Adventure Gamers - Forums

For me, a year of surprises and disappointments, and also a year of remakes and episodic gaming which seem to be rising with each year.

For me the highlights all came out of nowhere, and the games expected to be good were mostly disappointing. My picks of the year would be Blackwell Epiphany, Ether One and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. And probably Hadean Lands when I finish it. All great games. I’m glad to have discovered the Blackwell series this year, and I must apologise to Frogwares for thinking they weren’t up to making something as good as C&P. They really did a good job.

My disappointments, as I said, were the hyped up “big” games: Moebius, Broken Age, Tesla Effect. None of them were bad per se but I expected excellence, and didn’t get it. Tex was probably the best of the three and it’s interesting that they were all from the “big guns” of the old days, Jensen, Jones and Schafer. Are they past their best? I hope not. Oh and let’s not forget Dracula 4 (I’d prefer to, personally!).

The episodic games and remakes - well, I rarely play remakes as a rule, and usually avoid episodic games until full release. So I cannot judge the GK Remake, Shadowgate or the countless episodic games put out. KRZ looks to be turning out nicely and BS5 a success with the fans. It’s good to see oldies being remade - if they are not going to play the originals, better them playing a remake than nothing at all.

So overall a pretty good year, despite the dubious trend towards episodic games. I’m sure it will look much better once I get around to playing BoUT2, Dreamfall Chapters, in full. There’s a lot I still need to play.

Over to you. 

Well, I could have called it a mediocre year if it hadn’t been for the Talos Principle a few weeks ago that blew my mind and easily gets the title for the best game of 2014 IMO.

I loved the first episode of Broken Age with its unique art style and intriguing storyline/characters.

I liked the TWD season 2, Valiant Hearts and, so far, the Golden Wake (not as good as Resonance, Gemini Rue or even Primordia, but a nice game nevertheless).

I also tried the android versions of Botanicula and The Inner World. They seem even better.

Slightly disappointed by Tesla Effect too. I was really hoping for the best Tex game. Ties up the story nice though…

I was never a fun of BS (stopped after the first 2), so I slightly snubbed the 5th one. Perhaps I should try it though, just for my android collection. As for Moebius, I heard such negative reviews for it that I didn’t gave it a try.
Still waiting for the whole pack of Dreamfall Chapters.

EDIT: Surely, I will try the Vanishing of Ethan Carter sometime next year.

Over all a pretty decent year with the introduction of not one but two excellent Danganronpa games, the entertaining conclusion of Broken Sword 5 and the not completely stellar but still enjoyable Broken Age part one.

Then near the end of the year The Talos Principle managed to sweep me off my feet out of the blue, and while I have yet to play these games I’m really looking forward to getting into Blackwell Epiphany, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

I haven’t played as many new games this year as I hoped but have a few downloaded waiting in the wings. Highlights for me were Broken Sword 5, Blackwell Epiphany, Bosch’s Damnation, Moebius & the Tesla Effect.

I’m looking forward to catching up with Ether 1, The Samaritan Paradox, SH: Crimes & Punishments, the GK remake & quite a few others!

What’s stuck in my mind about the AG offerings this year is the diversity of games & the debates about those that are challenging the boundaries of what an Adventure Game is perceived as.

Doom - 31 December 2014 05:15 AM

I had a lot of fun with Heroine’s Quest, Quest for Infamy and Broken Sword 5. They brought back a lot of good memories, couldn’t wish for more (although I was hoping to see Armikrog this year).

Those were my top 3 also.
Best remake IMO was J.U.L.I.A. Among the Stars.

But except for those 4, the games I liked best this year came from 2013 or earlier.
However I haven’t played everything that came out this year.

Wasn’t much I didn’t enjoy this year, except for, sadly, the Pinkerton Road offerings. I liked GK remake better than Moebius- if only for the behind-the-scenes stuff- but it still annoyed me with too many unnecessary changes. I suppose A Golden Wake was Wadjet Eye’s weakest effort to date, but I still had a good time with it. The first parts of Dreamfall and Game of Thrones left me cold, and the second season of TWD irritated me too much for me to enjoy.

