SAB CA said:
A few things:
I always wanted to play this game. I think it was cancelled at the last min in the US, after being advertise in mags for months? I'd love to play a game like this with a modern day headset, from the way the game sounds. I think games like this, that force the player into an INTERESTING hands-off experience, should be explored more now-a-days. If your partners are all well developed, and invite you just a bit into their private lives, so you feel like you know something of them, outside of just professionally, I could at least see a genre with a cult following spawning.
No, it did have a US release, that's the one I Have. You might have more luck finding it as "Industrial Spy: Operation Espionage", because that's the formal title; the disc just says "I-Spy: Operation Espionage" on it, though, so that's what I call it. But on ebay and such, they always seem to use the full title.
And yeah, it's definitely slow, challenging, and hands-off. The graphics are just average and room environments repeat a lot. The music's decent background music stuff, somewhat unobtrusive and it loops well. It really is quite interesting and fun, when you're not getting frustrated at not knowing how to progress that is (got to go back and check rooms to see what I missed...). It's definitely worth looking up if you like the idea, though. A description of the game might sound boring ("Tell people to go to probably empty rooms and then watch them as they walk there, tell them to investigate if they can, then tell them to go to other probably empty rooms and repeat the process"), but it IS fun even so.
Oh, there aren't many enemies; you don't actually tell them to fight people very often... it's mostly about exploration, managing your characters, and paying attention.
But what would be funny gameplay? One take of mine, is that the Wii, or Project Natal, might help with this. Doing stupid motions yourself, will generally end up making you laugh.
Yeah, that's my question with the humor one too... how would you make the actual act of playing humorous? The insult sword fighting is a great example of it he mentioned, but really, I don't see many options there...
I would disagree a bit with him though, I think that the adventure game format does fit humor games quite well. The gameplay is about puzzle solving and talking to other characters, and the talking aspect is the core of the humor as well... and as for the puzzles they try to make them humorous, and I would say that they succeed. That seems like 'integrating the humor into the gameplay' to me, or enough of it anyway...
But yeah, beyond that, what would be funny gameplay, and how would it work in an actual game? I'm really not sure myself. How does what you're suggesting there become gameplay that would be fun and worthwhile in a real game?
1- While I love a good Metal Gear style Movie-like game, I have to say, otherwise, I tire of gaming trying to imitate movies approaches to these themes. Just by the fact they're interactive, I think they outdo movies. Plus they last longer, generally. I think games are at their best when they use their interactiveness in order to display and effect emotion, rather than trying to build the story simply through movie-born techniques.
Yeah, I agree, games aren't movies, and they aren't at their best when they are trying to be movies.
You don't really need expensive graphics to tell a good heist film, or romance movie. But you need State-or-the-Art graphics to make the best, most immersing heist game, or romance game.
A good point, and something gamers should always remember -- it's hard, time consuming, and very expensive to make good games! Games are not the approachable medium for developers like films and music and books, they are much more difficult to just make than any of them. There's a much higher bar of entry. And technology keeps improving rapidly, making for a constantly moving target.
ArjanN said:
This is just false and only tells me you've never played the Thief games.
Indeed, the Thief achieve this better than any other games, no question about that. It's got all the tension of waiting while guards pass below, learning their patterns, then trying to figure out how to get past them. You don't want to alert them either, the character is a thief and not exactly a good fighter...
Also, there have been lots of stealth games since Thief, Metal Gear Solid, and Tenchu all came out back in 1998. Sure, most don't come close to that 'heist' feeling... but it's not like games aren't trying, and some, like Thief particularly, come pretty close, if just for solo jobs. But he is right that games have a ways to go to improve here, the Tenchu series for instance hasn't changed all that much since the first game... but things like AI are complex, it's understandable why it's hard. Things are progressing on this, I think, but slowly.
