What is the worst Adventure Game of 2006?
 

What is the worst Adventure Game of 2006?

BS4, hands down. Often good writing, but dumb plot, ugly graphics, and many nonsensical puzzles. But the worst for me was really the interface (lousy controls and inability to skip lines). That meant I never even wanted to try to explore the game and solve the puzzles, because I was afraid I'd get angry failing to go where I wanted to go or having to relisten to the same lines a million times while I looked at / tried stuff. With an interface as good as, say, Tunguska's, it would have been rather mediocre; as it was, playing it was a complete chore for me. I was rather pleasantly surprised with BS3 (dumb end sequence notwithstanding), but BS4 really didn't work for me.

There were a few other games I wasn't overly fond of this year, but none half as painful to play as that.

I only bought two of those in the list: Paradise and Broken Sword 4.

Having never played any Broken Sword before number 4, i didn't expect much. I installed it, played the beginning and stopped. Poor controls, uninspiring graphics,... nope, i didn't impress. Maybe i'll pick it up again one day.

Paradise is a different story. Having loved the Syberia games, i expected so much from Sokal and got so dissapointed in the end. Still, it had some of the most beautifull scenery and background graphics... but the game itself was awfull and so was the interface, the dialogue, the code, the bugs,...

In the end, both BS4 and Paradise weren't good. I don't really mind about BS4, but Sokal's new game was a serious dissapointment.

Paradise was seriously broken.

Noone dare suggest Dreamfall as the worst adventure game of the year, ya hear?! :D

Where's Scratches, eh?!

Where's Dreamfall?

C' mon guys you may not like them bit but they just not plain bad.

You should put those options on there anyway. It's asking people what the worst adventure game of '06 is, and those were games that came out in '06.

While you're at it, add Secret Files: Tunguska. The things I said while playing that game would make the Pope question the existence of God.

Haven't played much of them, but CSI3, not good.

Then why did you include Runaway 2 , it certainly doesn't deserve to be in that list.

What an uplifting poll. :sad:

The only two I've played so far are Al Emmo and CSI3, both of which I enjoyed very much.

Yeah, it's a bit dense to make a poll like this but then complain when we suggest additional titles. If the only games there are ones that you think are bad, then what exactly is the point of asking us which game we think is the worst of 2006?

Broken Sword 4, the only one of those that I've experienced in some way.

A worthy question but unlikely to be valid unless one has played every game on the list in order to compare. Also, “Other” would have nicely enhanced the options.

The only game on the list I played is Paradise. And although it is seriously flawed, it has some awesome moments that make me doubt it is the worst game on the list.

It may just be me, but I don't think any of these games really deserve the dubious honour of being declared the worst adventure game of 2006. They were pretty alright, and not the horror shows we'd expect from typical 'bad' games.

IMO, the worst adventure of the year would be this one: http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,643

(though it's not been released everywhere yet, so it's no surprise people don't know how crappy it is)

????:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: ?????:pan:
Let me guess. And you know how crappy this game is. Tha fact that its still in production is meaningless

It's released in Norway at least (and I suppose Denmark, Finland and Sweden as well).

Yes, it has been released in Sweden... You could get the game if you collected 10 bottles of Julmust or something...

That sounds rather cheap..

And what's so bad about that game?

I just started Dreamfall. Apart from the interface and the fighting scenes, I like it a lot so far. I played the El Ammo demo, and also liked that a lot. I also played the Danger by Design demo, but I didn't finish it because I didn't like it. But that doesn't mean it was bad, it just didn't appeal to me. What this all boils down to is: I can't do this poll!

I would have said Runaway 2, but, from what I've seen in the demo, Broken Sword is even worse. At least Runaway 2 as an excellent interface.

So BS4 it is.

Of course, I haven't played most of the other games in the list, like Al Emmo of CSI3, and I kinda liked Paradise, even though it's haevily flawed. And Barrow Hill was ok.

Yes, I know how crappy it is, I've got the boxed full version right here. The fact that the game haven't been released in your part of the world does not mean it haven't been released anywhere. I do hope they will spend some extra time on it before releasing it in other countries (DreamCatcher will handle distribution in the US, btw), though they are apparently busy working on a sequel.
Oooooh, just about everything. :)

The user interface is incredibly fiddly and frustrating to use, the pathfinding seems like it is from a Sierra game from the late eighties, the camera angles are mostly useless (and the camera breaks occationally), the story is pure hogwash, the characters are paper-thin, and the "conversations" consists of uninteresting one-liners, the AI they were bragging about is pretty much just good for making the characters get stuck in corners (the "social sim" aspect of the game they were talking about is completely scripted), the so-called action sequences mostly consists of kicking small rats, the puzzles are incredibly simple, but not very well clued, and they mostly have very little to do with the "story", and so on.

The only good thing about the game is the graphics.

Tunguska was the worst game demo i've played 2006. Beautiful scenarios, but with boring history and non sense puzzles.

I'm not sure that it's the worst, but Dreamfall was by far the most disappointing. Lack of puzzles? Check! Putting the one puzzle that you do have during an obnoxious sneaking section? Check! Putting in a load of underdeveloped stealth sections? Check!

If I had a list entitled "Unlikely to ever play again", Dreamfall would be on it. Which is a shame, since the story was quite good, and the dialogue pretty well written (if over-long).

