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I haven't played much of Another world, but I did remember being a bit frustrated by it.
I might give it another shot though. So I might get the 3DO version, because it has enhanced graphics.
I hear heart of the alien, the sequel to Another World on the Sega CD is more of a worse game than the original.
I might give it another shot though. So I might get the 3DO version, because it has enhanced graphics.
I hear heart of the alien, the sequel to Another World on the Sega CD is more of a worse game than the original.
You mean one of the worst and you are wrong. Myst is also a pretty good game. Both are games from a period when games were not expected to play for you automatically and had atmosphere rather than baysplosions and tons of terrible dialogue. Bringing in games like Meat Boy to compare to them is just irrelevant.
I was talking about the gameplay. Meat Boy is a totally different sort of game in terms of gameplay.Genuine Evil said:
You are just wrong there.Genuine Evil said:
At the time Another World was being used as the demo game on the Megadrive in stores right next the SNES running Super Mario World. Maybe some people played both and decided that Another World was just shit because SMW had better controls but others did not jump to a conclusion like that.
You can't judge a 20 year old game by today's standards. Heck, Halo 1 and Half Life 2 are both fairly shit by today's standards, but like them, what you have to note isGenuine Evil said:
1) If they seem clichéd and old-hat it's because they were the original innovators in their field and
2) You have to judge them at least partly on their historical context: what was gaming like when they were released, and how did they affect gaming that came after.
Yes, Another World is incredibly punishing - sometimes unfairly so - but back in the 90s that was perfectly par for the course. It's a rare game these days that even bothers with a "lives" system. Games back in the 90s weren't the slick, streamlined, linear experiences that games are today. They were trial-and-error and stop-start in nature. There were no onscreen hints or Gamefaqs walkthroughs; if you wanted to keep track you had to get out some paper and a pencil and make your own maps. With certain games, managing to get to level X or past puzzle Y or defeating bad guy Z was the stuff of playground mythology and bragging rights (somebody who actually COMPLETED the game would be worshipped as a god). And Another World is precisely one of those games.
Let's look at the historical context a bit more. Back in the early 90s console adventure games were few and far between (stop gloating, you PC geeks with your Kings Quests and your Monkey Islands and your bewildering no-graphics text adventures). Basically, you had rudimentary JRPG party management sims like Final Fantasy (SNES) and Shining Force (Sega), action-RPGs like Zelda and Story of Thor, and a handful of Westernised efforts - often Dungeons and Dragons inspired and hard as fucking nails, like The Immortal (sega). The new wave of rotoscoped "platform games for grown-ups" (Flashback, Prince of Persia...) represented an exciting coming-of-age for console gaming. Not only did they bring to the table narratives more complex than "bad guy threatens world destruction" or "dude abducted your girlfriend, kill him, yo", but they also blended the previously unlikely genres of adventure, platforming, and shoot-em-up (or hack-and-slash, in PoP's case).
As for their legacy - well, I feel quite confident in saying that without the likes of Flashback and Another World, there would have been no Tomb Raider. You know, the game that pretty much invented third-person action-adventure. I'll just let that sink in.
But what about the game itself? Well, I admit I've got my nostalgia glasses on, but I think Another World is certainly a worthy mention in any discussion of the 16-bit era, if perhaps lacking the popularity and polish of Flashback. It has a frikkin' vertical learning curve, but once you've kind of accustomed yourself to the kind of bullshit the game expects of you, you're able to almost start taking it on your own terms. The story is a good one, at least by the standards of the time, and is all the more clever for establishing the characters and dilemma without any (intelligible) dialogue or onscreen text. The context-specific controls do tend to mean that you're constantly in a state of learning and rarely in a state of comfort, let alone mastery, which I could see upsetting a lot of players. But then again, you're a scrawny dude who has just been teleported to an utterly alien world - isn't it quite fitting that the game constantly keeps you on your toes? A lot of the same elements have been used since - Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Limbo come to mind, for starters. In summary, if you want a consistent game, go for Flashback. If you fancy some occasional sparks of genius interspersed among a lot of "hit-and-miss" moments, then give Another World a whirl. And if you want a newbie-friendly popcorn game with onscreen hints and a tutorial level, with infinite lives and regenerating health... f*** off and play a current-gen title.
Well, that's my two pennies. Just out of interest, GenuineEvil, how far through the game did you get?
Well, maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on this one, but I think that context counts for a lot - and that's honestly not just me (and other retro gamers) attempting to explain away our youthful lack of taste. Without context, Romeo and Juliet is a clichéd and derivative piece of shit.Genuine Evil said:
Basically, peoples expectations of gameplay and the overall "experience" have moved on from the 90's (just as people who were kids in the 90s, like me, turned our noses up at the open-ended arcade shit our parents went crazy for back in the 70s) - and you can't fault a game dev for not accurately predicting the gaming tastes of people 20 years in the future. It's a galling idea, isn't it, that when we get our future kids to play our cherished PS2 and Xbox games, they'll probably find 80% of our favourite games unplayable shite.
I suppose the only thing that really holds up over time is pure gameplay. Some games do very well with just gameplay - Tetris, as you pointed out, also immediately-accessible stuff like Pac Man, Sonic, Mario, etc. Some games rely more strongly on graphics or an innovative approach or a novel idea - and I'd argue that Another World had all three of these at the time - and these ones understandably don't age as well because the player will constantly be comparing the game to newer, superior ones.
