Thirith on 14/3/2011 at 13:44
It's pretty impossible to answer this question objectively, but I wonder how much of people's enjoyment of the game is due to nostalgia. In general, would gamers who never played an adventure back in the days of Beneath A Steel Sky enjoy the game as much? I don't want to denigrate the work that went into crafting Gemini Rue (I enjoyed the game myself), but I would expect that some of our reaction to the game is due to it pushing all the right buttons and triggering the right memories.
Digital Nightfall on 14/3/2011 at 14:06
I actually never played Beneath A Steel Sky. Is it on GOG? I think I should check it out.
But yes, it does bring about nostalgia for me.
Thirith on 14/3/2011 at 15:42
It's actually available as Freeware and supposedly even works with ScummVM. I've not played it myself, but perhaps I should - if I'm not mistaken, Dave Gibbons of Watchmen fame worked on its graphics.
demagogue on 14/3/2011 at 17:09
It's a classic and sort of iconic for its genre, I guess like Loom, so it's worth playing it for that, at least enough of it to get the flavor. But it's targeting a younger sort of audience, so you have to take that into account.
My more specific thoughts you might avoid until after you've played it, not to prejudice your experience...
I replayed BASS not too long ago and found it to be a lot more childish than I remembered when I first played it (admittedly as a much younger me). Also Loom for that matter. It reminded me that nostalgia is something that grows up with you, so while the style can still resonate, your taste is now for a more mature game and the old games in their pure form won't hold up. That's probably a lesson for any homebrew banking on nostalgia; keep the style but update the actual game and story to a more mature taste, which I'm guessing is what this Gemini Rue did right from what you guys are saying.
Of course other old school games I played as a kid do hold up, notably most interactive fiction, all the Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls games ... if anything even more so now.
june gloom on 14/3/2011 at 20:09
Nostalgia is a lie! You are perpetuating a lie, a damnable lie that is the cancer that is killing video games, only video games are already dead. We as gamers try to move forward, and you drag us back with your same old nostalgia lie. Don't you see you're crapping on masterpieces and the people who enjoy them when you say 'nostalgia?' It's not nostalgia, it's a pining for the days of past glories! What the hell happened to you man, you used to be respectable :(
Death to the nostalgia myth!
Angel Dust on 14/3/2011 at 21:28
Quote Posted by Thirith
It's pretty impossible to answer this question objectively, but I wonder how much of people's enjoyment of the game is due to nostalgia. In general, would gamers who never played an adventure back in the days of
Beneath A Steel Sky enjoy the game as much? I don't want to denigrate the work that went into crafting
Gemini Rue (I enjoyed the game myself), but I would expect that some of our reaction to the game is due to it pushing all the right buttons and triggering the right memories.
Well my wife and a friend, both with little experience with the classics, are currently enjoying it, not that that necessarily disproves your theory or anything. Personally, with the possible exception of the art style,
Gemini Rue wasn't pushing any nostalgia buttons for me. Maybe it's because I play quite a lot of these AGS games, so any adventure game nostalgia has long since worn off, but what I thought the main pull for
Gemini Rue was the fact its tone and feel was completely unlike the classic adventures. In fact the game that most came to mind while playing it was
Heavy Rain. As much as I loved the old jokey adventures (and I include BASS in that category too), I always wished that there were some more serious, grounded ones made too. Sadly the majority of the AGS games seem to be very much following in the well trodden footsteps of the classic games, with any attempts at more serious stuff clumsily handled and/or crippled by nonsense puzzles.
Gemini Rue, while certainly not perfect (the interface is little annoying at times, the overt philosophising at the end is clumsy), is exactly the kind of thing I've always wanted but very seldom got.
Digital Nightfall on 30/10/2011 at 15:19
I have an extra steam key for Gemini Rue via Indie Royal. (It's extra because the publisher of Gemini Rue was kind enough to gift steam keys to everyone who bought the game from them. \o/)
So if anyone's been on the fence about this game and would like to give it a try, let me know and I'll PM the key to you. :)
Edit: Key's been claimed. Enjoy. :)
Scots Taffer on 30/10/2011 at 22:32
<strike>I bought mine via wadjet - should I get a free key too?</strike>
Scratch that, found the email I'd deleted. Same goes for above if anyone is interested.
I need to get back into this game actually...