I’ve liked most of the kickstarter offerings including BS5 and Tex Murphy. I also liked Valiant Hearts, Sherlock Holmes and even Murdered Soul Suspect.

On a side note, I still can’t cope with RPGs of even the Quest for Infamy variety (even though i really, really WANT to like them) but I’m loving adventure games merging with other genres like platformers in recent times (VH, Stick it to the Man, Brothers, The Cave et al). I do hope games like these keep coming, as I enjoy them a lot. (I know many of those are from 2013 or earlier but my point remains).

I doubt I’ll ever be able to cope with RPG combat in an adventure game though…:(

I’ve often said that I enjoyed almost every adventure I tried, even the ones that most put at the bottom of their list.
For me 2014 is the worst year ever (though maybe not strictly starting this year). Almost every new game has drm and/or has regional pricing and/or is episodic or split up, so I’m hardly buying games anyway. But what I tried was mostly casual drab.

Low points were probably Lilly Looking Through which is not by any definition an adventure game as it has no story, no exploration and in most locations you can’t even walk (remarkably 4 stars!), and Tesla Effect that tried to force me to accept the Steam eula. I haven’t played it because of that.

To add to it ShinyLoot that advertised with no/low drm is now selling Steam keys and gog introduced regional pricing.
So my new year’s resolution is to stop supporting all this and spend my time making music again. My gog account is already closed, so I don’t know if it’s possible but I’ll try an admin to have my account deleted here too.

Sorry for all the negativity girls/guys but seeing other threads that’s nothing this forum isn’t used to.

I think 2014 was an amazing year for adventure games. Broken Sword 5, Broken Age part 1, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Valiant Hearts, The Walking Dead Season 2, The Wolf Among Us and many more make this one of the best years in recent history. Here’s to hoping that 2015 will be even better.

Very good year. Lots of diverse quality games.

Kickstarter projects finally started being released:
Broken Sword 5 was a quality adventure above my expectations. Good production wuality and story. Also had what was probably my favorite puzzle this year with the decoding of the tablet.
Tesla Effect was my most anticipated kickstarter project and it mostly fulfilled my expectations despite some dodgy HOG puzzles in some chapters and the kind of ridiculous last puzzle. Rest of the game was very good, story had some problems but mostly fun.
Broken Age was disappointing because we are still waiting for half a game. First half was ok thought.
Moebius was not expecting much and it didn’t deliver, some interesting points in the story and gameplay but it falls apart.
Among the Sleep was an interesting but forgetful game. The premise was good but the execution was flat and repetitive for me (despite being short).

Handheld console games were too little but what was released was top quality

Danganronpa 1 and 2 made their debut in the west and it was straight to the top of favorite games of the (too few) people that own a Vita. Felt refreshing with a great premise and characters that delivers on all accounts. Upupupupupu
Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright does exactly what the the titles says, joins 2 iconic characters and their gameplay, PW court parts felt more refreshing, Layton felt a bit like the same in the main Layon series. The game did deliver a lot in entertainment.

Telltale did their stuff with uneven results for me:

Walking Dead - Season 2 was not as storng as the first season and was a feeling a bit stale until the ending that was ok. The inwards and problems started to show.
Wolf Among Us delivered in adapting the awesome Fables comics, great characters and voice acting. I wish they took more risk with the gameplay here.
Game of Thrones I didn’t like much, it’s adding to the source materail and the game fell in the usual Telltale trappings and not in a good way.
Tales from the Borderlands kind of blew me away. Funny and exciting telltale episode. Felt like an epic sci-fi action comedy. My favorite Telltale episode of the year.

Indie games in general delivered vey good games:

I played the Blackwell series for the first time around when Blackwell Epiphany so it felt like a very big great game. One series that will probaly stay the peoples memory for a long time with its 2 great main characters. The conclusion was emotional and it delivered.
Journey Down also got a very good episode released and reminded me a lot of old quality Lucasarts adventures with it’s cool characters and snappy dialogue. Also a great soundtrack-
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was probably the best looking adventure of the year and it aws supported by an interesting story.
Jazzpunk is the funniest game of the year. Filled the references to movies and game and a short wacky story.
Talos Principle just arrived and it’s one of the best games of the year. First person Puzzle game with a surprisingly deep story and packed with content.

