Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
New posts
No new postsYour Top 100 Adventure Games (Voting Ended)
Please note that if your list includes 80 Days, I need to know whether it’s Inkle’s game or the 3D game from Frogwares. I’ve already contacted some of you via PM regarding this but thought I’d give a heads up to everyone else.
The one on my list is the Frogwares one.
I need some clarity on the Portal games since I haven’t played any version of them. So far I have Portal, Portal 2, Portal (1986), and Portal (2007). Please give me more info so I know how to group them or if each one should stand alone.
Valve’s Portal and Portal 2 don’t really belong in this thread imo. They’re not adventure games but rather first person puzzle platformers.
Thank you for the info, TLJ and Chase. We’ll sort out the details later, along with some other games I’m not sure about.
Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.
I’m fine with some of my games “not counting”, but I wont replace them. They’re adventure enough for me personally.
Currently Playing: Dragon Age Origins: Awakening
Recently Played: Red Embrace: Hollywood, Dorfromantik, Heirs & Graces, AI: The Somnium Files, PRICE, Frostpunk, The Shapeshifting Detective (CPT), Disco Elysium, Dream Daddy, Four Last Things, Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, The Signifier
It’s important to keep in mind that games don’t fit neatly into boxes. A game isn’t always either/or something, sometimes it is both.
AKA Charo
The Last Campfire
What an incredible game about love and hope
Yes I love it!
my pick:
Alluvium
Back to the Future: The Game
Blackwell Convergence
Blackwell Deception
Blackwell Epiphany
Blackwell Legacy
Blackwell Unbound
Curse of Monkey Island
Darkside Detective
Day of the Tentacle
Dear Esther
Dreamweb
Firewatch
Full Throttle
Gemini Rue
Grim Fandango
I have no Mouth and I must Scream
If on a Winter’s Night, Four Travelers
Kentucky Route Zero
Last Door
Life and Suffering of Sit Brante
Life Is Strange
Lure of the Temptress
Machinarium
Maniac Mansion
Maupity Island
Metal Dead
Paradigm
Peridium
Pilgrims
Primordia
Quest For Glory 1: So You Want to be a Hero
Resonance
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Secret of Monkey Island 1
Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
Shivah
Silent Age
Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter
Stories Untold
Strangeland
Telwynium
Thimbleweed Park
Toonstruck
Unavowed
Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Here’s my big list, although I’m probably forgetting somethings.
999
Bad Mojo
Beneath A Steel Sky
Blackwell Deception
Blackwell Epiphany
Book of Unwritten Tales 1
Book of Unwritten Tales 2
Broken Sword 1
Broken Sword 2
Broken Sword 3
Ceville
Conquests of Camelot
Conquests of the Longbow
Darkside Detective
Day of the Tentacle
Detective Di
Dig, The
Disco Elysium
Flight of the Amazon Queen
Fran Bow
Full Throttle
Gabriel Knight
Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within
Grim Fandango
Hector Badge of Carnage
Heroine’s Quest
Inca
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Irony Curtain
King’s Quest 2 (Tierra/AGD/Himalaya Studios)
King’s Quest 3 (Tierra/AGD/Himalaya Studios remake)
King’s Quest 4
King’s Quest 5
King’s Quest 6
Lamplight City
Laura Bow and the Colonel’s Bequest
Laura Bow and the Dagger of Amon Ra
Longest Journey, The
Loom
Machinarium
Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements
Maniac Mansion
Mixed Up Mother Good Deluxe
Monkey Island 2
Monkey Island 3 - The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island
Myst
Nelly Cootalot in Spoonbeaks Ahoy
Norco
Pajama Sam: There’s No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside
Pajama Sam: You Are What Your Eat From Your Head To Your Feet
Pandora Directive, The
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy (all three first games, together as a trilogy or separately)
Primordia
Professor Layton 2
Professor Layton 3
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Quest for Glory 1 VGA
Quest for Glory 2 AGD/Himalaya remake
Quest for Glory 4 Shadows of Darkness
Resonance
Return of the Obra Dinn
Return of the Phantom
Sam and Max Hit The Road
Sanitarium
Shardlight
Space Quest 1 VGA
Space Quest 4
Space Quest 5
Still Life
Strangeland
Syberia
Syberia 2
Tales From Monkey Island
There Is No Game Wrong Dimension
Thimbleweed Park
Time Gentlemen, Please
Toonstruck
Torin’s Passage
Trace Memory
Unavowed
Under A Killing Moon
Virtue’s Last Reward
Whispers of a Machine
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
Facebook.com/weplayfaves
IG @weplayfaves
i was looking at prior list to see how tastes have changed and noticed la noire is on it.portal is already up for disussion so i would like to ask your stance on games like sherlock chap 1 and la noire.while chap 1 comes from an adventure line i feel sandbox games break into rpg or action genres.
