[Siddhi]

Post your lists (adventure & non-adventure) and short reviews if you want. Here is mine:

Adventure

• Emerald City Confidential - Pretty easy, nice story. Fun game, nice to play a game where you dont have to beat your head on a wall. Great game to introduce to first time adventure players
• Tales of Monkey Island - Loved it. Typical Telltale formula game, but thats not a bad thing in my book. MI humour and good puzzles.
• Drawn 1 & 2 - First casual adventures that I played & found them both very engrossing
• Broken Sword 1 [Directors Cut] - First time playing this classic series. BS1 was great. I actually really liked the Nico scenes in the start, which I believe were not there in the original. I've read a lot of complaints about those scenes, but thought it really added to the story.
• Broken Sword 2 - BS2 was pretty good. Enjoyed the game, but the story was not as well fleshed out as BS1
• Broken Sword 3 - Decent apart from the crate puzzles Not as good as 1 & 2 though
• Runaway 1 - Enjoyed it. One frustration was when you solve a puzzle and think you are going to go forward, it blocks you with another puzzle
• Tex Murphy: Overseer [in the community playthrough] - Super game, still holds up after all these years. More comments in the community playthrough thread

Puzzle

• Puzzle Bots - Nice game but very short. Wish it was longer. Completed in one sitting
• The Cat and the Coup - Interesting "documentary" game with a unique art and gameplay style. If you like history, give it a try. Can be completed in 30 mins. Free game.
• Lume - Nice art style, but very short
• Nimbus - Awesome puzzle game, with some great level designs. Really loved it.

Semi-adventure??

• Another World (15th Anniversary Edition) - Short action-adventure game. Very cinematic and just pulls you into the world. Although short, some action sequences are quite hard
• Limbo - Another short game that I found very cinematic with a unique art style and some interesting puzzles
• Kings Bounty: The Legend - Excellent adventure-RPG-strategy hybrid. More RPG-strategy I suppose, but a really well made game that takes many hours to complete. Difficult game.

[Christian IV]

Anachronox ...finally, loved it, but the final boss battle is one of the worst ever put into an adventure game of any genre. i can see why the game did not sell better because of that, it is virtually unbeatable unless you know that somehow your party members got poisioned or gassed and therefore are irrational and will fight each other and you. Other than that, one of the best games ever made. I hope Tom somehow can make the sequel.

Omikiron Nomad Soul - got it to run well on XP with a patch pack ditto final boss battle, sucks but otherwise a classic and one no one should miss.

Atlantis Lost Tales, finally got it to run on XP with a patch pack i put together and save games to get past the disk changes, wonderful game beautiful music, and fun story. and there are four sequels.

all the patch packs and save games are in my sig.

[gray pierce]

Oh my goodness! I only played two games this year! Thi is wrong on so many levels. Hopefully I'll finish BOUT before new year so I can say I finished three games rather than two

Anyway so far I finished:

The Next Big Thing: Which is an enormous amount of fun untill you reach the final two chapters which are just plain weird and not in a good way. Not too mention the very lackluster ending.

A New Beginning: Which is a fun game though nothing really special. The only thing that made it stand out was the fact it was so riddled with bugs it was at times allmost impossible to play.

[GreyFuss]

Normally I would have waited to post my list closer to the New Year but this year there doesn't seem to be any adventure games coming out in this Holiday time, at least nothing that I am interested in, so here goes. These are all games I played for the first time and completed in 2011. The grades are how I personally liked and enjoyed the game as opposed to what a reviewer might grade them at.


