C'n'P-Adventure-Reflection

  Okay, I've completed the demo of Jack Keane a few days ago and I must say that I really enjoyed it after its first half, despite the not so deep and rich character development and story I had hoped for. It probably would have been better if the ugly 3D-graphics had been replaced with beautiful 2D-illustrations IMHO but I guess that just wouldn't be appropriate in regard of "visual state of the art" ... anyway, the synchronisation was pretty satisfying, much better than I feared after watching the trailers, with a lot of recognizable voices but I would rather hear some new voices than the one's I already know and have associations with. But that's just the problem of the set of voice actors in this country which has next to nothing to do with the game itself. The control system has been reduced to a mere two button scenario, one for examination, the other one for the usual use / take item; talk but it was everything the game needed, really. What I just can't decide is whether this is a progression or a regression in regard of earlier classic Click'n'Point-Adventure-Games ... nevertheless, I think I'll give the full game a try. Although I can't say I support this method of game development where more time and money has been spent on voice acting than on characters and story. [...]
(show me)(don't show me)

What I do (or actually did) support is the first season of the new series of Sam'n'Max games. After switching to the english version after the first two episodes the jokes in the game actually started to get a lot more appeal than their german counterparts. In fact, the raising of this appeal peaked with episode 4, Abe Lincoln Must Die!, which was one of the funniest things of modern comedy entertainment that I've experienced since one of the latest Southpark episodes. I really must say that I'm glad I payed money for this because, personally, I think it was worth it.

Now, before advancing to the next big game in this lineup, Runaway 2: The Dream Of The Turtle, which is waiting for quite some time now on my giant pile of "severalness" growing next to my printer, I had to do some "cooling down" with slighly smaller games: try out Harmotion if you have half an hour to kill and tell me what you think of it. It's smaller than 15 MB or so and it's said to be an online multiplayer rhythm game where you control a space ship on a small grid facing an opponent where you try to shoot him down without leaving your side of the grid, almost like a classical side-scrolling shooter, but with no lvls. I don't see how neither the game nor the player use the "rhythm" interactively and both of the two opponents I encountered seemed like bots to me but it was a good example to me of how a game looks like that doesn't deliver the feeling of replayability nor fun - very much unlike Grid Wars 2 which I play even today several months after I first played it ;^) I already beat the highscore on all difficulties but still I like to play this game to kill some twenty to thirty minutes. Exemplary.