This is perhaps not a surprise, given the slant against our beloved genre. Still, it hurts just to read it...

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/alterego2009/review.html

Yikes!

Yikes, indeed. I realize it's just one person's experience, but this review combined with no English language Demo being made available makes me think that once again, I will pass on another new release this year. Disappointing.

SIGH I wish that Gamespot would stop trying to review adventure games. It's so obvious that they don't like or even understand the genre. My vote is that they stick to action games unless and until they can judge an adventure game fairly.



Tracy

Gamespot usually does that, murders adventuregames.

Here's another opinion:

http://www.gameindustry.com/review/item.asp?id=1226

GameBoomer Reviews are the only ones I trust to be fair and honest with their comments and I've never been dissapointed.

Like Kaki's Sister, I only trust Gameboomer reviews, so I'll wait one of ours to come out. I agree most sites don't know a thing about adventure gaming.

Generally speaking, Gamespot applies as i call it "The Butcher Effect" on adventure games. You might have the best game but because it's an adventure game it will almost certainly get a low score. Take for example Still Life. It's probably one of the best adventure games out there but GS gave it a mere 6.7. They should change their name to: TheReviewersHateAdventureGamesAndWouldPreferActionMMORPGAndShootThemUpAndFPSGamesSpot.

I only use GS for news, it's reliable on that department, but as far as reviews are concerned, and especially Adventure Games i simply look elsewhere (e.g here).

I don't see it. I think it's a fair review, although the score is very low.
The reviewer compares the game to other adventure games, and though I did not play the game, his critique is about the game being bad as a game, not because it's an adventure.

He says the story is slow - but not because there's no action.
He says the puzzles are easy - but wants better puzzles, not the removal of said puzzles.

My point is why should I have to be a member of a forum created by people who love the adventure game genre to have information on new releases?
Why shouldn't I be able to have unbiased information readily available on ALL new adventure releases when they are released.
It's not one sites issue that adventure games aren't being represented fairly.
IMHO it's a glaring defect of the Publishers & Developers and the Sellers.
They make these grand expensive games and offer no PR or Marketing or Support,
never mind releasing detailed System Requirements or a playable Demo or Game Info on first/third person or mouse vs. keyboard or provide a forum for Technical Support.
It was the same with Black Mirror 2 and Darkness Within 2.
This is the main reason I have not spent money on a new release this year.
Word of mouth and anticipation is not good enough!!!
Why would I choose to throw good money after bad???

Even GameBoomers has little info on their Latest & Upcoming Adventure Game page on this title.
It links to Future Games Future Games , a very poor outdated website circa 2007. No info at all really, this website has the game still being In Development.

bitComposer Games has a short description with no specs, demo or purchase info.

Viva Media has same bare bones info with a link to Amazon to purchase.

Even the Gaming selling site have anorexic information, but at least Steam lists the System Requirements for the first time
albeit they are different from the ones shown at The Adventure Shop , along with a huge pricing difference.
And Interact! only has coming soon with nothing but price.
None of any of the above links have Game Info or Technical Support.
And forget about trying to walk into a store to purchase it, stores haven't even heard of it.

MaG already has a walkthrough posted, yet I don't use walkthroughs because I don't like being spoiled.
Also, I feel I shouldn't have to resort to one for a well done game.

Google says somewhere there is a German and Russian demo,
but the only link I found that wasn't Warez came right back to GameBoomers with a direct link.
Guess what, my computer installs the DE demo fine.
But Windows 7 won't let it play. I get a RunDev.exe error and the program closes itself, although my computer meets and surpasses the system requirements dug up on the 2 selling sites.
Where is the Technical Support.
Not on any of the websites listed above.

So don't hate a website for slamming a product.
At least they recognize it existence and offer concise information, and for that I am grateful.
I feel awful hoping somebody here on GameBoomers wastes money and time on a shoddy product for me to hear their experience before making a decision (like I did with the Darkness Within 2 demo).
Plus even adventure game lovers have fiercely different opinions on every game. For every 10 people that loved Still Life, there are still 10 people who hated it.
I just want to know what I am getting for my money, IMHO that's what makes a fair unbiased review.

Adventures games are killing the genre just fine themselves, nuff said. And they are definitely not getting my hard earned dollars anymore until they start representing themselves in the proper manner!

Lily.Bart,

Don't completely blame the developers or publishers or the game itself. The cost of making the games, the publishing or getting them published and the time to make them are the major problems right now. The one that impacts most is piracy.

We are lucky to even have games being released.

