[archcorenth]

I finally bought the game because people keep talking about it and I'd missed it when it came out. But I find the main character obnoxious. It has perhaps the most offensive puzzles I've ever seen -- worse than Discworld's which at least were puns -- TLJ's are simply illogical one involves using a rubber floaty to get a key to an electrical box across the city from between electrified train tracks in the subway, by using the innertube on the ducky to hold open a clamp which will then slowly close around the key after the ducky is popped. And I haven't even yet mentioned the things you have to do to get the ducky or the questionable reason you have to get into the electrical box. This isn't a logic problem, it's just idiotic.

And yet reviewers are head over heels in love with this game. Well, I'd like to get some game reviews from people out there who hate The Longest Journey.

To get us started, I just bought Gabriel Knight 2 from Gog at their Halloween sale, and thought it was magnificent, it might be my vote for the finest adventure came ever created. Before that I played Voyage to the Moon, and thought it quite fun and daffy. Both had wonderful puzzles of very different flavors, some of which were difficult, and yet neither required a walkthrough because of being illogical.

So people who dislike The Longest Journey, what are your adventure game recommendations?

[After a brisk nap]

No, you're not the only one, and that rubber duckie puzzle is often criticized, but could you explain what the problem is with that puzzle?

Yes, of course in real life it would not be the simplest way to hold the clamp open or get the keys, and you have to suspend disbelief about carrying a rubber duckie all over town, but that's just standard adventure game logic. Gabriel Knight and Indiana Jones carried more random objects than that all over the world, because when you need a stick (for example), only the one stick you found on a different continent will do (and if you didn't pick it up, you'll have to go back for it).

The clamp + rubber duckie solves a realistic problem (you don't want to go down to the train tracks to be electrocuted or run over) in a plausible way (the jury-rigged device looks like it could work) that can be imagined from the properties of the individual components.

[Idrisguitar]

criticising any adventure game for a wacky puzzle is a fool's errand.

every adventure games every pretty much has one puzzle that can be criticised.

as the above poster has done, picking one out from a game you love.

if you dont like the atmosphere, characters, writing, or if there are 10-20 of horribly stupid puzzles, then fair enough.

[UPtimist]

Heh, I like TLJ a lot, but I remember thinking that that rubber ducky puzzle was way worse than GK3's cat moustache puzzle The only way I realized what I was supposed to do is that I'd seen a screenshot or something with the rubber ducky in place or something like that. And even then I had huge trouble getting everything to work and I think I had to resort to UHS still...

It is a realistic problem, but I felt that the solution was really too far-fetched. Plus, if I remember correctly, there were all sorts of little things in the way before you could actually do that with the things in your inventory.

But it's been so many years, that I don't remember the details any more My memory could be completely wrong too

Well, anyways, I felt the beginning of TLJ wasn't top-notch, but I felt it constantly got better as it got along.

Anyways, you certainly aren't alone in hating it, I've seen a large amount of people here talking about how they feel utterly bored etc. by it. I guess it's kinda like Myst which you either hate or love...

[aimless]

I think archcorenth was only using that puzzle as an example. Anyway, chalk me up as one who didn't like the story, the characters, the writing, or the puzzles. IMO, that's one game that's truly worthy of being sailed out the window.

[Ascovel]

I didn't like TLJ very much. I remember that particularly the amount of cliches and borrowed elements bothered me back then. Nothing stood out to me as unique. But I think my disappointment was also influenced by the hype - the game just didn't live up to what the ecstatic reviews said.

[Oscar]

I've come across plenty of people who don't like TLJ. Strangely, I haven't come across anyone who doesn't like Book of Unwritten Tales, which is a MUCH worse game in my opinion.

[Schneckchen ^.^]

Stupid puzzles never really bother me too much since I have no shame about using a walkthrough as soon as I get stuck. I play adventure games for the story and atmosphere and in Longest Journey, I really liked both.

[aimless]

I just remembered you asked for recommendations. You don't say what you've played lately, though, except GK2 and TLJ. If you haven't played GK1, go for it! There is one puzzle, right off the top of my head, that isn't all that logical but the game as a whole is great. If you want to laugh your way through a game, get Zork Grand Inquisitor from GOG or (despite Oscar ) The Book of Unwritten Tales which I absolutely loved. Then there are Lost Horizon & Black Mirror 2. If you haven't played any of those, you've got a lot of enjoyable adventuring coming.

