Comments on: American McGee’s Grimm Footage

By: Western Infidels

Western Infidels — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:28:51 +0000

I played both Alice and Scrapland. It seemed to me that both of them were less ambitious and less high-concept than the hype promised, and unfortunately not much fun. (I didn’t even finish Scrapland.)

The art and style of both were outstanding, though.

By: Macguffin

Macguffin — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:31:14 +0000

I think the financial risk is less immense than you think – assuming they didn’t spend inordinate amounts of time putting their engine together, if the first two eps bomb, they cut the rest and limit their losses. Save all that money on the art and content creation.

By: Jason Lefkowitz

Jason Lefkowitz — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:51:16 +0000

One thing I really hate about McGee—or maybe it’s just the laziness of the press covering his games—is the talk about his “dark” versions of these tales.

A “dark” version of Grimm’s Fairytales only makes sense if you’re unfamiliar with the source material.

True dat. Erik at Old Man Murray actually did the definitive takedown on McGee’s “dark Alice” when it hit the streets eight years ago:

The problem with making a dark and disturbing version of Alice in Wonderland is that it’s pretty dark and disturbing to begin with, which gives it little training wheels that help cultural firebrands ride it into geniusdom once every eighteen months or so. Masterminding a trippy reinterpretation of Lewis Carroll is like making a version of Crazy Taxi, only crazy! At this point, about the edgiest thing you could do with Alice in Wonderland is try to make it a little less fucking insane.

(Yes yes, I know that the first page of the review is all about Gunman Chronicles and some cruddy ~~80s~~ 90s band. He gets to Alice on the 2nd page.)

By: Kadayi

Kadayi — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:32:51 +0000

I’m slightly skeptical about the 30 minutes of play claim. The speed with which people play varies considerably with puzzle games (consider Portal). Hopefully it will fall on the right side of 30 rather than the wrong. I approve of the art style though.

@Mr Brand

I’m in the UK and I bought all the Sam & Max games through Gametap last year. I’m not aware that they’ve changed their policies. I think you need a visa card though, because they don’t know what Maestro is.

By: Mr.Brand

Mr.Brand — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:50:50 +0000

Now we just need Gametap to actually let Europeans subscribe.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:23:15 +0000

“I suspect it’s a case of having to repeat that every time you talk about it is just a bit too tiresome – I mean, when you say “Fairy Tale” or whatever, you’re not thinking of the originals. In a limited word-count, a dark version of the fairly tale is probably acceptable. I guess.”

A “dark version of the fairy tale” isn’t that much shorter than “versions that match the dark tones of the sources.”

By: Dracko

Dracko — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:09:59 +0000

I have to agree too. Fairy tales have always ever been gruesome stories.

Hey, kids love that stuff!

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:00:33 +0000

Steve: Yeah. Grates a little with me too – and surely everyone knows how fucked up earlier versions of little red riding hood were or whatever. I suspect it’s a case of having to repeat that every time you talk about it is just a bit too tiresome – I mean, when you say “Fairy Tale” or whatever, you’re not thinking of the originals. In a limited word-count, a dark version of the fairly tale is probably acceptable. I guess.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:54:01 +0000

One thing I really hate about McGee—or maybe it’s just the laziness of the press covering his games—is the talk about his “dark” versions of these tales.

A “dark” version of Grimm’s Fairytales only makes sense if you’re unfamiliar with the source material. The same is true of Alice in Wonderland. I guess the Disney-fication of these things has watered down the perception of the source, but that doesn’t excuse the press for wholly buying into the hype of these being some radical reimagining.

By: sh33333p

sh33333p — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:27:33 +0000

The only way I would play a game that is broken into short episodes like that, is once I have enough of the series downloaded (maybe the whole thing) so that I don’t have to wait for new episodes. I am going batsh!7 crazy just waiting for Fallout 3 to arrive. How crazy? So crazy I’ve spent the last 2 weekends doing literally nothing but playing though Fallout and Fallout 2. I got halfway through Fallout 2, decided to try the Fallout 2 Restoration Project, which necessitated starting again from the beginning.

Personally, I don’t like episodic anything. I couldn’t really get into the Sam & Max episodes for some reason, maybe because I have no soul (a friend pointed this out when I told him I couldn’t get in to Psychonauts.) All of that aside, I think the reason the episodic format works for that game is that it is as much of a “show” as it is “game”. Yes you click on things to interact, but the payoff is in the comedy, it’s in the characters reciting their lines, just like if it was a show.

Anything that’s exclusive to Gametap will not be getting my money. If I wanted to subscribe to my games, I would be playing WoW, Eve Online, or one of the other MMO’s out there. And as addicted as I am to Fallout 2, that would NOT be a good idea.

Edit: I also don’t watch tv.
Edit 2: Just realized I’m a hypocrite as I love the Half-Life episodes. But those are more like regular games, compared to a 30 minute episode. So maybe I’m only partly a hypocrite.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:16:54 +0000

He’s constantly trying to bring something original to the market, so I’m all fine with him being kind of a prick.

Really? I guess McGee forgot that premise when he made Bad Day L.A., which was constantly and painfully unoriginal (and unfunny). He could’ve done something really interesting with that game and presented one of the poorest scripts for a game I’ve seen in years.

By: Okami

Okami — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:00:27 +0000

hmmm.. I don’t really hate television. I just stopped bothering with it a long time ago. Granted, there are quite a few really good sitcoms/30 minute TV shows (british mostly), but..

What am I doing here?

This is the internet. I’m entitled to make sweeping generalizations without having to jusitfy myself!