Adventure games

[Anonymous No.3943294]

Never played much adventure/point'n click games but I kinda want to try something now. It's a great bonus if the game has that 90s feel.
Any recommendations?

Zork: Grand Inquisitor caught my eye, mostly because my brother had a demo of it when I was still pint-sized.

[Anonymous No.3943305]

Play the old Sierra adventures (King's Quest series, Space Quest series, Leisure Suit Larry series).
Skip the Police Quest series since that one can hardly be called a game. You have to follow the official police procedure to the letter.

[Anonymous No.3943310]

>>3943305
Police quest is cool, don't listen to him.

Toonstruck is one of the last good point and clicks. I really love that game for its charming atmosphere and memorable characters. Phantasmagoria was one I remember liking, mostly for the adult themes. I hear the Island of Monkies game was good, kind of obscure but supposedly a good game.

[Anonymous No.3943441]

>>3943305
I have actually played the first Larry. Fun but brutal. King's Quest seems most interesting of the quests.
>>3943310
I have heard of Phantasmagoria before, something about bad voice acting. I guess the game itself is pretty good then.

[Anonymous No.3943609]

Toonstruck is fantastic, many great ideas and characters - feel like it may have aged poorly. Haven't experienced it in about 10 years so take that for what it's worth.

Curse of Monkey Island is the apex of the genre imo.

Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, I Have No Mouth, and Full Throttle usually get the "Best Ever" nod from that era.

[Anonymous No.3943692]

Zork: Grand Inquisitor is fun. I thought it was funny when I played it when I was younger.

I think of Day of the Tentacle as like a standard P-&-C adventure game.

Secret of Monkey Island 1+2 and Curse of Monkey Island are all fun.

Full Throttle has a cool atmosphere and story, but the gameplay isn't the greatest. I just remember it's like half easy puzzles and half weird mini-games.

Grim Fandango is awesome. Many of the puzzles are unintuitive, but if you just try different things you'll often find the solution. It's a really comfy game.

>>3943441
I have all played the King's Quest games and most of them are outdated. They're a pain to play. KQ6 is pretty great though. Also, I played the first two Space Quest and they're just as outdated as KQ. Also I've only heard negative things about Phantasmagoria.

I played Toonstruck. I don't remember much of it, I think I enjoyed it. Anyway if the idea of playing a live-action Christopher Lloyd in a cartoon world appeals to you, then try it.

If you like the first-person games, Myst/Riven (but if you don't like Myst just play Riven), Shivers 1/2 (they're very different but I liked them both, 2 has a Twin Peaks feel), and an obscure game called Obsidian.

[Anonymous No.3943697]

>>3943692
Oh yeah, and Loom is an interesting game. Instead of an inventory, you interact with the world by playing songs. The Dig is another weird but fun one.

Oh, Sanitarium is awesome, pic related. Awesome story that's integrated into the game in a clever way, it kind of reminds me of Silent Hill 2 in the way the story is revealed. Also it has really funny corny dialogue. "Damn useless crap!"

The Telltale Sam and Max games were pretty fun, particularly Save the World and Devil's Playhouse.

[Anonymous No.3943703]

>>3943294
>a kolossal AND a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.3943747]

I just started The Last Express. It seems pretty good. It's like a classic murder mystery on a train. It has nice rotoscoped graphics, and it does the Majora's Mask thing of having characters act on their own schedules, and you can rewind the game to try to do things differently.

[Anonymous No.3943768]

>>3943697
Sanitarium isn't the best from a technical, critical type perspective, but honestly I think it deserves much, much more attention as a cult classic.

The atmosphere, characters and storytelling are so unique and interesting. The "mini-story" approach in each chapter made for some absolutely incredible vidya.

I kinda wish they'd ditched the over-arching story that connects everything; it's not that I don't like it at all, but it is the only aspect of the game that keeps it from being a "Top 5" all-time classic in the genre.

