Adventure Gamers - Forums

rtrooney - 21 January 2014 09:18 PM

Still love the GF/Calavera pairing. If only one of the two could be found at a reasonable price and could be made to play on a modern machine.

 

Have you seen this?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/239339/how_to_play_grim_fandango_on_your_windows_7_pc.html

I have used it and GF plays just fine.  It is as easy to set up as the article says.

rtrooney - 22 January 2014 10:46 AM

Good thought although I would not select Madam Fate as the carnival game. There’s another one out there that I’ve played that is much better. I’ll have to go to my BFG purchase history to did up the name.

Any carnival game that you would recommend would be great! I’m curious as to which one it is.

I might do some more brainstorming for other thematic pairings just for fun. A very intriguing idea, that.

Hi Tim—I’ve played about an hour into Dreamland, and I think it would be an intriguing contrast to Tony Tough. Both have a carnival setting with a rescue theme going on. Tony Tough was clearly inspired by the classic LucasArts adventures, and Dreamland is a well-put-together example of a casual HOPA, with puzzles and graphics that are typical to the genre. It has a few more HO screens than I would prefer, but that isn’t at all unusual. 

I agree—the pipes puzzle was extremely tough. The toughest puzzle in the game, IMHO, takes place in the bonus section - it’s a radio wavelength puzzle.

rtrooney - 22 January 2014 11:48 AM

furgotten - 22 January 2014 11:08 AM

Have you seen this?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/239339/how_to_play_grim_fandango_on_your_windows_7_pc.html

I have used it and GF plays just fine.  It is as easy to set up as the article says.

Thanks for the information. That solves half the problem. The “reasonable price” part still remains. As the article said, the game didn’t sell very well. Ergo, the number of games, (both new and used,) is somewhat limited.

Grim Fandango, Sam & Max , The Dig and Full Throttle was released in DVD type cases some years ago. Sometimes this edition isgetting sold on e-Bay.
I just got the Entertainment Pack, which includes all 4 games.
So, just keep searching on e-Bay

I saw your post. I’m a bit late to the party when it comes to House of 1000 Doors. I finished Family Secrets recently, and am partway into The Palm of Zoroaster. If I jumped straight to Serpent’s Flame and didn’t finish Palm of Zoroaster, would I miss much?

I’m starting to replay Tony Tough and I’m also playing Dreamland to see if they’d be good to play together in case we wanted to submit them as part of the next CPT vote.

rtrooney - 28 January 2014 06:54 PM

Stick with Zoroaster. I thought it was a fun game, and the time travel and one similar location reminded me of the CPT we’re playing.

Sounds good.

I recently finished Empress of the Deep 3: Legacy of the Phoenix. The plot is similar to that of Empress of the Deep 2: Song of the Blue Whale—Empress Anna is proceeding through various fantastical environments, discovering what she needs to know and collecting what she needs to acquire to take her rightful place and save her people. During this mission she is aided and/or stymied by a two-headed wizard, her sister Pandora, and her ever-pompous advisor Jacob.

Puzzles include inventory item challenges, morphing object screens, list-based Hidden Objects, and the occasional mini-game. There’s also an unusual set of HO-like puzzles where you are shown small details from the current screen and must locate them (I enjoyed these a lot).  A map reveals the various locations and shows you where you are and where you should be headed. Unfortunately, the map doesn’t allow fast travel to various locations. A diary keeps track of your progress and holds important documents and images that can be referred to during puzzle sequences.

Puzzles are easy to medium in terms of difficulty, and they play second fiddle to the amazing environments you wander through. I mainly assume the role of Empress Anna in order to discover and gape at what lies around the next corner. Environments have a 3D effect and are extremely detailed and beautifully lit. Huge statues and other monumental structures loom over the walkways and giant trees twist their way right into the heart of buildings. Animations include blowing clouds, flocks of birds, drifting dust motes and tongues of flame. This game gives you the sense that you are walking through the environments, not just clicking through a series of screens.

I played the Collector’s Edition, which contains a bonus chapter with one new area and a game called Zem 2. Winning at Zem 2 opens up concept art, and these images are surprisingly informative. They give you a sense of how the environments were built, showing models of the 3D constructions at various stages before all the colors, textures, lighting and additional objects were layered in. Another nice feature – you can still wander around the world after the game is over, unlike many casual games where the autosave function shuts you out of the gameworld once the game is completed.

I enjoyed House of 1000 Doors: The Palm of Zoroaster right up until the end. I like visiting the different locations across the globe. So many casual games seem to be set in Europe—even the fantasy worlds are derived from European myths and fairy tales. I wish more HO games had exotic locations like these. More globetrotting, please!

I was thrilled to finally meet Gabriel (stories of his exploits were dropped occasionally during the game). He said hello and politely told me he’d answer all my questions—as soon as I’d saved the house. And then the game ended.

I suspect the questions were answered in the bonus chapter, which of course, I didn’t buy.