Another weekend gone, another chance to continue my creative endeavors wasted. Maybe “wasted” isn’t the right word, since I spent most of the past two days sitting in front of a plot outline and script trying to flesh it into full prose; the spirit is willing, the brain is weak. I managed to write… two paragraphs. Great. Maybe next weekend. After that I think I’ll finally hit that point where determination simply becomes denial and giving up is the less contemptible of the two options.
This week, though, I think it’s more important to concern ourselves with the small matter of Hotel Dusk, a game which Nintendo hasn’t done a damn thing to promote because, apparently, they’re boneheaded ninnies who don’t really care if their products fail. I guess 20 years of franchises that sell millions by name and reputation alone makes you a bit complacent.
Fortunately, the game’s picked up a bit of interest ever since word leaked that one of my EGM compatriots gave it the vaunted 10/10 rating. Personally, I gave it an 8 for the poorly-written review that will be appearing at 1UP soon, but it doesn’t really matter — as with so many of the products Nintendo has been shipping for the past year or two, Hotel Dusk is one of those instances where the old-fashioned game review system breaks down. Dusk is as much a novel as a videogame, an adventure game that doesn’t conform to the usual Western concept of the term. I guess it doesn’t conform to the Japanese concept, either, since this style of game — that is, largely dialogue-oriented with only occasional touches of “gameplay” — is pretty common over there. But those usually have a, uh, climax that involves getting a teenage girl out of her French maid costume, or something similar.
I feel like Dusk has the potential to be just as important to the DS’s fortunes as something like Brain Age; it’s a well-written detective novel masquerading as a game, something that could really appeal to the “The Cat Who Improbably Solved a Crime Through Seemingly Anthropomorphic Behavior” fan base. It turns the DS into something like an e-book, except you have to use a simplified FPS interface to move from situation to situation and solve dopey puzzles every once in a while. The game is set in 1979, and its target audience is really people who were contemporaneously Kyle Hyde’s age.
You kids will probably enjoy it, too. So, you know, buy it. It’s good, it’s different, it’s satisfying. (And way better than Trace Memory, so don’t let the developer connection put you off.)
Also, feel free to hop into the relevant message board thread and create some stupid photoshops of the image above. It’s fun! Well, it’s trite, anyway. On the Internet, that’s about the same thing.
Edit: My review is online. Sorry, I was unable to resist the juicy “Hotel Detective” reference. It was bobbing there, ripe and eager to be plucked, and I am but a poor Tantalus in the vineyard of nerdy allusions.
I’ve been waiting for this game ever since I got my DS, but doesn’t seem to be one popular game, which is very important in my case because that means it might not come to Mexico at all (Contact never showed up).
And you thought EBGames sucked…
They had a feature in NP about it. That’s good advertising in N country.
Yeah, I’ve seen it mentioned in NP a few times. Not being able to preorder it is a little worrisome, but I think anyone who wants it will be able to get their hands on it one way or another.
Thanks for the tip on Trace Memory. I was gonna grab this tomorrow anyway because I’ve been psyched since it was announced (and the trailer looked badass), but I got Trace Memory a couple weeks ago in anticipation and was thoroughly underwhelmed, except for the localization and one or two of the cuter puzzles (you know what I’m talking about). (I do like how the Wikipedia article on Trace Memory has been hijacked with a long insinuation that NOA somehow messed up the European version’s pristine translation.)
Ugh, Wikipedia.
I looked, but “The Cat Who Improbably Solved a Crime Through Seemingly Anthropomorphic Behavior” does not seem to be a real book. Please fix this, thanks.
After that I think I’ll finally hit that point where determination simply becomes denial and giving up is the less contemptible of the two options.
FTW Jere-emo.
I was sold on hotel dusk by it’s visual style alone. The fact that it has a good story too is just icing on the cake.
Also, where I come from, FTW does not mean “For the win” It means something… very different.
Glad to hear it’s better than Trace Memory, since the developer connection DID put me off after playing that. I want those three-four hours of my life back.
I’ve been looking forward to this because of Trace Memory, but the universal praise is making it sound all the better.
it’s a well-written detective novel masquerading as a game, something that could really appeal to the “The Cat Who Improbably Solved a Crime Through Seemingly Anthropomorphic Behavior” fan base.
