New Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy-game by Hothead Games

[nOmArch]

Originally Posted by Remolay

In all honestly, I thought the gift of beer was better than Mr. Prosser lying down in the mud.

Really?!? oh well no worries

[puzzlebox]

I've not played anything from Hothead, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic (optimistically sceptical?) until we get to see more.

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Hithchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Starship Titanic are among my favorite games of all time.

I'm curious, what did you particularly like about Starship Titanic? I never quite managed to get into it.

Originally Posted by Tjibbbe

Douglas was always at his best on the radio or on paper (it's a terrible shame he couldn't join Stephen Fry on the television sequel to their 'Last Chance to See'-radio show, probably the best thing he ever created).

"Last Chance to See" (the original) is a fantastic read too.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by puzzlebox

I'm curious, what did you particularly like about Starship Titanic? I never quite managed to get into it.

To be honest?

It's the parser. A parser with 12 hours of recorded responses. I have....something of a bias towards text parsers that nobody else seems to share.

[nOmArch]

Originally Posted by puzzlebox

"Last Chance to See" (the original) is a fantastic read too.

Seconded, I think the Kakapo is my favourite animal in the whole world.

[zounds!]

The Hitchhiker's text adventure was/is one of a kind. If I had to pick my favorite Hitchhiker's experience though it would have to be the BBC radio/tv series by far. Adams' later novels were a little underwhelming for me so I don't necessarily believe he holds the ultimate say-so for the future of Hitchhiker's Guide. The movie was silly and really didn't touch the awesomeness of the original material but I still had fun watching it with low expectations. Actually it had some funny takes on some things (Deep Thought being bored and watching cartoons comes to mind)

[nOmArch]

Doug actually considered the books to be the definitive version of H2G2 and while I own every version of Hitchhikers available I have to agree with him, the books are the best.

The radio series is very good though.

[Scnew]

I've enjoyed both Penny Arcade Adventures and DeathSpank so far, but then those had Penny Arcade and Ron Gilbert behind them, respectively. Whether Hothead is worthwhile without someone awesome writing it will have to see.

[WarpSpeed]

The crowd cheers wildly! They think you're terrific!

Sorry, just had to post that. I actually have some doubts about this new game concept, but "We'll see."

I bought "And Another Thing..." for some ridiculously cheap price when the local bookstore realized they ordered way too many of them for the actual demand. Still haven't read it, though. There are a lot of things ahead of it in the priority list.

[LuigiHann]

I made a point to watch the movie before I read the books, and I'm glad I did, because it gave me a chance to enjoy the movie. Once I read the books, of course, I became aware of the huge difference in joke density, and the movie suddenly seems rather drab and boring particularly in the middle chunk on the Vogon planet... I still would have liked them to continue the film series with the same cast (though perhaps some different writers) because I did feel like they got all the personalities across rather brilliantly.

I've only played the very beginning of the demo of Deathspank, and nothing about it has seemed funny enough to encourage me to buy it... I don't instantly trust Hothead to make this game well, but I'll wait and see what kind of gameplay and what kind of storytelling that they're going to put into it. The one thing they have going for them is that the Hitchhiker's Guide story has already established a precedent for retellings, so they don't have to do an all-new story, just reuse the existing stories and change details around so they the game and feel fresh. I feel like, in principle, it could certainly go well. It could also go poorly. We'll see.

And another thing, "And Another Thing..." was pretty disappointing. There was a long time between reading the first five books and reading this one, so I can't totally say that the tone isn't accurate, but it really just felt totally out of sync with the rest of the series.

[Molokov]

To summarise: Long time H2G2 fan (since I was a kid), loved the books, radio series, TV series. Consumed everything possible by DNA throughout the 90s and early 00s. Thought Starship Titanic was OK, but difficult to complete without a walkthrough, only ever finished the Infocom H2G2 game with a walkthrough, thought the 2005 Movie had the details right but the big picture was lacking a lot, and many many missed opportunities for great jokes from the original source. Never read 'And Another Thing...' because it kind of feels like a betrayal to do so. Thought the 'Dirk Gently' tv pilot showed promise, although it was very different from the books, I still thought it might work. Am kind of ambivalent about a new game too.

