[RxBandits123]

Being bored of most of the fps games that have come out over the last few years I found myself pretty much doing a complete 180 with the games I play now. Besides a few games I have gotten really tired and bored with shooter games and it doesn't matter how good the graphics are.

Even though Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, and Dreamfall are not technically adventure games and more or less hybrids, these three games really changed how i look at games. I would also call them gateway adventure games because they led me to check out Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, Broken Sword, and Still Life.

I assume a lot of you guys started playing adventure games during the "golden age" with Sam and Max or Monkey Island. But wondering if anyone else like me just recently got into adventure games and if so what game influenced you the most?

PS I probably should include Deus Ex too even though that is more similar to rpgs.

[gray pierce]

Broken Sword : The Smoking Mirror

[SamandMax]

Almost all of my earliest video game memories revolve around playing Police Quest on the Tandy 1000 or Maniac Mansion on the NES, so I don't think I was ever really turned onto adventure games, I've always played them.

[colpet]

The first adventure game I played was when I got my first computer in 2000. It was Riven and to this day, the best gaming experience I ever had. It was the epitome of gaming for me.

[AndreaDraco83]

A Gabriel Knight Mystery: The Beast Within in 1997

[tsa]

I started waaaay before the Golden Age, somewhere in 1984 or -5 or so. There were a lot of very bad text adventures back then, but also some good ones, like The Beyond; a Dutch 'horror' adventure. John Vanderaart was THE Commodore 64 hero in those days. He wrote a lot of adventures that I liked a lot. Around the same time The Pawn came out: the best adventure game ever written for the Commodore 64. That got me hooked.

[Jelena]

I started playing adventure games (or games at all for that matter) rather late, about when I turned 40.
It was URU Ages Beyond Myst who got me hooked to exploring and solving puzzles. To this day I still love that game!

[tastebud]

my dad bought me monkey island 1 back in 1991. ah the memories.

[Shany]

Originally Posted by AndreaDraco83

A Gabriel Knight Mystery: The Beast Within in 1997

Same here.
My mom got me and my brother a new computer and let us buy loads of games for it. One game would not work and had to be replaced. Gabriel Knight is the game we got instead.

I took a break from adventure games around 1999 (I had forums and chats eating up my life), and re-discovered them thanks to Discworld Noir which I found in a bargain bin in 2003.

[Coop]

Day of the Tentacle. Played it on my friend's MAC. Been hooked ever since.

[partially]

The Dig, back in 1995. I loved that game.

I used to play adventures far more back then, than I do now.

[Luna Sevithiainen]

I started playing adventure games when I was about 5, maybe 6 years old, with my father. The first game we played (or at least the first one I consciously remember playing with him) was The Legend of Kyrandia Book 1 - Fables and Fiends.
And I loved it. Young as I was, I loved trying to figure out what we were about to do. I loved to discuss every possible solution when we were stuck. I loved being in a different world, with a story being told, and me being in control.
To sum things up: I loved everything an adventure game is. Since that game, I am hooked to the genre.

[tsa]

Those are all the things that I love too. But I didn't like The Legend of Kyrandia Book 1 at all .

[Luna Sevithiainen]

Originally Posted by tsa

Those are all the things that I love too. But I didn't like The Legend of Kyrandia Book 1 at all .

Playing it again, I don't think it is a very great game either. Obscure puzzles, limited inventory, some dead ends...But it worked for me then. Must also have been the charm of playing it with my father, driving my mother crazy with out sudden outbursts during dinner, like 'hey! When we try this and that, we might be able to...' She never understood adventure gaming.

But I digress

[Denaron]

I think the game that turned me on to adventure style was Full throtle. I didn't paid much attention when i saw it for the first time. About 8 or 10 ago, i watched my cousin play it and i really liked.

[M-E]

As a first post this actually could serve as a nice introduction.

I remember my first steps into the world of adventure games like it was yesterday, and no it was not ... yesterday. Back in 1997, I was about 9/10 at that time, we used to have our first pc in a study room in the attic. That's where I first learned to use a computer using a book my fellow Dutch people might remember: Windows 95 voor kinderen. That's when i not only discovered my love for computers, but also for adventure games. My dad was an avid Myst player and I loved how the game looked. I played it for a little while but it was too hard for me at the time. But that year marked the release of another adventure game, one which I still adore, although it was far from perfect. I'm talking about Atlantis: The Lost Tales. The music and graphics were top notch at that time, and me being a fan of old civilizations and mythologies helped me love the setting and ambience as well. I played it from start to finish with a little help from a walkthrough at times. Then there was another game from that year that attracted my interest, namely Jack Orlando. Until this day I still think that is one of the coolest, most underrated adventure games. God, I feel old although I'm still very young, lol.

[rottford]

My first adventure was Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders on a friend's Amiga, as well as Hero's Quest (Quest for Glory I -- which opened the Sierra floodgates) in the computer lab at school around the same time. I played dozens of games through the late '80s/early- to mid-'90s, but I'd say I didn't fully appreciate adventure games (or understand large parts of the stories) until 1998 with Grim Fandango. I was a sophomore in high school and just starting to "get" more mature, deep storytelling. Not long after that, I went back and replayed GK I and II, and learned to appreciate them on a greater level than when I was younger (back then, it was just "cool -- he ripped his heart out!"). They helped keep my mind fresh and functioning during college, too -- literary criticism is a bitch if you can't think outside the box

So I guess I had two "adventure awakenings," as it were -- one "golden era," one post-"golden era." I get the feeling the third awakening will be a "when I finally get time in my life to sit down and play through a game again" kind of reintroduction.

[Kazmajik]

Adventure on the Atari 2600.

Then later Zork.

Then later King's Quest IV, Leisure Suit Larry 2, and Police Quest 2 (simultaneously)

[crabapple]

My first adventure game was Myst, played in 1999.
I bought it because some friends in a forum I used to visit recommended it.
Before I played Myst, I didn't realize a genre like adventure games existed.

Originally Posted by RxBandits123

Even though Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, and Dreamfall are not technically adventure games and more or less hybrids, these three games really changed how i look at games. I would also call them gateway adventure games because they led me to check out Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, Broken Sword, and Still Life.

I suppose you could say that Myst was my "gateway adventure" to the classic Sierra and LucasArts games. At the time I started gaming, the only adventure games available in local shops were the first person types. If I hadn't enjoyed games like Myst and Shivers and the other 1st person adventure games so much, I'd never have gone online and learned about and bought the classic LucasArts and Sierra games.

[kwool]

I was pretty recently introduced to the genre--about a year and a half ago I picked up Evidence: The Last Ritual at Target. It blew my mind. So, here I am now.