|
Post by Discoalucard on Apr 23, 2010 22:20:10 GMT -5
www.hardcoregaming101.net/toonstruck/toonstruck.htmThe "live action hero in cartoon world" concept of Toonstruck borrows a lot from Who Framer Roger Rabbit, obviously. I hear a lot of random praise for this game even though it apparently flopped. There's a lot of great stuff in it but I feel the writing in general is pretty bleh. Most of the humor instead comes from the visuals and the slapstick. Decent enough game, although it ends on a cliffhanger and was never truly finished.
|
|
|
Post by ryochan on Apr 23, 2010 22:59:06 GMT -5
I think the cow you mentioned is a male btw, if that screenshot is any indication, and the sheep is female. Plus, you can see the horns sticking out from below the biker hat Anyway, interesting looking game. Another to add to the 'If I ever get back into text adventure games...' list.
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on Apr 23, 2010 23:10:11 GMT -5
Cows can't be male though, or else they'd be bulls, which also don't have udders. I'm pretty sure she's voiced by Tress MacNeille too, doing the voice that sounds vaguely like Agnes Skinner from the Simpsons. Pretty sure the sheep is female too though.
|
|
|
Post by cj iwakura on Apr 24, 2010 0:11:06 GMT -5
Wow, I have absolutely never heard of this game. How did something with that kind of star power go completely under the radar?
|
|
|
Post by ryochan on Apr 24, 2010 1:24:20 GMT -5
Cows can't be male though, or else they'd be bulls, which also don't have udders. I'm pretty sure she's voiced by Tress MacNeille too, doing the voice that sounds vaguely like Agnes Skinner from the Simpsons. Pretty sure the sheep is female too though. That just makes it even weirder, as it looks very male. hehe.
|
|
|
Post by Ganelon on Apr 24, 2010 13:14:45 GMT -5
Nice stuff covering all these adventures. I hadn't played this game before but definitely remember that first cover back when PC games covered the full wall back wherever they were sold.
|
|
|
Post by DPB on Apr 24, 2010 17:55:43 GMT -5
I'm liking all these adventure game articles too, especially since I don't trust the reviews at adventuregamers or justadventure at all. Now if only GOG would re-release all those Legend Entertainment games, since they seem to be impossible to find outside of North America.
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on Apr 24, 2010 21:20:57 GMT -5
I vaguely remember this when it came out but I always confused it with Braindead 13, which was a Dragon Lairs-type FMV game if I'm not mistaken. I'm liking all these adventure game articles too, especially since I don't trust the reviews at adventuregamers or justadventure at all. Now if only GOG would re-release all those Legend Entertainment games, since they seem to be impossible to find outside of North America. Thanks, it's why I'm writing them! Adventure Gamers has some pretty good reviews but are too generous overall, which is a consistent issue with genre fan sites. I've heard that the right to the Legend games are sort of in limbo which is why no one has put them out for digital distribution. They got bought by Atari, who was then bought by Infogrames, who then became Atari...I think? Plus nearly all of them were based off licensed so who know how they can untangle them. Toonstruck was published by Virgin. Who the heck knows who owns those properties.
|
|
|
Post by kal on Apr 25, 2010 11:08:41 GMT -5
Wow, I have absolutely never heard of this game. How did something with that kind of star power go completely under the radar? Most of the cast are famous voice actors though (Or conversely not famous for being voice actors) no matter how good they are they rarely draw numbers. Plus there's also the sad fact that no one really cares about the voice actors in games outside of a select few. It's a bit sad that famous actors who make poor voice actors in recent 3d films get better press
|
|
|
Post by syntheticgerbil on Apr 27, 2010 15:33:40 GMT -5
I own Toonstruck and have played through it a few times. Despite being an animation fan and loving a lot about the art and animation in the game, the game just falls dead flat for me. The overall atmosphere is never cohesive and so much about the characters just gets on my nerves. Maybe it's just the writing but the game's humor mostly comes off as annoying or stale but never funny.
The puzzles are fine I suppose but also not really interesting.
I think the worst part of the game is just how long the conversations take. Everyone talks either too slow or has way too much to say that is uninteresting. You can spend upwards of 45 minutes exhausting all the dialogue with one character. Some people like that in adventures, but those are usually people in the Legend/Infocom camp. Personally I like my adventures concise and the dialogue to the point. I think most of the older adventure game players are like that who left the genre out of boredom while the newer fans embrace boredom and slow pace, thus making tremendously flawed games like Syberia or Longest Journey big hits.
And since there are so many cartoons around, which are visual by nature, why do these cartoons just talk and talk without ever actually DOING much? Just imagine a Looney Tunes where Bugs Bunny just has a conversation with Cecil the Turtle the whole way through.
