Hugo 2: Whodunit? Impressions

[Mike]

#5092

Here’s a thread to discuss Hugo 2. There may be big spoilers in the thread so you may want to avoid this until the game is done.

That said, this may be one of the weirdest and most frustrating adventure games I’ve played in a while. I don’t even know where to start. There’s the maze, the venus fly trap section, the bridge section, just so many puzzles that defy logic, the invisible ledge in the cave section, the Doctor Who reference, and then the end of the mystery. It’s just all total nonsense.

Hugo 1 was a weird game but at least it isn’t too hard and has a lot of charm. This is just so bizarre.

[Pix]

#5105

I agree with all the above. This game was way longer than the original at least but I wish it wasn’t as a lot of the design was just awful. That ******* bridge and matches – I ended up replaying most of the game because I didn’t know the matches had gotten wet until later and was foolish enough to think it must be a puzzle on how to dry them again when I did notice. That included playing the whole maze again. It took me about 10 minutes of reloads to successfully walk across a bridge when did I realise what to do. The collision detection is horrible, and the walking animation jerky as hell to rub it in. I honestly can’t think of a worse mechanic in any adventure game. Then there was a lecherous gardener who has to be frightened off with garlic breath! A needless maze with crucial items placed at the furthest reaches. Woman eating venus fly traps (with the same god awful and seemingly arbitrary collision detection). Dead ends around every corner. Who comes up with this stuff and thinks it’s fun? Part one was short and silly but nowhere near as frustrating. Part 2 has achieved the impossible and was quite definitely worse than Rise Of The Robots.

I thought I’d played the whole series before but I must have only done part 1 before now as I have no recollection of any of this. On to part 3 I guess.

[TigerQuoll]

#5122

This one is probably my favourite of the three games.
A lot of this may come down to having played it to death as a kid because of having nothing else to play and heaps of spare time, but nothing in it really frustrated me.
Apart from maybe the chasm. That’s my biggest pet peeve in adventure games – when the solution to a problem seems to be the opposite of what the design is telling you.
(ie, the game seems to be explicitly telling you the solution to the chasm is NOT brute force… but then it is)

But I didn’t find anything else too annoying.
The venus flytraps are fine. Saving and reloading is quick and easy, and you can do it at any point, so I just save scummed every time I made a little progress.

The bridge is a little tedious, and admittedly makes you feel like you’re cheating by abusing the drop/pickup mechanics, but for me it’s no deal-breaker and you get passed it quickly enough. (I think I read somewhere you can make it across by moving VERY carefully, but I’ve never managed it so I dunno…)

The hedge-maze is fine too. You just need to take a little bit of time to draw a map. I actually like drawing maps for games – it’s satisfying and a little zen.

Maybe I’m just weird, but I still like the Hugo games, and even if I hadn’t played them before I think I’d find something to enjoy about them.

[Mr Creosote]

#5163

Could anyone help me with the chasm? According to the Internet™, I’m supposed to simply walk across an invisibile path, but moving Penelope all the way down the screen and then right still has me falling. What is the right position?

[Mike]

#5164

You have to be extremely close to the chasm and then walk all the way down. It’s a very small bridge and you would never know to try this and even if you guessed it there’s roughly a 90% chance it wouldn’t work when you tried it.

[Mr Creosote]

#5167

Phew… that was tough. I had to inch pixel by pixel, and even then fell more than a dozen times. Thanks for the reassurance I was on the right way!

Anyway, overall, this one almost got me at the end. I really like those classic country house murder mysteries. Though what are we forced to sit through in this game? It is hardly thematically appropriate. The only two puzzles which were sort of good were the ones where you had to observe some evidence after distracting someone else. I also liked the joke with the cook and the bloody knife (as well as punching the riddling old man).

But those few good moments were not really worth all this impertinence the game put me through otherwise. I don’t even mind a maze if well done, but if I don’t even know what I’m looking for in there (and how many objects), it’s truly stupid. Yes, it’s longer, but for all the wrong reasons.

[Mr Creosote]

#5371

Re. the newspaper/keyhole puzzle mentioned in the podcast: maybe David simply read Kalle Blomkvist? Given the overall abundance of references to European pop culture in these games, it doesn’t seem unlikely.