Anybody played AVS yet?

[mh2k8]

Anybody here managed to play a bit of The Vampyre Story yet? I wanna hear what you think of it.

I ask because it's not available on my favourite warez site. it's available now but too big to download because of stupid bandwidth limits. it's not available in australia yet :|

And there is no chance I am downloading it right now. None whatsoever.

[Ascovel]

In short: it's very good. Can't talk now. Must play.

[Sven_Q45]

I´m waiting for Amazon!!

[Udvarnoky]

It's great. I hope to get a Mojo review up at some point in the near future.

[Gabez]

I saw some mixed reactions in the comments for the demo... were they unfounded? Or was it just a bad demo?

[B00]

Playing it right now actually, stumped on this one puzzle though. Playing the full game not the demo.

[Kroms]

Originally Posted by Gabez

I saw some mixed reactions in the comments for the demo... were they unfounded? Or was it just a bad demo?

Bad demo.

[Sven_Q45]

AVS and Mata Hari are on the way! I hope I can start tomorrow with AVS.

[B00]

I won't spoil it for you but it can be pretty off at times.

[Udvarnoky]

Originally Posted by Gabez

I saw some mixed reactions in the comments for the demo... were they unfounded? Or was it just a bad demo?

The only complaints I saw about the demo that weren't related to technical problems (ran fine for me) was Mona's voice, which for my part was infinitely more tolerable in the actual game.

I wouldn't say it's a bad demo so long as you don't delude yourself into thinking it's anything other than just that: a demo.

[Sven_Q45]

Today arrived:

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by Sven_Q45

Today arrived:

I must say that the Mata Hari box looks much better in close-up.

[Sven_Q45]

Btw here an other interview with Bill Tiller:
http://www.adventure-treff.de/artike...id=32&lang=eng

Link this to the mixnmojo site if you want.

[Igl85]

Anybody else preordered on game.co.uk and is wondering, what is up with the release date being January 2009 ? And does anybody from UK know anything about it?

[Sven_Q45]

I´m ready! (ca. 8 hours)
And I started Mata Hari after AVS immediately!

[Ascovel]

I just finished AVS. I have to say some nasty bugs have diminished my satisfaction from playing greatly. I wonder about some of them. For example, I can't decide if the random graphical glitches I encountered were caused only by some incompatibility with my own hardware. They were really odd.

[Sven_Q45]

There was no big problem for me. Yes a few bugs on the book shelf in the castel and so one. On one point Mona speeking english in the german version.
And I could play it again immediately. But this time in english. But now I must play other adventures first!!

So I´m now ready with Mata Hari, too.

[Ascovel]

Sven, did you have to use the stadium backdoor to get to the orchestra song list during your playthrough? Because I experienced a glitch that just magically transported me there at a certain point in the game.

In regard to Mata Hari, I'm very curious how conventional or unconventional its gameplay is for an adventure game. It seemed very reliant on mini-games from descriptions.

[Maratanos]

Okay, does anybody by any chance have a save game from right after they got into the boathouse? Because I'm fairly sure a bug broke my game. I emptied the perfume bottle then refilled it, and now I need it empty to create a potion, but it won't let me do it again. I suppose I could wait for a patch, but...

Edit: it just occurred to me there should be enough overlap between the saves that something from the arrival at the lab would work too.

[The Tingler]

Speaking of save files, where exactly is the save game folder?

Originally Posted by Igl85

Anybody else preordered on game.co.uk and is wondering, what is up with the release date being January 2009 ? And does anybody from UK know anything about it?

Play and Amazon have shipped, but GAME are still insisting on next year. Cancel your order and go with one of the other two - they're also cheaper.

However, Amazon appears to be out of stock!

[Maratanos]

Okay, that is actually a pretty good question and I'll tell you that if it weren't for timestamps on files, I wouldn't have figured it out either.

Here's the deal. Go to A Vampyre Story\game\assets\scripts. Yeah, it's a weird place for save files. But sort by date modified and you'll find a section consisting of several sets of three files each. Two are .bmps and one is a .bin. I couldn't possibly tell you how the file names are chosen, but that's the save games. Pick the right one based on the date-stamp, which you should be able to pair up with the datestamp as viewed in the load menu.

[The Tingler]

Thanks mate, that's just weird.

[Gabez]

(Welcome to the forums, Maratanos! Hope you stick around!)

[Igl85]

Originally Posted by The Tingler

Play and Amazon have shipped, but GAME are still insisting on next year. Cancel your order and go with one of the other two - they're also cheaper.

However, Amazon appears to be out of stock!

Well, sadly, Amazon doesnt ship video games to my country and Play doesnt shipe anything at all I'm counting on sendit.com at the moment

[Sven_Q45]

@Ascovel
You need an employee ID from the stadion.

