaux: 15 (+ 400 exchanged for max. HP)

The second boss, mentioned earlier, likes to run around - but not if you manage to chase him so close he gets melee.Usually melee means higher damage on you, but at this point noone cares: just equip your shield while max-charging your shadowgun.
If for any reason your mana would deplet switchyour second hand to the SMG you got from the other boss defeated earlier, and win.
In the area of this boss you'll find another SMG, the 0.9 SMG (the previous was the MP-909).

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There is an unexpected place to use the Calabash: a metal door at the third boss schism arrival. OR, and it is neither obvious, you can shoot with anything a schizmata-symbol at the same location. Both lead the same place: an accumlator.

New Secret: Shotgun Head Mode I got in one of the rubber-rooms deep in the insanity ward.

Oh, just to tell, I gave up creating a map for the Jail. This was the point what was too much for me. I still think I got everywhere, as in the end the complex is not that complicated: 3 section of prison (lizard man's schizm arrival, repo guy section, video nasty killer section), than the insanity ward, and I THINK you can only go ahead, only things right in front of you gets open every time you unlock a new section. Ok, I'm not 100% sure, but WHO CARES.

Glitch: if you alt-tab like me can happen that when you switch back to the game the screen remains black. If this happens, alt-tab until you (again) reach the game's icon. That fixes it.

Ah, came to mind: the third boss. But first: the helicopter:
- the helicopter is ... Victim of bad design, as it ended up worse than in theory. It is in the game likely for no other purpose that The Lizard King is not in the section where you arrive through his portal, but in the 4th section (the other two section has two others of The Five). The basic strategy is to CONSTANTLY strafe and fire it, than you can always just be ahead of its autamatic-weapon-fire. But as it is a flying enemy, you can end up get close to the prison wall, under platform of the next level, what can cover you from the fire (at least it did to my surprise).
- The Lizard King himself ... I'll be flat: is a jerk. You start in melee distance with 'im, has no ranged weapon, also lacks muscle-strength. I pulled out double-shotgun (the shotgun is LAME weapon in this game as it turned out), constantly backed away, and fired until he collapsed. Any of The Five must be finished off with the shadowgun, so quickly changed to it then, and finished 'im off. I was disappointed. (PS: nevermind his flashing and changing form, that just marks his loss of hp, that's all)

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Seems someone made some computergenerated maps. No idea how really they work, I rely on my personal maps, but definitely clearer than a housemade drawing.

[twillight]

Not much remains left:

The Mordant Street, "Home Improvement Killer" is an IDOT. There is no challenge defeating him. He is at the end of a long corridor's corner, so you charge - jump out of the corner - release the shot etc. When he finally reaches you he'll barely have any life left.

Cadeaux: 71
Dark Souls: 109/120 (this is VERY good as there'll be another of The Five (110), and 11 more in The Engine Room (121/120!))

NOTE: I have 4 accumlators, so I could go and get Violator-machingun for More Dakka, but as I did not yet used the SMGs, I'll rip Jack to shreds with those.

London is unusually big compared to the other bosses' places. Compared to? f*me, it is so vast it easily another Cageways, or Playrooms, or Asylum Gateway! And there is (was) no map for it! I felt totally overwhelmed!
What you might want to know either way is, that the whole place is one giant circle, except Jack's place, what is connected it througha way starting with blades rotating vertically, only half in the water.
And you know what's the WORST of the place? Up to now, with the end of this level and clean-sweaping EVERY locations to the bone, you are able to collect 499 cadeauxes. Not 500, not 512 - just the measily 499. Dammit!
*checked again drawing a rough map of the Jail, and no cadeaux missed.

Oh, the fighting strategy: Jack is a nasty enemy. He climbs the walls and gets behind you very fast, so you have no chance shooting him. Then he jumps on the back of you causing damage, just to disappear again. Sounds unfair. And yes,this is finaly a place where you are better off with as much HP you can have.
No, you can't just run into a corner and w8 ur chance - I've tried.
The solution is to run in circles in a U-shaped corridor which leads back to the starting room, and you make full circle by jumping to the water and restarting the same pattern. Somewhere along this run he'll jump down and miss you. He won't climb the walls again until lands a hit on you (or swings a hit. Or takes massive damage. I think.). So run ahead - he is slower than you this way. When gained enough distance to turn around w/o getting hit do it, and double-SMG him while backing. Hopefully he'll gain enough damage to jump away before hit you, and definitely suffer enough damage to die sooner than you.