Games Played 2011

A.D. 2044 C+
A New Beginning C+
Alpha Polaris C
Alternativa B-
Anacapri: The Dream A-
A Quiet Weekend in Capri B
A Stroke of Fate C+
Baron Wittard: Nemesis of Ragnarok B
Black Mirror 3: Final Fear B
Blue Madonna B
Casebook 1: Kidnapped C
Casebook 2: The Watcher C
Casebook 3: Snake in the Grass C
Conspiracies C+
Conspiracies II: Lethal Networks B-
Dead Mountaineers Hotel C-
Grackon’s Curse C
Last Half of Darkness: Society of the Serpent Moon B-
Mission 9 C+
Next Big Thing, The C-
Relics: Dark Hours C+
Remedy: A Carol Reed Mystery C+
Tale of a Hero C
Time Stand Still: A Carol Reed Mystery C+
Time Warrior: The Armageddon Device C+
Yoomurjak’s Ring C+ (would have gotten an A if it had been dubbed English)

[sierramindy]

I only played 3 games, well, actually only 2 and a half games as I never did finish Black Mirror 3. I found it too boring to continue to the end. Boring equals no curiosity factor to keep me going.
The 2 games I finished were Black Mirror 2, an okay game but nothing to make it memorable.
Now, the third game was a lot of fun for me. Alter Ego, which I gave 5 stars in my notebook, was outstanding in many ways! I played it without a walkthrough, a big deal for me, using only some great hints (at another AG forum) and enjoyed every minute of it.
I also tried to play Relics: Dark Hours but never made it past the beginning, kept getting lost in the corridors even using the map, which wasn't very helpful obviously!

[aimless]

The Book of Unwritten Tales: This is my choice for the best AG game of 2011. The graphics were beautiful; the English voice actors were wonderfully good; the characters were distinct individuals, quirky, fun and for the most part, likable (even the NPCs). I prefer inventory puzzles and got my druthers there though the rest of them were fun. The ending was a little rushed, as if the developers were caught up in what they were making and suddenly realized they'd better finish if they expected to publish, but I wouldn't mind if it never did end. Marvelous game.

Zork Grand Inquisitor: At last, I was able to play this and I can honestly say I've never played anything like it. Who cares if the graphics are dated? This game is a total hoot and it's easy to see why it's considered a classic. And a unique one, at that.

Alter Ego: Does it count if I didn't finish it? I hated this thing and tossed it about a third of the way through.

Last Half of Darkness, Society of the Serpent Moon: Nobody is better than Bill Fisher at making your skin crawl with the things that slither and scuttle through his games. (I guess that's a compliment. ) Tomb of Zojir is my favorite, I think because the first person perspective allowed for more of a feeling of immersion in the dark worlds he creates, but I had a great time with this one.

Black Mirror 3: A good game, I liked it, but I never did really understand the explanations for all that had been going on at the end and I got a little tired of Darren/Adrien looking as if he'd been run over by a truck. BM2 was far better and the best of the series, IMO.

The Next Big Thing: Ridiculous, confusing in spots and for the most part, fun. The graphics and the totally weird characters were the best thing about it. It cracked me up that the villain looked exactly like Willem DaFoe.

Grim Fandango. Okay, I know, bold. But for me this is still the best game of all time and I play it every year.

[harald]

But 2011 isn't over yet! I expect to finish a fair amount of games during the holidays, when (hopefully) I won't have much else to do. Then again, since I always end up having a lot to do anyway, I'll post my list now. But there may be some additions in a week or two...

The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble. A wonderfully weird game, but very difficult in places.

Emerald City Confidential. Nice and easy, and with a really well-told story. Worth playing despite its casual nature.

Torin's Passage. Interesting to see another side of Al Lowe. An okay game, but spends too much energy setting up for a sequel that never came to be and ends up feeling rushed at the end.

Portal 2. Pure genius, and one of the best games I played this year.

Syberia 2. I think Sokal should have left the story after the first game. The sequel is tolerable, but definitely not better than its predecessor.

Black Dahlia. Very difficult puzzles, which break the flow of the story. I hated the ending but liked the FMV; the unknown actor portraying the main character is great and outshines both Dennis Hopper and Teri Garr.

Edna & Harvey. Unlike adventure gamers in general, I didn't think that much of this game. It was pretty fun to play, and the puzzles were rather good (especially the one with the security guard). Maybe I let the hype crank up my expectations. I wished the story was more focused, I wonder if the designer even knew where he wanted to go with it. Then again, this was one of the reasons that compelled me to continue playing - I needed to see how it would end.