Saying that people didn't think the controls were bad and actually really enjoyed playing the game is not an, "excuse for bad gameplay." How the hell did you get that from what I wrote?Genuine Evil said:
Bear in mind the game is 20 years old, so my memory may be a little foggy by now.
I didn't like it much myself at the time, I never was into platformers much. But it did feel very creative and innovative in its graphical style.
If I remember correctly they tried to go for realistic human animations, in the same style as Impossible Mission and Prince of Persia. A style that resulted in far less accuracy than the more common abstract platformers. That changes the control feeling quite a bit and takes some getting used to. In my opinion that style has some of the same issues as 3D platformer which also suffers from lack of accuracy, but it also presents some unique challenges that some people may appreciate.
Back then people expected a game to last for a long time, and figuring things out was part of the appeal. A 20 hour game would probably have been criticized for being extremely short. That meant that games had a tendency to be difficult and repetitive. People generally didn't finish games back then, the idea that everyone should be able to complete a game is a fairly new concept.
In terms of the technical quality, the game was designed for the Amiga. A computer with a 7.14 Mhz cpu and 512Kb RAM, most likely running in a resolution of 320x256. Of course it won't stand up to hardware that is several thousand times more powerful. But I think the graphics have aged much better than most games of the time.
Does it hold up today without nostalgia goggles? Probably not, extremely few games from that time does. Did it hold up back then? Reviews were generally very favorable and praised the innovative aspects, but the controls were criticized as a flaw. Should the game have been fixed by now? No of course not because that would make it a different game, it is meant to have those controls.
I found a review from "Amiga Format", a magazine that I considered mostly trustworthy. The summary says:
So if it's any consolation that reviewer would have agreed with you.
My own assesment would have been, "It's a French game, they are weird and too artsy with mediocre gameplay".
I think old games should be re-released, because they have some historical value and a few of them are still good. But I think the $10 price tag at GoG is a bit steep.
I didn't like it much myself at the time, I never was into platformers much. But it did feel very creative and innovative in its graphical style.
If I remember correctly they tried to go for realistic human animations, in the same style as Impossible Mission and Prince of Persia. A style that resulted in far less accuracy than the more common abstract platformers. That changes the control feeling quite a bit and takes some getting used to. In my opinion that style has some of the same issues as 3D platformer which also suffers from lack of accuracy, but it also presents some unique challenges that some people may appreciate.
Back then people expected a game to last for a long time, and figuring things out was part of the appeal. A 20 hour game would probably have been criticized for being extremely short. That meant that games had a tendency to be difficult and repetitive. People generally didn't finish games back then, the idea that everyone should be able to complete a game is a fairly new concept.
In terms of the technical quality, the game was designed for the Amiga. A computer with a 7.14 Mhz cpu and 512Kb RAM, most likely running in a resolution of 320x256. Of course it won't stand up to hardware that is several thousand times more powerful. But I think the graphics have aged much better than most games of the time.
Does it hold up today without nostalgia goggles? Probably not, extremely few games from that time does. Did it hold up back then? Reviews were generally very favorable and praised the innovative aspects, but the controls were criticized as a flaw. Should the game have been fixed by now? No of course not because that would make it a different game, it is meant to have those controls.
I found a review from "Amiga Format", a magazine that I considered mostly trustworthy. The summary says:
http://amr.abime.net/review_1061
So if it's any consolation that reviewer would have agreed with you.
My own assesment would have been, "It's a French game, they are weird and too artsy with mediocre gameplay".
I think old games should be re-released, because they have some historical value and a few of them are still good. But I think the $10 price tag at GoG is a bit steep.
So there are some things that you can't reasonably expect from games that are 20 years old. I'm afraid this includes good graphics, tight controls (by modern standards) and refined difficulty curves are amongst them. Another World was a significant game at the time and I feel it still holds up as a fun experience.
You seem to have a low tolerance which is pity because it means you're going to struggle to enjoy older games - you aren't alone, I can't stand early 3D, it's really ugly and stops me from enjoying Deus Ex which is a real pity because there's a great game there underneath the problems that does some really interesting stuff.
You cannot expect the pioneer to do everything as well as the games that follow on from it. These games are remembered because they did something just as well if not better than modern games and this is where you should be looking for enjoyment - I believe Another world was known for its plot and how well its story was told, which it really is. If you can get past the gameplay, I think it does a good job of creating an alien place and an attachment to your character and your companion. I haven't played anything that does a better job of minimalistic story telling (if you do, please point me in its direction).
You seem to have a low tolerance which is pity because it means you're going to struggle to enjoy older games - you aren't alone, I can't stand early 3D, it's really ugly and stops me from enjoying Deus Ex which is a real pity because there's a great game there underneath the problems that does some really interesting stuff.
You cannot expect the pioneer to do everything as well as the games that follow on from it. These games are remembered because they did something just as well if not better than modern games and this is where you should be looking for enjoyment - I believe Another world was known for its plot and how well its story was told, which it really is. If you can get past the gameplay, I think it does a good job of creating an alien place and an attachment to your character and your companion. I haven't played anything that does a better job of minimalistic story telling (if you do, please point me in its direction).
Its called "CINEMATIC PLATFORMER":
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CinematicPlatformGame
They ARE supposed to be a bit more realistic, however, there should a be more proper way to teach the player how in the fuck are you supposed to make things like the gun work.
People should try to bring up more of these genre to see witch one has better controls
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CinematicPlatformGame
They ARE supposed to be a bit more realistic, however, there should a be more proper way to teach the player how in the fuck are you supposed to make things like the gun work.
People should try to bring up more of these genre to see witch one has better controls