LA Noire is open world action-adventure game. Another one imo that def doesn’t belong here.
I try to explain my choices to myself.
LucasArts games.
DOTT, TSOMI 1,2, IFOA, Loom.
All of them are self evident and Loom is beyond that, a piece of art. Older Lucasfilm games had design flaws, Sam and Max and COMI doesn’t quite have that spark for me to make it here, Full Throttle and The Dig doesn’t do much for me as games and even if they did remove more nonsensical puzzles from Grim, it would be weaker as a game than it is as a story.
Sierra games.
Space Quest 5, Freddy Pharkas. Good comedy games with great comic plots that actually explain why their protagonists have their funny professions.
Police Quest 2. To me it seems to be ahead of its time. If there is EGA game by Sierra that really needs remake, this is it.
Leisure Suit Larry 1,3. Design flaws are evened out by quality of satire and while LSL 6 and 7 were better designed, the joke had run its course by then.
QfG2, 4. I think that 2 has weaker story but better gameplay than QfG3.
Gabriel Knight 1. Second one is so close but is a tiny bit too mundane and all of geometry puzzles in third one can IMHO jump to same like with MYST and most of its clones.
Gobliins2, Goblins 3. Best multi character adventures.
Heart of China. Best Dynamix adventure. Rise of the Dragon is too short and Willy Beamish goes of the rails near the end.
Legend Games.
DeathGate, Shannara. Both use licensed material well and in my opinion Shannara transcends it.
Other.
Alone in the Dark. Action adventure that actually remembers to include adventure game puzzles.
Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes. Maybe my knowledge adventure game history fails me here, but i see it as a very influential mystery game.
Dragonsphere. One of best of fantasy games and a Microprose’s best adventure game.
Guilty (aka Innocent Until Caught 2). It is underrated and while not necessarily better comedy than most SQ games, it is a better game than most of them.
Blue Force. Jim Walls game with best developed dramatic bits.
Touche. Nice balance of comedy, mystery and history.
Simon the Sorcerer 2. It is at least as good as 1/3 of games in my list.
Syberia 1,2. They are really two halves of one game.
Ace Attorney 1,3. Great game mechanics and interesting cases. I just couldn’t pick one.
Now i explain a lack of Broken Sword games. My favorite is a second game and i can’t seriously put it here, it has a nostalgia value mostly. First one has main plot and villains that are so much more boring than sub plots and red herring villain. If they cut 99 % of box pushing, third would make it here -it handled lay lines theme and neotemplars better than the first game and i like its interface and wish Revolution had used it in more games.
A lack of Longest Journey games. First one is like Grim Fandango -the gameplay doesn’t live up to the story. Second one made error reusing the Stark/ Arcadia multiverse instead introducing a new one.
Edited from Garbo’s PM to Lady K.:
Alone in the Dark
Blue Force
Death Gate
Dragonsphere
Freddy Pharkas
Gobliins2
Goblins 3
Guilty (Innocent Until Caught 2)
Heart of China
Leisure Suit Larry 1
Leisure Suit Larry 3
The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes 1
Quest for Glory 2
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 3
Police Quest 2
Shannara
Simon the Sorcerer 2
Space Quest 5
Touche
LA Noire is open world action-adventure game. Another one imo that def doesn’t belong here.
I hope you are not implying that open world games don’t qualify as adventures.
There should actually be more open world adventure games, we have more than enough locked doors and closed areas.
I could see games being left out because there’s too much action, but as always, no one has been able to define how much action is too much action. There is shooting in Blade Runner and The Feeble Files, but most adventurers would accept those. Something like Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, I think there’s too much action there for most adventuregamers. But where is the threshold?
LA Noire is open world action-adventure game. Another one imo that def doesn’t belong here.
I hope you are not implying that open world games don’t qualify as adventures.
There should actually be more open world adventure games, we have more than enough locked doors and closed areas.I could see games being left out because there’s too much action, but as always, no one has been able to define how much action is too much action. There is shooting in Blade Runner and The Feeble Files, but most adventurers would accept those. Something like Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, I think there’s too much action there for most adventuregamers. But where is the threshold?
i think its about why your doing said action.in feeble files its puzzle centric and in blade runner you can get by with only shooting 1 character(c).i think its waves of shooting or paced action that define barrier.in some ways simon games could be seen as open as theyre non linear but your actions are confined to adventure norms.for me its the use of logic in adventure games that define them even if its a twisted logic.
LA Noire is open world action-adventure game. Another one imo that def doesn’t belong here.