Tex Murphy: Overseer. This is, of course, the competitor to my best gaming experience of 2011. You can't go wrong with Tex. (Or can you? I still haven't played the first two.)

The Legend of Zelda. I know, this is really stretching the definition of adventure game. But if you don't have too much trouble with the (very simplistic) combat, there is some fun to be had with the puzzles and exploration. I look forward to the rest of the series (I'm near the end of A Link to the Past right now).

[thejobloshow]

Well, here are my thoughts about the few games I DID finish. I'm not including Portal 2 or Catherine or anything that might only slightly resemble an adventure.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Great game with original mechanics for an old genre like adventure. The story is a complete mind rape and the animation is really fluid for a DS game. I recommend this to everyone here.

L.A. Noire
Great game but problematic. It has some of the best acting and writing you'll see in a video game and part of that has to do with the facial capture animation. It's a damn shame that tech won't become the standard for photo-realistic games. It also sucked that L.A. Noire wasn't as free roaming as Red Dead Redemption. Otherwise a good adventure and play it in black and white.

Tales of Monkey Island
From what I've played I'd say this is easily Telltale's best adventure game to date and a worthy addition to the Monkey Island series. I'm surprised with how dark they went in this game too and they really conveyed that darkness in a very Monkey Island way so it never felt out of place. Good stuff.

[usman]

Black Mirror - II only.

It's a great atmospheric game just like the fans of the series wants.

[terhardp]

From the beginning of the year, I've played the following titles:

The Black Mirror III

From what I've read, the final part of the saga left many of its fans a bit underwhelmed. At first, it seemed to me like a decent conclusion. Now it feels quite forced out. But the game definitely had its benefits, like the predecessor. I still think that first game is the best in the series, despite great number of flaws.

The Next BIG Thing

This is also the game that I've rated highly than it deserves at first. The "promises" of recognizable graphic design, puzzles and humor is what made me check it out, despite the fact I knew there will be creatures (and which I simply don't like). Apart from the graphic, neither of the game's aspects weren't particulary good, comparing to Runaway triology.

Portal 2

When I've read the AG.com review of Portal before playing the game, I couldn't figure out why it's rated so highly. But after playing the game, I've definitely realized its potential. Portal 2 only confirmed that and made the Portal series one of my favorites ever.

Back to the Future: The Game

As a big fan of the movie triology, there was a little doubt that I'm going to play this. Overall, the game had its charms: mainly the voice-acting and some story elements. But the lack of gameplay and the dated graphic engine left a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth.


Alpha Polaris

Typical B-type movie thing. Everything about this game is mediocre. I've gave it a rather high rating though, as this is still a solid first title from the team that had developed this game.

A New Beginning

Shallow or not, the game graphic is the first thing that made me check a particular title. Generally, I prefer realism outside the genre, but I lean a bit toward the cartoon / comic style in adventures. The graphic style typical for Deadalic.com had certainly drawn my attention since I've seen screenshots of The Whispered World. As I don't like fantasy, I've skipped that game and was very intrigued when I've heard of A New Beginning. This is one of the better adventure games I've played in the last few years. It has almost everything, including good story, gameplay, locations and characters.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars DC

As a huge BS fan, I was dissapointed by this version. It doesn't bring anything more than the fantastic original already has to offer.

Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror DC

Same thing as the game above.

L.A. Noire

With some minor flaws, this will defintely enter the list of the best games I've ever played. It has everything I could wish for in a game, including immersive gameplay, good story and characters, stunning visuals and audio, great locations etc. One of the three best games I've played this year and the game that I will definitely replay a few times to experience all it has to offer.

Batman: Arkham City

I'm still playing it and I'm happy that I'm still at some 35% of the gameplay, at least according to game's statistics. Not that it matters much; when I think about Batman games, the first thing that comes to my mind is replay value. I still haven't replayed the first game, so it also has lots of yet undiscovered teritory for me.

Everything that I've wrote about L.A. Noire also apply here, but I might even give slight advantage to Batman when it comes to gameplay diversity.

