I decided that to give Gold Rush an accurate rating, I really needed to at least know what the alternate paths from Brooklyn to Sacramento entailed. To save me having to restart the game from scratch and play through the other ways, I hopped onto YouTube and found some Let’s Plays by a guy called sierragamescott (he deserves a shout out for some detailed work!). I’ve taken some screenshots from his run throughs so you can all get a glimpse of what the Panama and Cape Horn paths look like. In the end though, all three paths are lengthy exercises in reading historical information while interacting very little with what’s actually happening on screen. All three paths have the same guy sitting around that gives you the bible. All three paths have a point where all of your items, apart from a few necessary bits and pieces, are taken from you (for different reasons). All three paths have sudden and unavoidable deaths that require you to restore to a hopefully recent save game. I’ll try to complete my final rating post tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are the shots...
PANAMA
The Sea Farer had left by the time I reached the wharf.
Both the Panama and Cape Horn paths take place aboard the Sea Farer
Avoiding Deadly Ants: The Panama Jungle is a deadly place for Jerrod, but apparently not for the serene bible reader
Death by Gator!!!
CAPE HORN
The entirety of the Cape Horn path takes place aboard the Sea Farer
Rio de Janeiro is a stunning place, not matter how simplistically it's represented
Yet another excuse arises to rid Jerrod of the majority of his possessions
Cholera: Another unavoidable death. I feel sorry for Scott trying to create Let's Plays for Gold Rush and having this happen repeatedly
Both journey's end here, but getting a coach from this perspective looks overly difficult
As this obviously won't better your opinion of the game, did it lower your rating or have no effect on it?
ReplyDeleteI think it just solidified my feelings about the game rather than altering it.
DeleteAs irrelevant as this may be, there's nothing quite like saying Cape Horn aloud when in a big company.
ReplyDeleteHaha...took me a little while to figure out what you were getting at there!
DeleteIs there a benefit to arriving sooner? Which of the methods of travel actually works out the best?
ReplyDeleteWithout the benefit of the Panama Canal (not finished until 1914), I'd have thought the coach would be the best method of travel.
To be honest I didn't notice anything that would suggest it was more difficult for me to find gold once I got to Sacramento, despite taking so long to get there. I was able to find all 50 pieces of gold in the river without too much trouble.
DeleteMaybe there would simply be less other miners around and therefore more screens that you could actually pan on without being hung.
Forgot to mention, the Two Guys from Andromeda (Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, creators of Space Quest) have a kickstarter for their new game.
ReplyDeleteMore info here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-spaceventure-by-the-creators-of-space-que
Great news! This kickstarter thing could do wonders for resurrecting old game series that otherwise wouldn't have a chance.
Delete$15 is pretty good price for a new Space Quest game. I'm tempted, if only to help make it a reality.
On a related note this popped up in another blog I read: http://freegamer.blogspot.ca/2012/05/gamelv-completely-free-open-source.html Free Open Source RPG.
ReplyDelete