Jolt Country

Lex and I were going to maybe write a review together, but I'm in one of those rare moods in which I like to contribute to this board so I thought I'd just share my thoughts of this game thus far.

I don't really like it much.

Judging from the demo, I thought the game would be somewhat like Indiana Jones Desktop Adventures except with a bit more plot. In the beginning of the game, everything seems just around the corner, but no, truly, just a bunch of monotanous tasks are waiting for you. In a game where all your character can do is pick up things and push things (and attack creatures, I guess), it makes sense that the resulting game would feel like one giant Zork III maze. This time, there isn't a warm fuzzy feeling when you beat it, and it just feels like bad game design when you push something you need into a corner or somewhere else that makes the game unwinnable (true, there are save spots all over the place, but does really want to play a game where such is necessary?).

The main reason I was interested in this game was because of Tom Hall's involvement, as Anachronox really did win me over(true, at times, the game began to lose me but I was quite satisfied to have stuck it out... I keep on meaning to replay it, even). HDB, at times, has the same clever jokes but this time, it's without any plot or sense of urgency. In the end, it's just all too cutesy.

I haven't yet decided whether or not I'm going to actually finish the game.

You can't. I stopped playing this game about two months ago; There is one, very simple puzzle, which is impossible to solve. There simply AREN'T ENOUGH CRATES to build the bridge you need; and there really is nothing else to do.
When I was talking to Tom Hall he insisted the best thing possible about the modern industry is getting to a point where you can design your own games for a living, and then lock yourself in an office for four months while a bunch of code-monkeys ruin your vision.
Personally, I think he was lying.
Monkeystone is five people.

I can understand Romero slumming on these retro games, but WTF is Hall doing? His name is still good in the entertainment software field, right?

Lex, are you talking about the part in the pizza factory? If so, actually, I don't think you build a bridge... IT'S ALL A LIE. You have just enough crates to make ledges to get directly to the levers on the top and bottom.

But maybe you are further than I and I don't realize it.

But Guy Carrinton is very, very inbred, and is missing the chromazones necessary to walk diagonally; You only have enough crates to get to either the top or bottom lever, and once you've done one, you can't get to the other! It's MADNESS!!!
Because there's nothing in the room you open that will you reach the other lever, for which you just liberated the key.
You bastard, what did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO???!?!

Also: I think I may not be getting a reply from that last 'mail:

"Ack, I can never tell how I should write these things; friendlily, or with utter formality? The result is an unholy bastard of styles which read like the character readouts in the Anox manual. Ah, there's an example; was that going to far?"


It probably was, huh?

I was stuck at that one part for a while, but I do think that once you start pushing the barrels from underneath the lights over to the left, you have the exact number necessary to get to both top and bottom levers (while if you try to build a bridge and use water currents, you fall short by one).

Unfortunatley, I let a friend play from the beggining, and he's gone over every save.
I don't really want to play it from the beggining, up to that point.
Maybe when I'm bored. Or if I had a laptop, I could play through it in lunchtimes, etc. So really, I need a laptop. Yup.

When I get home tonight, I'll check to see if I still have any save games by the aforementioned point and if so, I'll try to find the save game files and put them up somewhere.

Okay, no, now I see how all of those old save games are gone. Better I mention it now before I am called upon for this, one of my many empty promises.