[Jelena]

I´m in a lousy mood so I´ve treated myself with a new game: Still Life. I also have Full Throttle lying waiting for me to finish Sentinel.
I´ve ben recomended Full Throttle by many forumites, but looking at the cover and reading the back of the box doesn´t really make me curious.
Still Life on the other hand seems fascinating.
Which one should I play next and why?
Help me out here.
* sighs*

[Lucien21]

Full Throttle.

Because it's great and Still Life isn't.

[MdaG]

Both are short and good. I prefer Still Life to Full Throttle though...

[Lacrima]

I can't help you decide between both titles, I can just help you to decide whether or not you want to play Still Life - since I don't own a copy of Full Throttle and hence, have never played it (sue me, but I never had the opportunity to stumble upon one in my life).

So, Still Life. [add an "in my opinion" to this and make it all sound less... glamorous]
If you play an adventure for the experience's sake - for atmosphere and taking part in a story, this game should be for you (I guess you don't mind the gory stuff or you wouldn't own the game, would you?).
Still Life is all about the investigation. I never felt so close to the events of a game in my life until the very, very end and afterwards (of the game, not my life). After you just get accustomed to the game in the first chapter, with Gus' storyline, the story begins to get interesting. From the cold of Chicago, Victoria is drawn into Gus' memoirs, which open a whole new world, in my opinion. Prague is really moody and has something of a subtle haunted feeling, which fits absolutely into the situation - the first questions beside "well, who's the killer?" come up, characters begin to develop soon and the progress in Gus' investigation kept me from taking a break, the further you get, the more secrets you reveal up to a in my opinion quite breathtaking finale of his case. In between, with Victoria, there's certainly also an interesting plot, exploring the aftermath - partly - and experiencing all this beautiful (okay, I give you that: disturbing) paintings and stumbling over so many secrets and questions.
Now, if you don't already know, I want to warn you, and you have to consider whether you read this or not, it's not exactly a mild spoiler, but it isn't that big a deal, too, since I enjoyed the game, although I knew:

Spoiler:

Victoria's storyline is open ended and we don't find out everything in Gus', either (though we know who the Prague ripper is)
To expand my little review through this: It DOES feel unfinished, definitely.

You might have picked that up along the way, anyway.
This by the way just made me play through the game again. Pay more attention to everything. (I even discovered one or two details more)
Overall though, I thought the game was gripping, had well-written dialog and characters, looked astounding, had the best cinematics I've ever seen - one or two that actually left me with my mouth open or a smile on my face, because they were so well done, especially with the music picked, and is currently my favourite adventure, despite the spoiler and the cookie puzzle, which, afterwards, wasn't that stupid after all.
But I guess if you don't appreciate art in all aspects of a game as I do, Still Life will simply be an 'interesting' experience for you. Something to kill time, or watch some fine cinematics, have one or two nice puzzles (the lockpicking was great, in my opinion) - though Still Life is anything but focused on them. There is quite a number of mechanisms and not many other puzzles that really challenge you too hard. (would've probably disturbed the flow of the story; I think M. Lariviére stated this in an interview, anyways. You might want to read it. May be that he exaggerates there and all of his plans couldn't actually be achieved, I don't remember exactly.)
If you really want an adventure, as in have fun, play something, a long game (yep, Still Life is short) more like Monkey Island or Broken Sword... Still Life's hardly for you.

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Because it's great and Still Life isn't.

[avcho]

It depends on your personal taste. If you like any of the Lucas Arts adventures comic-style humorous adventures and you don't mind older graphics then play Full Throttle .
If you want to play a murder mystery with a dark atmosphere and a lot of blood then go with Still Life.
Both games are very good but not great in my opinion.

I personally love Full Throttle because it was my first adventure game ever.

[The Seed]

So it's basically a question of Classic era Vs Modern...

I'd go with Full Throttle.

[NcroManiac]

Full Throttle. It was the first time I played a game that looked like a cartoon.
(I never understood why people drooled over Quake.....)
Also, it's a much better game than Still Live (made by the one and only
Tim Schaffer of the DOTT, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts fame) and actualy made me fall in love with motorcycles.

In fact, play Still Life first and savor the greatness that is Full Throttle. Otherwise you might not whant to continue with Still life once youve finnished a better game. (I love Still Life as well btw, but the puzzles in it were not that "fun").

[rocketpop]

I remember getting a full throttle demo and thinking "eh... this wont' be worth installing."

I'm glad I did! Play the first 10 minutes, and if the game still isn't your style, then play still life.

Full throttle, in my opinion, is a much more "complete" game. It is also more polished. The quotes from full throttle are downright hillarious. Its also very short, and really pretty easy. There is an action sequence or two, but don't let that put you off. They are easy--and few and far between.

Still Life was great--but it had its issues and some oddball puzzles.