Big publishers released a couple of interesting adventures.

Ubisoft released Valiant Hearts that was good. Puzzles and gameplay were merely ok but the interesting aspect was the World War I storyline with the multiple characters views. The Ubiart engine and the soundtrack also helped.
Square had Murdered: Soul Suspect that was deeply flawed and forgetful but had some interesting gameplay choices and a creepy town to explore.
Sherlock Holmes; Crimes and Punishments I have not finished but from what I played the Unreal engine upgraded characters and environment look good.

And those were just the ones I actually played, still like oh other releases to play like:
Randals Monday
Dream Machine
Gold Rush Anniversary
Gabriel Knight Remake
A Golden Wake
Neverending Nightmares
JULIA: Among the Stars
Shadowgate
Quest for Infamy
Memento Mori 2
FRACT OSC
Samaritan Paradox
Ether One
Dracula 4
1954: Alcatraz
Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime

That went on for a bit too long… Quick recap: 2014 was great

It was a lukewarm year for traditional point’n'click adventures, especially because of veteran developers either not risking in gameplay or overshooting compared to their resources, recent phenomenons being too conservative in their latest offspring and Daedalic not being as good at discovering talents are they are in first party releases. I can still identify one as my personal surprise of the year, The Samaritan Paradox.

It was instead extremely good for adventures in general, with my top surprises being Danganronpa and the Talos Principle (and a lot more I look forward to that I haven’t had time to try yet, like FRACT OSC, Ether One, Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Valiant Hearts).

HandsFree - 31 December 2014 11:23 PM

I’ve often said that I enjoyed almost every adventure I tried, even the ones that most put at the bottom of their list.
For me 2014 is the worst year ever (though maybe not strictly starting this year). Almost every new game has drm and/or has regional pricing and/or is episodic or split up, so I’m hardly buying games anyway. But what I tried was mostly casual drab.

Low points were probably Lilly Looking Through which is not by any definition an adventure game as it has no story, no exploration and in most locations you can’t even walk (remarkably 4 stars!), and Tesla Effect that tried to force me to accept the Steam eula. I haven’t played it because of that.

HandsFree, I too have played a lot of games that get harsh reviews & not rated that much by other players that I’ve found worthwhile of my time.
I haven’t played that many games from 2014 but it certainly has been a year of more diversity so I guess there are quite a few games that aren’t going to suit everyone. 
BTW The Tesla Effect from GoG didn’t require accepting Steam eula & GoG have continued to offer DRM free games but sadly there’s a few new games that are just not available from them. As for episodic releases - I’m quite happy to wait myself for further ones knowing it doesn’t help the developer if they need the revenue to continue with them but then maybe episodic releases need to be complete stories in themselves as I’ve been disappointed with following episodes not turning up! 

To add to it ShinyLoot that advertised with no/low drm is now selling Steam keys and gog introduced regional pricing.

One of the most annoying aspects of DRM is the inability to play older games on my Win 7 because the copyright protection is the thing that’s not compatible rather than the actual game coding –aaaagh!
I’ve not yet used ShinyLoot but if they along with GoG are introducing Steam Keys then the way I see it is they are expanding their business with game developers/publishers that are not going to release their games DRM free anyway & hopefully both portals will continue to offer DRM free games from those that are happy to do so.
Regional pricing has existed as long as I’ve been buying games - boxed copies have always been far cheaper in the US but sadly ‘Interact ‘ a great source is no more, The Adventure Shop has always had different pricing & also Steam - it really is nothing new. 

So my new year’s resolution is to stop supporting all this and spend my time making music again. My gog account is already closed, so I don’t know if it’s possible but I’ll try an admin to have my account deleted here too.

HandsFree, I appreciate your stand against supporting things you don’t agree with but please don’t delete your account, you’ve got a great knowledge of AGs & have posted some great quizzes - just peek every now & again & more than anything share your music with us in one of the other categories of forums here!