Telltale Games take on Back to the Future and Jurassic Park

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Wed Jun 09, 2010 11:28 pm

Holy. Crap.

http://www.telltalegames.com/nbcuni

grim107 · Post by **grim107** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 10:26 pm

I have to be honest, I really hate Telltale. It wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't release their games in small episodes. I like to have one long complex story line; not a bunch of small "pieced together in a few minutes" story lines. I was excited when I first saw this, but then realized that the stories would be idiotic just like those of Sam and Max and Monkey Island.

If instead Telltale decided to make them into longer games, I'd show some interest and probably even buy them.

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:52 am

Wow. Hate's a strong word there.

garrythefish · Post by **garrythefish** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:22 pm

grim107 wrote:I have to be honest, I really hate Telltale. It wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't release their games in small episodes. I like to have one long complex story line; not a bunch of small "pieced together in a few minutes" story lines. I was excited when I first saw this, but then realized that the stories would be idiotic just like those of Sam and Max and Monkey Island.

If instead Telltale decided to make them into longer games, I'd show some interest and probably even buy them.

Sincerity at last! If there were more critics like this maybe the adventure scene would try more, and exploit the fan base less, IMHO. They aren't a very young and little company anymore, and use this false perceived image to push games with very little investment and improvement over the years. Indeed, there were efforts, but very limited compare to what it could be.

rock_chick · Post by **rock_chick** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:42 am

Ok, I'll be frank in that I love the Sam and Max games and I think Telltale are a cool company but I'm not here to argue about their games or the company itself. They also worked on CSI and I was into those games. Not every game needs to be a long one to be good. I'm not much into the casual game scene but it's grew considerably over the last few years. Sometimes people don't long games. I feel that even though I'd like the episodes of Max and Sam to be longer I find they still work well as they are(except the annoying change in the gameplay with the current season, I'm not into using a keyboard to move around and the mouse way of doing it is not very well implemented). All the episodes per season generally tie into a main theme for the season and they're only released a month or 2 about usually, so it's not a long wait. As for the humor, it's an acquired taste, like many things. I can get why some people see it as childish and/or stupid but I'm into wacky comedy to a point.

Red_Breast · Post by **Red_Breast** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:07 am

rock_chick wrote:Max and Sam

I had to post simply to say I can't recall ever seeing the names put the other way round anywhere.

rock_chick · Post by **rock_chick** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 9:58 am

Red_Breast wrote:
rock_chick wrote:Max and Sam
I had to post simply to say I can't recall ever seeing the names put the other way round anywhere.

PMing me and letting me know so I could have edited that post would have left me less embarrassed but I'll cope!

But just imagine if it was actually that way around and Max was the more serious one and Sam was the crazy, wacky one.

grim107 · Post by **grim107** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:58 am

Addressing the humor: Childing humor CAN be good. Take Sam and Max 1 and even DOTT for example. They both had very childish humor. They were also great games. The problem with Telltale games is that their humor just isn't funny. The voice acting's bad in the Sam and Max games. The story-lines can never be complex because the games are too damn short. The means of controlling the characters just downright suck. They should use a Grim Fandango style. It took a little while to get used to, but was in fact really good.

Full Throttle was a fairly short game, but it was also amazing. I'd rather one long(er) game than a bunch of short ones. They're practically mini-games!

KuroShiro · Post by **KuroShiro** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 2:30 am

grim107 wrote:Addressing the humor: Childing humor CAN be good. Take Sam and Max 1 and even DOTT for example. They both had very childish humor. They were also great games. The problem with Telltale games is that their humor just isn't funny. The voice acting's bad in the Sam and Max games. The story-lines can never be complex because the games are too damn short. The means of controlling the characters just downright suck. They should use a Grim Fandango style. It took a little while to get used to, but was in fact really good.

Full Throttle was a fairly short game, but it was also amazing. I'd rather one long(er) game than a bunch of short ones. They're practically mini-games!

The movement controls are exactly the same as Grim Fandango, just moved to WASD... not sure which game you've been playing.

Whether humor is funny or not is a matter of perspective. I agree that a lot of Telltale's games aren't as funny as they are trying to be, but they don't completely fail from a satire perspective. The most recent Sam and Max games have actually been pretty excellent writing/plotting wise. A big step up from their previous games. Of course it's all personal opinion. I agree that longer games would be better, but the realities of the market right now mean you're just not going to get any.

rock_chick · Post by **rock_chick** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 10:07 am

KuroShiro wrote:
The movement controls are exactly the same as Grim Fandango, just moved to WASD... not sure which game you've been playing.