I seriously wish there had been more Sanitarium games. I would happily play that shit forever.

Are there any other good horror adventure games? Possibly something overlooked? I never took to the Elvira titles, as much as it hurts to say.

[Anonymous No.3943780]

Grim Fandango (Play it with the original controls you homo)
Journey Down Chapters 1 & 2
Noctropolis
Harvester
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller

Pic unrelated - Gemini Rue fucking sucks.

[Anonymous No.3943791]

>>3943780
>Play it with the original controls you homo
Never played Grim Fandango yet, why is this important?

[Anonymous No.3943802]

>>3943791
Grim Fandango was the first adventure title that made me feel like the character in its fully realised world. Year 2 is the GOAT segment of Grim Fandango and pretty much any game, period.

Most point and clicks I'm just clicking through the exit points as fast as I can because I feel pretty disconnected from my pixelated character model and I just hope the story isn't total bullshit garbage like Face Noir or Black Sails (What pieces of shit)

[Anonymous No.3943805]

Day of the Tentacle is the funniest game I've ever played, it has the best use of time travel, and you can solve 90% of the puzzles just by trying to create as much mayhem as possible.

It's wonderful.
>>3943780
>Gemini Rue fucking sucks
I don't think it sucks, but I do think it's overrated. Resonance and Technobabylon are both better.

[Anonymous No.3943810]

>>3943805
>I don't think it sucks, but I do think it's overrated

There are definitely worse adventure titles (like the aforementioned Face Noir and Black Sails), but I've never been so disappointed by one - from its rave reviews and ports to multiple systems.

[Anonymous No.3943815]

>>3943810
That does suck. Do you tend to like Wadjet Eye in general? I appreciate them for making at least somewhat serious adventure games (as opposed to grating, mostly-unfunny Monkey Island knockoffs).

[Anonymous No.3943818]

>>3943780
>>3943805
I liked both Gemini Rue and Technobabylon.

[Anonymous No.3943820]

Ben There, Dan That is a really funny homage to LucasArts adventure games. It looks like it was drawn in MS Paint but don't let that stop you.

The sequel is good too but the story is kind of meme-y.

[Anonymous No.3943828]

How's the Blackwell series? I saw some of it in a stream and it looked alright.

[Anonymous No.3943830]

>>3943815
Wadjet Games are decent but they're too throwback. There are tons of real retro adventure games I could be playing that had a semblance of a budget like pic related which I only discovered recently.

Actual retro adventure games have something Wadjet Games never have: Good voice acting.

[Anonymous No.3943834]

>>3943828
It's good if you want a series. The creator has said it's heavily inspired by the Gabriel Knight games, but I find Blackwell less chilling/creepy. Also, they get better as you go.

[Anonymous No.3943836]

>>3943609
>I Have No Mouth
>best ever

lol it's an interesting game but it is no way one of the best ever and rarely does anyone think that either

[Anonymous No.3943843]

>>3943780
>gemini rue sucks
>gemini rue is the only modern adventure game I've liked

At least it's better than Resonance and Primordia.

[Anonymous No.3943846]

>>3943836
t. retsupurae faggot

[Anonymous No.3943848]

>>3943843
>better than Primordia
Not that anon, but that's wrong.

[Anonymous No.3943849]

>>3943830
>actual retro adventure games have good voice acting

What the fuck are you smoking?

[Anonymous No.3943851]

>>3943843
>>gemini rue is the only modern adventure game I've liked

Bad taste, bad taste

Whatchya gonna do, whatchya gonna do when you buy Call of Duty

Tell me more about how you like the recycled environments (dude go into this apartment and now go into this apartment, lmao!) and Kickstarter donater tier voice acting

[Anonymous No.3943854]

>>3943848
>plot that makes shit up as it goes along
>cliche "muh memories disappeared i wunder if i am somehow more important than i actually am!"
>stereotypical dystopian ending where they all exodus from the ebil city into the sunlight
>memey reddit-tier sidekick

"no"

[Anonymous No.3943858]

>>3943849
As opposed to Gemini Rue which has guys with mic pops, bad mics in general and nobody knowing how to say BORYOKUDEN properly?