Purpose number 2 for this post: If you want to play the original Infocom H2G2 game (now with graphics!) visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml - two different sets of visuals to choose from!

And yeah, you'll probably need to google a walkthrough too

[Davies]

Originally Posted by Molokov

Thought the 'Dirk Gently' tv pilot showed promise, although it was very different from the books.

Oh wow, you saw that too? I enjoyed it, although I haven't read the book. Mind you, I'm a big "Green Wing" fan and as such I am highly susceptible to the charms of Stephen Mangan. Do you have any other Douglas Adam adaptation recommendations?

[Molokov]

Originally Posted by Davies

Oh wow, you saw that too? I enjoyed it, although I haven't read the book. Mind you, I'm a big "Green Wing" fan and as such I am highly susceptible to the charms of Stephen Mangan. Do you have any other Douglas Adam adaptation recommendations?

The two Dirk Gently books are very very good - convoluted and confusing and completely absurd, but brilliant nonetheless.

TV wise, not much of Douglas's writing has cropped up - the original H2G2 TV series from the 80s was a different variant on the radio series/book, and he wrote all the scripts for that too.

The radio-series adaptations of Books 3, 4 & 5 were very well done, and much in the same vein as the original 2 radio series. Quite a lot of the original cast returned as well.

[vehemt]

Ooh Hitchhikers is my favorite book. I loved the text adventure game. I liked the movie but a lot of people don't get British humor. Also, I remember reading that DNA was going through a bad patch in his life so he wasn't to happy with the way Mostly Harmless ended up.

[Irishmile]

I think of the movie as a decent tribute to the book. Not really all that faithful but flattering

[tredlow]

There are several things wrong with the movie, but there are some things that I thought they did right. One thing, and this is only my very, very personal, you-are-allowed-to-disagree-with-me-here-don't-hurt-me-please opinion, is the visuals. I mean, everything about the visuals; the props, the aliens, the worlds, the actors. I thought they were awesome. Now, every time I read the book, I see the characters and the visual styles from the movie. Other than that, it was a 'meh' film with some funny jokes. And the story changes didn't bother me a lot, because every version of the H2G2 series is a little different.

My opinion regarding Hothead's acquisition of the license? Cool. Sure. Why not? I'd play it. I'd like to see what they can come up with, both in game-play and art design. If there is one thing I love, it's seeing another person's artistic take on the series. That's always awesome.

And if it's a big hit, maybe Telltale would consider a Discworld game.

[DAISHI]

"Thanks for all the fish" is the single best opening to any movie. Ever.

[Rather Dashing]

You haven't watched enough movie openings.

[tredlow]

Originally Posted by DAISHI

"Thanks for all the fish" is the single best opening to any movie. Ever.

I did not like the Watchmen movie, but I believe that has the best opening to any movie.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by tredlow

I did not like the Watchmen movie, but I believe that has the best opening to any movie.

Really? I thought it was much better than it had any right to be. I mean, Watchmen is un-adaptable, there was really no way they could have done it perfectly. And while some of the key decisions make me want to bash my head through a wall, on the whole thing is actually a very good movie despite, well, its creation being a nigh literally impossible task.

[tredlow]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Really? I thought it was much better than it had any right to be. I mean, Watchmen is un-adaptable, there was really no way they could have done it perfectly. And while some of the key decisions make me want to bash my head through a wall, on the whole thing is actually a very good movie despite, well, its creation being a nigh literally impossible task.

I didn't say I hated it, I just have no strong opinions about the movie. I went to the theater hoping it would surprise me, but it was, like you said, impossible to be done perfectly. I guess it's my fault for having high expectations.