Topic: American McGee's Grim = free today

[idolminds]

A link
Another link

I guess they are trying some new model where the game is free for 24 hours, then they charge you for a copy (kind of like TV show to DVD). First episode is ~200MB.

[sirean_syan]

It be mine.

[Quemaqua]

I still have faith in the guy and I'll surely check it out if it's free.  I know his last title was supposed to be total garbage, and he hadn't done a whole lot before that, but he also made some personal choices which made things problematic and weren't really a "fault".

Anyway, I think we've yet to see something "real" from him since Alice, which was still a good game however little it may have innovated in terms of gameplay (and I still say is one of the best games to ever exist from an art standpoint).  So I'm interested.  We'll see where it goes.

[MysterD]

Damn, I never picked up McGee's Alice.
I hope CD Projekt's GOG Project brings that game there....

[Xessive]

I just played and completed it (how ever short it was). I don't get it. The art style is great and I love the fairytale story-telling device but I just don't understand it really. The gameplay aspect of it is less sophisticated than a kid's colouring book. You just move around and re-colour everything as you near it.

The only thing going for it is art style. Other than that it was pretty lame.

[gpw11]

Yeah, that really really sucked.  It was like 15 min. long, which is understandable...but I was bored about 2 min. into it.  That's kind of inexcusable.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, that really really sucked.  It was like 15 min. long, which is understandable...

What?  How is that understandable?  Are you exaggerating for effect?

[Quemaqua]

Yes.  It was about a 45-minute or hour experience, I guess.  You could go faster or slower depending on how much you wanted to convert.

I think Xessive and gpw missed the point completely here.  This is a Katamari clone, pure and simple.  Instead of picking up stuff and rolling a bigger ball, you're converting stuff and extending your sphere of influence.  Something won't change like a house or big tree?  Go convert more stuff until you can come back and convert it.  The problem is the game's premise, which is corrupting fairy tales, because that lends a certain linearity to things because it has a story, so there isn't any actual urgency to the proceedings which kills that "oooh, I almost got just a little more that time!" kind of feeling, which is precisely what made Katamari so much fun (aside from the delicious absurdity of it, which is the only thing that Grimm has going for it at this point).  So it's just Katamari with slightly more simple mechanics and a new coat of paint.

I don't know how I feel about it.  I mean, it was generally amusing, but I certainly can't see myself paying for it.  And the whole corrupting fairy tales thing is just kind of morbid, which totally worked for Alice due to its original subject matter and the immersiveness of its environs (not to mention you weren't playing the bad guy), but when playing something so light and breezy like Grimm... I don't know.  I just don't want something all dark and weird like that.  It would work better in the reverse, like Okami, where you're returning things to order.  This is, I guess, purely a psychological problem (I'm not sure I've ever thought about the interplay between psychological effect, gameplay, and thematics before, at least not in this light), but it does seem to be a problem, at least for me.

Anyway, it was worth downloading and playing once just to see the visuals and watch how all the happy, funny little things turn into the twisted versions, but I can't see myself ever returning to it.  If I want to play Katamari, I'm going to play Katamari, you know?  I did enjoy the art style, and the production values are excellent throughout for the most part, and the premise itself is an entertaining one, if a bit juvenile... but I just can't see myself wanting to play it.

Eh.

<@idolminds> poor McGee. Make Oz like Alice, plz
<@sirean> It was like someone made a crappy game about Que.
<@sirean> Well, not really. That whole world changing effect would be cool, but it would more or less just make a cool aside for a real game.
<@Quemaqua> It's just Katamari with a different coat of paint.
<@Quemaqua> Which is fine, but it sets itself up for failure by having a theme which requires story, so it sort of makes it feel linear and not on-the-spot enough.
<@sirean> Huh. I guess it is, but I would still say there's more to Katamari. I was thinking that world changing thing could be cool for something like Death Jr where the world just got ugly around your character.
<@Quemaqua> Yeah.  It would work great if it wasn't the primary mechanic, because you're right, there is more to Katamari (a lot because of the control scheme and the environments, which are bigger and often far more vertical).

[Xessive]

I don't think it was particularly creative either. I mean it looks like they just took the premise of Okami and inverted it: Instead of Japanese folklore they went with Western folklore and instead of purifying you're corrupting.