[archcorenth]

Yes, I was using the rubber ducky puzzle as just one example, it was particularly irksome to me because in the very beginning of the game I looked out the window of my room to see what was out there, and the girl says something about how there's nothing out there except the wall of the other building. However, if you look out there, open the window and look down, you'll find there is a clothesline and a rubber ducky down there. All told I probably spent probably four hours stuck trying to figure out how to get into that fuse box, going back and forth over a far too large open world, and my reward was the Rubber ducky puzzle. I suppose the part I should be most upset with was that looking out window was actually clued against. It's too bad I didn't have Toto with me. But it wasn't just that puzzle, throughout the game, there was story and there was puzzles and the two rarely had anything to do with one another.

All games are not like that. I gave two examples of games where the puzzles and the story melded seamlessly.

There was only one puzzle at all that seemed a bit far fetched in GK 2 Towards the end you have to distract a guard with a bird, and you get the bird long before you have to use it, which creates an illogical situation where you're carrying a pigeon around in your coat everywhere you go. But that's the worst that it has. In fact generally the game doesn't let you pick up items until you have a use for them. For instance you know there's sausage at the sausage vendor's but Gabriel says he doesn't need sausage at the moment. I didn't notice any time in GK 1 or 2 when I needed a specific stick, or anything like that. (The worst example of that problem is in DragonSphere where you need a specific candle and there's a candle on every single wall in every scene in the game.) In fact both Gabriel Knight games had very small inventories. Puzzles had more to do with actually investigating which is what you job was. It all hung together. The second I thought was better that the first because the plot kept moving throughout, whereas the first one got repetitive. I'm excited to play the third one, but comments on this thread make me a bit apprehensive.

The reason I thought I'd ask for recommendations is because, I really like adventure games, but I feel like if reviewers favorite games are ones I actually dislike (TLJ and Broken Sword), I probably shouldn't be listening to their recommendations. I should be listening to the recommendations of people who like what I like.

Some of my favorite adventure games:
Beneath a Steel Sky
The Dig
Obsidian
Gabriel Knight 1 & 2
The Fool's Errand
Voyage to the Moon
Salammbo
The Chzo Mythos
Dune
The King's Quest 2 Remake
Portal (the old one that is an adventure game)
Another World
Fallacy of Dawn
Daemonica
Blade Runner
Penumbra and Black Plague

Some I dislike that got good reviews:
TLJ
Broken Sword
Riven

[archcorenth]

I would like to try the zork games. and I've looked at black mirror before when it was on sale, maybe I'll get it the next time it is. I'm not a fan of parody, so The Book of Unwritten Tales doesn't really seem like my sense of humor. And Lost Horizon doesn't exactly look like it has a very original plot....

[TimovieMan]

Originally Posted by Schneckchen ^.^

Stupid puzzles never really bother me too much since I have no shame about using a walkthrough as soon as I get stuck. I play adventure games for the story and atmosphere and in Longest Journey, I really liked both.

^ This.

The farther I got in TLJ, the better it became, and its story and atmosphere were excellent. Found it to be a consistently good-to-great game.

Dreamfall on the other hand was even better story- and dialogue-wise (both games had really superb writing), but that one had a few more flaws (the - luckily very easy - action bits and the fact that you're mostly just watching the game in its final two hours instead of playing it). Overall two very good games, imo.

Originally Posted by archcorenth

And Lost Horizon doesn't exactly look like it has a very original plot....

It doesn't, but that didn't stop it from being a very entertaining game. It's the Indiana Jonesest game since Fate of Atlantis, and if you've ever played FoA and liked it, then Lost Horizon is a winner. Heck, you can play if for the great locations alone...


Hmmm... "Indiana Jonesest"...
Now I'm just inventing words here...

[Arial Type]

The Longest Journey is also on my "highly overrated" game list. I didn't have a problem with rubber ducky puzzle, or any other puzzle for that matter. The game just felt uninspired. I blame Tornquist for this, because he is not really as good at storytelling as he's praised for. I didn't like the over-epic plot, the characters and long, often meaningless dialogs just for the sake of dialogs.