That was only implemented in the 3rd and most recent season of Sam & Max(however since I've yet to play the original game I'm not sure about the controls for it), the first and second seasons featured from what I can recall, only a mouse iput system instead. It was the method I preferred but each to their own in that case.

Regarding the length of Telltale games in general, I have really only played the Sam & Max and CSI games from them(as far as I'm aware) but some companies prefer such methods and choose games such as the latter I mentioned that are by nature not meant to be overly long for such reasons. Different companies used different strategies for their games, whether they help in their success depends on many things. Telltale mentioned in the link posted regarding the new games that they are a episodic game developer, that's their way. But Telltale are not doing badly, they have a large fan base for their games, whether you like the games is of course a matter of preference. However one thing that is annoying to me regarding the Sam & Max seasons is how they haven't got shorter. The first featured 6 episodes, while the other 2 only have 5 with no obvious increase in the game length per episode for the later seasons.

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 4:00 pm

rock_chick wrote:That was only implemented in the 3rd and most recent season of Sam & Max(however since I've yet to play the original game I'm not sure about the controls for it), the first and second seasons featured from what I can recall, only a mouse iput system instead. It was the method I preferred but each to their own in that case.

It was also featured in the Wallace and Grommit games first, then Tales of Monkey Island, and finally The Devil's Playhouse.

grim107 · Post by **grim107** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 4:01 pm

@KuroShiro So then I must apologize for some of my last post. What I meant by bringing Grim Fandango into the picture was that the mouse wasn't involved at all. Rather, you walk somewhere and when your character was close enough to a hotspot, he'd turn his head. Last I played Sam and Max games, you controlled with your mouse. Evidently, I haven't played these games in a while, but can you blame me after having this strong a disliking for them?

Most companies now are still making full length games. I recall a new Broken Sword coming out within the last year or two. True that while LucasArts is struggling, they are getting by. They've remade MI1 and are going to release a remake of MI2 soon. They've recently released in a statement that MI1 sold far beyond they're expectation. If it didn't, would they really be remaking the sequel?

Red_Breast · Post by **Red_Breast** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 6:27 pm

rock_chick wrote: PMing me and letting me know so I could have edited that post would have left me less embarrassed but I'll cope!

Wasn't my intention to embarrass you. I didn't consider you'd made a mistake. I just thought maybe you preferred it that way. If Max and Sam works for you then fine. I'll know you mean Sam and Max - I don't think it's possible to confuse with anything else.
If I do think something would embarrass somebody then I would PM them.

KuroShiro · Post by **KuroShiro** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 7:44 pm

grim107 wrote:@KuroShiro So then I must apologize for some of my last post. What I meant by bringing Grim Fandango into the picture was that the mouse wasn't involved at all. Rather, you walk somewhere and when your character was close enough to a hotspot, he'd turn his head. Last I played Sam and Max games, you controlled with your mouse. Evidently, I haven't played these games in a while, but can you blame me after having this strong a disliking for them?

Most companies now are still making full length games. I recall a new Broken Sword coming out within the last year or two. True that while LucasArts is struggling, they are getting by. They've remade MI1 and are going to release a remake of MI2 soon. They've recently released in a statement that MI1 sold far beyond they're expectation. If it didn't, would they really be remaking the sequel?

Fair enough, to each their own. Funnily, in the newest Sam and Max season, I'm pretty sure Sam will turn his head to look at hotspots. If all you've played of theirs is the first season of Sam and Max or the stuff they made around that time then I would agree that it isn't all that great. They've improved as they've gone along, but I can understand why you'd be hesitant to spend money if you disliked it that much.

It's true that there are still companies that make full-length adventure games (mostly in Germany it seems), but I'd personally be hard pressed to name a single company in the US that does. That is what I was referring to. Publishers are just very reticent to pick up any sort of adventure game that doesn't appeal to the "Casual" market. The BS games have become more action/adventure hybrids and are frankly a pale shadow of what they used to be.

rock_chick · Post by **rock_chick** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 9:56 am

Red_Breast wrote:Wasn't my intention to embarrass you. I didn't consider you'd made a mistake. I just thought maybe you preferred it that way. If Max and Sam works for you then fine. I'll know you mean Sam and Max - I don't think it's possible to confuse with anything else.
If I do think something would embarrass somebody then I would PM them.

Now I feel as if I've embarrassed you and that was not my intention, sorry if I did! As I said before it's no big deal, I was just saying a pm would have been more appropriate but since you felt it was intentional you wouldn't have felt it was needing correction.