What Adventure Has Your Favourite Puzzles (And Why)?
 

Maybe this'll explain what we all mostly like about puzzles in games.

My favourites are from Myst III: Exile. They were ambitious (requiring you to explore), visually pleasing when working them out, had rewards (usually cutscenes and new areas open when completed), had lots of things to interact with rather than just staring at a static picture, didn't have object combining puzzles other than putting pages into a machine and they weren't too hard.

Amateria is a fine example. The entire world is basically one big puzzle to teach Atrus' sons about balance.

What's yours?

Well I'm not a puzzle orientated player but as far as I remember Safecracker had a couple of creative ones

Riven. Everything is there for you to discover and work out. The clues are all there for you to observe. It is a game to savor and go through slowly. Even when you are stumped, there is still so much to see and do that you can go work on something else. An absolute marvel of a game.

For me, it has to be Riven and Obsidian. :D

The puzzles in Riven are well-integrated into the game environment. Many switches, levers, buttons and doors serve actual, practical purposes other than being obstacles to progress (the boiler on Book Assembly Island, Gehn's throne on Temple Island, the sub and wahrk counting game on Jungle Island and of course the Survey throne on Survey Island.) The most difficult puzzles in the game require putting together information from various sources (and using a bit of intuition) to connect the dots. Solving these puzzles rewards the player with stunning cutscenes, especially the Animal Stone puzzle, the "waffle iron" puzzle and of course, the finale! :D

Obsidian has some of my favourite puzzles ever, mostly because of their surreal setting. The entire Bureau Realm has a notable collection of weird and wacky puzzles (Filing Cabinet, Department of Pre-Approvals, clockwork puzzle). The Spider Realm puzzles were quite challenging too (Fire, Air, Metal, Oil), as were the ones in the Bismuth Realm (trapping "inspiration", The Church of the Machine programming puzzle :crazy: ). The player was also rewarded with breathtaking cutscenes for completing each realm. :D

Best puzzles are in:

Riven - so connected to the game world exploration and to learning its culture, its fauna and flora

Black Dahlia - superb concepts for complex puzzles having elements of detective like deduction and finding plainly logical relations

Discworld - pure inventory crazy fun

Gabriel Knight - such a satisfaction of solving challenging puzzles so much embedded in the complex plotline

Discworld Noir - using ideas as items was a brilliant idea

Grim Fandango - the whole huge Rubacava chapter is pure masterpiece, but the game is genius in its entirety too

Secret of Monkey Island 2 - great huge chapter comprising of three islands to explore

At the moment I'm playing the Neverhood Chronicles. So far I really enjoyed the puzzles that span the environment because it makes me feel that the whole place is real and connected. I heard the Myst games are also like that.

i love the puzzles in gabriel knight 2 : the beast within.

they were very logical and connected to the plot. the ending puzzle is one of the things that, for my opinion, made the ending so good and satisfying.

I would have to go with two games.

Riven as mentioned earlier is one the best puzzle driven games ever.

and i also like "Le Serpent Rouge" from Gabriel Knight 3. That is one of my favorite puzzles ever devised and one that i loved to solve all the way.

For me, it has to be Riven, like everyone else in this thread. I'm horrible at puzzles, so the Myst games were so hard for me to go anywhere without consulting a walkthrough. But Riven's puzzles, while hard and I had to look at walkthroughs, had one of my favorite puzzles, that I solved all by my self. The numbers you had to learn, and use on one of the domes, was very enjoyable for me, who hates puzzles.

Loom and Neverhood
Loom just was so original and so fun, plus I like music.

Neverhood- very little inventory, many interactions with environment. Funny main character too.

I loved the puzzles in the Shivers games. Great combination and variation of logic, intuition, story hints, etc.

with no single doubt its Riven,
though its sad that i cant find even one alternative to take place,
i thought bout mentioning still life2 ( dont be surprised) i like inventory puzzles
and they were at best in it..but in the end Riven is something on its own never
will be repeated ..and bout (Why)
riven was the only game i played were everything in the game mattered and as well connected!!!
just walking around and exploring the islands to get to know the features of each,helps you later!..everything in this game is created to serve the player to solve one big puzzle by figuring out every little one!

I don't think there's any one game that has all my favorite types of puzzles. I like games like Riven and RHEM, where the puzzles are tightly integrated with the game environment. But I also liked the puzzles in Shivers, 7th Guest, Safecracker, and the Jewels of the Oracle games, because of the variety of puzzles, even if there isn't much of a game environment or story outside of the puzzles (as with the Jewels games). One of my favorite puzzles was in an unlikely game -- the Myst O' Tyme puzzle in Escape from Monkey Island. Another of my favorite puzzles was the insult swordfighting in Secret of Monkey Island. Why? Not because it was difficult, but because it was funny to solve. I don't usually like inventory puzzles, but I liked Return to Mysterious Island because of how you could assemble, disassemble, and reassemble the inventory to solve different puzzles.

Interesting... most games in my top ten have already been mentioned, although good puzzles are definitely not my only criterium.

Plus Bad Mojo for its creative cockroach puzzles: no inventory, no hands. I wish there were more games featuring weird creatures with unique possibilities. I was a disappointed that alien Squish with his 6 arms - 4 ordinary ones, 1 retractable and 1 inflatable ;) - is just an NPC in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.
The lovely, whacky, humorous puzzles in Zork Grand Inquisitor.
The natural, well-integrated "puzzles" and problems in the Last Express.

Broken Sword 1. The puzzles just feel natural and logical. I know some people think a few of the puzzles are a bit illogical, but i don't think so. I think they're all great. They help drive the story forward rather than feeling like obstacles. I never get tired of solving them whenever i replay the game.

I'd also have to agree that Le Serpent Rouge is a great puzzle and has become a new favourite. I solved it by myself, during my second playthrough, and although it seemed daunting at first, when i managed to solve it, it felt satisfying. And it's really clever how it's all been put together. SIDNEY is a great tool. It's fantastic how much information is readily available. Unravelling the riddles and the mystery just feels... right. It all fits and feels natural. It's just like solving a real complex riddle that has never been solved.

Other favourites would be in The Beast Within, The Secret/Curse of Monkey Island and Simon the Sorcerer. Again, logical puzzles that help drive the story forward for The Beast Within, but i find the puzzles fun to solve in the Monkey Island and Simon the Sorcerer (mainly the first one) games. Even if they are a bit illogical at times.

Let's not forget about Nancy Drew. For example The Phantom of Venice where you got to hack a computer, decypher secret codes and solve the water basin puzzle in the end. Nancy Drew is not known for compelling stories, but the puzzles are a real joy.

Riven and Obsidian are at the top, definitely. Riven for the way the puzzles are integrated into the environment, and, as Colpet says, the way everything you need to solve the puzzles is right there, if you're observant.

And Obsidian for the originality of many of its puzzles and the unique sort of lateral thinking they required.

You beat me to it. I'd say my favourite one from there is the telephone puzzle in hell.

I'm not a very big fan of crazy tough puzzles like in Myst, but there is one exception and that game is called Safecracker. Call me crazy but I loved that game! =]

The Broken Sword series had a nice heap of logical puzzles, I think. Nothing too far-fetched and I thought they made sense in the game world. Same goes for The Longest Journey and both Syberia games.