Adventure Gamers - Forums

Not a big Monkey Island fan.  Never have been.  I’ve played all but Tales of Monkey Island though (but I only finished 1 and 3), so apparently I enjoyed them enough.

Much more of a fan of games with a more serious tone.  Or just pure fun like Full Throttle.

Also I agree with the sentiment that the Broken Sword games aren’t that good.  I never played them when they came out but was looking for something like Gabriel Knight and tried them later.  The first was okay, but I didn’t think it was anything special.  And the 2nd I thought was so bad that I quit very early.  Haven’t tried any of the rest because the 2nd game put me off so much.

1. I HATED Syberia. I couldn’t force myself to finish it. AND I TRIED. I found it one of the most boring games EVER!!!

2.I really liked Dracula 5. Even if it isn’t anywhere close to Dracula 3 (I love that game)

3. I think that BS3 is the best in the series, and hate every single part of BS4.

4. I loved GK:SOTF, but I hated GK2 and GK3. They have pretty good stories, but i hate the interfaces.

5. To me The Silver Lining is KQ8.

6. I really liked The Inquisitor

7. I didn’t hate the character of Rufus.

This thread teaches me is that my perception of the common opinion around here is quite flawed.

Eh, I have a lot of these (here are just some off the top of my head)... I haven’t played any King’s Quest except Mask of Eternity (and loved it, back when it came out). Frankly, I’ve not really played any old Sierra games except GKs.

Maybe because I started with it, I quite like Escape from Monkey Island. I think it’s not as good as MI1&2, but it’s also not vastly inferior to them.

I never got past the beginning of The Whispered World. There was just nothing about the game that pulled me. Maybe it’s better later? At least the beginning was simply boring.

I loved Syberia 1, found Syberia 2 quite meh.

I never finished A Vampyre Story.

And finally, not really a confession (and most of those that know me here probably know my opinions), but since everyone was talking about it - I think Gabriel Knight 3 has the best adventure game interface ever created, by far. It has easy, natural controls, its free-roaming is the most immersive gaming experience, and the graphics - despite being very simple and certainly wanting - are quite easy on the eyes and have the best facial expressions up until very recent years (with the new facial mo-cap techniques). And it’s the most replayable game overall (not just AGs) I’ve ever played.

And it’s my favorite game ever, too

UPtimist - 12 January 2014 01:29 PM

I never got past the beginning of The Whispered World. There was just nothing about the game that pulled me. Maybe it’s better later? At least the beginning was simply boring.

What put me off was the whiny voice of the character in the English version. The voicing for the German version is SOOO much better. I’d love to play it in German with English subtitles, but I haven’t found a way to do that. And I don’t understand German well enough to play it completely in German.

UPtimist - 12 January 2014 01:29 PM

And finally, not really a confession (and most of those that know me here probably know my opinions), but since everyone was talking about it - I think Gabriel Knight 3 has the best adventure game interface ever created, by far.

Hahaha.  Quite a big difference between the above comments.  I wouldn’t go that far, but I didn’t mind it at all either.  But I did play it when it was brand new, so that may have helped.

I thought the controls were pretty fun.  It was cool to be able to actually search rooms yourself for clues by moving the camera around, while not losing the 3rd person perspective overall (which I prefer).  And the complaint someone had about Gabe moving to slow across the screen wasn’t a problem at all, because Gabe would always appear right behind the camera when you moved it.

Totally disagree with you about the facial expressions though.  That was the weakest part.  GK’s cutscenes didn’t have half the power of GK1 and GK2 IMO because the graphics and facial expressions didn’t really allow any emotion to be shown by the characters.

Detective Mosely - 12 January 2014 06:50 PM

And the complaint someone had about Gabe moving to slow across the screen wasn’t a problem at all, because Gabe would always appear right behind the camera when you moved it.

This mechanic only goes so far though; whenever you have to exit a screen, particularly in large outdoor areas, you still have to wait for Gabriel or Grace to slowly walk to the predetermined point to initiate the screen change.  In general the environments are just not ergonomically designed at all.  They’re far too large and open given the limited amount of things to do and look at in them, and the slow movement speed only further compounds the sense of tedium when trying to explore them.

Now granted, the problem of large, empty environments was a common issue in a lot of early 3D era games, but in an adventure game in particular, which is already a genre known for slow-paced gameplay, it felt especially problematic and annoying.

Lambonius - 12 January 2014 07:09 PM

This mechanic only goes so far though; whenever you have to exit a screen, particularly in large outdoor areas, you still have to wait for Gabriel or Grace to slowly walk to the predetermined point to initiate the screen change.  In general the environments are just not ergonomically designed at all.  They’re far too large and open given the limited amount of things to do and look at in them, and the slow movement speed only further compounds the sense of tedium when trying to explore them.

Hmmm.  I’m pretty sure you could move the camera around in free mode even in those big outdoor areas.  Then you find something you want to look at and click on it, and your character would come out from behind the camera.

1. The Longest Journey is not very good, nor for the most part are its imitators such as the Syberia series or almost any adventure game made after the 1990s. This includes all Telltale games prior to Sam & Max Season 3 (which I thought was good).

2. The reason those games are crap is largely because of dialogue. There’s too much of it. If it were well written and well acted it would possibly be acceptable, but most adventure games after the ‘90s did not use good voice actors and did not have good writing. To be fair, the writing was probably just as bad in the ‘90s, but using fun and recognizable voice actors (along with keeping dialogue shorter - TLJ really took things off the rails in that respect) in some cases made it better.

3. Even bad 3D is generally more immersive than good 2D.

4. Adventure games were popular in the ‘80s and ‘90s because of graphics and sound. Period. That’s why they started losing ground when Doom came out - a new genre took the crown for “best graphics and sound”.

5. Sierra was king. F Lucasarts.

Grey Matter is Jane Jensen’s second best game, and one of the best adventures of the last decade.

The Last Express is every bit as annoying as someone else mentioned earlier in the thread.

Telltale’s adventures were pretty great before Back to the Future/Jurassic Park.
But The Wolf Among Us could have been so, so, so much better as a full-bloodied game and world to explore.

Machinarium can suck it with it’s overly mechanical and dull puzzles.

Some of my favourite adventures in recent times I’ve enjoyed on PS3. The likes of Stacking, The Cave, Rain, Brothers, Stick to the Man and Contrast were all excellent adventure game I’ve played in the last year or so on console. And right now, I’m playing The Raven. And I can’t wait for Murdered: Soul Suspect. For me it’s been the best time for adventure games on consoles ever. 

I had a ton load of fun with Heavy Rain.

The Leisure Suit Larry Remake deserved kinder reviews. 

Alright…that’ll do.