New Secret: in the (women's) toilet you gain Pea Soup Secret.

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The Engine Room is actually 4 different level, which gets connected after solving each part separately. Just to erase confusion.
Also, there seems to be no twists for any of the parts, so no rant from me.
Although I yet to see any of the 13 leftover cadeaux. I think I just give up. Definitely won't go through all the areas just for the hope of some forgotten p*** of s***. I am f*** GOD anyway to collect 499 ANYWAY.
YEAH!

(Too late now. Will finish tomorrow.)

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Hopped for the Violator. Left the full magazines for now, they'll held for the End. You can find bullets for this weapon in barells until now. Worth the More Dakka against the Trueforms. For the times I can't sustain the Enseigne (shield). I suxor when it comes to running around u know.

Anyway, the arrival from the Cageways way easy, from London too.
Then I hopped to New York, and kept blasting in frustration the (once already) opened boxes, but here I found a cadeaux. Wtf, I'm happy like noone else. Go for more elife after this. Arrival from here was not smooth, big welcoming comitee.
Arrival from the Jail in itself is not hard, but the unavoidableshot you catch in as part of the movie(!) is not pleasant. Either way, the hardest part of this section is, that you'll face no less than 6 Truforms (monster-minibosses, first fought back in the Playrooms). That means a LOT of resources.
You even have to fight two at once once.

New movie: after you enter into the Engine Rooms from the Cageways side you get the area-move, and than you can go and talk to NPC 2. One might suspect there is a similar movie with NPC 1, but damn me if I go and figure it out.

New Secret: open the lvl10 door. It is lame, but that's all you get. A sketchbook.

What remains is the final fight...
The first part is easy: back off while shooting with fully charged shadowgun.
The second part... Well, the boss flies, and shoots two thing at you: a straight beam, which is too fast to bother with (either misses you or hits you, you can't do anything 'bout it), and a plethora of selfguided missiles which last very long, and you likely won't see when/if they dissipate.
The theory is to run in circles on the upper platforms to miss the projectiles following you while occasionally shooting the big baddy - but I could not figure out how to win exactly.



In case you have trouble beating the Final Boss:
Start the battle from the very beginning, so Legion is just a suited man.
Equip the Violator and the Shadowgun.
Run in, ignore Legion.
There is his big "throne", held on the sides two coloumns. Start shooting the top of the left column (from your point of view). Use the Sniper Mode. You'll notice bleeding. Keep attacking it (no idea wether charged shots or rapid shots required, but definitely keep shooting from the minigun) until it produces "dying effect", I mean those circulating whitish-blue particles. When they fade (from 10 life-unit you should have 4-6 left) switch back to normal and kill Legion, so he transforms. You shall be put in front of it, wherever you had been. Run in and keep shooting it in sniper mode with the shadow gun. It dies almost immediately.

The source of this bug is likely programmer's fault, as the Worm Form likely not rendered during/after the movie, but is present from the start to preserve resources of the computer or something.

[twillight]

Despitemy better judgement played again Little Big Adventure 1 and it still is as terrible it was for the first go.