Ha! My Mom loves those kind of books… She has a new “Cat Mystery” book every time I come to see her. I’ll have to check this out, and see if she’d even remotely be able to play it. :-)
Remeber Full Throttle, Monkey Island, Day Of The Tentacle and Simon The Sorcerer? Those were nice novels masquerading as games. And Disc World Noir too.
Would it be accurate to call this Killer 7 minus the zombies, post-modernity, and horror?
“Those were nice novels masquerading as games.”
Current Mood: Placing head in hand, sighing loudly, resolving not to pay attention to anything you write ever again.
Full-Time Walrus?
Goo goo goo joob.
In my experience, finding good games in Mexico is not *that* hard, especially if you are near one of the metropolitan areas – eventually you are bound to run into Contact sooner or later if you try hard enough (hint: the fayuca markets are not the exclusive domain of the shady under-the-table dealers anymore). European idiotic release dates, on the other hand…
“Full-Time Walrus?”
I was thinking maybe “FTW” could mean “WTF backwards.” Which, in turn, would mean: “I understand completely, and I am here to help. Come to my arms and feel solace, you poor, lost little pigeon.”
I was baffled when I first saw FTW and, after searching came up with nothing, concluded it was WTF backwards. As in, something that was so fucked up that WTF could not describe it properly any only by reversing the letters (i.e. fucking it up further) would you express that. The webs is always looking for next most extreme plateau (see: the progression from LOL to ROTF to ROTFLMAO) and I thought spelling the acronyms backwards was the next step. My apologies. I shall never use internet acronyms again. (although within that context “for the win” also works nicely, albeit in a snarky way)
Right. Compared to Europe, we’re in heaven.
For the longest time I thought OTOH meant “off top of head” — a definition I constructed from contextual clues. It really does work as a seamless replacement for, well, almost any Internet acronym.
Parish, I just finished reading your review. It confirmed all of the good buzz I’ve been hearing around this game, but it left me curious. You didn’t really highlight any negatives; what keeps this game from rising into 9 territory?
Actually, you know which game is _really_ a novel masquerading as a game? Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone for PS2!
Like I said, the review scale breaks down with games like this; putting a number on it was annoying enough — I can’t even imagine trying to assign an IGN/Gamespot score to it. I was a little annoyed by the inanity of a few of the puzzles, the pace was a little slow at times, the music was kind of lame… but aside from the music, none of those issues seemed worth complaining about in the review text.
Well from the moment I saw screenshots and art of this game it was on my radar and I planned to pick it up as long as the reviews were good. So, I’m glad that they are good and I’ve already ordered it from Amazon. Trace Memory intrigued me the same as this but the reviews were so poor I left it alone.
As far as advertising goes, just last night I was surprised to see one of those click-to proceed-to-the-site ads on TV.com for Hotel Dusk so it seems that they are reaching out to a broader demographic.
Ahh, yeah I figured this was a case where the numbers get in the way more than anything else. Thanks for the reply, I haven’t really read anything negative. Sounds like there’s not much negative to say. I’ll be happy to have a solid adventure game to play when I finish the long grind through FFIII.
I still can’t find it anywhere, but I did track down a promo display box at Gamestop last night. The box art is nice, of course, but it could really use a better title logo. I suppose they’re trying to reach a broad audience with something conservative and noir-ish, but it doesn’t do that; it just comes across as plain-looking and cheap. Boo!
I got the same interstitial Project Dusk ad on my way to GameFaqs, so it seems like they’re at least doing some last-minute online promotions. Better than nothing, anyway.
“Those were nice novels masquerading as games.”
Current Mood: Placing head in hand, sighing loudly, resolving not to pay attention to anything you write ever again.
What about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game?
It is too dark to brush your teeth.
None of the game stores ’round my side a town had this sucker–half of them didn’t even have the sucker registered in their computer-things. I ended up finding it in Sam Walton’s crib, so hip-hop-hurray! (I LOVED Trace Memory.) I reckon if one were inclined to make a little bank, you could buy two of these bad boys and e-hock that junk when the initial print is exhausted…
I actually got my copy at K-mart! I guess that merger w/ Sears finally paid off.