Be Excellent To Each Other

I guess I've blown my load in the title. I just played the trial and it seems quite cool. I've never really read much PA and I know it gets a bit of scorn round these parts.

It just seems so expensive.

I heard it got a 4/10 in edge, im sure i read another bad review on it somewhere else.

I like PA. Mainly because I enjoy the over the top linguistic masturbation that Tycho has a tendency for.

Played the demo on Live this morning, and I enjoyed the narrators voice so much that I wanted to buy it. But I actually just downloaded the mac demo and it ran reasonable well on my ibook, so I bought it for that instead because:

1) I paid $19.95 which is £10 compared to live's £14

and

2) I could use paypal - which I've a positive balance in, so it wasn't real money that I need to pay my rent.

PA annoys me. They're both smart. They both know what funny is. But they're only actually amusing about one in ten times. They have this phrasing technique that could work and be good too, but ends up being clunky and you have to read it repeatedly.

Also:

Panel 1: Worrying enthusiasm!
Panel 2: Fearful/suspicious/leery response to friend's enthusiasm.
Panel 3: Enthusiast draws closer threateningly with confessional/brings enthusiasm to extra ironical fever pitch with gleeful confessional/suddenly loses enthusiasm with sad realisation confessional.

There's no way I'm supporting trying to sell any XBLA title for 1600 points even if it's by God.

So no.

Interested in a PC version though, is it on Steam perchance?

Oh, man, I want to have your manbabies. For years the way their dialogue is structured has irked me but I've never been able to describe it in a way that would make sense to anyone else.

YOU HAVE JUST DONE THAT. My quest is at an end!

I'd love to link to JeffK's 'Bettar than Penney Arcaed' comics (which illustrate this whole thing rather well) but alas don't dare visit SomethingAwful at work.

PC Gamer rather like it (it got 7x% if I recall) but say the combat is tedious. They also make the hilarious joke that if you don't like Penny Arcade, you can't cuss it up as it's NOT FOR YOU. Ohohoho.

I'm tempted, but £14 is rather a lot for a little game.

It is, and it's cheaper, too.

I quite like Penny Arcade, no lolz but has given me a few gr1nz0rs over the years.

From what I've seen and heard of the game (and piss take price) I think I'll stay clear.

It's a shame, because Ron Gilbert is a legend.

Ah, here we go. JeffK for you:

clicky

also click hear fagorts

WARNING: INCREDIBLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!

I really like Penny Arcade. It just matches up well with my sense of humour I think. But that is not the substance of my post.

I'm curious as to why people think arcade games over 800 points are an automatic ripoff. I heard a lot of this with Puzzle Quest, which was also 1200 points, wasn'it it? So £11-14 depening on where you buy your points. I paid £30 for Puzzle Quest on DS and was ecstatic with my purchase; I played it for almost 50 hours and enjoyed every second. I claim that on XBLA it is a bargain.

Now, granted, most XBLA games are short and somewhat throwaway and not worth all that much cash. That might be true of the Penny Arcade Game of The Long Title I: Stuff Begins To Happen. But equally, it might not. Hypothetically, if it has high production values, lasts 8-10 hours, and was really fun to play, would you still moan that it cost 1200 points? I just don't understand that.

It's 1600 points, Dr Happyforest.

Ih. I am the opposite of fond of Penny Arcade, but drawing "hilarious" wonky parody comics of it is arguably worse.

Which says a lot about your "sense of humour", dyswijdt, etc.



<Homer Simpson>Too late!</Homer Simpson> As we've argued before, while it is clever at times, it's very rarely funny, for reasons which nervouspete has described extremely well. I mean, the whole 'fangspire' thing that has wasted the last week... spluh?



Isn't PA:SOTRSPOD (or whatever) 1600pts? That's a lot more, and you could argue you could get loads more fun out of four carefully picked 400pt games.



It just doesn't seem to balance out, considering how much excellent Gilbert-ness you can get for less points (or is it 1600 also?) in the form of Psychonauts, also for download onto your 360. Personally, I think a lot of XBLA games are overpriced for what they are. Tiqal is good but not 800pts good. N+ would be entertaining but again, not for the price they're asking for what it is.

It just strikes me that we're paying half the price of a brand new game but not getting a proportionate amount of content.

I'm with MeanAngle on this, Gilbert is "the man" when it comes to games like this, but I'm not sure it's worth that amount of money for a episode of a downloadable game. And this is coming from someone who played Telltales's Sam & Max Episode 1, and immediately pre-ordered Seasons 1 and 2, in downloadable forum AND got the CD at the end for a small extra charge.