The first season of Sam & Max with its hissing mics triggers me, but at least the voice acting there was good.

[Anonymous No.3943863]

>>3943854
>plot that makes shit up as it goes along
Pretty sure it was all written in advance, anon.
>cliche "muh memories disappeared i wunder if i am somehow more important than i actually am!"
I guess I'll give you this, but the presence of a cliche doesn't automatically make a thing suck.
>stereotypical dystopian ending where they all exodus from the ebil city into the sunlight
As one of a number of endings depending on decisions you make at the end.
>memey reddit-tier sidekick
He makes jokes. I don't recall any memes, but it has been a while. Do you just hate when characters make jokes?

[Anonymous No.3943867]

>>3943858
Oh and this guy that plays the stereotypical psycho from the getgo. Gee, who should I trust? The girl or the obvious psycho?

[Anonymous No.3943868]

>>3943851
Yeah because actual people passionate for the genre are worse voice actors than d-list actors from the nineties doing it only for money?

>>3943858
>first season of Sam & Max
>retro

I guess your memory doesn't go that far back.

[Anonymous No.3943873]

>>3943863
No, the sidekick in Beneath a Steel Sky is much better while fulfilling the same role.

>>3943867
Gee hella fuckin epic point bro

[Anonymous No.3943886]

>>3943868
>Yeah because actual people passionate for the genre are worse voice actors than d-list actors from the nineties doing it only for money?

Some nerd with no life experience is EXACTLY who I want playing a hard nosed detective

Video games used to rely on people doing it for the money, yes, but they were TRAINED actors. Legacy of Kain is a good example, which used theater actors.

>I guess your memory doesn't go that far back.

Shut the fuck up, faggot. I'll take anybody from Dark Seed or Ripper over any cringey internet eceleb allowed to voice act in a game. The only reason you accept modern shitty voice acting in indie games is because they weren't meme'd to death by YouTubers

[Anonymous No.3945490]

There was a really fun first-person adventure game called Normality that I only played the demo of, but I played the shit out of it. It was first-person perspective with P&C interface and inventory.

'Hell:A Cyberpunk Thriller' is pretty cool too, they gave it away free in one months CGW but it only ran off the CD so it was slow as shit back then. It's a detective game where hell is real and it's a virtual reality simulation that can affect the real world. Dennis Hopper was in it, the puzzles are brutal and sometimes complete horseshit and you can die in pretty much every screen of hell at anytime.

[Anonymous No.3945506]

>>3945490
Is Normality the one with the drinking bird and you have to escape on to the balcony in the demo?

[Anonymous No.3945763]

>>3943294
i am a bit disappointed that most adventure games don't go beyond having one objective solution for each puzzle when there are multiple different solutions that can be discovered to do the same thing. makes the whole experience kind of rigid and railroaded than interesting at a lot of times. same goes with replayablility. There hasn't been a game that allowed different solutions aside from Maniac Mansion even if the game can render itsslf unwinnable just because you have not done X with the right character. Though admittedly, a lot of adventure games pretty much does its job because of how the story goes in it rather than gameplay

[Anonymous No.3945813]

>>3945763
Agreed with you. WRPGs have figured the multiple solution thing out, yet adventure games haven't

Also about Maniac Mansion being unwinnable, I've played linear adventure games that became unwinnable just because of a glitch or bad coding.

[Anonymous No.3945841]

>>3945763

Check out the Quest for Glory series for an awesome hybrid of RPG and adventure game, combining the best aspects of the two together.

[Anonymous No.3945845]

>>3945763
>>3945813
Plinsky was right when he wanted to remove puzzles from Mindwheel. I do remember Magnetic Scrolls' IFs being more forgiving with the puzzles than the American brand of IF.