I hope you are not implying that open world games don’t qualify as adventures.
Not at all, they can be adventures. But LA Noire has too much action, shootouts, car chases, optional side missions with even more shootouts etc for me to think of it as an adventure adventure game. It’s action-adventure and too much focus on the action part.
And here is my list, narrowed down to my favorite 20. Because I think that a Top 50, aggregated from users Top 20 lists, would be more interesting than a Top 100. There just aren’t enough GREAT adventure games out there to make a very suspenseful and selective Top 100 list.
Some sacred cows were sacrificed and it was really difficult to cull this down. Syberia 2, Grim Fandango, Conquests of Camelot, the first two Monkey Islands, the Dig, Maniac Mansion, King’s Quest 5 and Space Quest 5, Blackwell, Lamplight City, The Longest Journey, and others were all painfully extracted. Obra Dinn didn’t make it probably because I haven’t finished it yet, The same *might* be said for Norco, which has a chance of ending up on my big and small lists—very cool game if you haven’t tried it yet. Begs for an old fashioned type-your-commands interface, but otherwise just splendid.
Beneath A Steel Sky - Nails the delivery of an interesting story and setting. Puzzles are very fair and clever, with the exception of two pixel hunts.
Broken Sword 1 - One of the few ‘perfect’ adventure games. Great characters, plot, voices, graphics, puzzles (just silly enough to be an adventure game, just sensible enough to be decipherable). I have no problem with the remakes.
Conquests of the Longbow - My absolute favorite, along with one other game on this list. The writing is a cut above. The atmosphere is sublime. The retelling of a classic story is familiar and unpredictable at the same time. Can be played over and over again, making different choices along the way. You’ll always reach the end (unless you are killed or die young), but some ends are much nicer than others.
Day of the Tentacle - Perfect puzzles, plot, script. Laverne. Along with Conquests of the Longbow, this is my favorite adventure game and a top 5 game altogether.
Disco Elysium - A huge achievement. Wow, what an experience. Made me think, made me feel, made me guess and second guess. I’ll be playing this one a few more times in my lifetime, I think.
Full Throttle - An amazing blend of cinematic storytelling in an adventure game. I enjoy every moment of this game from start to finish, every time I play it.
Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers - It’s overrated, but it’s still excellent. I enjoyed the remaster, too.
King’s Quest 2 (Tierra/AGD/Himalaya Studios) - Strange to say, but this is one of the best remakes in videogame history. They are true to the original, while embellishing it twenty-fold.
Loom - Magical experience.
Machinarium - So charming and clever and fun to look at. Touching game.
Monkey Island 3 - The Curse of Monkey Island - My favorite MI by far. The best version of insult sword fighting in the whole series. Only let down by the last 10 minutes of gameplay, or it’d be perfect.
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy - The game is so-so, but the writing is on another level, and the characters will stick with you for life. 17 cups of liquid darkness a day? Don’t mind if I do.
Primordia - I think this is *the* modern adventure game classic. Every puzzle works well, the plot develops at a perfect pace, and the world is enjoyable to explore despite being so dull (by design). I usually don’t like robotic characters, but the ones in this game were pals almost from the start.
Professor Layton (series) - I like puzzles, anime, quirky silly stories and nonsensical overblown characters and fat babushka women. These games have it all.
Quest for Glory 4 Shadows of Darkness - Such a wonderful balance of whimsy, human (or ghostly) emotion, and darkness. It’s nothing like a Neil Gaiman novel at all, but the balance is similar.
Shardlight - Had to put a Francisco Gonzalez game on here. His style of design and writing are very enjoyable to me, and I think this is his best. But Lamplight City could have ended up here, too. My only qualm with this game is that it gets easier as it goes—the best puzzles are found early in the game.
Syberia - An epic experience that swept me away. It’s not a perfect *game* but it is a wonderful experience. I got lost in it. I had to cull the sequel from this list, but I like it almost as much. I also enjoyed some of the unintentional King’s Quest V style silliness, like using the slow kid to fetch stuff for you so that you don’t have to get your boots dirty.
There Is No Game Wrong Dimension - Whatever you do, don’t play this. You can’t anyway, because it’s not a game. In fact, there isn’t a game.
Thimbleweed Park - Monkey Island 1 and 2 were really good, but in my mind *this* is Ron Gilbert’s masterpiece. It’s so challenging, so long, with such good characters and plot. I even enjoyed that one part that lots of other folks seemed to not enjoy.
Toonstruck - I can see how this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but the puzzle design is just top-notch, an example of how to do tough-but-fair in 3rd person adventure games.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
Facebook.com/weplayfaves
IG @weplayfaves
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
