I only played one, but it was hilarious!
Full Throttle is a game I sat and played start to finish in 4 or 5 hours and I must say it has the most unique characters in any Adventure Game.
Day of the Tentacle
Amazingly humorous, time traveling through toilet-bowl fun!
The dig was a Sci-Fi adventure game with a story written by Orson Scott Card. Lots of mysteries and weirdness happening, many things to discover in a survival on an alien planet where something that was meant to be a gift to the universe turned out to be a curse.
Return to Zork...
Actually, this is my entry for WORST adventure game ever.
We had to buy a hint book...Puzzles made NO sense. For example...To get transportation around the island, you needed a magnet and a special whistle to call the vultures. Because apparently vultures like whistles, and their talons are MAGNETIC. If that doesn't convince you, here's how to get the whistle: First, go pester the farmer until he throws a box of bras at you. Yes, bras. Get a cup full of water and go to the city's furnace. It has one. Now, pull the lever to open the top hatch of the furnace. Throw the bra box in. Push the lever to close the furnace. Push the button that starts the furnace. Let it incinerate the box. Pull the lever to open the lower compartment. All that is left of the bras is a single red-hot wire. Cool the wire with the glass of water you brought. Now take the wire down the road and pick the lock on the convenience store. Go inside and find the cereal. Shake the cereal 3 times. A toy surprise will surface. Now you have the whistle.
Not only one of the best adventure games of all time, but also probably THE BEST Indiana Jones game of all time! The writing of the characters of Indiana and Sophia is witty and fun.
"Sophia? How did you get over here?"
"While you were off bushwhacking, I found a path."
*Indiana fails to get the man to give any information. Turns to Sophia:*
"Here, you talk to the man."
*Man opens the door, sees the girl, comes outside to greet her.*
"Hello, beautiful!"
Space Quest Series: Hilarious again. Great adventure and Star Wars parody. My favorite was Space Quest 5. You had your own ship and you could travel around the galaxy to all kinds of places. At the start, you have to cheat on a test to become a ship captain. Copy the test of the alien creature with the giant brain head. And do it while the probe cheat-catcher bot isn't watching.
Sam and Max Hit the Road: This is a series they still make. But I only played the original, which was fabulous. Both characters are psychotic. That's really the only word I could think of to describe them. And their world is zany. Max is a rabbity-thing. Not a rabbit. A rabbity-thing.
King's Quest Series: I played through 5 and 6, and never made it through any of the others. If you want to know which ones are worth playing...play 5 and 6. Although, you will probably want to look up a few solutions here and there, they are tough games. There are a lot of classic fairy-tale, old legend, and mythological references in these games. Very pure and fun, not really funny games like most of the others.
Quest for Glory Series: Amazing! This doubles as an action rpg. You get to pick thief, fighter, or wizard, and eventually paladin. The remake of QFG1 is fantastic. Number 5 I played through at least 3 or 4 times, it was epic. That one ended the series by having you become king at the end and even getting married to the lady of your chosing, of 4.
Okay, so that's all I could think of. It's practically all the adventure games I've ever played. I never played one I didn't like. Except for Zork. But even then, I did beat it and bought a hint book, so it must have had some appeal somehow.
A great place to go for this kind of game is Adventure Game Studio's site:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
Lots of people have used Adventure Game Studio to make mini adventure games. I recommend Apprentice...Very humorous, challenging, and aesthetic. There are more good ones if you look for them.
9 comments:
It is more than 15 years since I played a point and click but something stuck in the back of mind shouts at me that there was a good reason the world moved on from these games.
Perhaps it was the inevitable moment (happened in every one I have ever played) when you got stuck and after trying every reasonable tactic you could think of you resorted to clicking every item in your inventory against every pixel on the screen.
Lots of happy childhood memories here, but yes...Although some studios continue to develop this type of game, you'll note I have not listed any of the ones made in the last 13 years.
There are many elements of these games that are happily still around, but the whole thing about testing every combination of Use, Pick Up, Look At, and every inventory item along with each other and every 5-pixels of whatever-it-is in the environment thankfully isn't as prevalent in more recent games.
I remember in King's Quest V being stuck for several weeks because I didn't bother to explore the desert fully.
Where these games shined though, was humorous outcomes and immersive worlds. Space Quest invited you to relish each and every one of Roger Wilco's grisly fates.
I loved those games when I was a kid. Maybe they are still good for kids. Though Zack and Wiki was a pretty amazingly good game that came out recently. My brothers loved it. And its adventure style too. Nice screenshots.
The Dig is awesome. I'm playing through it again currently. yummy, yummy fun.
No "Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow" from Sierra? :(
Never played Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow...In fact, never heard of it, but thanks for recommending it! I'll take a peek, next time I have time for it!
If you liked the KQ games, RH:CotL is very similar. I think it's even a Roberta Williams game, too.
I wish more games had the QfG sort of "class design" mentality, too. Every class could finish the game, but sometimes in very different ways. That made for good replay value, and really allowed players to own their character more, rather than trying to play The One True Way.
oh yeah... I hate that! I love options.
Yeah, I beat QFG V once with each of the 4 classes. Every puzzle in the game had at least 2 solutions, some of them had 4, targeted at the skills of the different classes. Very replayable.
Great article, I've actually played some of theses, but certainly want to try some of the others, especially day of the tentacle
I remember playing an Aussie adventure game called Down-under Dan, great memories :)
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