Adventure Gaming Catch-All

Subscribed; not playing any adventure games right now, but I've got the Telltale Monkey Island sitting on my to-do list.

Latrine wrote:

By the way, has no one else been playing Sam and Max: The Devil's Toybox?

It's on my to-do list, but I haven't actually made it there. I know Tannhauser has played through them, but he's too cool to post in this forum. I'm still working knocking out Runaway 3; Mass Effect 2 has sort of stolen my time. That, and a promotion that requires much more travel.

By the way, since we've had a few newcomers to the thread, I'd like to point out that the three free games mentioned in the OP are still free. They aren't necessarily the best examples of the genre, but they aren't bad, and hey, the price is right! Beneath a Steel Sky is the best of the bunch, and is in the Highly Recommended section. The Goat in the Grey Fedora (flash game) and The White Room are the other two, in the Solid category. If you're looking for a psychological horror style of game, the latter is a good bet. And free!

Sam & Max is on my to-do list as well, but I've found that I prefer playing Telltale games closely together instead of one per month. Since three episodes are now out, I may take a look at playing them before waiting on episodes 4 and 5. That might be the right amount to prevent burnout.

Just finished the Strongbad series a few days ago. It starts VERY weakly IMO, but ramps up very well with each new episode. Four and Five were very good. Overall I'd recommend it as "Solid Adventuring" - exactly where I'd put the Wallace & Gromit series as well.

I recently spent a bit of time on the ScummVM page, and found that it features free versions of Lure of the Temptress, Flight of the Amazon Queen, and something called Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back. I've read that the first two are supposedly pretty decent, although I don't see them on the list above.

http://scummvm.org/downloads/

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Lure of the Temptress

Also free via GOG.

If you pre-order the special edition of Monkey Island 2 on Steam, you can get the first one for free! Or re-gift it if (like me) you already bought the first. The first was a great re-skin of the original game, and the ability to switch on the fly between graphical styles was quite neat. I have high hopes for the second.

I just finished Gabriel Knight 1 last night. Boy, does it get tedious toward the end. A print-out of the walkthrough kept me from rage-quitting in the last couple days of the game. The ending was REALLY weak, too. Cheesy to the max!

Minarchist wrote:

If you pre-order the special edition of Monkey Island 2 on Steam, you can get the first one for free! Or re-gift it if (like me) you already bought the first. The first was a great re-skin of the original game, and the ability to switch on the fly between graphical styles was quite neat. I have high hopes for the second.

I completely agree! It was a wonderful remake of a childhood fav. I look forward to new one.

Just wanted to point out that The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time is now available over at GoG for $5.99. Worth picking up if you haven't played it.

Ok fellow adventure gamers, I've got a bone to pick. I just finished Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and thought it was terrible. I'll always be a Sierra > Lucasarts guy, but I'm not totally averse to Lucas: I loved The Dig and Day of the Tentacle, and very much enjoyed Secret of Monkey Island. But this Indiana Jones game rubbed me in all the wrong ways.

The puzzles were not great. Some were just mindless and repetitive (Algiers), some involved deciphering some graphic on the screen that's impossible to see properly (the end in Atlantis, a few times), and too many (also in Atlantis) involved going back and picking up some item you used but forgot to re-pick up because there was no indication you would need it again. The voice acting sucked, the characters were bland and annoying, the jokes were not funny. The plot was barren as hell, and Atlantis itself (the whole point of the game) had all the personality of the Catacombs from KQ6 - less, as a large chunk of it was spent on an overhead map.

Am I the only one who didn't like this game? Maybe it's just that Indiana Jones as a character doesn't do much for me...but even then, the Jones in this game didn't really do anything cool or awesome to live up to his namesake.

Either way, I was going to play Loom as my next adventure game but I'm taking a break from LucasArts now. Ben There, Dan That is coming up. I know those guys are at least good for a chuckle.

Dysplastic wrote:

Ok fellow adventure gamers, I've got a bone to pick. I just finished Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and thought it was terrible. I'll always be a Sierra > Lucasarts guy, but I'm not totally averse to Lucas: I loved The Dig and Day of the Tentacle, and very much enjoyed Secret of Monkey Island. But this Indiana Jones game rubbed me in all the wrong ways.

