[REVIEW] Reactor 09

[pinback]

Reactor 09 is the very first AGS game I have played. I chose it because it was near the top of the "Best 20 Adventure Games of 2006" I saw somewhere.

Right up front, it seems obvious to me that you text adventure authors are a bunch of lazy, sausage sucking buttloafs. You're all "Uh, you're in a big room and there's a chair up in here." These people have to DRAW things. These people require ARTISTIC ABILITY, unlike you (buttloafs). And they have to draw everything IN the rooms, and every action you can DO to the rooms. So it's like, they create an entire IF game, and where you would say "welp, done! Turn it in! Wait for the bitches to roll in!" they have just started, because then they need to actually CREATE everything they had in mind, instead of just checking the thesaurus for another word for "dank". Therefore you suck, and AGS people rule.

Anyhow, I got immersed in the game, I'll admit that. And as far as it goes, it's pretty damn good. I mean, it's a standard, find this in this room, go use it on that in that room, door opens, wash, rinse, repeat, but that's pretty much the definition of a good ol' adventure game. You are a guy in prison who designed a reactor which is gonna explode, so you have to fix the reactor under the watchful eye of the guard who is in charge of keeping you inmates in line.

That's fine.

What it needed was more of this.

What it didn't need was this ("subtle" - internet review of the game... HAHAHAHAHA) undercurrent of unbelievable FAGGERY which permeates the whole game. Why the author thought it was a good idea to chew up a stick of GAY GUM and then use it to affix a tangential GAY-ASS story about the GAY guard and his possible GAY feelings for the GAY that you GAY to the game is beyond me. Well, it's not beyond me. It's just a horrible idea. And also GAY.

Apparently there are multiple endings (HAHAHAHA GAY) and I did not reach the very GAYEST one, but that was enough GAY for me.

If you think I'm exaggerating, find a screenshot of the scene where you are carrying the guard on your back, piggy-back style, with a plastic bag over your heads. I swear this happens. maggots.

The puzzle aspect of the game will take you a couple hours to complete. The GAY aspect of the game will haunt you for the rest of your GAYS.

SUMMARY

1. You are a buttloaf.

2. Reactor 09 is half a good game, and an impressive example of an AGS game crafted by a talented, independent author.

3. FAAAAG!!!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

These people have to DRAW things. These people require ARTISTIC ABILITY, unlike you (buttloafs).

I was all set to argue this, but I don't think Photoshop required Artistic Ability, just skill with a trackball. So, you win this round, Pinback.

I have considered AGS many times. In fact, I was talking about a game with a friend of mine named Luther that you guys don't know. But goddamn, it takes forever to get anything on the screen. I don't know how those guys do it. It takes me about a year to produce a six-hour text game, I would imagine that it takes these guys 4 or 5 years a piece for these six-hour AGS adventures. I tip my cap to them.

[ags guy]

you guys i played reactor and it was okay but duty + beyond is way better

if you want to know more good ags games you guys you should go to http://new.bigbluecup.com/games.php you guys

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Reactor 09 is the very first AGS game I have played. I chose it because it was near the top of the "Best 20 Adventure Games of 2006" I saw somewhere.

Holy shit, the graphics look incredible on that screenshot they show. I thought AGS games were all supposed to look like King's Quest.

Thank Christ ags guy bumped this thread (and thank you, AG!). I would have forgotten about this one as it wasn't properly marked.

[ags guy]

you guys a lot of ags games still look like kq but a lot of them are different and cool

like check out al emmo http://new.bigbluecup.com/games.php?cat ... c&game=786 you guys

[Nihil Vulture]

First Pinback, back the fekk off! The Text Adventure was the grandaddy of all ADVENTURES!!! Starting from Crowther and Woods' ADVENT! YES there are no graphics in Interactive Fiction (IF) / Text Adventures (TA), so what! You have a problem using your imagination, Pinback? Games with graphics in the 90's was oki, but still - The Big names where always in INFOCOM! Brian Moriarity, for instance was a member of INFOCOM... And so was Douglas Adams... Who did you expect to cowrite the Hitchhiker's Guide? So I say one thing to you, more like bunches... DO NOT TALK SMACK ABOUT IF/TA... Unless you have the goods to back it up!

Nuff Said!

Nihil Vulture

PS.. Enjoy your dinky Grpahic Adventures, ya low rent bastich!

[pinback]

First of all, I am not denigrating IF. I think IF is the shizzle. I am saying that IF authors are lazy. How much easier is it to write an IF game than a fully scripted, hand-painted AGS game?

Answer: way, way, way.

Now, look at the output of IF authors vs. AGS authors in the past five years, in terms of both quality and quantity. The discrepancies are both vast and embarrassing. Have there been a few high-quality IF offerings? Sure. But (as I've complained about since I first met Jonsey) most of it is trifling, "experimental" (read: non-enjoyable) garbage.

In the WORST case, there should be just as much quality IF as graphic adventures, just given the relative quickness of its development. But not only is there not as much, the average quality is much lower.

I am not starting a "graphic adventure vs. text adventure" thing. They're both fine.

I'm calling out the IF community for sucking the big one, except for Robb and maybe a couple of those other fucking nerds.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

First of all, I am not denigrating IF. I think IF is the shizzle. I am saying that IF authors are lazy. How much easier is it to write an IF game than a fully scripted, hand-painted AGS game?

Answer: way, way, way.

Yeah, but IF authors have to account for the player being able to type "anything" at a prompt, and an AGS author would only need to account for "what happens if I click on this" - right? I don't know enough about AGS game creation to say so I am just guessing.

[pinback]

Look, you've seen AGS in action. You tell me which takes more determination, painting a whole frigging world, or coming up with six new ways to say "you can't do that"?

Come on now.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I don't know, is all the art completely, 100% original?

I need to play more AGS games to speak effectively here.

(And because we have had some new people drop by, let me clarify that I love all forms of adventure games and I think the AGS people are doing great work. I wish I had more free time to play more indie games in general, but it's tough. I am definitely not trying to say one system takes more work and/or produces better results than another. There is no fanboyism in my posts.)

For instance, if I am throwing a texture down on the walls and then making my own door, because the door needs to be unique then I can see that taking less time than describing an IF room properly.

Making a new, painted room for each location does take more time than describing the same number of rooms, sure.

Do we have any AGS authors lurking? How do you guys do it?

[ags guy]

you guys most ags authors do their own art and tho it isnt always like as good as reactor 09 it does take time. sometimes they use premade objects like books and hammer or whatever you guys but the rooms are done by the game maker most times

i like text aventures too btw you guys so this place is cool too. i just do ags most of the time so it is what i know about

[bruce]

i like text aventures too btw you guys so this place is cool too. i just do ags most of the time so it is what i know about

Look, let me just apologize in advance for the fact that the regulars are going to rip your nads off like rabid weasels. It's just that this board turns anyone who visits it much into assjacks, really.

It was nothing you did. Or will do. It's just the bile-spewing self-consuming loathing of this place poisoning everything it touches.

I write text adventures. I haven't really played, well, any AGS games; I use a Mac and hardly ever dip into the Windows side of things. But some of the screenshots look very cool.

Bruce

[Roody_Yogurt]

I checked out one of the Ben Croshaw games (http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/games.htm), 1213, which, as mentioned in its description, is very much inspired by the likes of Flashback and Blackthorne.

The gameplay is a little bit limited, of course, but besides being just happy to see that the guy is still making games, I was very much impressed with its creativity and execution.