It is also depressing with our knowledge of the inner workings of adventure gaming problems to hear that even the adventure gamers are not backing the genre as they used to do so.
If that continues - then there really no reason for the good developers to fight the economics (no monetary gains) to make games - - - pirates and lost loyalty of the gamers - why make games anymore or even have an adventure games forum.

Let us not stray from the topic of this thread. Just my frustration is showing from the trend of the postings. Sorry.

MaG Respectfully
Why should I not blame what I blamed? According to your logic (trust that I find it upsetting too),
I should spend $40 USD on a game without even knowing if it is 1st or 3rd person or point&click or keyboard driven or even my cup of tea for gameplay and without certainty it will even install and/or play on my brand new computer or if I'm required to install propriety 3rd party software or not ensured that patches and technical support will be provided for the life of the game...
just to prove my loyalty to the genre and fight the good fight against piracy?
I don't feel "lucky" to have a game released, I feel like a gullible mark who is being taken advantage of and is being told I should suck up the empty promises and shoddiness and like it.
And yes, I'd rather have no game released than Darkness Within 2. I loved loved the first, mostly because of the support offered by the developer and the all over superior quality of the game.
Piracy has been around for awhile, and in the past (2006-2008 especially) I could purchase a game with certitude that my current complaints were well thought of and ensured. It is too easy to make a scapegoat out of piracy.
I refuse to think it is too much to ask for Gameplay Info, System Requirements, a Demo, and Technical Support to be a given when being asked to purchase. I would gladly support a game and spend $40 USD if this was the case. Gladly!!!
And that is me venting my frustration at the current state of adventure games as I see it.
I am sorry if I moved off topic... but I assumed the topic was a bad review.
And I can't even get to the game to see if I agree or disagree with the topic, the review.

lily.bart, (I love the description of you as a "shy" boomer <g>)

You make some good points and very articulately. IMO, these things need to be discussed, depressing or not.

Gil.

The system requirements on the box/sleeve are pretty low end:

OS: Windows 7/Vista/XP
Processor: 1.5 GHz
Memory: 512 MB RAM
4 GB free hard drive space
Video card: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 64 MB video RAM

It's point-and-click, as can be seen from some of the German gameplay videos on Youtube, like ***this one***.

One of the people who commented at Youtube noted that he had to play the game as Administrator. So you might try playing the demo that way, if you're still interested.

Lily.bart -- my sense of what's happening out there is that PR budgets at many publishers have been cut to the bone (or even into the bone). I don't know if that's true of tech support also, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Shelf space in the US for PC games is narrowing. Every time I'm in my local Gamestop there are fewer shelves of PC games and more shelves of used games. I'm seeing less shelf space for PC games at Walmart also. You can still buy PC games at Best Buy and Target, but the situation now is a lot different than just a few years ago, at least in my area, when I could guy games at my local CompUSA (now out of business) and Circuit City (now out of business) plus a nice selection (then) at local Gamestops.

I'm not sure how this trend is effecting publisher's bottom lines, but it can't be good. There is also the sense out there that adventure developers are making little to nothing on games that are published here in the US, which is massively discouraging. That (I think) is why we're seeing adventures published in Europe more than in the US these days.

That said, when a publisher agrees to publish a game, they should market it more than we are seeing, and they should provide tech support. When they don't, we all lose. I don't have an answer as to why they don't always do a better job.

Piracy is particularly frustrating for PC game developers because they are trying to stay in business, but they see many, many more pirated copies than purchased copies. It's so frustrating a situation, that some developers decide to stop making higher budget PC games. They switch over to higher budget console games or (perhaps) casual, downloadable PC games.

As to why the developers themselves don't have complete information and updates on their websites -- that has always been a mystery to me too. Sometimes developers have a deal with their publishers where the publisher is supposed to update and maintain the website, and the publisher doesn't and the developer can't do anything about it. Other times, the developer gets so caught up with the urgency to get the game done that they (apparently) neglect the website because they don't see the website the same way we gamers do -- as a lifeline for info and news about the progress of the game.

Sierra Online, Where are you when we need you?

I don't think piracy is the problem, it is just an excuse. I think the problem is that adventure games are not the great fun they used to be. Graphics are dull with no imagination, but very good if you like technology, I guess. Sierra had not only Roberta Williams, but many other talented people on board making great games with their support. Of course, there was piracy back then too, I know that personally since I played a few of the pirated games. But only a few because once hooked on a game (Leisure Suit Larry, for one) we bought the rest of the series, and more. On the other hand, there was very little competition, except for the pirates!, when Sierra ruled. I think back then the games were made by gamers because the money guys went looking elsewhere.
One other point not so far mentioned by anyone are the FREE games out there being made by dedicated, talented people. Why can't they get jobs making commercial games? Or are they so independent in spirit that they don't want to work with anyone? Anyway, these are my own feelings of frustratiom making their way here.