I just can't support that pricing, I'm afraid.

PC/Mac/*nix Demo:
http://www.playgreenhouse.com/game/HOTHG-000001-01/

I'm impressed/pleased that they're going the digital distribution route AND making it multi-platform. Since not all of their readers necessarily use Windows.

I'm still not going to pay that much for it, no chance, but still, bravo!

Alright, pedants, I got the number of points wrong but the price right (as I copied that bit from the original post in this thread). I still don't get why 1600pts==no freakin' way in so many people's heads. If Portal had cost that as a download I'd have bought it and it's probably a hell of a lot shorter than this.

I bought Puzzle Quest because I didn't need the box, not fussed about playing it on DS, and it's the sort of game I'd play at night in bed, idly. It was also cheaper than the boxed copy, as it should be.

This is more expensive than PQ, won't last me so many hours, and is *more expensive* than every other version available (as far as I know).

A downloadable game with so much DRM would truly have to be ACEBEST OF CHAMPIONS to be worth that much.

What Sheepeh said - and coincidentally, it took until last night for me to finally convince myself to get Puzzle Quest.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that this P-A game is or isn't worth the money. I'm arguing against the popular meme that XBLA games over 800 points must be a rip-off. That's what I find baffling.

Oh, what do you think of it?

I've only played it for 20 mins or so far. But, basically - if you are to buy only one Zoo Keeper-esque game for your 360, get Puzzle Quest. I like that it's basically Heroes Of Might & Magic, but.. puzzle-y.

I'm not particularly good at puzzle games, so I imagine that others will get more value out of it than I will (since I imagine I'll become frustrated sooner rather than later), but it looks good, and so far its had a level of sheen and polish that you don't find in, say, Triggerheart Exelica or Catan.

Rich: I can definitely see where you're coming from. I think that if it was 1600 points and it came on a physical disc in the post, I'd probably take a punt. I just don't think I'm willing to spunk out that much cash on something intangible yet.

It's the same in the way I refuse to buy albums from iTunes. I want something to hold for my wonga. It's bizarre, but I'm not even sure I'll ever get over that stigma.

I can certainly understand what you mean. Similarly, I'd rather spend £40 on a cheap prozzy, than spend £60 on lap-dances from the most beautiful woman in the world. If you don't get that hands-on experience, it's not worth it.

I used to be a big believer in rating a games worth as duration/cost but it lead to me thinking that spending 65 hours on FF VII was "good value."

I can't abide filler.I want experience/cost instead. I'ld much rather something like LostWinds be over in 3 hours and be awesome for every second of it, than push through 30 hours of muck to play the 10 "good" hours in a "40 HOUR EPIC." Bollocks to that.

That and games like Puzzle Quest absorb hours upon hours, but eventually I realise I'm not enjoying myself (mental note - sell puzzle quest). Where as ZooKeeper Time attack has been glorious.

Saying that though, I've not played much of PA:OTRSPOD yet as I'm saving it for breaks when I'm at uni all night, but it seems it may be grindy. This is not a good sign at all. I'm really enjoying the dialogue but I'm not "working" for it.

I agree with Lave. Portal and CoD4 were both short in terms of time but incredibly worthwhile. If you evaluate all your media in terms of £/hr you'll only ever buy books and mammoth RPGs, and DVDs would be right out.

Hang on. CoD4?

The single player bit. Where they clearly took a brave decision to keep it to 5 hours long and keep every hour awesome, and I applaud them for it. I'm not considering the multiplayer in this discussion.

That demo is really, really short isn't it?

It was almost inevitable it would degenerate into this - the argument that 'well, if you thing size/length is the justification for cost, you'd only play Final Fantasy games and read 900 page Tom Clancy books and watch interminably long movies and so on'.

What a lot of people are saying isn't anywhere near that extreme. What we are saying is that there is a limit that people will pay for something that only exists as a download (and, don't forget, a download that can't be backed up, and will only last as long as there is Xbox Live... unlike a proper, DRM-free physical thing), especially one which is getting average to good only reviews, and is priced above and beyond full-size proper games.

For 400 points, they'd be generous but idiots. For 800, a good bargain. For 1200, I'd take the plunge. But 1600 means that I'd have to buy the very biggest points pack available, and only have a bit left over.

Consider, then, 'lesser' XBLA titles. Anything more than 400 for the typical arcade port (regardless of how nice or shitty the 'new' graphics and sounds are) and you need to be porting the most beloved game in the world. For original titles, you're taking a risk with an 800 point price as folks will seriously consider what fun your game will offer over the other 800 point games (Poker Smash and Tiqal, this means you and the rest of your oversaturated 'gimmicky puzzle' genre) as well as the potential of buying two 400 point arcade ports.