- it is very slow. I mean your character is too slow compared to the environment. This also suggests you are better off w/o sound; they might be ok, but they soon would kill you by going on your nerves, being more interesting than what's happening on the screen.
- no. despite you are able, you won't run, because
a) the visual range is too small, and there are enemies everywhere, not to mention walls
b) if you try to run up a stair you'll bump like you hit a wall.
- the small "resolution", better said: visuals, again not help as your attack is slow, and has very-very-immense delay between two shots. And you can't even move the camera.
- your attacks are not just suffer from being slow, but are also impossible to aim, given no auto-correction, or any definite hit aside the general direction faced where you'll shoot at. As there are some intense combat-situations, this is a high priority problem. With arms in not being able to turn fast.
- as this game has "intense situations" mentioned, the lack of run-jump is also a hugh problem at times, especially in the Temple of Bu part two where you run from the spiked log. That part alone will takes hours to finish despite it is a 30 second platforming.
- time-consumation again comes from the factor you can only level-save, and certain maps start with an unskippable animation.
- the save is also a nonsense. You can not only just level-save, but your current save always autosave over itself when you enter a new map. And autosaves on any saves you made while being in-game. Let me explain:
assume you load "first.sav" starting in location 1, you play an hour or whatever, and then you save your location as "second.sav" at location 2, then you quit the game at location 3. What will happen is, when you load either first.sav or second.sav, you'll be at location 3.
No to save properly you'll have to archive-save, meaning:
you start a new game (or load, doesn't matter, the game will be stored as first.sav). You go to location 1, and QUIT playing. Now you go to "mess with saves" menu, and COPY first-sav as second. sav. Now you continue playing with second.sav, and have first-sav as archive save at location 1.
Assuming at this point you fail miserably while playing (game over or something), you do NOT reload second.sav, as that is GAME OVER, meaning you can not load it back. Ever. You also not load back first.sav, that'd be suicide.
What you do is, DELETE second.sav, COPY first.sav as second-second.sav, and THAN "continue playing" with this second second.sav.
- ingame mechanics are not better either. You'll always have too few mana, especially until magic level 4. You'll have always to few health at least until magic level 3. You will have 0 chance regenerating you health/mana bar, lackng the resources. You'll have to use clovers for full-recharge, or more like extra lives.
- clovers only work as "extra lives", because if something start to hit you, you are as good as dead. There is simply no "combo breaker", running away, or anything else, you'll just stunned around until you finally drop dead.
- despite the above annoyance, you should still think like you have 1 LESS clover than you actually have on you, as reaching the point you'll start to use them you'll run-bump into walls, hit by singled projectiles and more, loosing substantial amount of HP.
- one oft he most frequent damager is actually "climbing down on ladders", mostly because there is no such thing implemented in the game. You simply fall like nothing is there and hurt yourself reaching ground.
- if you play by yourself, you'll also easily run out of coins, and will spend hours entering/exiting a certain building with a pot at one side pulling whatever the game throws on you from it, hoping it is a single coin. Lacking any other source of coin-replenishment, thisis a problem. Yes, there are some beings which drop nice amount of coins, but they are always quest-object, meaning they disappear for good after the first occasion.

Yes, the graphic is nice, and the story don't have problems (aside that it is from Monkey Island, being a hunt-for-pirate-treasure), but beats me why this got any popularity, or sold successfully. It'd been a good shareware game, but otherwise nah.

But here is a quick tip entering the HQ: start from the tank. It doesn't move if you were not this time at the other end of the map, so don't worry about it. From semi-behind the wall kill the soldier in the trench. Walk in along the trench to the sandbags. Kill the machinegunner.Jump into its place, and kill the rabbidbunny. If you are lategame and you want to press on, jump out when the tower-machingun is on the east (right) side , so you'll be able to run in on the left. Stay there, and be able to see the red elephant. You'll be able to kill it from here with your ball.

At the end, where there is he room with the machine-penguins have one penguin, run in to the elephant, lay down the penguin, let it blow up the 'phant, take the key and open the door with it. Get another penguin, and kill the rabbidbunny with it. Get another penguin, go to the control-station, run ahead, lay down the penguin, and kill the scientist on your floor by whatever means while the rabbidbunny is blown up by the penguin.
That's what the penguin is actually good for.

A QUESTION: on the first island you get out of the asylum, carried out with the trash-truck, than reach the first area of proper play, where the pharmacist is (who has the red syrup). on the southwest corner, top of a walled-in building is a yellow 'phant. If you kill it it drops a key.
As all key is lost when you leave a map (entering a shop also counts), what this key unlocks?

[twillight]

Man, if this would be ananimation-movie it'd be awesome. This way... It is not so much.
And only the length makes it an actual sellable game, otherwise it should be a freeware.