I want to disagree and say I loved it but i'd really need to go back and play it again to decide properly (haven't played it properly since the non-voiced Amiga version). I DO have it on steam though and keep meaning to go back and give it another run through (one point I will definately agree on - the voice acting is terrible. I'll probably have to switch that off if I can).

I still hold The Dig as the finest thing they've every done though, even though a lot of people probably disagree (for some bizarre reason).

Also worth noting here: Episode 1 of "The Silver Lining" is out now (the unnoficial KQ sequel). Downloaded and installed but haven't tried it yet. http://www.tsl-game.com/

This may have been mentioned above (haven't checked this thread in a while) but for those interested there is also an ongoing retrospective of the Kings Quest series over at GOG of all places...

http://www.gog.com/en/editorial/from_monochrome_to_monarchy_kings_quest_history_pt_1/
http://www.gog.com/en/editorial/from_monochrome_to_monarchy_kings_quest_history_pt_2/
http://www.gog.com/en/editorial/from_monochrome_to_monarchy_kings_quest_history_pt_3/

An interesting read.

Dysplastic wrote:

Ok fellow adventure gamers, I've got a bone to pick. I just finished Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and thought it was terrible. I'll always be a Sierra > Lucasarts guy, but I'm not totally averse to Lucas: I loved The Dig and Day of the Tentacle, and very much enjoyed Secret of Monkey Island. But this Indiana Jones game rubbed me in all the wrong ways.

The puzzles were not great. Some were just mindless and repetitive (Algiers), some involved deciphering some graphic on the screen that's impossible to see properly (the end in Atlantis, a few times), and too many (also in Atlantis) involved going back and picking up some item you used but forgot to re-pick up because there was no indication you would need it again. The voice acting sucked, the characters were bland and annoying, the jokes were not funny. The plot was barren as hell, and Atlantis itself (the whole point of the game) had all the personality of the Catacombs from KQ6 - less, as a large chunk of it was spent on an overhead map.

Am I the only one who didn't like this game? Maybe it's just that Indiana Jones as a character doesn't do much for me...but even then, the Jones in this game didn't really do anything cool or awesome to live up to his namesake.

Either way, I was going to play Loom as my next adventure game but I'm taking a break from LucasArts now. Ben There, Dan That is coming up. I know those guys are at least good for a chuckle.

I grew up playing the non-voiced version, and went back to play the voiced version a few years ago; it definitely loses something, having not Harrison Ford doing Indy's voice.

Dysplastic wrote:

...and too many (also in Atlantis) involved going back and picking up some item you used but forgot to re-pick up because there was no indication you would need it again.

Humm...I played it for the first time a few months ago and thought it was pretty decent overall, albeit a tad short. I fully agree with your above point however - that had me stuck more than once, and made me giggle a bit when a similar situation came up in Ben There Dan That! came up, but was handled completely differently.

I'm almost done with BTDT! now, but I do have a criticism or two about an otherwise good free game - the walking animation isn't just "graphically inferior," but rather its downright uncomforable for me to look at. Secondly, although its usually funny, it's also a too long-winded. Give me a long exchange every once in a while, but not for what sometimes seems like 2/3 of all interactions in a room.

Edit: Speaking of Ben There Dan That!, why isn't it nor Time Gentlement, Please! anywhere in the op?

Dysplastic, I'm kind of in the same boat as Steven. I remember really enjoying it ("it" being the un-voiced version), but it's been a very long time. LucasArts games always had some pretty stupid quirks, back in the day.

Also worth noting here: Episode 1 of "The Silver Lining" is out now (the unnoficial KQ sequel). Downloaded and installed but haven't tried it yet. http://www.tsl-game.com/

Awesome! I tracked that for years back in college, but last I had heard they got shut down due to copyright violation reasons. Glad to see they're back up and running! I'll definitely check it out.

I've been meaning to update the upcoming section for a while, but have had trouble finding time with so much travel. I'll see if I can get to it Thursday before I head out of town (yet) again. There are several nice new games out that we haven't had a chance to discuss.

