Oh, Tim Schafer... will you make anything as good as Grim Fandango or Monkey Island again?
Schafer definitely has a cult following in the video game world -- an industry where creators are relatively unknown. What stands out most in his games are the bizarre, colorful characters settled in vibrant, original worlds. Take Grim Fandango. It's a story of how grim reapers are actually travel agents in the afterlife helping people "move on" to their final destination until one reaper discovers there's corruption within his business and embarks on an adventure to expose the truth. A truly great game that still holds up today. (On a side note: I would love to say that Psychonauts is one of my favorite games of all time, but I have yet to beat it and likely never will -- game freezes during what I think is the final boss battle.) Point is, Schafer has set the bar high on what great storytelling in games can accomplish. The big question here is how does Broken Age hold up?
At first glance, it's a great game. We're going back to Schafer's roots where he's designed another adventure genre game we saw all the time in the 90's. A game where you talk to various characters, collect items, and figure out how the hell to use those items to solve puzzles. The game has an interesting element, though, in that there are two stories going on simultaneously. You can freely switch back-and-forth between this girl on a planet who's been selected to be sacrificed to big monster that threatens to destroy her city, and this boy stuck on a space station that looks like it was built by Playskool. Neither character knows about the other as they go about their respected quests (either to defeat the monster or escape the space station). The graphics are beautiful and resemble a living painting, while the characters are generally interesting, funny, and original. I only have one major complaint:
THE GAME IS NOT FINISHED!
I bought this guy from Steam. When you make your purchase for Act I, you preorder Act II which I think is set to be released in the fall. Still, why the hell would Schafer just wait until the game was complete before releasing it? I will say there's a very interesting cliffhanger Act I ends on, but it's just at the point where things really begin to move along.
Another slight shortcoming is that fact that the game is easy. I think I beat this in just under four hours... and I'm slow. I'm sure others could beat it much faster than me only because the puzzles are fairly straight forward. What I mean is that if there's some sort of obstacle you have to overcome, chances are that the item you need to solve said problem is probably located right next to you. Not that hard to connect those dots.
That aside, the game is ultimately fun. I'm looking forward to playing the second act, but I'm pissed I have to wait for it. If Schafer's intention was to keep his audience wanting more, then he's succeeded.
Possibly a dumb question, but is there going to be an Act III?
ReplyDeleteI was a fan of Psychonauts and what little I played of Grim Fandango, so there's a good chance I'll check this out. But likely not until it's finished!
I feel like it's only going to be delivered in two acts, but don't hold me to that. Considering there might be more than a six month delay between the release of the first act and the second, I would be incredibly pissed to find I have to wait likely a year before I'm capable of completing the game with a supposed third act. (They only mention Act II will be released "later this year.")
ReplyDeleteIn reference to Psychonauts, I got a question: Is the boss battle where you face Coach's brain in a tank near the end? That's the point where the game always freezes for me.
Yeah, that comes right before the final level, so the good news is that you hardly missed anything. The bad news of course is that you came thisclose to beating the game with nothing to show for it. Man, between that and Fable II, it sounds like your Xbox might hate you.
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