12 replies to this topic

[Hansi]

So Jurassic Park: The Game is out now. Anyone played it or everyone leaving it while they play BF3/CODMW3/Skyrim etc? I already bought it on Steam but have no time to play till December. Those that have tried it, what do you think?

[Frost]

Let me just revive this thread...

Got the Jurassic Park trilogy on BD as a Christmas gift and finally got around to watching the first last night. AWESOME in high def with great audio. Blows away my old DVD set.

Anyway, that inspired me to go and pick up Telltale's JP the Game on Steam. I'm a big Back to the Future fan, but I never picked up their BTTF games because I just don't go in for cartoony style. Shatters immersion too much for me. Thankfully they went with realistic, if dated, graphics on Jurassic Park, so I decided to go for it.

The Mac version... is a mess. In multiple locations, including the quit screen, text is a bunch of strange yellow symbols instead of a real font. There were only two resolutions available to me: 640x480 and 800x600. I am NOT running in either of those on my 24" FW900. I'd have been beyond pissed if I didn't have an alternative available. Fortunately it's a Steamplay title, so I rebooted into Windows 7, redownloaded, and that version works great. Played the first two episodes. The first episode I thought was actually really, really good, and I was totally into it. My only issue was dying a few times because some of the QTEs literally give you about 1/4 to 1/3 of a second to hit the correct arrow key, which is damned unforgiving. Not to mention if the framerate drops, so does the appearance of the QTE keys, causing you to not even see them. Aside from that, good story, good atmosphere, and shockingly, good voice acting.

The second episode went from dead serious territory into a bit corny/cliché territory... still plenty of fun moments, but I wasn't as into it as the first. The only part that really bugged me is anyone who remembers their high school genetics is going to raise an eyebrow at that lady doctor wanting to reverse the lysine contingency by putting an additive in the water... that's handwavium of 24th-century Trek caliber, but I'll let that slide for now.

Will play the second half tomorrow probably and see how that is.

So far, if you're a huge JP fan like me, I'd say it's a buy (but wait for a sale, $30 is a little high). If you're not, probably skip.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

mMM... I might have to try it out soon.. I have Episode 1 on my iPad, since they regularly set the price to free, to get buyers in for the remaining episodes.

[Jan]

Frost, on 30 January 2013 - 05:16 AM, said:

Let me just revive this thread...

The Mac version... is a mess. In multiple locations, including the quit screen, text is a bunch of strange yellow symbols instead of a real font. There were only two resolutions available to me: 640x480 and 800x600.

So far, if you're a huge JP fan like me, I'd say it's a buy (but wait for a sale, $30 is a little high). If you're not, probably skip.

I was already wondering why 'The Mighty (FPS) Frost' picked up JP on Steam.
I looked for a daily deal -- maybe it was 75 % off or something -- but it wasn't.
Maybe I'll try it out when the next sale is on.

What you describe reminds me a bit of the Mac version of 'The Walking Dead',
especially the part with the unreadable text. This seems to be a glitch in their
Telltale Tool.

Try this workaround: Switch from fullscreen to windowed and back. This did the trick for me in TWD.

[Frost]

Yeah, I had an itch and it had to be scratched, $30 be damned.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give that a try tonight.

[mattw]

I've noticed resolution switching bugs in all the telltale games so far - once you get it running at native resolution they seem OK - don't think they use the approved method for switching to full screen.

Other than that the shadows are pixelated even on maximum settings.

The stories are getting better though - I ended up enjoying JP overall especially if you watch the films at the same time. Walking Dead has the best story yet however.

[Frigidman]

Pet peeve: Games that cant handle resolutions and switching to them.

I would think that is part of the core setup of a game... get the resolution situated, then get the mouse and keyboard properly captured, and then start building your framework.

But nooooooooooooooo. Lets rearrange every other window open on your computer! Oh and force people into 640x480! Oh oh ! and ...!

[Frost]

What's worse is you don't get a list of resolutions and click the one you want like every other game, ever. You have to manually click through and switch through each one.

What moron thought that was a good idea?

[Frigidman]

Frost, on 30 January 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

What's worse is you don't get a list of resolutions and click the one you want like every other game, ever. You have to manually click through and switch through each one.

What moron thought that was a good idea?

Same kind of guys who decide that shipping a game where the keys are defaulted to "dfgr" instead of "asdw"... and you cannot edit them.

[Jan]

mattw, on 30 January 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

I've noticed resolution switching bugs in all the telltale games so far - once you get it running at native resolution they seem OK - don't think they use the approved method for switching to full screen.

Other than that the shadows are pixelated even on maximum settings.

The stories are getting better though - I ended up enjoying JP overall especially if you watch the films at the same time. Walking Dead has the best story yet however.

That's also the case in Telltale's PS3 games. Back to the Future has pixelated shadows as well. Maybe some bug in their Direct3D > OpenGL converter?

[Frost]

Told someone else who had the game about my experiences. He bought the disc version and had none of those issues on his Mac, and showed me. Decided to chance it because I really prefer to play under OSX if I can... got the disc version in today, just installed it, works fine, no messed up text, and I can use any resolution I like. I guess it's the Steam Mac version that's the problem.

Well. That was a complete and total waste of money on Valve. I guess at least I can play it in OSX now.

[Jan]

Frost, on 05 February 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:

Told someone else who had the game about my experiences. He bought the disc version and had none of those issues on his Mac, and showed me. Decided to chance it because I really prefer to play under OSX if I can... got the disc version in today, just installed it, works fine, no messed up text, and I can use any resolution I like. I guess it's the Steam Mac version that's the problem.

Well. That was a complete and total waste of money on Valve. I guess at least I can play it in OSX now.

I ordered Back to the Future and Tales of Monkey Island directly from the Telltale web store. Never had any issues with the games.

[Frost]

So, beat the game... aaaand I'm totally satisfied! That was actually very enjoyable! Episode 2 was corntacular, but Episode 3 started getting good again, and Episode 4 was awesome like Episode 1.

Looking forward to playing it through a few more times, definitely; especially on 1920x1200 with everything maxed hopefully in a few months.

Jan, on 05 February 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

I ordered Back to the Future and Tales of Monkey Island directly from the Telltale web store. Never had any issues with the games.

Yeah, the Telltale web store version is the same one that comes on the disc, and that one works great. Apparently the Steam version is different from that in some way that causes unpleasant side effects on Macs, or at least on my Mac.

Now that I know I quite like the game I'd prefer to own it over a permarental anyway, so I'm glad I bought it direct from Telltale as well and kinda wish I'd done that to begin with. Oh well.