I've recently been playing through the LucasArts adventure pack on Steam (Loom, The Dig, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis). So far, I've really loved The Dig but haven't been fond of Loom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for a lot of the same reasons Dyplastic mentioned. I'll admit that my enthusiasm for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, not really that strong to begin with, has taken a bit of a dive.

I played Atlantis as a kid, loved it, with voices. I'm sure I could play through it again, but I doubt it would have the same appeal that it did.

BTW, The Silver Lining? KQ from the fans? Awesome, thanks for that! I had no idea that was being made.

I loved Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at the time but I imagine it would hold up about as well as Atlantis these days thanks to the fights (I still remember spending almost an hour replaying the fight with the Zeppelin attendant to get past it and it wasn't fun at the time). It's one of those games that I know is best left to nostalgia but still keep feeling tempted to replay. I didn't watch the films until after I played the games though so maybe this also affected my impressions of them at the time.

I played The Last Crusade again after it was released on Steam. It was a a lot shorter than I remembered, but it's a few years older than Atlantis even. The combat was a little frustrating, but the comedy in it was still funny, and I enjoyed it.

"I'll be back in a jiffy!"

I finally got around to installing my purchase from the big Adventure Shop sale: Sherlock Holmes Mystery of the Persian Carpet... and the first thing it wants to install is TAGES drivers. Argh! I don't want that on my system, especially since this was released around the time when the TAGES drivers were particularly nasty... I wish they had mentioned that on the page somewhere before I purchased...

OK, this one looks pretty cool...

IMAGE(http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/10/july/tdm2.jpg)

The Dream Machine (also blog for it here )

A flash adventure game made entirely out of clay and cardboard.

There's a demo you can play online at the website above. It's rather good.

^The Dream Machine^

Awesome! I signed up and will be trying.

That looks f*cking awesome.

Playing through Fred Pohl's Gateway in my spare time. Gotta love the old Legend classics

Based on the age of the game this isn't exactly breaking news but I wanted to share anyway as I am on a quest to finish every game I start and evaluate the experience.
I just finished Hotel Dusk last night. This was the first game I played on my new DS and will be the first of a great many over the coming year. The DS itself was a great platform for this. Stylus controls lend themselves well to adventure gaming and there were even a few clever uses of the close-and-suspend feature to solve puzzles.

Sadly the game itself was frustratingly uneven and plodding. There were small moments of greatness - setting up the Christmas tree for the kid was a fairly touching moment and some of the supporting characters like Rosa and Louis were just fantastically well-developed. The character art was amazing, capturing a wide range of emotional responses within just a few frames of animation.

In between these great bits there was just a ton of flotsam... make-work added by uncreative designers, repetitive dialogue, circular decision trees... blech. The low point of the game was when I was asked to get a wine label for a certain character from the bottle she had that evening. However the maid could not remember which of 3 bottles it was. So instead of taking all the labels, or asking the person who wanted it, I had to track down the other characters and ask them what they had that evening, then take only the correct label.
This solution is circumspect and illogical while at the same time providing no challenge. The whole scenario added nothing to the atmosphere of the game. And worse, it was just plain boring to complete.

I guess amid these great characters and moments lived a fairly uninspired adventure game. It was fortunate that the characterization was so good or I may have failed my experiment before it had barely begun.

I would have suggested dropping 2 or three supporting characters. In particular Helen and Jeff, along with the poorly developed puzzles surrounding them, could have been dropped without affecting the plot all that much. The pacing would have been improved greatly as well. From what I read this game has been the high point of Cing's adventure game designs. That is sad, as they certainly have some talent for creating memorable characters, but the implementation seems to be severely wanting.

Thanks for the review on Hotel Dusk! I've been meaning to get a DS section up for a while, but I've had difficulty finding time. Maybe this will help (well, as soon as I get back from vacation).

Also, The Dream Machine looks really cool.

imbiginjapan wrote:

Hotel Dusk

All valid criticisms, I have to admit. I didn't feel like the story even really existed until chapter 4 as I noted here in my take on it. Cing had some talent for creating memorable characters, as the company went under a few months ago.