I have little doubt that PA:STOTRSPOD will be a success, but this is the age old case (and one that has been debated for years over proper full-price titles) of 'will you make more money selling more at the lower price or fewer at the higher price?'

You're not buying on XBLA, you're renting for an indeterminate time. Admittedly this is also true of Steam but it's likely to survive as a service and you can play your games on multiple machines a lot easier. XBLA if you ever change or xbox you have to be online to play it.... and it won't work forever.

Plus if your game is that big, it should be retail, XBLA should be the small and the retro IMO.

I wouldn't be paying £15 for it on steam either, good thing it's just over £10.



2600 points is quite a lot left over.

Golly, that changes everything! I'll rush out and buy it right now!

I do agree with metal angel as well actually.

Though, it is to be noted, that for the non-live version, you just get a license code. And that code unlocks all of the versions. So you can install it on your Linux, Mac and Windows machine.

Golly, that changes everything! I'll rush out and buy it right now![/quote]

Yeah I wasn't debating your point, just slying pointing out you clearly haven't seen the 4200 point cards.

I played through the trial and enjoyed it enough that I thought it worth spending the points (I got one of the aforementioned 4200 points cards for christmas and haven't really found much to spend it on). I didn't go much further though, so I can't really say if it's worth it yet.

I'll either have a momentary lapse of sense and buy it... or more likely, just ignore it and never bother.

It doesn't seem like a lot of fun playing with the mouse. Are the Xbox controls faster?

From the limited time I spent with the trial, the controls were fine.

Groovy. I don't know how long I could stand going backwards and forwards with the mouse. (Are they keyboard shortcuts for Gabe, Player and Tycho - Special, Attack and Inventory? Something like QAZ WSX EDC?)

Needs moar Grandia.

I'd say plugging a (wired) 360 pad into the PC would be FTW, surely?

PQ certainly has plenty of filler. Just when you think you might be nearing the end, it goes on a bit more and then a bit more. It's still a very good game but probably twice as long as it needed to be considering the repetitive nature of the game.

Hello, Denizens of BETEO.
I played this in demonstration form on my PC yesterday night. I quite enjoyed it. The demo was too short however.

If it wasn't for the fact that I need as much money as I can get in the next few months then I probably would have bought it. It's only a tenner, right? However, I have heard it;s a little on the shortside and a bit of a push over ;( Which is a shame, as I quite liked it.

I really appreciated the graphical style. Not only "in-game" but the cutscenes. I did let out a little phwwwwwwwwaor when I saw my hot babe of a character in the first cutscene, all 2D and Penny Arcde looking.


I agree with MrD though. A lack of hotkeys immediatley frustrated me, as it does in anygame.

It's like £17 on Live yeah? And because it's so short it'd be a budget game if released in the shops, say £20 in a boxed copy. So I think it's fair that people are feeling a little ripped off, given the reduced overheads and such for selling via Live or Steam, it seems that's rarely being passed onto the consumer at all.

Except for the fact it's about a tenner if bought for a PC/Mac/Linux. This is because it's the same number of point in each country, but 1 UK point is about 5 yankee ones.

I bought it (Mac). I like it. I think it's cheap at £10, and I think they're absolute stars for releasing simultaneously on Mac/Linux/PC and not having too demanding system requirements.

I play it at 1024x768, in a Window on my not-particularly-beefily-graphics-carded iMac, in 20 minute bursts. It provides some depth of combat and an amusing plot, but doesn't force me to play it in massive 2hr sessions. Feels like a game for people who used to be hardcore gamers, but just don't have the time anymore.

Brief window of positivity over. Resume normal service.

I too paid the £10 for the PC version and it's just about keeping me on board despite my detest for the combat system, which somehow manages to combine the very worst of both turn based and arcade systems.

Finished it. Fun and short. I loved getting overkills to power up my weapons, and getting robot parts for upgrades. Finished with everything maxed out, but with one bit of concept art missing - will look at the FAQs for that as and when they arrive.

That was worth a tenner. I'll be checking in for episode 2 as and when it appears.

I'm enjoying it and warming to the combat system a little (though I wish I had it for The Xbox now, as mouse clicking is a chore). Glad there is no penalty for dying.

And it's not £17 on Live it's £13.60

I need to try the demo, still. I have it downloaded on the Super FunSquare Plus, but I've been too busy with Zelda...even GTA4 hasn't had a look in the past few days.