Journey's End
I really wanted to like this game. Really. I tried hard. But when 23 megs of the 27 meg download are two mpeg movies, I start to wonder. Much less the fact that the multiplayer aspect forced me to restart my computer (no "Exit", no "Return to Menu", no "Ctrl-Alt-Del"). And, wait, I can't walk backwards? Huh?
I really wanted to like this game. Really. I tried hard. But when 23 megs of the 27 meg download are two mpeg movies, I start to wonder. Much less the fact that the multiplayer aspect forced me to restart my computer (no "Exit", no "Return to Menu", no "Ctrl-Alt-Del"). And, wait, I can't walk backwards? Huh?
From Jeremy Stieglitz and Bright Light Productions, Journey's End is fraught with misspellings, humorous documentation, and in general, feels like Hanna Barbera's or Fisher Price's first attempt at a role playing game.
But the key point is that they try - that's what matters. There's a 20 meg intro movie that's actually not all that bad. No, it's not "Blizzard masturbate-a-thon", but it works - the typical fiery beginning with words emerging from the flames. And then Bryce-rendered (or whatever else is the latest personal 3d modeler) landscapes and fight scenes. The people in the movie look good - I only wonder why they used the piece of crap "oh look! A LEGO man!" still image for their installer (which, coincidentally, only puts an "Uninstall" icon into the Start menu). Although the movie is decent, it's not worth the download.
click for larger images
About the only thing this game has going for it is the music. The best feeling I had when playing was knowing that I could quickly uninstall (which didn't work... I had to remove everything manually). The inner game graphics are horrible. The interface is ugly as sin, the creatures are blocky bits of badly rendered pixels (you should see the "giant forest spider". I'm telling ya... that's an accomplishment of gaming right there) and you can't turn and move at the same time.
If this is a demo, I really hate to see the full game. The giant forest spider was enough. Kudos for trying, that's important, but try again. You can download Journey's End from Bright Light Productions although you may want to try download.com first - all the links on the company site are 404'd.
- Login to post comments
Good review. Points out all the major glaring faults in the ol' demo (and there indeed are a lot).
I'm a hardcore gamer like you, and I've long recognize that my game has many, many faults. But they're being or have been dealth with to the extreme. The demo was but an exttttremely rough version of the game, namely because I made every scrap of it by myself but now BLP's a large team.
If you've got a decent 3d card... wait till the full version (and shareware version) come out... lets just say colored lighting, fogging, mip mapping, specular highlighting, transformosis picosis (wha?!). All models (heheh 3,000 poly knight and it still looks like crap- ugggg I'll never use DoGa, my modeler again I promise!), GUI, and cutscenes redone. As the review said: "Kudos for trying, that's important, but try again." We are- goto http://blp.stormloader.com to find out and see pics of the new design. And---- the final install will be made with install shield so no more install woes.
At any rate- pointed and intelligent review. Thanks morbus.
Ya! And now they've got me on the team... ;-)
Expect some major face lifts in graphic designs.