Adventure Gaming Catch-All

I, too, love the Broken Sword series, particularly the first two. I can't believe that the DS version dropped the voiceovers - a huge part of the charm was the excellent voice acting, particularly the lead characters.

This is a good project, Minarchist. A lot of the items in your list are games I never got around to playing. I hope that 'backward compatibility' will be better in Windows 7 than it is in Vista. And of course that I can find some of these games!

Started the process of getting some purchase links up there. A couple of the vendors may look a little sketchy—justadventure.com looks like it was designed by a 12-year-old—but I've ordered from them before, they're all legit. If anyone has any leads on some of the older games, particularly at the top of the list, I'd appreciate the info.

Minarchist wrote:

Started the process of getting some purchase links up there. A couple of the vendors may look a little sketchy—justadventure.com looks like it was designed by a 12-year-old—but I've ordered from them before, they're all legit.

Haven't bought anything from justadventure.com but the site itself is pretty good (in terms of content at least - the site itself is in DIRE need of being updated). That and adventuregamers.com are the first two places I check for the latest adventure game stuff.

If anyone has any leads on some of the older games, particularly at the top of the list, I'd appreciate the info.

Apparently rumour has it that Secret of Monkey Island will be out on Xbox Live around E3 time.
and of course Fate of Atlantis is supposed to be an extra in the Wii version of the up-coming Indy game.

Whoa, great thread, I'm a huge fan of adventure games, even these obscure ones. Minarchist, while you're adding links to shops, would you mind adding some release dates and graphics style next to the less-known titles? I'd like to help but I don't know most of these games.

I think Quest for Glory II should be on the must plays... It was absolutely one of the most formative games I played in the early 90s, and the way it blends RPG and adventure elements was unique for its time. Very fun game, and available for free in remake form.

Does Star Control 2 count?

I just realized you don't have Bladerunner on the list. Easily my favorite adventure game ever.

Tamren wrote:

Does Star Control 2 count?

I think we can safely keep Star Control 2 off the list, as great as it might be. There may be some adventure-y elements, but it sits safely astride other genres.

duckilama wrote:

I just realized you don't have Bladerunner on the list. Easily my favorite adventure game ever.

I was just going to recommend this too. It really captured the feel of the film and I really liked the randomised element to the game that meant the path through was never exactly the same and there were numerous endings. It wasn't perfect, the puzzles weren't the best in the world but I'd definitely put it at highly recommended.

I also noticed that although you've got Discworld Noir on the list you are missing Discworld and Discworld 2 (Missing Presumed...!?). Both of these were among my favourite adventure games, very funny, great voice acting and great puzzles (although the first was certainly more challenging, for better or worse). I'm a big fan of the books which might have made me enjoy the games more than usual but even without that I feel they stand up as great adventure games.

One game I've been playing recently is Ceville. It's a new adventure game and doesn't do anything particularly unique but I'm really enjoying it. I'll admit the humour right up my British jacksy but any game that has a sly reference to Chuck Norris within the first 5 hours get my vote.
It's on Steam with a demo and has a cheaper box release out in the UK- not sure about you good North American folk though.

Just picked up Tunguska and its sequel - Puritas Cordis for the DS yesterday, so I'll see if its up to Broken Sword standards.

Thowky wrote:
duckilama wrote:

I just realized you don't have Bladerunner on the list. Easily my favorite adventure game ever.

I was just going to recommend this too. It really captured the feel of the film and I really liked the randomised element to the game that meant the path through was never exactly the same and there were numerous endings. It wasn't perfect, the puzzles weren't the best in the world but I'd definitely put it at highly recommended.

The Bladerunner game was excellent (and a member of that most exclusive of clubs "Movie Tie-in Games that Don't Suck").

I also noticed that although you've got Discworld Noir on the list you are missing Discworld and Discworld 2 (Missing Presumed...!?). Both of these were among my favourite adventure games, very funny, great voice acting and great puzzles (although the first was certainly more challenging, for better or worse). I'm a big fan of the books which might have made me enjoy the games more than usual but even without that I feel they stand up as great adventure games.

Personally I wasn't a huge fan of the first Discworld games. They seemed like too much of a random selection of discworld references all jammed together for the sake of getting in as many references as possible. Noir was MUCH more cohesive (and , shamefully, yet another adventure game I haven't finished).

