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j4rio

Point-and-click adventures

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Despite wasting quite an unhealthy amount of time with doom, I adore this genre, even though it's exact opposite of doom's gameplay - tediousness, almost no replayability, plot being the main point, etc. Some classics that come onto my mind - veil of the darkness, maniac mansion / day of the tentacle, escape from monkey island. Recently played through "Sanitarium" (1998), and gosh, it was awesome. I can't believe it hasn't won a single award despite deserving a ton. I wonder if anyone around is into this genre and if so, are there any memorable ones you could think of?

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I played a lot of them; mostly LucasArts stuff. Indy 3, Indy 4, DOTT, Monkey Island 1--4 (though 4 doesn't count as point & click), Simon the Sorcerer 1 & 2 (1 was better), Beneath a Steel Sky, and Space Quest: the Spinal Frontier (forgot which number it was, 6 maybe).


If I managed to dig them back from wherever I've put them, I think ScummVM could play all of them now (except MI4 of course).

Then there's also the Cryo ones. Lost Eden, Dragon Lore (I don't think Dune fits the point & click category). They're kinda obscure I guess. They weren't as good as the Lucas Arts stuff; focusing more on the (sometimes debatable) prettiness of pre-rendered graphics rather than on solid writing. The soundtracks were cool, though.

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blade runner - original story with a different cast of characters happenning parallel to the movie. as non-linear as adventures ever got, it has a large number of different endings depending on your actions in key situations and randomization of certain plot elements. it also looks great. totally underrated!

the longest journey - one of the last true point&click adventures, one of the best ones ever. it plays and looks lovely and it's surprisingly long, definitely longer than lucasarts adventures after monkey island 2. a mixture of sci-fi and fantasy worlds.

gabriel knight trilogy - three detective games with greatly written paranormal stories. the first one is a classic hand drawn adventure of early 90s about voodoo in new orleans, the second one is a 7cd beast with live actors (ugh, that era was such a misstep) and a wagnerian werewolf story set in germany, the third game is one HUGE puzzle for the holy grail in southern france and makes the da vinci code look even more unimaginative and braindead than it normally looks. :)

grim fandango - comedic lucas arts game about the land of the dead, mexican style. you know you want to play it.

broken sword 1 and 2 - perhaps the sexiest looking classic drawn adventures ever. the first one was really, really great, the second was a good sequel, the third one went 3d and the transition just didn't work out.

simon the sorceror 2 - the first one is a decent game, although a bit unimaginative. the second one is excellent. it's basically harry potter (way before potter existed) if teenage potter was a total selfish dick spewing sarcasms. or "monkey island in magic land." the third one is 3d and lame.

i have no mouth and i must scream - read the short story first, the game is a variation on it. supercomputer AM killed the humanity and keeps five last surviving people captive to torture them forever.

indiana jones and the fate of atlantis - this is what the fourth movie should've been like. :)

oh and monkey islands, obviously.

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The only true point and click adventure I've played was myst. Some people look at phocas island 2 and say it reminds them of Myst. Truth is I didn't play Myst until near the end of PI2's development.

Before Myst, the only Adventure game I played was Shadowgate 64, but that's not a point and click.

Grim Fandango was great, although not a true point and click either. I played it after Myst. Like Myst, I found myself cheating by looking up what to do next most of the time. I suck at trying to figure out what to do or where to go.

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dew said:

blade runner - original story with a different cast of characters happenning parallel to the movie. as non-linear as adventures ever got, it has a large number of different endings depending on your actions in key situations and randomization of certain plot elements. it also looks great. totally underrated!

Damn, I need to dig up those 4 cds, totally forgot about them.

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Don't forget Flight of the Amazon Queen and The Dig.

And there are many great AGS adventures, for example:

5 Days A Stranger
7 Days A Skeptic
Trilby's Notes
6 Days A Sacrifice
Infinity String
A Tale Of Two Kingdoms
Apprentice 1 & 2

The new Sam&Max and Monkey Island sequels as well as the Back To The Future game by Telltale Games are only average compared to the classics.

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I've played some of these. Awesome stuff. My favourite was always Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (whoever came up with the title should be shot). It has arcade elements in the form of space battles too, but most of the game is missions on planets and spacecraft with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a redshirt. It has a sequel called Star Trek: Judgement Rites.

Day of the Tentacle was fun and Myst is some kind of genius.

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neg!ke said:

Flight of the Amazon Queen

This one was the shit. Even though I didn't understand the story back then, it was still awesome. :P

And I'm pretty sure Sam & Max doesn't even need to be mentioned. Lucas Arts was THE shit.

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Oh wow, I wonder how I could forget about some of these. Broken sword was awesome though PC trashed itself when I was somewhere near the end (I suppose), never got back to it. Also Indy and the fate of atlantis, gosh I was too stupid back then to figure it out. :)

I still find Sanitarium to be the most memorable one I've played so far, basically it was to point-and-click adventures what planescape:torment was to RPGs.

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Quest for Glory 1 and 4 are exquisite (with great music by Aubrey Hodges in the fourth game). The Gabriel Knight games are also wonderful.

