Ok.. first off.. I wanna toss my 2 kopecks in about Shenmue.. because I think BOTH of you two are in the wrong.
1. Shenmue is a crappy adventure. I don\'t think many people who are into the adventure scene will refute that point. This genre has always been somewhat "lost" on the console gaming croud because of the consoles heritage of fast & furious gameplay. Many console gamers aren\'t used to the story driven latteral thinking that\'s necessary to complete your typical adventure. So Sega had to "dumb down" Shenmue for the console market. What happened was that they created a game which failed to strike a chord with their target audience, and was too tame for hardcore adventure fans. For what the game was designed to do.. it succeeds wonderfully. Bridging a gap, and giving console gamers access to a genre they might not have tried before. About the humor.. there\'s a reason why Shenmue lacks it... and that\'s because it\'s a drama - NOT a comedy -. Adventures are associated with whitty humor simply because of the attitudes of the two companies who usherd in the modern adventure game.. Sierra and LucasArts. Mist is a good example of an adventure game which lacks humor.
2. FREE is pure hype. I\'m surprised more people didn\'t use their heads and figure this out before. I mean, do any of you have even the slightest clue just HOW much code and programming goes into making every single little minute facet of a game interactive? The Dreamcast is good.. but not that good. If you want that kind of interactiveness in a game in this generation.. then you\'d better start praying to god because it would take a miracle for that to happen. And not only with pure console power comes the problem of time and manpower. To make a game of Shenmue\'s size with the kind of interactivity promised would take even a large development team years up on years to complete. There\'s just no way to do it and turn a profit. Not to mention that the control pad is a piss poor portal for the gamer to flex his will. The text parser was (and still is) the best for this because you can input fully formed thoughts into a game engine.. even if it\'s not practical these days. This is why I have severe doubts about just how well Project Ego will live up to it\'s hype. Shenmue does succeed in shifing focus towards interactivity instead of just pretty graphics. Just because it didn\'t live up to the hype, dosen\'t mean that it didn\'t reach an amazing level of interactivity that no other game on the market can even come close to matching. There will come a day when the graphical greatness of games is not measured in polygons or effects.. but in interactivity. You can\'t get much better than photo-realistic.. so game companies will naturally improve upon this area because of it\'s untapped potental.
3. Paul.. pulling Shenmue in lue of a "Final Fantasy Killer" wouldn\'t have helped Sega one bit. They simply didn\'t have the momentum or userbase to make the Dreamcast a success. How are you going to sell a "Final Fantasy Killer", if noone will even so much as buy your system? What Sega COULD have done to revive their buisness was to play on the nostalgia of old Sega gamers by reviving games that were assiociated with their last massively successful console. Even then, they\'d have to sustain an aggressive advertisement campaign for these titles and the console itself so as to force the attention of people who aren\'t even looking at Sega as an option. Sorry, but 20 Million (what Shenmue cost to produce) or even 100 million wouldn\'t have done the job.
4. Shenmue\'s fighting system was only "Fighting Force"-esqe if you didn\'t know how to use the buttons. If you learned how to preform the moves quickly and appropriately.. you\'d notice that it\'s fighting system can be very deep considering that\'s just a side feature. This is most appearant in the 70 man battle. (Although I do wish it took more than 1 or 2 hits to drop your "average" enemines)
5. The voice acting sucked ass. I know no-one brought it up.. but I just had to say it seein as how it was so goofy at points that I was almost ashamed to play it in front of friends.
6. There is no point six yet. I jus wanna close out by saying that Shenmue far exceeds the boundries of traditional console games with an excellent epic story, great gameplay elements, a high level of interactivity & complexity, and graphics that put many PS2 (and even a few Xbox) games to shame. It simply fails to find it\'s clique. Too adventureish for action gamers... too simple for Adventure gamers. It\'s not a game for everybody, but for those it does strike a chord with... it\'s resonance will be heard for a LONG.. long time to come.
Now... pstwo. I don\'t wanna fight with ya because most of the time your posts are reasonable and non-flamitory. If you think that gaming is 80% graphics though, then I think you\'ve chosen the wrong hobby. You\'d probably be happier doing something else with your free time. If that the way you feel though, then fine.. just don\'t expect anyone here to agree with you or even comprehend your point of view.
As for graphics meaning anything to me? I spent four hours last night playing the hell out of this game...
And I have a litteral ton more like it on my computer. So no.. graphics don\'t mean sh*t to me when it all comes down it. I expect a certain level of graphical improvement with each successive generation because that shows growth. There\'s nothing wrong with drooling over the latest graphical advancements. They\'re just icing on the cake.. not the main course. I guess that\'s kind of a good analogy too. Some people like to gourge on frosting for the instant and fleeting gratification. Anyone who really enjoys cakes for what they are, knows the frosting is just an enhancement... and the real treat and appreceation comes from the subtleties and nuances of what\'s benieth the frosting.
