Raven10

@chloexox: I haven’t played them myself, but The Learning Company released a series of games featuring Reader Rabbit on PC in the early 2000s. I’m on my phone so I can’t hyperlink to it, but we have a page for him and all the games he is in.

So I didn’t read every comment before posting, so sorry if I am repeating things, but the second half of this game sucked. The story goes from mediocre to rubbish nonsense with shocking reveals that have no narrative payoff and make no real sense. I’m not opposed to incredibly disturbing stories. But this one literally makes no sense based on the context and doesn’t have any emotional or narrative weight. Meanwhile, I literally just stumbled onto the final ending. I don’t even know what the requirements are to reach it. It felt cheap. Again a synthetic twist that doesn’t use all of the mechanics up to that point and instead is the result of an out of left field mechanic that was never used before that moment.

So the first half of the game? Okay. Not great but okay. The second half is just awful.

@topcyclist: That is a tough one. Flashback comes to mind. If it isn’t Flashback, would you say the character animation was similar in the game you described?

@jaqen_hghar: So I was looking at some of the more recent requests, and it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't thinking outside of the box enough. After all, you can't have direct control of a character in a solely FMV game, especially not in third person. So that got me wondering if it could have been a game with FMV cutscenes alongside traditional gameplay. But even with that thought, I couldn't find anything that seemed to fit your description. But then I came upon this video on Youtube. It doesn't exactly fit your memory but I could see how it could be it. The skinny ship is kind of like a hoverboard, the tunnel filled with enemy ships could be the cars, the space setting is very dark.

I have enjoyed some of the GRID games, and a dumb story mode could be a fun addition to what has at times felt like a pretty dry presentation, especially compared to Dirt.

@jaqen_hghar: Sorry for taking so long to respond, I was on vacation. Could it have been one of the Tex Murphy games by any chance? They are FMV murder mysteries so that would fit that portion of your memory. And I've not ever played any of them, so one of them could have an early level like what you described.

@jaqen_hghar: Do you remember anything about the setting? When you said Hoverboard I immediately thought of Burn Cycle, another early CD-i game that involves hover cars. But it is played from the first person perspective as far as I can tell, although different parts of the game took the form of different mini games, which is why I wanted to look into it more before saying anything. I haven't been able to find a specific sequence with you controlling the character in third person, but I also can't think of any other game that fits the bill. There were only 60 games or so released for the CD-i and I've seen most of them played. There are some quite rare titles that were never officially released or only released in specific territories, and it might be one of those, but Burn Cycle was one of the marquee titles for the system and is something almost anyone who had a CD-i would have played, and certainly would be the game I would expect someone who wanted to demo the system would select to play.

@chaser324: @judaspete: This game is being developing the team behind the recent, excellent, WRC games. I’m not going to tell you they are on the same level as Playground or Codemasters, but they are very highly regarded in the Rally world and have been making racing games for nearly 10 years, none of which were bad. So not sure where this talk is coming from.

@jaqen_hghar: So the Golf game could be ABC Presents The Palm Springs Open, which was a launch game for the CD-I in Europe. This would have been in 1991. I am working on the game you are trying to remember, but if that is the golf game then you are looking for a CD-I game from 1991 or 1992. There are under 20 such games in existence, so you could probably just watch footage from all of them until you find it.

@gla55jaw: I would say the combat is more than decent. It’s maybe the best combat in a real time RPG ever. As others have said, there are dozens of hours of side quests in KoA, and that is not counting the huge expansions. I 100% beat the base game. The combat is just a joy even after 100+ hours. And also as others have said, it is easy to respec at any time so you are never locked into any one class. Also, Salvatore also wrote KoA, so if you are a fan of his you will likely appreciate the story.