[Fien]

Compared to a happy 2010 and an outstanding and productive 2009, this was not a very good year for me, adventurewise. I can only echo Gray Pierce: “this is wrong on so many levels.”



New
Gemini Rue. Terrific game. Played it twice. I noticed a couple of weaknesses the second time, but who cares. No game is perfect.
Black Mirror 3. I wanted to see how the whole thing would end and I got what I deserved. Mediocre. I agree with others that the first BM was the best.
Broken Sword 1, Director’s Cut. Only because I got it for free at gog.com, or I wouldn’t have bothered. My opinion of BS was confirmed once again: nice game, not top class.
Harvey’s Neue Augen. Not out in English yet. Loved it. Perhaps not as much as Edna and Harvey, but I had lots of fun with Lily.
Bracken Tor. Oops! You’re right, that was a childish thing to do. But it was beyond my control.

Indie
AGD’s remake of King’s Quest III. Great job! Highly recommended. They added so much great stuff to the original.

Old
Starship Titanic. Humorous, unique, nice graphics. Wonderful in almost every way, but.... too difficult for me. I got hopelessly stuck and confused. I think you need a specific mind set to finish it without a walkthrough.
The Colour of Murder. I promised myself I would play at least one Carol Reed game from beginning to end. I did it. Now I know for sure those games are not for me.

Replays
GAG. Flawed game, but great fun. Even more fun to play it together with others in the community playthrough.
Tex Murphy: Overseer. Always a pleasure to renew my acquintance with Tex.

Plus a dozen other adventures I didn’t finish because I got bored or ran into technical problems...

EDIT: I should add the casual adventure lite Escape from Ravenhearst.

[Drolin]

I played this year so many adventures Best of them was The Last Crown, which immediately took place in my TOP10.

(2011) To the Moon (3/5)
(2006) Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle (3/5)
(1992) Dark Seed (1/5)
(1999) Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of The Sacred, Blood of The Damned (5/5)
(2009) Dark Fall: Lost Souls (2/5)
(1998) Tender Loving Care (3/5) - Unique and fun to play, could recommend it for anyone.
(1991) Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood (3/5)
(2007) Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder (4/5) - Suprisingly good. Short, but very atmospherics.
(1993) Voyeur (0/5) - Ehm...
(1997) Zork: Grand Inquisitor (2/5)
(1996) Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!? (5/5)
(1996) Bad Mojo (4/5) - Amazing backgrounds and best videogame character to this date!
(1996) Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (3/5)
(1995) Phantasmagoria (1/5)
(2008) The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure (5/5)
(1998) Sanitarium (4/5)
(1996) Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands (3/5)
(1997) The Curse of Monkey Island (3/5)
(1994) Death Gate (4/5)
(2006) Scratches (4/5)
(1997) Obsidian (3/5)
(2009) Machinarium (2/5)
(2011) Gemini Rue (3/5)
(1995) Harvester (2/5)
(1994) DreamWeb (4/5)
(2004) Maniac Mansion Deluxe (4/5)

Apart form adventures, I played a few good RPGs and action games.

(1993) Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle (5/5) - Classic. Not as good as Black Gate, but still one of the best RPGs.
(2007) Eschalon: Book I (3/5)
(2008) Far Cry 2 (5/5) - I was expecting another ordinary fps, but FC2 is very different from today production (in a good way)
(1995) Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep (5/5)
(2010) Mass Effect 2 (2/5) - Hollywood style tps, nothing special at all.
(1995) Blood (4/5)

[inm8#2]

God I wish I had more time.

[palilulac]

Gray Matter
Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express
Machinarium
Echo Secrets Of The Lost Cavern
Penumbra 1 Overture
Penumbra 2 Black Plague
Penumbra 3 Requiem
Portal (First One)
Chronicles Of Mystery The Scorpio Ritual
The Fall Trilogy Chapter 1 Separation
The Fall Trilogy Chapter 2 Reconstruction
The Fall Trilogy Chapter 3 Revelation
Alpha Polaris
Dracula 3 Path Of The Dragon
The Book of Unwritten Tales

I also played a lots of HOG games, just to kill some time.
Th e best games i played this year were Penumbra Series and The Book of Unwritten Tales

[AnneS]

Much of my gaming time this year was expended on Dragon Age 2. (Not as popular around the interwebs as the first one, I know, but I've finished it five times already.) I found time to play some adventure games as well, however. It was a year for catching up on some classics I'd missed the first time around and revisiting some old favourites. I enjoyed almost everything I played.