No matter what camp you are in, Toonstruck wants you to love it like a LucasArts game but never offers a cohesive experience similar to one (of that time). Sure Full Throttle has little dialogue and is very short, but it manages to be a much better game with richer characters and a deeper story just by showing, not telling, and involving the players in something that they can care about. I didn't care at allwhat happened to Cutopia in Toonstruck. It could all be leveled to the ground and I wouldn't be moved. Why did Drew care about Cutopia? He hates Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun. The whole place was portrayed as unlikable but then something that needed to be saved. How does that make sense?
I do love how the article hones in on how useless Flux is. He's a Max clone as said, but he's no where near as visually interesting or maniacally lovable. Overall it's funny that Lloyd's character becomes more interesting in the second half where there is no Flux, even though Flux was surely put there to make the game more interesting in the first place.
Thinking back to when I got this game, I think the reason it failed foremost was just poor marketing. The things like the prominently featured bondage cow or the insane clown just left whatever target audience they were going for confused. If anyone was looking for a twisted adult toon type of game in the vein of Roger Rabbit or Cool World, sucks for them since all of that stuff doesn't really play much of a part until the second half of the game. In the mean time, they are mostly stuck to the boring talkative squeaky clean characters of Cutopia. Even then, except for a couple of extreme moments, the game is very tame. One episode of an early 90s Ren and Stimpy had way more adult content than the whole of Toonstruck.
Besides the complete dissatisfaction with bad FMV games as the article states, I'd say people were getting sick of cartoon adventures as well by '96. Windows 95 pretty much drastically changed the PC gaming audience to those who wanted more action oriented, real time 3D, or grittier adult style games. The only exceptions to this rule of late cartoon adventures that didn't sell well being Curse of Monkey Island and Leisure Suit Larry Love for Sail which both had an established audience while at the same time both being the first games in the series to lose the number at the end, making them easier to access to the new PC gaming audience. Toonstruck was just new to everyone and also by a new company no one was familiar with to boot.
|
|
|
Post by TheGunheart on Apr 29, 2010 2:24:01 GMT -5
Why did Drew care about Cutopia? He hates Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun. The whole place was portrayed as unlikable but then something that needed to be saved. How does that make sense? You know, this is something that confuses me every time I read an article about this game. By all accounts, it sounds like the bunny is supposed to be the villain, with Cutopia threatening to convert the world, but instead Drew has to save it from some "evil toon" world. The fact that this was supposedly for "mature" gamers that you expect would love to utterly wreck the place makes this even more confusing.
|
|
|
Post by syntheticgerbil on Apr 29, 2010 10:15:16 GMT -5
Well, that is true, because the bunny is revealed to be the villain at the end of the game. In the intro movie Drew makes it clear about how much he hates the cute rabbits he has to draw, but once he's in the Cutopia, the starting point of the game, he seems to show compassion for their plight.
All of the mature gaming that was advertised or hinted at is confined to the Malevolands pretty much or at least the parts they take over as well. You would think at least Drew would not care that much if they took over everything.
At the very least the only place Drew showed an affinity for was Zanydu because of his pal Flux, so why not just lead some sort of campaign where the Zanydu people take over? I know that's a stretch, but Zanydu isn't even in any kind of direct war with the Malevolands either, it's just sort of isolated from all the warring conflict between the two sides.
I'm guessing a lot of this would have been addressed in a second game though.
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on Apr 29, 2010 17:39:19 GMT -5
All of the mature gaming that was advertised or hinted at is confined to the Malevolands pretty much or at least the parts they take over as well. You would think at least Drew would not care that much if they took over everything. That is something I think I'd like to address! It is pretty weird, isn't it? But yeah, like I wrote in the article, the writing is really boring. It's a shame they got such amazing voice actors to do such dull dialog. At a certain point I just gave up interrogating everyone with every option like I normally would. The second half of the game is much less chatty, and while less colorful, does a better job with the slapstick.
|
|
|
Post by Reiji-kun on Apr 29, 2010 20:21:42 GMT -5
I dunno... I actually rather liked Toonstruck regardless. ...course, I only owned the demo. I never got the chance to buy the full version.
|
|
|
Post by syntheticgerbil on Apr 30, 2010 10:25:20 GMT -5
At a certain point I just gave up interrogating everyone with every option like I normally would. The second half of the game is much less chatty, and while less colorful, does a better job with the slapstick. I tend to exhaust every bit of dialogue in adventure games, but it was such a chore in Toonstruck. You're right though, I forgot the second half of the game had way less talking and more toon like things happening. It's good it at least ends on that note. I found the second half to be less obscure with the puzzles as well.
|
|