I think this is why I really can't get in to Lucas Arts games. They're not puzzles; they're focussed guesswork. This isn't like The Incredible Machine where you have to use certain tools to do a task, and as long as the proper action comes out, you're good. Rather there's some specific route route that must be taken with no clue as to what it is.

Look at some of the puzzles in The Longest Journey for an example of this.

[Anonymous No.3945852]

>>3945845
I don't want puzzles removed - fuck that. Just want there to be more than one solution sometimes. There are multiple ways to read situations, like this one in Face Noir (bad game, don't bother) as an example:

So there's this slimy guy with information I need. I figure I should use the main characters gun and threaten the slimy guy for it - nope, can't do that. Instead, I have to... slip alcohol (which wasn't poisoned or altered in anyway) into his drink that makes him pass out and then I reach into his pocket and get the information.

[Anonymous No.3945862]

>>3945841
I love every single QFG for different reasons.
I love QFG 1 VGA especially; "Cheese please".
I wish QFG 3 had talkie mode.
QFG 4 was God tier if not for bugs.

[Anonymous No.3945867]

Check out Harvester. If you enjoy splatter comedy, this is guaranteed to entertain the heck out of you. It has some really fucked up stuff in it, and it's all in comfy and cheesy 90s FMV.

[Anonymous No.3945873]

>This is an item in a modern adventure game

Thanks Telltale shiteaters

[Anonymous No.3945876]

Phantasmagoria 1 & 2. They're both kinda meh-tier point'n'click adventure games because they rely so heavily on the FMV. All the "puzzles" -if you can even call them that- in Phantasmagoria are ridiculously dumb. They're literally "use key on door" -tier.

The charm of these games is the FMV. The full motion video in Phantasmagoria 1 is not great and looks really weird when all the characters are real actors, but the backgrounds are this weird 90s CGI.

But Phantasmagoria 2... oh fucking man, this is the greatest FMV game of all time. I'm not kidding you, this is the perfect example of FMV done right. It's a shitty game alright, but if you can look past that and think this as interactive movie instead, you're about to have some good time. I would consider this as The Room of video games. Of course the acting is much better in Phantasmagoria 2 than in The Room, but still, if Phantasmagoria 2 was a movie it would be considered as one of those all time best "movies so bad they're good" kind of classics.

Play Phantasmagoria 2 with a friend, you'll be quoting this game for the rest of your lives. The soundtrack, the plot, the characters... it's fucking great, man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBa1es1gvT0

[Anonymous No.3945882]

>>3945876
I also forgot to mention that these two games have very little to do with each other, so you can just jump in Phantasmagoria 2 if you want to.

The layout and controls are really hard to figure out at first, but once you get into the game it's one hell of a ride. The camera angles are sometimes really weird and hard to figure out where you're supposed to go to, and even harder to figure out where you're allowed to go.

[Anonymous No.3945936]

>>3943294
nice

[Anonymous No.3945967]

there was a game around 1995, sci-fi, a detective is going to a planet where there was a murder in some science fascility. i remember my cousin played it and could do shit, one of my first experiences with adventure games, you take a coffee from the vending machine and spill it on dead man's hand to heat it and make it softer from "rigor mortis"... and then u find a key in its grip.

anyone knows the name of the game?

pic not related: it's faux game from the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks plays a "text adventure game"

[Anonymous No.3946378]

>>3945967
Sounds like one of the Tex Murphy games...

[Anonymous No.3946414]

>>3945882
Is Phantasmagoria 2 runnable on ScummVM yet? Last time I tried it would crash to the console window.

[Anonymous No.3946417]

>>3946414
Buy the GOG version man

[Anonymous No.3946859]

>>3946414
I don't know about that, but there's always the MsDOS version that runs fine on doxBox. The cutscenes in dos version will have those unremovable black lines, but they kinda bring their own charm to the game.