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Fahrenheit
LukeG writes "As games developers constantly seek new methods of tapping into the mass market, the French team at Quantic Dream have taken their inspiration from the television in developing 'Fahrenheit', what they claim will be the world's first interactive TV series, an episodic 3D-adventure set in New York. Here's a full look at this interesting development." See the company's website (Flash-only, unfortunately); or there are several other previews out there (1, 2).
Why is it so unfortunate that it is Flash-only?
Would you prefer it if it was in Java?
I can't think of any other popular way of presenting the same material that it shows.
Flash is present in over 80% of the installed web browser base. I hardly think it is 'unfortunate' for people to use it!
Why? Because people don't want interactivity from their TV, they want to sit back, relax and have a "story" told to them.
It's encouraging to see new concepts in gaming. There's nothing wrong with many conventional games, but it seems that often you'll be in the middle of something and you'll realize that you've played this game before except the character was a viking/spy/soldier/cop/crook etc.
This looks interesting though, it looks as though they've invested serious resources in the storytelling and plot lines, something that sometimes really helps a game succeed (but sometimes not, did anyone here play 'The Longest Journey') and it looks as though they think they can pull it off.
On a technical level, how are they going to keep people from diverging too much. If in one person's game, the main character finds the clues and evades the cops, and in another's he doesn't and he doesn't, how are both people going to play the next episode. Being railroaded into plot holes could get irritating, but not getting railroaded might mean not getting to finish.
At the end of the day though, if they can get enough people coming back for a couple of episodes, we'll start seeing allot of this - cash cow potential that it has.
Max Payne was a pretty boring game with all the gangster/cop/maverick/revenge clichés and dialog that sounded almost like a parody (except it wasn't). I'm not saying it was crap, it had its moments and it was quite fun to play, but it certainly had very little re-playability (except for a bit when you discover the unlimited bullet time cheat :) ). Every month someone releases an 'amazing' new game with 'a plot written by the same person who wrote X movie' and 'multiple story paths that dynamically unfold because of your actions' but in reality it never happens.
:) I just don't think you can call it fully interactive unless the player has a choice. I don't think plots are very compatible with video games.
The games that are _really_ popular are the ones that don't rely on the plot but on freedom, such as the GTA series or almost any RTS game, or MMORPG, this is where the player creates their own plot instead of being fed one like they're watching a movie. All plots are going to be restrictive if you have to follow them - i.e. if you have to make it to some place to advance the game just so the director can show you their amazing cut scene. It would be nice, say, if in Max Payne you could have seen your wife being murdered, and then decide if you wanted to pursue the gangsters that did it and beat them to the ground, _or_ go to the pub
Personally my ultimate idea for a game would be a full 3D city/world where you could do anything you wanted - a fully realistic life sim, where you could lead as boring or interesting life as you pleased except without the consequences, and with _lots_ of config settings (basically, the matrix). GTA3 came as close as anything sofar...
Yes, i know, if i dont like plot based games i shouldn't play them, i'll shut up now.
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oddly enough this reminds me of Quake. I got the shareware off a magazine cdrom and enjoyed the first episode so much I bought the remaining episodes. Now if I could have bought only the second episode instead of having to buy all of them at once perhaps the last three episodes wouldn't have sucked so much compared to the first.
I like this idea - I think it would also be interesting to have occasional episodes where you play different characters, maybe the bad guys for a little bit.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Most likely you'll buy those levels for el-cheapo as well, since who the hell would pay anything more than a few bucks for a single level? Anyway, add that the episodes are supposed to take 8 hours to play, which sounds like a healthy amount of game-time for a month by non-obsessive-types (the entire game of Max Payne probably took less than that for me), and it should last them long enough that any gamer will be able to decide for themselves, "ok, sure, i'll download the new one at the end of the month for another $5."
Also, you can think about it like this: You get to test out a game for only a few dollars before investing a large amount of money and time. The on-line games like Ultima Online and EverQuest are the opposite. You go and pay $50 (when they were new) and what do you have? Nothing but a box and a CD you can use as a coaster, unless you pay another $10 (or whatever) a month! So for $60 you've bought a month's worth of game-play. If you don't like it, too bad.
I have also played Quantic Dream's debut title Omicron: The Nomad Soul. Through it QD has demonstrated fantastic story-telling as well as great gameplay. If they can hold onto that, then I think their new game will turn into a big moneypot, or at least deserve to.
The thing I loved most about Omicron was something that apparently we'll be able to do here to some extent: switch characters dynamically and at-will as the game is played. In Omicron, if you ever died you would become the next person to touch you (usually the morgue-guy or a physician) or if you needed to have access to an area you simply over-took someone that had that access (e.g. a police officer to get into the police station). Very fun.
Also, Omicron attempted to cross genres, (which is why the article at ferrago.co.uk mentioned it as ambitious) in that it was 3rd-person-adventure-style most of the time, but in combat situations it either became a 1st-person-shooter or a side-view-street-fighter-type game.
The only problem I had with that was that the first-person-shooter was a bit limited (e.g. you always walked instead of ran, you couldn't strafe, etc.). Thus in the final battle which *really* needs strafe and the ability to run, I could never get the damn Boss killed. Every once in a while I'll pick the game back up and try to beat him again but after a couple hours I get pissed off and throw it back on the shelf. *sigh* ;)
Anyone know any cheat codes for Omicron? I'd love to see the ending ;)