There happened some improvement since the first game, like you won't beat yourself to death if you try to run,and there IS a way to climb down ladders even if you'd never use it - not that anyone mentions it anywhere either way.
Also, the movie-shots are not lazy-made, so the characters have FACE for example on it.
Again an improvement of the introduction of multiply weapons, too bad you have to experience with what can hit what, they still have the "you don't know where it goes" attitude, and the fights are anyway about outranging the enemy.Oh, and could next time someone tell if a weapon does not feed on mana (laser gun to start with), and will have unlimited ammo, even if you find some ammo separate? (blowgun)

And the length. The game actually isn't that long, and the maps are actually go-straight corridors, just in a confusing design. The confusion if made worst in the first city, where everything is jumbled around (no cross-shaped streets and so on), and the camera-angles are totally weird.
Yes, I know you can manually switch the camera... but that many times worsens the situation further.
Solution could have been: well-designed angles, MOVABLE CAMERA, and/or a regular TPS-view. I really start to think french people just can't get program.

Not that I didn't encounter some enjoyable, good french games. Alone in the Dark 1 was perfectly good in what it did,but there were real good games too: The New Adventures of the Time Machine was a classic (and could have been more successful if you could've used the Time gates properly), Blair With Project volume 1 was totaly working (and could have beena classic if the innovative stuff, like infra-googles would have worked for some use, and the sequels wouldn't ruin it).
LBA2 isn't on that level unfortunately.

And the ending... Totally ruins the experience. The game had already cheap solutions, like only 3 movies for travel when the minimal amount of traveling is 4, but the ending...
Reused parts of other maps, stolen design from Prince of Persia, and a bossfight of Demogorgon from Baldur's Gate(2)... This is just awkward.

A word on the music: it helps tolerating the game, just wish it wouldn't make that screeching noise at times...

Also, they for reasons (sarcasm intended) threw out the levelsave concept, making the clovers to actually provide you just immense amount of HP. Well, in theory at least, as there are not many places you canfind a clover, so you better save a lot. Especially as "you died" even can happen very-very easily. Step in water? Step in lava? Hit anything while hovering? Lava splashed on you? These are just examples what can kill you, no matter what. And as you can't for example judge when you'd reach down trying to jump on that floating tiny thingy in the lavapool... Where for reasons :sarcasm: your jetpack does not work...

Now that's another issue. It SEEMS you can't fall down anymore from edge of the road. Well, not always true (of course only at the most unexpected situations), and this really gets in the way when you finally have the jetpack. Ok, you don't jump into oblivion w/o protection, but you are wearing a jetpack for all sake!

Finally mention missed opportunities: when you get the "jetpack" it is for any reason still the "protopack" from the prequel. Why? Why it never got finished as jetpack? Than it ends up a super-jetpack for :reasons:
And why another planet with again 4 species?
And if you in the first game reached GODLY POWER, how can you level further? How is that every minor mageling starts as lvl5, what is 1 lvl higher than GODLY POWER?

Lastly the very ending: now THAT was anticlimatic. No long-lasting battle, no skill needed, just "activate artifact". And I count that as "positive" for not giving even more problem.

[yoga]

Originally Posted by twillight

Man, if this would be ananimation-movie it'd be awesome. This way... It is not so much.
And only the length makes it an actual sellable game, otherwise it should be a freeware.

There happened some improvement since the first game, like you won't beat yourself to death if you try to run,and there IS a way to climb down ladders even if you'd never use it - not that anyone mentions it anywhere either way.
Also, the movie-shots are not lazy-made, so the characters have FACE for example on it.
Again an improvement of the introduction of multiply weapons, too bad you have to experience with what can hit what, they still have the "you don't know where it goes" attitude, and the fights are anyway about outranging the enemy.Oh, and could next time someone tell if a weapon does not feed on mana (laser gun to start with), and will have unlimited ammo, even if you find some ammo separate? (blowgun)

And the length. The game actually isn't that long, and the maps are actually go-straight corridors, just in a confusing design. The confusion if made worst in the first city, where everything is jumbled around (no cross-shaped streets and so on), and the camera-angles are totally weird.
Yes, I know you can manually switch the camera... but that many times worsens the situation further.
Solution could have been: well-designed angles, MOVABLE CAMERA, and/or a regular TPS-view. I really start to think french people just can't get program.

