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flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon #1012773
05/02/15 10:34 AM
05/02/15 10:34 AM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 40,644
southeast USA
Jenny100 Offline OP
GB Reviewer Glitches Moderator
Jenny100  Offline OP
GB Reviewer Glitches Moderator
Sonic Boomer

Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 40,644
southeast USA
flotsam has finished his "First Look" at Technobabylon,
and it's looking good...

Originally Posted By: flotsam
Technobabylon: A Cyberpunk Adventure Game

Technocrat/WadjetEye




They had me at cyberpunk, and WadjetEye sealed the deal.

Anyone familiar with WadjetEye will recognise the style and no one does pixelly retro better. It’s a sum of the parts thing – the voice acting, the story, the score, the puzzling, the detail in the blocky graphics, and all the other bits and pieces come together to create something much more than it may at first appear to be.

Technobabylon takes place in Newton in 2087, a city run, or at least overseen, by a Central artificial intelligence. It’s a future in which a Trance state between minds can be preferred to living in the real world, and in which police are trained scientists in order to function in the bioengineered environment which has been created.

We meet two such police, Drs. Max Lao and Charlie Regis, but not before we spend some time with Latha Sesame, who came to Newton as a refugee from some South Asian conflict. Supported by the state, she prefers the Trance, which is probably not surprising given the squalid state of her public housing apartment. However a glitch has dumped her out of the Trance and locked her in the apartment, something she need to rectify and which occupies the first short part of the game. The Trance itself is an interesting puzzle adjunct, and will be utilised in order to move things forward.

Then we meet the good Drs., on a case involving a mindjacker who is stealing knowledge directly from people’s brains, the result of which is death. Dispatched downtown to follow a lead, a surprising interaction with a car leads to a further victim, and an unsuccessful rooftop pursuit of the perpetrator. Then it’s onto a train bomber, and then a grisly double murder with a less than helpful synthetic maid. The culmination brings us full circle in ways you will have to experience for yourself, but not before a nasty surprise for Max.

You play Latha in the first part, and while Lao and Regis are partners in pursuit of crime, you only play Regis, although there is very much a sense of both of them being involved. The third person perspective doesn’t lock you into “being” a character; rather you play with them. They are good foils for each other, in much the same way that Joey and Rosa were, and the relationship between them will undoubtedly build. They are different too, Charlie shunning some of the technological implants common to the world and preferring to be “off the grid”; Max being very much the model police person. Neither though are afraid to bend protocol when the circumstances require it.

If my description above makes things seem a little bitsy or disjointed, fear not. It’s a many layered plot, the threads of which have only just been woven. There is a lot to do and a lot to learn, and each of the events builds and adds depth to the game world, and begins to reveal just what sort of future this actually is.

Anyone familiar with a WadjetEye game will know exactly what to expect. Anyone else might be a little surprised by the graphics, but will most likely get sucked into the events, and forget all about the “look”. Except however when trying to discern an object against one particular background; the lack of definition meant that I just couldn’t see it. It was only that item, and hotspots are generally decently sized which helps, but I can’t point at what I actually can’t “see”.

Technobabylon is pure point and click, and puzzles are inventory based. It saw an earlier life as an (unfinished I believe) episodic freeware game, but has been reworked and is due to launch later this month. I for one cannot wait for the rest.

Initially I played on:

OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i7-3820 4GHz
RAM: 12GB Ripjaw DDR3 2133 Mhz
Video card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 2048MB


Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012775
05/02/15 10:37 AM
05/02/15 10:37 AM
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 83,268
In the Naughty Corner
BrownEyedTigre Offline
The Sassy Admin and PR Liaison
BrownEyedTigre  Offline
The Sassy Admin and PR Liaison
Sonic Boomer

Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 83,268
In the Naughty Corner
Thanks, flotsam.

Thanks, jenny.


Don't feed the Trolls
Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012777
05/02/15 10:46 AM
05/02/15 10:46 AM
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 69,973
MaG Offline
Sonic Boomer
MaG  Offline
Sonic Boomer

Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 69,973
Thanks, flotsam! laugh

wave Jenny!

Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012783
05/02/15 11:06 AM
05/02/15 11:06 AM
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 483
C
CountZero Offline
Settled Boomer
CountZero  Offline
Settled Boomer
C

Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 483
Flotsam,
Will this be a series like blackwell?

Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: CountZero] #1012792
05/02/15 11:45 AM
05/02/15 11:45 AM
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 48,224
near Yosemite
Marian Offline
Global Moderator
Marian  Offline
Global Moderator
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 48,224
near Yosemite
Sounds promising!

Thank you, flotsam and Jenny. wave

Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Marian] #1012801
05/02/15 02:15 PM
05/02/15 02:15 PM
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 16,783
Upper Arlington, Ohio
Space Quest Fan Offline
Graduate Boomer
Space Quest Fan  Offline
Graduate Boomer

Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 16,783
Upper Arlington, Ohio
thumbsup flotsam


It's nice to be important but it is much more important to be nice.
Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012834
05/02/15 10:51 PM
05/02/15 10:51 PM
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,000
Hicksville, NY USA
S
sanford Offline
Addicted Boomer
sanford  Offline
Addicted Boomer
S

Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,000
Hicksville, NY USA
Thank you for your expert explanation of this game, Flotsam.I am really interested and anxious to get it, so I WILL pre-order it from GOG.
Sandy
and thank you also, Jenny.

Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012843
05/03/15 04:43 AM
05/03/15 04:43 AM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 25,109
Marlborough USA
Kaki's Sister Offline
Sonic Boomer
Kaki's Sister  Offline
Sonic Boomer

Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 25,109
Marlborough USA
Thanks Jenny and flotsam!


Gerry
Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012848
05/03/15 05:29 AM
05/03/15 05:29 AM
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 10,027
Greece
Haroula Offline
Adept Boomer
Haroula  Offline
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 10,027
Greece
Thanks Jenny and flotsam! smile


I change all my passwords to "incorrect". So whenever I forget, it says, "your password is incorrect".

Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1012864
05/03/15 08:54 AM
05/03/15 08:54 AM
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 7,707
The Country
Winfrey Offline
BAAG Specialist
Winfrey  Offline
BAAG Specialist

Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 7,707
The Country
Thanks for the review flotsam. It runs on windows 8.1 also with no problems. Wadjet does it again!!!


Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody
Gibran
Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Winfrey] #1012904
05/03/15 06:23 PM
05/03/15 06:23 PM
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 34,312
United Kingdom
Mad Offline
Sonic Boomer
Mad  Offline
Sonic Boomer

Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 34,312
United Kingdom
Thanks yet again, flotsam and Jenny100 thumbsup


Time : The Most Precious Commodity
Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1013185
05/05/15 06:51 PM
05/05/15 06:51 PM
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,000
Hicksville, NY USA
S
sanford Offline
Addicted Boomer
sanford  Offline
Addicted Boomer
S

Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,000
Hicksville, NY USA
I just pre-ordered this game from GOG, and I look forward to playing it, Fellow Boomers.
Sandy

Re: flotsam's "First Look" at Technobabylon [Re: Jenny100] #1013295
05/06/15 01:16 PM
05/06/15 01:16 PM
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 793
CaptainD Offline
Settled Boomer
CaptainD  Offline
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Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 793
It's going to be an awesome game!


Just to give you an insight into the attention to detail that James has put into this... he put out a call for voice actors for answer phone messages (so that you could phone several people rather than just have 2 or 3 numbers in your phone book, which would have been unrealistic). He ended up with about 100 messages that are in the game and will be accessed randomly when the player uses the phone.

That's not the attention to detail I was referring to though - he has made it possible for everyone who supplied a voice (I was one of them, that's the only reason I know about this!) to use a specific code in the game to listen to the lines they recorded. There was really no need for him to do that, but it's really nice that he has. That level of detail is sure to shine through the rest of the game too. (Coupled with Ben and Ilyac's amazing artwork, excellent music and top-notch voicing of the main characters, it's going to be fantastic.)

Fanboy moment over... but I liked the original freeware games quite a bit, have met James (very briefly!) and seen the game in action at Adventure-X last December, and have been really looking forward to the game.

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