[gpw11]

No, I pretty much got it; its a Katamari clone minus the fun and whimsical environment.  What you're left with is kind of boring and trite, not to mention the grade three level bathroom humour mixed in. Beyond that, if all the episodes are that long (Cobra, I said 15 min. was understandable in the previous post referring to this basically being a demo) I can't see them being able to charge anything more than $1.99 and being able to get away with it.  The cut scenes were just as long as the game itself and extremely repetitive. The whole thing was just kind of lame.

Maybe Penny Arcade was right about this guy.

[Quemaqua]

I'm with you on the toilet humor, which I can totally do without, but I'd still say this has a fun and whimsical environment of one kind or another.  But yeah, I'm beginning to wonder if McGee can do anything beyond that.  Gameplay innovation doesn't seem to be in his repertoire, because while Alice was, in my mind, one of the most artistically creative and cohesive games to ever exist, the gameplay itself was somewhat shallow and largely derivative.  Which is fine, because that's the case for a lot of similar games, and the strengths made up for it, but I don't think that's the case with Grimm.  More needs to be done to make it compelling, no matter how much you stress art style and goofy cinematic presentations.

[gpw11]

It's a shame because Alice was a great game that I'd like to play through again in the near future (I think I might still have the disk in a cd case in my car). Out of all the bargain jewel case games I bought in university Alice was certainly the best.  I was pretty disappointed when Oz didn't materialize, but I really can't get behind Grimm.  If future episodes are better than maybe, but it's almost too simplistic...even for a Katamari derivative.  Maybe simple isn't the best word, but it's completely non-challenging and boring.

[scottws]

Maybe Penny Arcade was right about this guy.

I'd be interested in a link 

[gpw11]

Well that's interesting because that's the comic they took down because of a Cease and Desist order they didn't want to fight.  Here's the link to the original news of the day:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2003/4/14/

The important part from Gabe:

My take on McGee/McFarlane:

Making something gross or sexual or both is probably the easiest thing in the world to do. Just look at the margins of any 7th graders homework. You will find plenty of doodles on par with anything McGee has produced. American has said that his new game OZ will stay fairly true to the books but it will be "darker". It's sad that is the best he can come up with. American has the opportunity to take these well known and loved stories and re-imagine them for the world of video games, a medium with unlimited possibilities. When he made Alice I gave him credit for taking the story in a new direction even if it wasn't a terribly interesting one. Now with OZ he's doing the same thing and it shows that Alice was not some creative masterpiece. This guy is just a pervert and this is all he knows how to do. It's like he has some kind of huge fucking machine. Beloved stories and characters go in one side and junior high quality goth crap comes out the other.Yeah, Yeah McGee, we all know you are very angry. You should save yourself some fucking time and just wear a T-shirt that says "I am dark and brooding".

I think McFarlane is a brilliant business man who stopped being creative years ago. There is nothing wrong with that, as I am sure he makes enough money that he doesn't have to be creative. I like to think I would still draw even if I was rich but who knows.

And the banned comic:

[Quemaqua]

Heh, I remember that.  And I see their point, which may or may not be entirely valid (I see no reason why it wouldn't be), though I still completely contest that Alice is anything less than a creative masterpiece.  The idea was still fresh at the time, and McGee didn't just whip up the entire game on his own, after all.  A team of remarkably talented people were ultimately what made it possible, and I imagine that's what made it so good.  An idea is just an idea until somebody brings it to life, and one can't do that in game terms without a lot of help.

Anyway, I won't presume to judge too harshly until I've actually seen something from Oz, if we ever see anything on it, but certainly I see the point Gabe was trying to make.  I don't understand why McGee doesn't branch out and try something different, although I guess he did on Bad Day L.A., which apparently was horrendous.  Though it seems to me there was also something funny going on with the development there, like half of his team was in another country or something?  I can't recall.  Was he still in China at that point?  Whatever it was, it seemed like there were some at least potentially valid reasons for that sucking.

At the end of the day, this guy is basically turning out to be another John Romero.  He simply needs to do something else that's actually good before his name and career go down in flames.  Aside from Alice, the only other good game he had his name on that I can think of was Scrapland, and he really didn't have anything to do with the development of that one.  As far as I know the publisher just gave him some production role and slapped his name on it to sell more copies.  Without some changes, that won't remain a viable business tactic for much longer.

[Xessive]

I don't see the image..

So far I agree with Gabe's comments.