CSI 3 and Paradise...realy bad games imo, but BS4 was the biggest dissapointment i had this year in adventure gaming, so i vote for BS4
Kurufinwe summed it up for me

It's sad because BS4 actually tried to correct a lot of the problems BS3 had, but the majority of the time they were worse because in principle they'd work, but the execution was extremely poor. The camera, controls, item interaction.

The item menu didn't pop-up 100% of the time, the mouse was laggy so when trying to click on something when the camera was moving was quite hard. The ramp infront of the slaughter house/meat processing factory (perhaps, I forget exactly what it was) was anoying, the camera and dodgy movement controls conspired together on that one. I don't see how the game got through testing.

It was the non-skippable repeating sequences that stopped me from finishing the game in the end. That's a slight lie, because I've played through badly designed games before, for the story, and BS4's story didn't interest me at all. This type of game gives the impression that Adventure games should be "suffered" for the story, and thus we have Adventure "sucesses" with no Adventure gameplay in them (or about as much as you find in most games, including shooters). It's sad that we blame a game for trying, but praise games that don't try on the gameplay side at all, I hope this trend doesn't continue.

Tomb Raider Legend was inspired by the original game (the only one that was good until Legend IMO), and I think there was a very similar situation with BS4 (I thought BS2 was mediocre, and BS3 was bad), but the developer didn't have the quality or the writers to pull it off in BS4's case, while Legend got moderately good reviews all round (at least the ones I've read).

Dreamfall was by far the biggest disappointment though, considering the previous effort, with a very limited budget and experience. The gameplay is completely forgettable and so was the story. BS4 was by far the worst game if not factoring in expectations that I played this year. I doubt I'll ever play any of the other games on the list (I've already heard they're bad or broken).

Hmm...
 

Unless everyone, that has voted, has played every game on the list...

Paradise made me mad. Soooo much bugs, man! And the cursor...

But I've voted for Al Emmo - the game was terrible. Not only ugly, but the voice was the most distinguish thing i've ever heard!

And if I could vote for a second time, it would be for Paradise.

even putting dreamfall and bs4 in the same category is sacrilage, yes dreamfall was a shadow of its predecessor (if you like long winding dialogue like myself), but BROKEN sword 4 truly lived upto its name with an interface beyond awful and the most rushed ending ive ever seen (bar farenheit *vomit*)

Well, this other survey shows that most of us think it actually is the best. I completely understand it may not be not the cup of tea for many, but the ranting against it is getting tiresome. So you like puzzles and dislike lenghty dialogs. Fine. I happen to like the opposite.

Um, ranting? How was that rating? Aren't people allowed to state their opinion (backed up with reasons, I might add, and mentioning some positives as well) about a game they disliked this year in a thread that's about games they disliked this year?

OK, I want to apologize for the tone of my message. Of course everone can have their say. I just wanted to transmit the feeling I got when looking at the thread title: "ok, now someone is going to say 'Dreamfall' ". And I liked it so much.

But again, it was too harsh. Plus, "ranting" is the wrong word. I meant "continuous criticism", however you say that in informal English. If you can.

Anyway, sorry for the message.

Dreamfall! (AKA Other)

Seriously, with the clear antagonism towards that game by some people (including myself) it really surprises me that this poll doesn't include that option.

And yes it was the worst adventure game I played last year that was released last year for me. If it makes some of you feel better Law and Order and Fahrenheit were worse, but although I played them this year, they were released earlier.

You are right, Dreamfall should probably have been in the list, given the antagonism. But the fact is: given it has been chosen as the best game in the other poll, and given the "Other" option has few votes, I think the result would reflect that the majority of us liked the game. Its inclusion would make this point clear.

What would be nice is a poll with points, from 1 to 10 (horrible to great), like in imdb, so you can see the polarities by looking at the histograms.

I made a HCA review for a Finnish game magazine. God, the game was so... bad. I know it's meant for kids and that explains some of it's simplicity... But still. I think it underestimates the intelligence and the skills of every 6+ year old gamer. Also the Finnish voice acting (yes, it was dubbed) was horrible. Apparently somebody thought that it'd be nice if the characters talked some "funny" dialect. Uh.

Funnily enough, the game was given "the best video game for kids" award in Denmark. If that's the best game for children they have in Denmark I fear to think what kind of games they're selling there. Well, salmiac is bad for brains, I guess - even though it's very tasty. :)

Not so bad for a childrens game
 

The game got 5 out of 6 stars in one Norwegian reviews, here is a link for those of you who can read a Scandinavian language:

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=148594

Anyhow, in another Norwegian review, it got just 3 out of ten stars:

http://gamer.no//omtale/pc/h_c_ander..._eventyr/34840

I think it is important to remember that this game is intended for children.
My daughter got this game for birthday-present. She is 9, and she really loves this game. I also must say, it is very fun to play it together with her, but if I should have played it alone, I think I'd lost the interest quite quickly. The story is a little bit to childish and the characters in the game to simple.

Also on the negative side: The controls are a little bit difficult, and the game really have a loooong loading time.

But still I would recommend this for those of you with children. It is a good introduction to adventure games for young players, and an excellent way to spend some quality time with your child!

Other: Crime Stories (Martin Mystery)

...bysmitty

It's Martin Mystere.