Not that I didn't encounter some enjoyable, good french games. Alone in the Dark 1 was perfectly good in what it did,but there were real good games too: The New Adventures of the Time Machine was a classic (and could have been more successful if you could've used the Time gates properly), Blair With Project volume 1 was totaly working (and could have beena classic if the innovative stuff, like infra-googles would have worked for some use, and the sequels wouldn't ruin it).
LBA2 isn't on that level unfortunately.

And the ending... Totally ruins the experience. The game had already cheap solutions, like only 3 movies for travel when the minimal amount of traveling is 4, but the ending...
Reused parts of other maps, stolen design from Prince of Persia, and a bossfight of Demogorgon from Baldur's Gate(2)... This is just awkward.

A word on the music: it helps tolerating the game, just wish it wouldn't make that screeching noise at times...

Also, they for reasons (sarcasm intended) threw out the levelsave concept, making the clovers to actually provide you just immense amount of HP. Well, in theory at least, as there are not many places you canfind a clover, so you better save a lot. Especially as "you died" even can happen very-very easily. Step in water? Step in lava? Hit anything while hovering? Lava splashed on you? These are just examples what can kill you, no matter what. And as you can't for example judge when you'd reach down trying to jump on that floating tiny thingy in the lavapool... Where for reasons :sarcasm: your jetpack does not work...

Now that's another issue. It SEEMS you can't fall down anymore from edge of the road. Well, not always true (of course only at the most unexpected situations), and this really gets in the way when you finally have the jetpack. Ok, you don't jump into oblivion w/o protection, but you are wearing a jetpack for all sake!

Finally mention missed opportunities: when you get the "jetpack" it is for any reason still the "protopack" from the prequel. Why? Why it never got finished as jetpack? Than it ends up a super-jetpack for :reasons:
And why another planet with again 4 species?
And if you in the first game reached GODLY POWER, how can you level further? How is that every minor mageling starts as lvl5, what is 1 lvl higher than GODLY POWER?

Lastly the very ending: now THAT was anticlimatic. No long-lasting battle, no skill needed, just "activate artifact". And I count that as "positive" for not giving even more problem.

Yes,
Alone in the Dark 1
is very nice french game.

[twillight]

WTH? My Rage of Mages 2 no longer works. No idea why.

[twillight]

I might take the effort installing win'98 on a spare HDD... This situation really gets annoying.

Until that, I replayed Monkey Island. All the first 3 I have.

The Secret of Monkey Island was likely the best graphic adventure game ever. Fun, great graphic, not-too-hard-not-too-easy language, comfortable controls,and almost all puzzles were logical.
Well, it wasn't flawless, as those pesky Random Pirates walk the road before you'd be able to fight them, and I suspect you actually don't have to buy the sword from the shop (not that you wouldn't have the gold), and only people lost will find the "hole in the wood" easter egg, not to mention gaining the Red Herring is pixel-hunt, giving the idol to the cannibals is counter-intuitive (those are told to be precious sacred idols you better not mess with), and following the shopkeeper is less than obvious, but that's really a minority report.
Also, there is an Alternative Ending depending wether you sink the Sea Monkey or not (the official ending seems you do sink it), what is a big plus.