Just to join the discussion abit:

I thought that the digital distribution of adventure games were actually saving the adventure game genre. I've seen many adventure games in the past two-three years only be released via Gamers Gate, Steam, or Direct 2 Drive or through some other digital distribution channel.

As for the making of adventure games, I think that both in Poland and in Germany they're still making great adventure games.

However, I do also fear (or think?) that maybe we as adventure gamers are sort of a conservative mind. We don't necessarily want things to change e.g. we don't want (full) 3D in our adventure games, there's a lot of features in the games we're used to having - so we feel unsure about it when something is to change.

One of the nicer things I like in the newer Sherlock Holmes games are the ability to pan around all the way, and to highlight the hotspots via pressing the spacebar.

It also seems to me that when a developer tries to experiment even a little, some people complain. Such was the case for Still Life 2, where the developer thought of a nice way to get rid of the sillyness that you can have a ladder in your pocket e.g. inventory at the same time as you're having a mattres in in your inventory.

The big problem here is that we apparently don't know just how many adventure games are downloaded legally today through the various digital distributions channels or network.

Many developers/publishers of adventure games don't have a lot of money, so they'll upload public demos for it on youtube or have a youtube channel for the game. And I know (from following rpgs over the years) that even releasing a demo do cost a bit of money - and probably also a lot of time.

As for marketing the genre, I do think, publishers market it more - sadly, I find they'll market is mostly in Germany since it seems to be the biggest market for the adventure game genre seems to be - as of right now.

And yes, normally the publisher will do the tech support. However, many publishers such as Jowood or Koch Media do have game forums where people can help people with their varius tech issues they're having with their adventure games (or other games).

Poor little me...is a Sherlock Holmes game really an adventure? Case in point: Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. No, I haven't played this game and I don't want to play it since I'm really not ready to go on an adventure with a serial killer in it! I'm squeamish, I want fun, not horror. I did try to play The Awakened but got lost and couldn't find where to go even with the walkthrough. So I gave up, but then the game wasn't all that interesting anyway.

I did read an article/interview where a developer was unhappy with some publishers because he had to spend time taking them to court, time he needed to spend on the game, so maybe the publishers are the problem. Even a bigger problem if they go bankrupt?

It's personal preference, sierramindy.

I played and enjoyed both the Sherlock Holmes games you mention and found both interesting.

And how can you condemn a game you haven't even played ??

You hit the nail on the head, The company isn't being honest about what the system requirements really are.
I tried all my tricks too with the demo (albeit in a strange foreign language!!!) with the same result. Black screen, then crash.
Who knows what the System Requirements really are???
STEAM
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7/Vista/XP SP 2
Processor: 2.5 GHz Single Core
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 128 MB 3D Video Card (Geforce 6600/Radeon 9600 or better)
DirectX®: 9.0c or higher
Hard Drive: 3 GB free hard drive space
Sound: DirectX sound card

The Adventure Shop
OS: 2K/XP/Vista
CPU: Pentium IV
Memory: 512
Video memory: 256
HD: 5
Audio: 16 bit stereo

This is a huge difference from 3 sources.
By confirming my fears, You saved me $30 bucks if it's any consolation.

Thank you. Actually it is some consolation if I saved someone else the hassle of what I went through.

Trying out the German demo seems to be a good predictor of whether the game will work or not.

Sounds like my old Dell PC would meet these system requirements. My Dell's processor is a Pentium 4 @ 1.7 GHz.


Thanks again, Jenny - you saved me 30 bucks, also, so now I can spend that $30 on different game!

I had to make some changes to get the game to play for me. Move shader level to 2, antialising to 0, shadows none and run as administor and game plays fine. I am really enjoying the game, sorry it is causing problems for some. I am playing on Vista 32 bit with Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS.

I had a problem getting it to run when installed in the usual Programm Files folder(have Win 7). The opening title played but after clicking on new game etc., the game produced a black screen.
I reinstalled in another folder and the game runs fine. Am enjoying it so far, story is a bit slow but the environments are nice to look at.
-----------------
I also only read reviews here on GB's. Get lots of people's opinions in one place.

Can someone post a link to the German demo? I'd like to try it out

Thanks!

Hi Jean,

Check HERE.