April 17th - 22nd
Once upon a time, there was a genre that dominated computer gaming, and described its greatest titles across a broad and imaginitive spectrum. This genre was the leader in both graphical advances and creative imagining for a fledgling industry. It was envisioned and perfected by companies like Sierra, LucasArts, and Infocom, and encompassed such incredible franchises as Zork, Sam and Max, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Enchanter, Monkey Island, and Grim Fandango. It was a genre that reached a zenith of popularity with Myst, and then, quite suddenly, it was all over. Now, there are only remnants, occasional reminders of a great and powerful collection of classics that guided computer gaming through its earliest days. Dreamfall, sequel to 1999's outstanding The Longest Journey, looks to be a brief reminder of long dead days.
This week on DVD ... um ... Thundercats: Season 2! Nothing else of note. Link!
PC:
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (04/17)
Final Fantasy XI Online: Treasures of Aht Urhgan (04/18)
Take Command 2nd Manassas (04/18)
Ultimate Flight Collection (04/18)
XBOX360:
Final Fantasy XI (04/18)
PS2:
Final Fantasy XI Online: Treasures of Aht Urhgan (04/18)
Jampack Volume 14 (04/18)
Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift (04/18)
Franklin: A Birthday Surprise (04/18)
DS:
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes A Day (04/17)
PSP:
World Poker Tour (04/17)
Puzzle Challenge: Crosswords & More! (04/18)
WRC: FIA World Rally Championship (04/18)
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"Ultimate Flight Collection" wins it for me. $19.99, I'd be all over it in a second if I didn't already own two of the 3 flight sims.
Steam: Druidpeak
Teehee, he said a bum word.
(it's not like there's anything cool coming out this week to talk about, so I had to go with the hiney humor)
muttonchop wrote:
I must find this gem of "The Longest Journey", that for some reason escaped my radar. I thought the last good adventure games were Syberia I and II.
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
I can't decide if that Dreamfall cover is slightly exploitative or merely catty. The main character is still cool, but they took her a step towards Lara Croft.
"Once you can accept the universe is matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." -- Albert Einstein
and Brain Age, the grandmother can smirk at me no more. Video games have captured its first large size "older" audience, meaning our parents and possibly grandparents. In Japan, anyway.
"Once you can accept the universe is matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." -- Albert Einstein
Damn, Dreamfall is coming. I hope the writing is just as good as the last one. It could be a game to remember for a while.
I'm definitely looking forward to Dreamfall.
The Longest Journey preceded these. And if you love adventure games, do what you can to find a copy. It did everything right within the limits of the genre. Great storyline, logical puzzles, and an atmosphere which just seems to ooze, in a good way. I recently replayed it, and it's like rereading one of your favourite books. You keep noticing new things.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe the character in the foreground is Zoe Castillo. April would be in the background, on the left.
Cerebri Music - Play. Rewind. Repeat.
Twitter | Xbox Live: dhaelis | PSN: dhaelis
In the PC section, Spellfoce 2 is also out.
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
This is just my weekly message that I miss adventure games something fierce.
...That is all.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. "” Samuel Beckett
Vrikk, The Longest Journey is my single favorite PC game. And, whether I like it or not, I've been around a lot of years now, and I've seen a lot of games float by under the bridge. TLJ did nearly everything right... good graphics, great dialogue, world-class voice acting, and a LONG plot that just didn't quit. The further you went, the better it got. I saw someone here criticize the ending as 'abrupt', but I thought it was absolutely perfect, exactly what was needed.
My only real complaint was that some of the puzzles were damn difficult. Fortunately, the game is so long that even if you crack out a walkthrough when you get stuck, you'll still get great heapings of gaming goodness. The hardest puzzles happen fairly early in the story, and I think it's a deep shame that some folks were put off and didn't see the whole thing.
Even the mighty Grim Fandango wasn't quite as good as TLJ. Grim had style and humor; TLJ has power.
You can still order a 2-CD version of the game from the official website. The original came on 4 CDs, but I gather they're using better compression now. (That's why they mention it having only two CDs when you order it... for people like me that remember it should have four
)
I highly doubt I'll like this game better than the first one... that hardly seems possible. But if it's even half as good, it'll still be miles better than 99.9999% of the shovelware these days.
Staats wrote:
Looks like more Oblivion for me...
Xbox Live: Nei HD | Playstation ID: Nei_GWJ
Is there a Grim Fandango that will work on modern PCs with win2k pro?
XBL
Jonman wrote:
Modern PC and Win2K should not be in the same sentence
WOW: Moan, Bounce, Bouncee, Bounced, Moans, Rackage, Knockers (Horde)
Heh, TLJ protagonists do tend to walk around in their underwear at least once during the game.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
My 50+ day uptimes at home and work beg to differ.
XBL
Jonman wrote:
Is it worth picking up TLJ and Dreamfall?
Xbox Live: Nei HD | Playstation ID: Nei_GWJ
TLJ is definitely worth picking up. I can't speak about Dreamfall.
My only complaint with TLJ was that it lost steam about 80% of the way through. It was still one of the best adventure games ever.
Xbox Live: hubbinsd
Same here, except that I've finally opened the door for Suikoden 5, and it is now dominating my life in a similar manner.
XBL/PSN: zeroKFE | BHA: zeroKFE
What caused the game to go south? Gameplay, story, a little bit of both...
Xbox Live: Nei HD | Playstation ID: Nei_GWJ
Dreamfall + Oblivion = really need a new computer
It's times like these when my cheap-gamerness is really hard to sustain. I once tried playing the TLJ demo on my laptop, but it just laughed at me =(.
It's been a while, so I can't put my finger on exactly what it was. Though if I recall, I felt that the story sort of stalled for a while before the big payoff at the end. Without getting into spoilers, I think I was excited by the sense of mystery and dread in the early game, and once a lot of the mysteries were explained the story became a bit more generic. It wasn't enough to ruin the game by any means, but in the absence of an engaging and dynamic storyline and adventure game starts to get boring quickly. But this is a small complaint -it is a great game.
Xbox Live: hubbinsd
About time Funcom. What took you guys so long?
"Faggodouchehole." - Rickyyo
I was the one who went on record saying that it ended too abruptly. I've thought more about this, and here's where my problem starts (MAJOR, game ending spoilers follow)
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
IGN has a review up and says the ending of Dreamfall blows.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/702/702002p1.html
Does any game ever have a good ending?
I'm bringing sexy back!