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"Sierra's starting to promote a game that will star Johnny Drama, a fictional movie star who has become a hero.

Sierra's first Jonny Drama title will focus on Drama's transition from movie star to real-life secret agent - defeating his evil arch-nemesis, Dr. Bumbershoot, and foiling his plans to destroy the world. Drama will be offering Sierra exclusive inside information on his missions.

We guess this is Sierra's answer to EA's licensing of the James Bond films."


Yet another half-baked idea from the gaming geniuses at Sierra ?

A NOLF clone ?

Does anything original still come out of Sierra ?

I don't know. Sierra did tell me over a week ago that they would make a "huge" announcement. I can't believe this is it. They'll probably announce Counter-Strike 2 or Half-Life 2. Who knows what the hell this Jonny Drama game is?

I thought Sierra was going a Jurassic Park 3 game? Didn't I see mailed-out invitied to come to Havas' booth and see JP3 at E3?

I know Universal has a JP license, but they publish through "whoever" now, right?

If NOLF is inspiring clones, good for NOLF. Good for Monolith. Now let's hope they keep the quality level up there on the OTHER titles they do. I've long thought that Monolith was a company with talented developers who can make really great games, but for one reason or another, didn't. Sometimes it was a business reason, sometimes it was bad decisions from lack of experience, whatever. When NOLF came out, I said to myself "this is the game I always knew they could make." It's like, you could always see the makings of a top-notch game in their other titles, even the crappy ones, waiting to come out.

Now the trick is, will they be able to make their other games that good? Or was it a fluke?

Oh, and Johnny Drama, what a Hella Stupid Name. It's like making a spy game with a character named "Sterling Undercover" or a driving game with "Rex Turbo." I hope they're TRYING to be camp.

Yeah! Johnny Drama! Jeez, that's almost as bad as...

Max Payne, Solid Snake, Duke Nukem, John Blade, Superfly Johnson, B.J. Blaskowicz, Serious Sam Stone, Lotus Abstraction ... etc.,

Personally, I'd prefer Johnny Bravo.
Only a certain age group will get that and then feel immediately ashamed.

-Andrew

How about Chest Rockwell? Or Brock Landers? Johnny Drama is lame. That sounds like something Leisure Suit Larry would dream up.

NOLF was good-- definitely leaps and bounds better than anything else Monolith has released to date. However, I just don't get some of the particularly over-the-top praise heaped on the game. I mean, come on-- the best FPS since Half-Life? At least they put a decent amount of effort into the AI, unlike 95% of all FPS titles. They do deserve credit for that.

But really. Has anyone seen AI on par with the human grunts in Half-Life? In any game? I remember playing the grunt sections of that game 5-6 times and it was never the same twice.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

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Personally, I'd prefer Johnny Bravo. Only a certain age group will get that and then feel immediately ashamed.

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I knew a guy in high school whose name was Lance Fortune. I always thought that would be a cool action hero name.

"Brady Bunch reference here? :-/"

The latter, feel ashamed?

(Is cartoon Johnny Bravo that big blond pompadour guy on Cartoon network?)

Maybe the HUGE annoucement is they now have NOLF and all future NOLF games?

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The latter, feel ashamed?

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(Is cartoon Johnny Bravo that big blond pompadour guy on Cartoon network?)

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Well looks like Sierra is taking on the NOLF sequel. I'd kill for another NOLF game as long as the quality of the original NOLF is intact.

In fact I would kill for a NOLF expansion pack.

Wumpus, what FPS do you feel was better than NOLF, since Half-Life? Just out of curiositiy.

Bub--yup, really cheesy game character names are a dime a dozen. Doesn't make Johnny Drama any less idiotic. Unless they're trying to be kinda tongue-in cheek (Duke Nukem is forgiveable that way).

"Wumpus, what FPS do you feel was better than NOLF, since Half-Life? Just out of curiositiy. "

Thief, definitely. Particularly Thief 2. And maybe System Shock 2 or even Deus Ex.

It is rather caddish of me to complain about NOLF, since it's a great game in its own right, but I don't feel it lives up to the towering "as good as Half-Life" compliments people are laying at its feet.

For one thing, half the weapons in the game are useless. This is a major negative in my book. Did you ever use the stupid Poodle, for God's sake? And I thought the vehicle parts felt tacked-on and lame.

I agree with what you said earlier-- it's the game we always knew Monolith could make. And they deserve kudos for that. But it falls short of Half-Life greatness in my book.

Another example-- the reviewer I gave it to couldn't even finish the game, which is never a good sign. I myself didn't get sucked in like I did with Undying, I had to put it down and come back to it. I dunno. It was good, just not compelling.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

What do you mean he couldn't finish it? I truly hope you mean he found it too boring to finish, because if he couldn't finish it because it was too hard... I pity him. NOLF was pretty simple to work through.

I also wasn't a big NOLF fan.
I liked almost everything it was doing but wasn't fond of the level design and I genuinely loathed the way, way, way, WAY too long exposition scenes.
(all cutscenes should be like Thief)

Cate Archer was the only well rounded character (and the puppet) but the rest felt very hollow to me. Bordering on stupid. You have to work harder to parody something as silly as Bond villains imo.

Now, I'm by no means saying I didn't like NOLF. Far from it. FPS I felt were "better" are Undying, Aliens vs. Predator and the glorious Thief 2.

(How much hate will I generate by admitting I didn't like Elite Force and Soldier of Fortune?)

-Andrew

"What do you mean he couldn't finish it? I truly hope you mean he found it too boring to finish, because if he couldn't finish it because it was too hard... I pity him. NOLF was pretty simple to work through."

No, I think he just didn't like the game. I liked it, I recommend it, but I have to strain to see the superlatives heaped on the game by Jason, for example.

"(How much hate will I generate by admitting I didn't like Elite Force and Soldier of Fortune?)"

None, because they fucking sucked. It's been steadily downhill for Raven since Heretic, IMO. Heretic was brilliant.

I'm particularly annoyed at the way Raven turned SOF into a shoddy, cheesy cartoon of a game. It had such potential. I was completely appalled when I fired it up for the first time.

Elite Force was a decent Trek game, but Raven just phoned that one in. If you're going to make a budget title, price it that way. Enforcer and Serious Sam are the right way to go here for about 6-8 hours of gameplay.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

I would take Elite Force or SOF over Enforcer, Serious San, or Undying any day...

AvP? The marine part had GREAT atmosphere. That's, um... about all I can say for it.

Thief2 was great, but not much of a "shooter"--even less so than NOLF. And it, like NOLF, only really developed the main character. Everyone else was pretty one-dimensional.

Don't make it sound like I'm the only one to heap supurlatives at NOLF. =) It won action GOTY from PCG and CGW, and was listed in the running for GOTY for both of them. I didn't even push to make it our GOTY...that was mostly the idea of everyone else here (I agree with it, but I didn't have to do any convincing or anything).

And if you check out www.gamerankings.com and list all the PC FPS games, it's has the #6 highest average rating of all FPS games. With an average rating of 90.4% (not reader reviews, reviews from sites/publications). That's an EXTREMELY highly regarded game.

Jason said:

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Thief2 was great, but not much of a "shooter"--even less so than NOLF. And it, like NOLF, only really developed the main character. Everyone else was pretty one-dimensional.

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I saw some sorta interview or something about this game on the IGN Xbox site and it seems pretty cool, actually. The name is dumb if you don't know anything about it, but it fits in with the whole motif pretty well.