The Lost Crown: Fabulous atmosphere, story and gameplay. Can't wait for the sequel!

Indigo Prophecy: One of the most frustrating control schemes I've ever had to put up with, and the plot and characterization completely fall apart in the last third of the game. And somehow it's still one of the best things I've ever played, both compelling and original.

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Silver Earring: I wasn't the biggest fan of this one, due to its unsatisfying length and some frustrating puzzles. (That timed maze goes down as one of my all-time most hated sequences in an adventure game.)

Sanitarium: Badly flawed control scheme but a fascinating plot and atmosphere, and some of the most interesting environments I've ever seen in a game.

The Longest Journey: Wonderful epic that deserves its reputation.

Tex Murphy: Overseer Replayed as part of the community play through after a gap of fifteen years. Holds up really well after all this time, this made me more frustrated than ever that we never saw the next game in the series.

And since I'm on the night shift all this week and have nothing better to do than play games, it's entirely possible I'll get through one more before New Year. I think I'm going to play something more recent, but I haven't decided what - Culpa Innata? Gray Matter? Machinarium?

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by GreyFuss

Yoomurjak’s Ring C+ (would have gotten an A if it had been dubbed English)

May I ask why? I find this very curious.

[Mikekelly]

I finished 44 games this year. A record for me. The main standout was 'Last Window" the best game I played in 2011. Other excellent games include 999, Ghost Trick and Secret Files 2.

A very good year for me indeed.

[Siddhi]

44!??

[cwapitm]

This year I played

Runaway: A Twist of Fate - Really enjoyed it. Surprised they changed the voice actors for Brian and Gina, but was happy to discover Gina was just Kate Walker.

Episodes 2-4 of The Silver Lining - Really enjoying this professionally made freeware fan game. Even though downloading the episodes takes forever and there are sometimes long delays and bugs, it's worth the wait.

Episodes 2-5 of Back to the Future - I also enjoyed this series even though it was kinda easy.

The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble - One of the weirdest games I've played, but I was captivated by the storyline. However, I wouldn't play it again.

Goblin's Quest 3 (replay) - Yes, I got into a Coktel Vision mood. This is the only Goblin's game I have. I find it fun, but the timed sequences near the end drive me crazy.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (replay) there was a lot more running around back and forth in this one than I remembered.

LOOM (replay) - Still wish there had been sequels

Jurassic Park: The Game - The most fun I've had with a game in a long time. I got attached to the characters too.

After that I played some Fallout 3, and during the first half of the year I played a bunch of HOG/casual games. No way am I going to list all of those. Right now I'm replaying SBCG4AP. Next I'll probably get into Skyrim (if I get it for Christmas) and/or Fallout: New Vegas, and then I want to replay Sam and Max Seasons 1-3. Whew.

[colpet]

I only played 4 adventures this past year. I'm becoming more reliant on Casuals to fill in the void. Here's my list in order of play. I realy liked the Rhem games and The Filmmaker.
Mystery Case Files - 13th Skull CE
Nancy Drew Warning at Waverly Academy - Jan 22- Feb 27
The Filmmaker - Aug 7/10 - March 6/11
Rhem 3 - March 7 - March 26
Rhem 4 - March 26 - April 10
Tiny Bang Story -
Blood Oath
Fall Trilogy 3 - Revelation
Gravely Silent House of Deadlock
Midnight Mysteries 3- Death on the Mississippi
Hidden Expedition Uncharted Islands Collector’s Edition
Nightmare Edition The Witches Prison
Urban Legends The Maze
Echoes of the Past Citadel of Time
Mystery Case Files Escape from Ravenhurst
Hallowed Legends Templar CE