[Pankake]

Still Life get's my vote, you can't afford NOT to play it!, it's a bit short and does kinda feel "unfinnished" but the story, graphical quality and puzzles more than make up for it

[Rowne]

There're no two ways about it, Still Life is for sadists. This is from a man who's completed games such as the Longest Journey whilst only hitting a hints-provider once. The whole lockpicking puzzle with its ambiguous wording will no doubt leave you with both hatred and fury unlike you've ever experienced before. However, having said that, the puzzles are satisfying to complete and barring the puzzles where they simply don't provide any hints as to how they should work, the game can be fun. Some of the earlier puzzles especially were delightful and quite Myst-like. The safe combination puzzle for example was one that I remember fondly. As the game goes on however, the puzzles become more and more obtuse. One puzzle even tends to require genuine cooking knowledge in order to solve it, either that or the logic of a Mastermind.

All these things aside though, it really is quite a good game and definitely worth playing and seeing through to the end. It will frustrate you though, it will annoy you and it will prove to you that you're smarter than the average Bear. Or person. Whatever. At least providing you don't hit those walkthroughs.

Full Throttle is another kettle of fish entirely. The puzzles are gentle and the story and the characters are more prevalent. Full Throttle is dessert compared to Still Life's bowl of meat and tough potatoes. The latter is good for you (being more cerebral) but the former is by far and wide a greater joy to play and will leave you with many more fond memories of the time spent playing.

[insane_cobra]

Full Throttle. It's so short you'll finish it in an afternoon or two anyway.

[playing_games]

Still Life hands down. Especially if you are like me and prefer playing games with a strong story with emotional resonance. Full Throttle was fun but I stopped thinking about the game after finishing playing it. I was thinking about Still Life for days later I finished playing it because of its story and its characters. One might say that Full Throttle might have better game play (although I would personally disagree with this assessment) but Still Life has a far better story, one which will have you sit on the edge of your seat while playing it and leave you emotionally spent after finishing playing it.

[Terramax]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Full Throttle.

Because it's great and Still Life isn't.

On the contrary I thought Full Throttle was LucasArts ripping people off of money. A game that can last less than 2 hours. Gimme a break. They should've made it into a film instead. Still Life, for those who know a good story when they find one, is a fascinating game if not with a few lousy puzzles.

[Aj_]

I only played the demo but Still Life had really bad dialogue and voice acting(perhaps because it's foreign?), and a confusing interface. Haven't played Full Throttle but if it's any good, it's better than Still Life.

[AudioSoldier]

Still Life will treat you to ten hours of gameplay with the most downright insulting ending in adventure history. It's the type that knees you in the nuts and gives a good cackle as you stumble over in disbelief. Heck, it's the sort of game that feeds you titbits all the way through, and ends off on one great skyscraper-cliffhanger. Actually, cliffhanger sounds too complimentary. Really, what were the developers thinking?

Play and finish Still Life in a bad mood and the dénouement will likely prompt a few murders and a destroyed PC. Beware.

[Lacrima]

Originally Posted by AudioSoldier

what were the developers thinking?

"Where's our money?"

[And thus my spoiler became unnecessary. *shrugs*]
Aj, what version was this? I only know of the German version being awful, but I really liked the dialogue and voice acting in the original.

[artwking4]

You're going to play both anyway. It's not like the one you don't choose is going to be crammed into the garbage disposal or tossed into the fireplace.

Play Full Throttle first. My opinion is that it will help you with your lousy mood. Still Life is also enjoyable, but not so much for exactly the reasons that everyone says. But it's still good enough despite that. But I don't think it's a swell idea to play while you're already in a bad mood.

[bigjko]

In some weird way these kinds of threads annoy me. I wish I had two games to play right now. Just play either one and enjoy it. In the end it doesn't matter diddly-squat, because you'll end up playing both, anyway.

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by Lacrima

Aj, what version was this? I only know of the German version being awful, but I really liked the dialogue and voice acting in the original.

The English version, I assume the original is in French.

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by artwking4

You're going to play both anyway. It's not like the one you don't choose is going to be crammed into the garbage disposal or tossed into the fireplace.

Play Full Throttle first. My opinion is that it will help you with your lousy mood. Still Life is also enjoyable, but not so much for exactly the reasons that everyone says. But it's still good enough despite that. But I don't think it's a swell idea to play while you're already in a bad mood.

First of all. It´s been great reading all the posts with your views of these two games. Thanks a lot!
Still Life seemed like my first choice but I´ll go for Full Throttle. Like artwking4 says: I´m going to play both anyway and if FT will help me get rid of a lousy mood I´d say that´s a great medicine!
I´ll save the bowl of meat and potatoes (fun metaphor Rowne) for later, happier days. And I do like to be absorbed by a good story.