You should definitely try other Gabriel Knight games. Zork Grand Inquisitor is always a good choice - highly original and satirical fantasy.

[TiAgUh]

Originally Posted by Schneckchen ^.^

Stupid puzzles never really bother me too much since I have no shame about using a walkthrough as soon as I get stuck.

It's against my nature to use those. It simply ruins the whole experience. Guess I'm just lucky for being a genius (while most of you had trouble with the cooking puzzle in Still Life, I did it in a few seconds! Yeah, you can start worshiping me now ).

But yeah, TLJ is such an overrated game, and so incredibly predictable it hurts. The only positives for me are the atmosphere and those books from the library, I guess.

[Fien]

The sequel Dreamfall blew me away, I loved that game, it's in my top 20. But I thoroughly enjoyed TLJ as well, in spite of some ludicrous puzzles.

Yes, Zork Grand Inquisitor is a must-play, such a fun game! The humor is not at all like Sam&Max, DoTT, MI c.s. which is a relief, because there's no shortage of that type of adventure. And since nobody has recommended The Last Express I will. Well-integrated puzzles, if you can call them that, cause it's really more about understanding what's going on and then doing the right thing. Top game.

PS: My award for the most terrible puzzle ever goes to "finding a lemon" in Tunguska. That one is not just ridiculous and farfetched in the extreme (given Tunguska's more or less realistic setting), I also felt sort of offended that the developers made me do something that unethical.

[GreyFuss]

The Longest Journey was just OK with me. There was just waaaay too much dialog for me to enjoy "playing" the game and most of it was just drivel. If it weren't for this then I would be able to rate it much higher as the graphics, controls and game play were very good. Dreamfall on the other hand wasn't very good compared to TLJ. Graphics were great, not as much dialog but there wasn't very much gameplay at all. More like you pointed the character in a direction and the game did everything itself. Speaking of pointing I wasn't too impressed with the controls in Dreamfall either. At least it wasn't totally Keyboard controlled.

I suspect that a lot of gamers that got wrapped up in the story could forgive any gameplay shortcomings...me I saw some story in the first game but after Dreamfall I have no idea of what is going on.

[fov]

If you liked AGDI's KQ2 remake, you'll probably like the KQ3 remake too. It doesn't diverge from the original as much as KQ2 but it eliminates dead end situations and has some added gameplay. (And it's free!)

Also if you can find it, you might give Shadow of Destiny a try. Gabriel Knight 2 is one of my all-time favorite games and Shadow of Destiny is another one, so maybe you'll feel the same way. It has a realistic setting, serious (and great) story, neat time-travel puzzles (you have to do something in one time period to impact another time period), and multiple endings. I can't think of any annoying puzzles like the ones you're describing. (It was named Shadow of Memories in the UK.)

[archcorenth]

Well I will definitely look up Zork, Last Express, Shadow of Destiny. Last Express, and Black Mirror. Last Express has been in my shopping cart for a while.

What do people think about the Sherlock Holmes games? I really liked the demo for Sherlock Holmes versus Arsene Lupin. It was a lot of fun solving puzzles in the National Gallery. I'm thinking about getting them all in a bundle on Steam since it's the cheapest there, but I'm worried that maybe the puzzles become repetitive. Since I also played the demo for Hounds of the Baskervilles and it had some of the same puzzles in its demo and Arsene Lupin.

[mbday630]

I enjoyed The Longest Journey, but didn't enjoy running around so much. They should have had a map to get around. As the story went on I got into it much more.

DreamFall, the sequel to The Longest Journey is very hard. I only played about one hour and I had to fight an instructor or something and they kept telling me how bad I did, so I never finished. I can't seem to work the arrow keys to ever get those things.

[Ashok]

I agree TLJ had a few whacky puzzles, but so did a lot of old Sierra and LucasArts classics. I agree TLJ def. didn't implement its puzzles as Gabriel Knight, but it's still on my Top 10 list for PC gaming. Imho the story, characters, and dialogue were fantastic, and April Ryan is hands down my #1 favorite video game character to date. The series could use some polish on the puzzles, and the action sequences in Dreamfall were crap, but I think Ragnar Tornquist is one of the best video game writers around.