Right, that does it...putting a couple of adventure games on next months Pile of Shame I think.

stevenmack wrote:

Personally I wasn't a huge fan of the first Discworld games. They seemed like too much of a random selection of discworld references all jammed together for the sake of getting in as many references as possible. Noir was MUCH more cohesive (and , shamefully, yet another adventure game I haven't finished).

Right, that does it...putting a couple of adventure games on next months Pile of Shame I think.

I can certainly understand that but the feel of what they created just worked for me and I thought the art style fitted perfectly with the books. The voice actors (Eric Idle, Jon Pertwee and Tony Robinson in particular) also seemed to fit the characters far better than any of the TV adaptations/animated films they've done since.

I did enjoy Discworld Noir quite a bit too though, it just never completely felt like Discworld to me, the characters and dialogue all seemed a little bit off somehow. It's also on my list of adventure games I haven't finished as I lost my save files just as I was getting towards the end of the game.

The Discworld game I spent most time with though was Discworld MUD which literally took months of my life when I was in college... Not really an adventure game but I probably spent more time there trying to figure out quests than in every other adventure game I've played combined.

Ok, here's my problem. I love adventure games. But point and click is just a pain. I've gotten over it for a few awesome games (Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango come to mind.). However, games like Psychonauts are much more my speed.

With that in mind, any recommendations?

PS: Secret of Monkey Island on Xbox? That's a must buy, hands down.

Kannon wrote:

Ok, here's my problem. I love adventure games. But point and click is just a pain. I've gotten over it for a few awesome games (Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango come to mind.). However, games like Psychonauts are much more my speed.

With that in mind, any recommendations?

PS: Secret of Monkey Island on Xbox? That's a must buy, hands down.

I still haven't played it (been on my pile for years now) but I think Dreamfall is done more like an adventure game than point and click (hopefully someone can confirm this for me).

Thowky wrote:
Kannon wrote:

Ok, here's my problem. I love adventure games. But point and click is just a pain. I've gotten over it for a few awesome games (Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango come to mind.). However, games like Psychonauts are much more my speed.

With that in mind, any recommendations?

PS: Secret of Monkey Island on Xbox? That's a must buy, hands down.

I still haven't played it (been on my pile for years now) but I think Dreamfall is done more like an adventure game than point and click (hopefully someone can confirm this for me).

No its still very much a point n' click type game in terms of style but with some really annoying (and rubbish) combat sequences thrown in. The puzzles aren't all that great either so the main reason to play it would be for the continuation of the story from TLJ (and I would suggest that you need to play TLJ first to get the most out of the story).

And is the story any good? I remember this game got very mixed reviews when it came out.

Yeah I think so. The focus is shifted to a completely different character to the first game which I wasn't too sure about but I like what they did with it. There's literally not much actual game there though, which is where a lot of the mixed reviews were coming from I think.

Fair enough. I loved The Longest Journey so I'll still play it regardless, it's just most of the reviews I read that seemed to suggest it was somewhere between an action adventure and a point and click game. It sounds more like the later Broken Sword games now which didn't work particularly well either.

I must admit I'm struggling to think of a game like Psychonauts that captures the same feel as a point and click game. The closest I can think of is Beyond Good and Evil which isn't really what you are after.

Another game now one the list which I enjoyed (but never got that far in) is KGB which was also released as Conspiracy (not related to Conspiracies on your list).

This game had a feel that was completely different to most adventure games in that you could die and had a real-time clock that meant you had to be at specific places at specific times. It's a very tough game and I'm not sure how easy it is to get hold of now but I had a lot of fun with it at the time.

Thowky wrote:

The Discworld game I spent most time with though was Discworld MUD which literally took months of my life when I was in college... Not really an adventure game but I probably spent more time there trying to figure out quests than in every other adventure game I've played combined.

Amen to that. Between all my characters I spent easily a year of my life there - that's a year in time played... Even WoW has yet to top that. I even became Creator for a while! I haven't been on there in years mind, but the time I spent there was a lot of fun.

Rallick wrote:

Amen to that. Between all my characters I spent easily a year of my life there - that's a year in time played... Even WoW has yet to top that. I even became Creator for a while! I haven't been on there in years mind, but the time I spent there was a lot of fun.

Sounds the same as me, although I didn't last long as a Creator as real-life stuff started getting in the way and it was around that time that I quit. I was really deeply into it at the time though, spending every lunch on the computer and racking up massive phone bills as you still had to pay per minute at the time. I even attended one of the yearly meetups they held.