I had only a bug at the book shelf in the castle and there was a point where Mona speeks english in the german version.
I played it without big problems.

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by Sven_Q45

@Ascovel
You need an employee ID from the stadion.

I had only a bug at the book shelf in the castle and there was a point where Mona speeks english in the german version.
I played it without big problems.

@Sven
Getting the employee ID was not a problem.

spoiler:

But when I gave it to the prostitute and followed her through the main entrance to the stadium I was suddenly teleported far inside without being stopped at the entrance by the ticket controller. And I didn't have the required song title item in the inventory yet. So I was stuck without being able to get out of there. This glitch ruins also one of the puzzles. The proper entry to the stadium that Mona and Froderick should have used at a specific point in time was the stadium's backdoor

[Sven_Q45]

Where´s the song idea item? Away? lol Don´t understand that.

[Bagge]

I got it from play.com today, and have put a few hours into it.
I love the art direction but the writing is not up to the standards lucasarts veterans are used to in adventure games. The game also forgets to take into consideration what you know and don't know at some points in the game. For instance (very minor spoiler: )

spoiler:

at the beginning of the game, Mona does not acknowledge that she has been turned into a vampire, yet if you ask her to put her hand in the fireplace, she will refuse because "burnt vampire flesh smells bad".

Also, the puzzles range from very clever to "aimlessly trying to combine everything until something works", and there are occational graphical glitches.


Still, it's a good adventure game with a really strong art direction that feels like it could have been made in 1997 - which is a good thing in the world of point-and-click adventure games. I think everyone with a passion for classic adventure games will easily be able to overlook the game's flaws and enjoy the best full-length adventure game in many, many years.

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by Bagge

The game also forgets to take into consideration what you know and don't know at some points in the game.

This is quite a problem in a later section of the game. However, the example line you mention fits actually pretty well with Mona's mindset.

spoiler:

As you will learn, Mona is quite aware of being a vampire, she just likes to pretend she isn't and prefers not to think about it in general. So you can consider her line a slip of the tongue.

Originally Posted by Sven_Q45

Where´s the song idea item? Away? lol Don´t understand that.

I thought you already finished the game. If one doesn't collect the mentioned item early enough, one gets stuck permanently in the stadium location. At least that's how it worked on my system and I wanted to know if you had a similar experience.

[Udvarnoky]

Wait, this game has dead-ends? Noah, Hal - how could you?

[Sven_Q45]

@Ascovel
Yes, but I didn´t understand your problem sorry.

Btw on November 13-16th was a fair in Stuttgart, Germany where you could play AVS for free! I was there but I came directly from vacation without internet and I didn´t know that. And I didn´t see that. I was too busy to buy cheaper older adventure games. Later at home I read it! But that was too late. But that
But it doesn´t matter now. I played it and it was very good.

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by Udvarnoky

Wait, this game has dead-ends? Noah, Hal - how could you?

Nah, I was talking about AVS. I found two dead-ends in the game. The later one is obviously caused by a glitch and not by bad design. So I'm struggling with my language skills to inquire if anyone else has been teleported near the song list at the stadium without arranging it with the ticket controller or using the backdoor. That's what the aforementioned glitch is about.

[Sven_Q45]

So that´s the Gruzzle Puzzle:

[Ascovel]

Looks very gruzzle indeed.

[Thriftweed_]

Originally Posted by Ascovel

Nah, I was talking about AVS. I found two dead-ends in the game. The later one is obviously caused by a glitch and not by bad design. So I'm struggling with my language skills to inquire if anyone else has been teleported near the song list at the stadium without arranging it with the ticket controller or using the backdoor. That's what the aforementioned glitch is about.

Same thing happened to me.. I found the game to be very buggy, especially graphical glitches.

But I really enjoyed it non the less, a really great game looking forward to avs 2

[Maratanos]

Ever since I played Beyond Good and Evil with crappy drivers, I've only barely ever noticed graphical glitches at all.

[Ascovel]

A very negative review of Mata Hari just appeared at the German website AdventureTreff:

http://www.adventure-treff.de/artikel/tests.php?id=173

[Gabez]

70% isn't that bad... what do you make of the game, those who have played it?

[Ascovel]

I think this 70% is just a mathematical sum of pretty good scores for sound and graphics and very low scores for puzzles and atmosphere.

Anyway, the review's text practically rips the game to shreds (in a civilized manner). The reviewer even wonders if Noah's and Hal's involvement was more of an marketing ploy than actual collaboration.

[neon_git]

Hmmm, we'll have to see what other reviewers say.

As a rule, Ascovel, would you say that reviews from that site are pretty accurate?