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I'm currently playing through Riven (Myst's sequel) for the first time on the Playstation. It is such an awesome game, everything about it is perfect. The scenery, music, and the whole atmosphere is just unbeatable.

Other games of honorable mention that haven't been listed yet would be Blazing Dragons (a point-and-click with a Monty Python flavor, like Discworld), and The X-Files game, which is just about as good as watching an episode from the show itself.

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Loom and Monkey Island were fantastic! Also had a lot of fun with Space Quest 1-3. Tried to play Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow, but it was a really bad port that was basically unplayable on my Amiga 500.

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I haven't played enough of them, but I do like them. The Tex Murphy games deserve a mention (and gog has them, Vista/7 compatible even :) ). Rumor has it that Aaron Connors and his new company may be working on a new Tex Murphy game, which has me stoked. Probably won't be FMV though ;P

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I used to play the hell out of these games when I was a kid, mostly due to a friend of my dad's giving him a hard drive full of these games. Let me try to remember all the ones I've played:

Space Quest 1-6
King's Quest 1-2
A copuple of the Police Quest games
Quest for Glory 1
Freddy Pharcus: Frontier Pharmacist
Eco Quest
Eco Quest 2: Rainforest
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Mean Streets (a Tex Murphy game)
The Adventures of Willy Beamish
Return of the Phantom
Secret of Monkey Island
Myst

Sadly, I've only ever beaten the two Eco Quest games (which are kid's games, so yeah...), Return of the Phantom, and maybe the first Space Quest. I tend to suck at video games in general, though.

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Beneath a Steel Sky anyone?

Heh, it's been on my desktop for months but I haven't played it yet, but I really want to get into it. Free at GOG.

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The only point and clicks I've played was Kings Quest 2 and I don't know if this game counts as point and click, but it was the Exile series. It was Exile 1,2,3 and Blades of Exile. I seem to remember ALOT of pointing and clicking. Infact all of the game was based on point and click.

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Clonehunter said:

Beneath a Steel Sky anyone?

Heh, it's been on my desktop for months but I haven't played it yet, but I really want to get into it. Free at GOG.


You can get it from the SCUMMVM site also, along with Flight of the Amazon Queen and Lure of the Temptress.

There's also a whole bunch of fan-made AGI games, of varying quality. Space Quest fans might like Space Quest: The Lost Chapter.

reloaded.org is 100% free games, and also has a few: It Came From The Desert, Frederik Pohl's Gateway, probably some others too...

There's also some modern remakes of various Sierra games, but I think they're Win32 only.

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I loved Shadow Gate, even remade it from memory for a programming project.

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hex11 said:

Tried to play Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow, but it was a really bad port that was basically unplayable on my Amiga 500.

Parts of that game would slow to a crawl even on an accelerated Amiga, Conquests of Camelot (from the same authors) didn't seem to have that problem. Have you tried playing Willy Beamish from floppy disk?

Tossing a few more into the mix...

Another World
Flashback
Code-name: Iceman
Operation Stealth
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
Maniac Mansion
The Legend of Kyrandia
Search for The King
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Labyrinth of Time

The Goblins trilogy are probably more puzzle than adventure but still worth mentioning.

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The Longest Journey is awesome but it ends way too abruptly.
Syberia is pretty cool.
I remember Ripley's Believe it or not: Riddle of Master Lu being pretty damn good.

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I've played most of the games mentioned in this thread so far, but I can't really add any others off the top of my head. Aside from Doom, adventure games were what used to occcupy most of my free time.

I always preferred the parser-based games though, over the the point-and-click ones. Even with the potential problems, I still love the sense of freedom that a well designed parser system can give you.

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GreyGhost said:

Parts of that game would slow to a crawl even on an accelerated Amiga, Conquests of Camelot (from the same authors) didn't seem to have that problem. Have you tried playing Willy Beamish from floppy disk?


No, never played Willy Beamish. But I did have a 40 MB SCSI disk (and 2 MB fastram) inside an expansion module that attached on the left side of the A500 (to the Zorro bus). Bought that drive after getting Might & Magic III, which was on like 5 floppies... (great game btw) I figured it would be better over the long run than just getting a second floppy drive. And that setup was really sweet for a long time, except for that one Sierra game.

Oh btw, Another World and Flashback were arcade/adventure style.

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Yeah, Another World and Flashback are action games, not point&click adventures. Great games, though.

The Gobliins series does deserve a mention. They definitely belong in the genre. I agree they are more puzzlish than the other adventures, but still in a similar vein. Another underrated one would be Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth.

As for The Longest Journey, I found the title to be very fitting. The dialogues are ENDLESS.
I should give Blade Runner another try, I guess. The rendered background images looked nice indeed. However, the pixelated character sprites were just horrible.

More modern comic style p&c adventures: Monkey Island 3, Runaway + sequels, The Whispered World.
And Secret Files of Tunguska (or however the English title was) is okay too.
Of course, most newer games kind of lack the magic of the old classics in a way.

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I remember the Longest Journey it was really good. I tried to find places to buy it after I rented it, but no where sold it.

... I think I'm gonna go play Shadowgate.

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