I hadn't logged on in years either but ended up having a look today out of curiosity and immediately got awarded 100 achievements, I guess every game has to have them now

I'd love to play more of those Must-Plays....but I'd be more inclined to do so if they were available via DD. Amazon.ca is a pale shadow of it's southern counterpart, and DD purchases are just so much easier to pull the trigger on. GOG really needs to get this list, stat.
I still need to beat Myst, and would love to start there. Where can I download it?

Also - wasn't Grim Fandango a "move with the keyboard" rather than a point-and-click? That really pissed me off.

What about Toonstruck? It had Christopher Lloyd for crying out loud!

Also, it's the only adventure game I ever finished. I only had to look at the walkthrough 3 times!

dejanzie wrote:

What about Toonstruck? It had Christopher Lloyd for crying out loud!

Don't forget the S&M cow. Oh man, that game was hilarious!
We had a save that we preserved just so we could see the cow any time we wanted.

UCRC wrote:

And is the story any good? I remember this game got very mixed reviews when it came out.

The story to Dreamfall is very very good, it's just unfinished. Calling the ending a cliffhanger is being generous.

Thanks all, made several updates and additions.

Switchbreak wrote:
UCRC wrote:

And is the story any good? I remember this game got very mixed reviews when it came out.

The story to Dreamfall is very very good, it's just unfinished. Calling the ending a cliffhanger is being generous.

Yeah. Definitely worth playing (thankfully there aren't that many of the horrible combat sequences), but once you do you'll see why I was pissed when I heard the announcement Ragnor Tornquist was working on an MMO instead of the 3rd piece of the trilogy.

duckilama wrote:
dejanzie wrote:

What about Toonstruck? It had Christopher Lloyd for crying out loud!

Don't forget the S&M cow. Oh man, that game was hilarious!
We had a save that we preserved just so we could see the cow any time we wanted.

Ah yes, that was a good one. Added to "Highly Recommended", and there are used copies on Amazon for under $10.

Dysplastic wrote:

I'd love to play more of those Must-Plays....but I'd be more inclined to do so if they were available via DD. Amazon.ca is a pale shadow of it's southern counterpart, and DD purchases are just so much easier to pull the trigger on. GOG really needs to get this list, stat.
I still need to beat Myst, and would love to start there. Where can I download it?

Also - wasn't Grim Fandango a "move with the keyboard" rather than a point-and-click? That really pissed me off.

The one publisher we really need to get on board is LucasArts...but good luck. They monopolize the top of the list with the old Grossman/Schaffer games. DDs would be nice for them, since they were all so small. I own 'em all and have gotten them to work quite well on SCUMMVM, but it's frustrating to rave about a game only to stare dumbfounded when your friend asks where he can pick it up.

As far as Myst goes, if you have an iPhone it's actually in the app store for $5.99. Not quite the same, probably, but it's there.

I'm with stevenmack on the earlier discworld games...I'd need some corroboration from someone else to add them.

Fair enough on the Discworld games, must admit I'm a bit surprised about the dislike of these though, I always remember them being well received at the time. I remember Discworld Noir getting quite a few bad reviews when it was released due to comparisons with the earlier games.

Thowky wrote:

Fair enough on the Discworld games, must admit I'm a bit surprised about the dislike of these though, I always remember them being well received at the time. I remember Discworld Noir getting quite a few bad reviews when it was released due to comparisons with the earlier games.

I'm more than happy to put them up there, just get someone else to agree first (or create an alt and second the motion )

Made a couple more edits and added publication years for all games in the top two categories; hope to get to the "solid" category tomorrow.

Minarchist wrote:

Made a couple more edits and added publication years for all games in the top two categories; hope to get to the "solid" category tomorrow.

Wow, many thanks.

Great thread. Adventure gaming is the genre that got me into PC gaming back when I was a kid, and I really miss that golden age of gaming. [/i]I played all of the major adventure titles - they were really the only things I ever asked for as gifts. Not sure if anyone else was into it, but I really enjoyed Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist back in the day, and I didn't see it on the list anywhere. It was made by Al Lowe for Sierra and is hilarious. An unpopular but fun Sierra title was Codename: Iceman, designed by Jim Walls of Police Quest fame. The submarine simulator really sucked but the rest of the game was great. I also really enjoyed the Manhunter series.