I'd recommend giving Trace Memory/Another Code a shot. It's an early DS game that is less successful at characterization, but unless I'm looking through rose-colored glasses, the game part is a bit more involving and it isn't nearly as plodding.

Fun topic.

Just to relate... my first PC was a crappy Tandy in late 89 or maybe '90. 20MB hard drive I believe. Co-worker of my dad's brought over some 5.25 and 3.5 disks for me. King's Quest 1 VGA was one of them. Probably my first PC gaming memory. Such amazing graphics, so much cooler than the NES all my friends were playing.

I think my upgraded PC in 93 or 94 had a whopping 200MB hard drive. I have vague memories of the salesman saying "that's more than you'll ever possibly need." I remember playing Maniac Mansion, with the in-game security codes that I had to look up in the manual with some funny red decoder to be able to read. And of course King's Quest 5 on a CD! 7th Guest was somewhere around that time too, although more puzzle than adventure I guess. Definitely remember that as the big "wow CD-games are so cool" thing.

Was also distracted with the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games around that time. Got the X-Wing CD, but had TIE Fighter on disk and bought the expansion, and the other expansion on CD... but I digress. Adventures!

Remember King's Quest 6 around that time, as one of the pinnacles of the genre. Hah, can still hear that "in the tower" tune now in my head. I think I even played the CD in my CD player to hear the song again after I beat the game. What a sappy romantic teen. Remember watching a friend play Full Throttle, but I don't think I ever had that one. Another buddy played Myst, and I just remember him saying how hard it was all the time so I never bothered.

I missed Monkey Island, and some others on the list of the rest back then. But I did play the special edition last year. Felt good. I also revisited the King's Quest updates from ADG. Even though I have the KQ1-6 collection CD for Windows 95(?) and the KQ7 CD I haven't tried playing those in ages. Last time I tried on XP, KQ6 didn't work I think, which was the most important one. Haven't tried again on Win7 lately. Of course the Steam versions just come with DOSBox so I should probably try my versions with that.

Got the new Monkey Island on sale, but only finished the first chapter. Need to get back to that soon.

New game to check out (big demo at 1.3 gig, downloading now)...

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/24/lost-horizon-demo-trailer-wittering/#more-36920

My immediate worry - it's by the same team that did the secret files games. This seems to be something they are proud of for some bizarre reason (I played through the first one recently and it was pretty bad for a whole LOT of reasons).

But, maybe they've learned from their mistakes (like having EVERY character have an American accent despite the fact the game is set all over Europe with NO AMERICAN CHARACTERS AT ALL. I mean, at least try to put on some crappy fake Russian/Irish/German accents or something people!).

Ahem.

Anyhoo. Certainly looks quite good (also seems to have both a Dragon AND a foxy Nazi lady).

Also, while on the subject of bad games - avoid FBI Confidential : Art of Murder like the plague. It's bad. Really bad. Not quite "Mystery of the Druids" bad, but pretty close.

I'm looking for some good adventure games on the Wii. I know about Zak and Wiki, the Strongbad games, and the Tales of Monkey Island games. Anyone have any ideas?

Edit: I think I asked this question here before...

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm looking for some good adventure games on the Wii. I know about Zak and Wiki, the Strongbad games, and the Tales of Monkey Island games. Anyone have any ideas?

I could be wrong but If I remember correctly there should be a version of Syberia for the Wii (actually it might have been on the DS)? That's probably worth checking out. Also Broken Sword and the early Sam & Max games I think?

There's also CSI : Deadly Intent. Not sure how good or bad that is but it's by telltale as well.

I would also heartily recommend giving Silent Hill : Shattered Memories a try. It's very much an adventure game at it's heart and it's probably one of the BEST games available on the platform in my opinion (and my favorite Silent Hill game - and yes that means I think it's better than Silent hill 2! :O ).

I shall scan the web and see if I remember more, I'm sure there are others...

***

There's a couple of Agatha Cristie Games "Evil under the Sun" and "And Then There Were None" but I've never tried them on Wii or PC so I can't speak as to their quality.

There's also the aformentioned (see above) Secret Files : Tunguska. You can probably safely skip this one, it's pretty bad.

That's all I can come up with that isn't an object-hunt game I think.