What vaporware game are you most looking forward to?

[Black Tiger]

Sure, but did they have to steal their "humor" from Saturday Night Live?

This is a first, people actually defending Working Designs?  The world must be coming to an end, just like the Working Designs company did because they couldn't make enough money due to all of their burnt bridges.

I'm surprised that this is the first time you've encountered this. Working Designs are untouchable around here.

Now before I'm shunned from the Turbo community, I haven't actually questioned anything WD has ever done yet.

But instead of quitting while I'm ahead ( )I'll just say that I too did not appreciate the Hanz 'n Franz character in Popful Mail and that that was the breaking point when I began skipping through the dialogue entirely.

Working Designs was actually a good decade ahead of their time, because although cartoons didn't sound anything like that back then, now every CGI family film, whether starring forest animals or penguins in Antarctica, is all about gettin' jiggy with the hip poppin' fresh culture references.

Except of course Working Designs' at the time were older than the average player of their games.

I'll take this last opportunity to apologize for my blasphemy before the agents break down my door. 

[Hobo Xiphas]

Anyone who enjoys Working Designs' humor needs to have their head examined.  A lot of their jokes were passable when their games were new, but they haven't aged well at all.  I cringe at the Christy Love reference everytime I see it in Dragon Force. 

I don't hate Working Designs, if they didn't exist, then I wouldn't have been able to play some of my favorite games of all time.  But honestly, their humor sucks.  As does their localization for certain games - Shining Widsom being the most attrocious example that I've run across.

[Joe Redifer]

And is Lunar 2 really the most appropriate place to bash Bill Clinton?  Why would anyone on Lunar even know who Clinton is?  It makes no sense.  I bet Victor Ireland has ringworms in his anus.

The issue here isn't whether Popful Mail is cartoony and thus justified, it's that pretty much ALL of Working Designs' games are like this, serious like Lunar/Dragon Force or cartoony like Popful Mail and, umm, that's it.  They all have the same "humor" and lame references to pop culture.  CGI movies these days suck, unless they're from Pixar.  And they only get about every other movie they make right.

[KingDrool]

I voted Neutopia III.  I'm a huge fan of the originals, so I'm dying to play this one.  However, I'm still really looking forward to the other games like PC Gunjin, Xymati, and Mysterious Song.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm eagerly awaiting the long delayed Nintendo e-reader series! Game and Watch, and the Mario 3 series 3 and 4! They are going to kick ass!

[GUTS]

Well I guess I need my head examined, I always enjoyed their humor.  They were capable of some damned fine serious translations too when the game called for it, like Growlanser 2 & 3, Arc the Lad, and Alundra (some jokes in there too, but overall a very serious game).  Sure some of their jokes missed, but I always felt their characters were always very well written and the jokes were in appropriate places, for example the clinton joke in Lunar 2 is some random NPC that you have to talk to twice to even get him to say it so you actually have to go out of your way to see it.

Personally I miss them, I always looked forward to their releases and really enjoyed their writing.  They're one of the few companies where I can't sell off their games because of the good memories attached to them.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Ditto!

[Black Tiger]

Well I guess I need my head examined, I always enjoyed their humor.  They were capable of some damned fine serious translations too when the game called for it, like Growlanser 2 & 3, Arc the Lad, and Alundra (some jokes in there too, but overall a very serious game).  Sure some of their jokes missed, but I always felt their characters were always very well written and the jokes were in appropriate places, for example the clinton joke in Lunar 2 is some random NPC that you have to talk to twice to even get him to say it so you actually have to go out of your way to see it.

Personally I miss them, I always looked forward to their releases and really enjoyed their writing.  They're one of the few companies where I can't sell off their games because of the good memories attached to them.

They were capable of some damned fine serious translations/writing, which is why it was disappointing when some of their titles that deserved such got the poo poo humour treatment.

Cosmic Fantasy 2 was perfectly balanced with wacky humour and from what I remember, Exile had an awesome dark dramatic plot that complemented that game.

I don't remember too many specifics after that, but I do remember being disappointed whenever a game I was enjoying got tainted with occasional lowbrow jokey/cheezy comment("The world is my oyster!!!") in the main dialogue(random npc's can say anything as far as I'm concerned, even swipes at U.S. Democats ).

But even in the worst cases, the games were enjoyable overall and I'm glad that Working Designs was around to bring so many fun titles over here and I'll always be a WD fan.

It's just crazy how at some places online people won't accept a single less than positive comment about them in any specific way, let alone in general. Plus the fact that zealous WD fans aren't content to simply say that they appreciate the writing, but insist that it's all genius. I can't think of any other publisher that I've seen fans of react to potential criticism in the same way.

I guess its the underdog syndrome, like Turbo fans that defend the TG-16/PCE so rabidly, even in the face of obvious ignorance.

[Keranu]

I agree with GUTS on this. And also, dated humor or not, I still feel it's a helluva lot more entertaining than the typical NPC conversations. I could give a crap less about the nearest inn, I'd rather hear old Clinton jokes or even better, Guy Kazama refrences.

[Joe Redifer]

Dude, if WD games were laced with Guy Kazama references they'd still be in business, for sure.  And RICH!

[Black Tiger]

I agree with GUTS on this. And also, dated humor or not, I still feel it's a helluva lot more entertaining than the typical NPC conversations. I could give a crap less about the nearest inn, I'd rather hear old Clinton jokes or even better, Guy Kazama refrences.

At least Clinton jokes are jokes, where as many NPC's just spout jingles like "Where's the beef?" and "Calgon take me away" like bad season 4+ Family Guy.

Speaking of Family Guy, the dated pop culture references reminded me of the episode when Stewie was in acting class and the girl says "You are the weakest link goodbye". 

If Working Designs was still around, by the time their next release made it out, it'd be filled woodsman and pixies spouting one liners like "Not gonna catch me ridin' dirty", "Seacrest out", "Kitchen Fresh Chicken" and "Deal or no deal".

[Joe Redifer]

Those lines are too new.  Remember, all WD games are delayed substantially.  So if a new WD came out on Tuesday, it'd have lines like "Phone a friend" and fantastic humor about George W. Bush choking on a pretzel. 

[Black Tiger]

Those lines are too new.  Remember, all WD games are delayed substantially.  So if a new WD came out on Tuesday, it'd have lines like "Phone a friend" and fantastic humor about George W. Bush choking on a pretzel. 

That's why I said "by the time their next release made it out." 

[FM-77]

Neutopia 3 WILL have odd and hard-to-find content in it, that's for sure. Whatever it will be is a secret, but it will be there. Ha ha!

[Bonknuts]

TongueMan's Logic is not on that list?