SomeRandomGuy

If you haven't played Arkedo's other DS title, Nervous Brickdown, you're missing out. It's the most insane version of breakout ever, and it's heavily inspired by the old-school throwbacks.

Depending on the mood I'm in, I'd say either Luminous Arc, Panzer Tactics, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, or the surprisingly fun Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime.

However, none of those really come close to the mythical "10". They're all in the 8-ish area.

It's a shame the good doctor's never gotten a good video game...

I hope it isn't some crappy no-brain adventure game, either. I think Brain Age might be worse.

"Your Brain Age is... 200! That's quite good! Oh, wait, you're a human..."

Maybe a well designed adventure game where every time you died, you came back as a different Doctor. :)

I call BS. Any ROM in a DS, even a preview ROM, boots to the Nintendo safety screen first. That just booted and went to the game.

Diego: I LIVED in that time period...and in the town the game's set in. It was almost, if not completely, unlike Hotel Dusk.

NothingShocking:

Yeah, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

That looks almost MechAssault DS and Freedom Wings DS bad.

Seriously devs, if you need to do portable 3D, go to the PSP. Touching is good...but it doesn't make up for that crap.

I'm a huge fan of andventure games. I played all the big names back in the day, Maniac Mansion, Zak KcKracken, Day of the Tentacle, Zork, Planetfall, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Space Quest, Police Quest, Hero's Quest...

When I play this new crop of point & click games, it's like finding an adventure game helmed by the "Guy that Tries too Hard to Fit In" who was never really part of your group, but always really wanted to be accepted.

Somewhere later in life, he actually managed to get somewhere in power enough to make decisions on these games, and dredged up memories of how your group liked adventure games and then decided to make one...with his typical trying too hard flair.

Hotel Dusk is BORING. Nowhere in any of the Monkey Island games am I confronted with 15 minutes of text that I can't speed through. People understood that you couldn't force a gamer to sit through that much blathering (even though it was VOICED, and VOICED WELL, dammit!) 15 years ago. What happened to keeping the dialogue punchy and snappy?

What's worse is that the writing in Hotel Dusk is bad. I don't ever remember wondering why Roger Wilco would open a conversation with a guy, tell him that the man was wasting his time, and then demand that the same man regale him with a tale of absolutely no bearing on his current situation.

I don't care who's at fault here, it's just not engaging.

Phoenix Wright is better, because they're not trying to be realistic, and are instead going with comedy. (Although they fall way, WAY short in Justice for All.) I can forgive some of the writing there, just because they aren't trying to make their characters sound real or gritty, and they try and write something funny.

But that isn't even a real adventure game. It's more like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel. The adventure games of old had you using you inventory to solve puzzles, not simply presenting it at the right moment. The old adventure games required logic, where Phoenix Wright relies on the most tenuous of hints in a "do or die" situation.

In the old days, if I wanted Guybrush to win the spitting competition, I'd have as many tries to work through the conundrum I wanted, it wasn't, "Chose the right thing or your client, dies, Phoenix. And by right thing, I mean the exact "right" thing we the designers were thinking of, because even though other things you present may logically lead us to the same conclusion, we don't care!"

These games are not in the same league as the adventure games of old, and if you think I'm just looking through rose tinted glasses at the past, then, pick up any of the new installments of Sam & Max and I guarantee you'll find those to be much truer to the art form than anything on the DS these days.

Visual novels are crap. They're crap on the PSP, and they're crap on the DS, and they're crap on the PC. Seriously, either read a book, or watch a movie, nothing is gained by the hybridization of the two.

They're also NOT adventure games. They're VISUAL NOVELS. Do not try and blur the line, Alisha, as it's meant to be a very distinct demarcation. Adventure games have interaction, visual novels do not. These are terms that mean very specific things, so don't go tossing them around like they're interchangable.

Wow. Way to go, Tomm.

By the time this game gets released that joke's going to be just about as dead as the "Why do they call it a 360 when it's not even round?! LOL!" jokes.

*TIMESTAMP!*

Why not throw in some references to whatever Paris Hilton's done this week, or an American Idol?

Some guys don't ever write lines that are timeless. At least we won't be wondering why Mr. Hulett isn't one of them.

Oh right, the group of guys who only just recently figured out that they shouldn't be giving out Best of Show awards to games that only showed movie footage.

I'm sure they're voting accurately and are immune to the effects of hype.

Pass.

So, I hear Sisqo's working on the music for the TV version of the ad.

I think he's calling it the Prong Song:

"Let me see that prong!
That Prong PR-Prong Prong PRONG."

Anyone notice the dog over to the left that wants in on the action?