Le'Chuck's Revenge... Well, it is full of even-hunt, what is similar to pixel-hunt, but instead of a random pixel you look for a random place to go/ random thing to say what'll trigger the event demanded o roll the story, and the spitting-contest is "doing the same thing and hoping a different result", not to mention finding Walley (or walking Disney Island), who is on the end of a corridor which looks like part of a maze...
And the ending... It seems obvious thisis the game you finally learn "a disturbing truth on your world" - foretold by the Voodoo Lady in the first game. Who approved that?
There is also an "alternate ending", but that's so unlikely to trigger, doubtable anyone ever would gain it. It is also associated with an Easter Egg.
So, you remember hanging with Walley in the dungeon at the end? The Easter Egg part is to let the time expire. You not only "die" there, but switch back to the intro-scene, than continue.
The "alternate ending" comes as the legend told if you did not participate in the Spitting Contest. Beats me why. Or just not gained the Green Drink? More likely.
This'll not actually be an ending per-se, but an infinite loop, where you miss an item. This can happen if you while going for the map-piece in the antique-shop don't gain the money from the spitting contest, instead buy each thing possible from the antique dealer, then go to the three Lazy Pirate, and wax their peg-leg until your eyes fall out, gain 5999 gold (they always give 1 less old than you would need in the actual chapter I assume, as in chapter 1 you'd need 20 gold and you can get 19 from them), sell back some of his own stuff to the antique dealer,and sail the glass-ship by that money.
The problem is, you can gain 5 pieces of eight in 1 minute, making it 300 gold/hour, what means 20 hours constant mindless clicking for the supposed goal, what even the most lifeless zombie wouldn't do.
BUT the game introduced icon-items instead of text-items, and a lot of advanced hand-drawn graphic, while departing from the "talking head" design, so it has its place.

Curse of Monkey Island is a definite hit. Cool graphics, even better animation, crazy ideas like El Pollo Diablo, and excellent choice of character voices.
The game unfortunately got a bit old, and runs now in emulator instead of full-screen, but as this is not dosbox material anymore, we must be glad they made it for summvm.
The game is definitely for a more adult mind. The puzzles are demanding a wider imagination/knowledge - but they do make sense at least.
One issue though: you can easily miss a good chunk of the story if you don't talk enough. You can still do the stuff, but it'll never turn out why you do what you did. Not that serious for those who re-play the game of course...

PS: aquired a CD1 for my long-not-even-looked-on-it 4th part of this series. Will play tomorrow, or something.

[twillight]

I assume this was the end of it, thrown out the idea of a 5th game.

The controls are clumsy, the graphic... Ok, it is 3D, it was maybe nice enough in its age, AND it did not demand a Voodoo card... but...

It also lacks charm the previous games had. It is just not funny. It is an adventure game definitely, but so general.
Also, even if some puzzles simply insult your intellect for being so primitive, still blocking your way with the issue of controls, many stuff will turn out just totally random shite. Like why sprinkle perfume on the kangaroo? Why is the "solution" of the prohestetics-puzzle on the sewer-cover?

Come to prohestetics, the Abomination of Nature requires these:
- head: 1-2-3
- gut: 2-2-2
- head: 2-1-1
- stomach: 2-3-3
- liver: 1-1-1
- feet: 3-2-2
- butt: 3-3-2

The game also lacks regular-enough cutscenes. And an intriguing story. I mean you just run after Elaine's stuff. No mystical treasure. Even the insult-fights are degraded as you at start know all the insults and answers, collecting which was major feature in the series until now.

Will be an edit after I finish, but don't expect greatness.

EDIT:
bugs:
- In the prohestetic-shop the skin turned odd-colour, and Guybrush got an eye-cover from the same material: white fabric with yellow-red-blue dots. Lasted until reload.
- after capturing NoNose, if I went back to check his cottage (as just as you arrive you leave it always worth checking) the game/save got corrupted, and Guybrush' walking/running animation got lost, substituted with paddling animation. Solved by reloading save before going back to the house.
- could not heat up the mecha, 'cause when I sucked up the reeds, the game crashed. This actually prevented me from completing the game. Of course it is data-corruption obviously, not the game itself (well, I hope), had to watch the ending on youtube. Not that much interaction remained as it turned out.

Final words: I totally see the satire (and may I say education) in this game, the bothersome part is, this is not going well with Monkey Island. And the controls are bad. And the puzzles are very hard. And the Monkey Kombat learning procedureis ridiculous. The game could've still passed with a better script though, like the scrip of Tales from Monkey Island (developed by another group after Lucasarts practically sold the rights).
I have mixed feelings as the material was really strong. It is just ... NOT MONKEY ISLAND.