Entries RSS · Episodic gaming, part two
It’s time again for the weekend edition of Tech IT Easy. It was almost a year ago when I wrote about Sam & Max games in the context of episodic gaming and how episodic format combined with digital delivery might save some niche gaming genres, like point-and-click adventure games.
I mentioned some other, at the time secret, projects the other old-timers like Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer were up to. Now both of their super-secret projects have been publicly announced. Tim Schafer’s DoubleFine is working on an action-adventure game called Brütal Legend, which should be released sometime this year. It’s somewhat ironic that a game from LucasArts old-timer is published by Sierra. Ron Gilbert, on the other hand, is embracing the episodic gaming model with his “strange little episodic RPG-adventure” DeathSpank. Both projects sound cool, and at least I’m following their progress with great interest.
Back to Telltale and Sam&Max. Before Christmas I finally downloaded the free demo of first episode, Ice Station Santa, of Sam & Max’s second season. I was really afraid that it might not be enough new content to buy the whole season right away. After playing the demo, I felt confident enough to buy the whole episode, which turned out to be much more funny than the demo had led me to believe. Then again, at 8,95 USD per episode, that wasn’t that much of money. The game was really funny, and at parts even somewhat difficult. One of the new features this season is in-game help system, which means that you can set the Max the insane rabbit to spurt out hints when you get stuck. It’s actually quite nicely implemented.
One thing that I’ve found really great with the new season is that they have made it really easy to buy the game. You just need to download the demo, click around the game launcher and you’re ready. This is one of the most slickest e-commerce solutions I’ve so far encountered.
Well, the third episode of the second season is already here, but I’ve not even played the second episode yet. One reason is that I no longer have as frequent access to a computer with Windows installed as I had last year. The other reason is that I’m not still completely sold on the rest of the season.
For those, who missed the first season, there’s a special bonus. Telltale has also released one episode from this (slightly self-repeating) first season, Abe Lincoln Must Die for free. I highly recommend this one, because it gives a better picture of the style of the game overall and the length of an episode. It is also one of the better episodes of the season.
There’s still nothing on Wii or Mac versions so far. But after waiting for the Sam & Max sequel for quite a many years, I’m willing to wait…
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Tags: Brütal Legend, doublefine, episodic format, Gaming, point and click adventure games, Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer
Hi Kari, I just tried Sam & Max -which I didn’t know, having been a bit distant from gaming for a while-, both the demo and the free episode.
I found the game fun on some details (“We have nothing to fear but fear itself -and the Chupacabra! Madre de Dios he’ll kill us all!” -I laughed aloud at that, mainly because I didn’t know that that Mexican urban legend had crossed borders), but overall extremely slow. Not slow on the transition times (which were indeed slow, but thats because of my computer -by the way I noticed some serious memory leaks), but the general gaming experience, the endless slow walking, the endless blah blah… there was actually very little to do compared to the time spent playing the game. Of course adventure games are often “slow” to the general public, but even so. In my opinion it clearly doesn’t compare to, for instance, The Day of the Tentacle (which you mention in your earlier post), or even King’s/Space Quest classics.
However, where I’m completely bought is the concept of episodic gaming. I didn’t know it existed, and I must say find the idea marvelous; it even gave me some ideas of my own…
Emmanuel, you’re right, the pace is quite slow. But unfortunately I think that’s part of the genre. Without endless walking and dialogue, there would be only the puzzles. It seems one of the problems in adventure games is to maintain a good balance of story/action. On the other hand, you don’t want the game to be an interactive movie, but you want to immerse the player into the game.
I’d compare the new Sam&Max games and old King’s/Space Quests in the same terms as TV series and a movie. While the movie is shorter, it usually has more content than a whole season of a series. The movie also takes a longer time to make and costs insanely more.
And, finally some exciting news on the Wii front: http://www.telltalegames.com/community/blogs/id-303
Let’s see how Wii innovates on the console marketplace front with XBox Live and friends.