Ratings by Adventure
Testament of Sherlock Holmes, The
Pretty but flawed
Not a bad game by any means but the story and puzzles really take a nosedive after an otherwise solid first act. In terms of production quality the game looks great but the animations and especially the voice acting aren’t up to the standards of a full-price game. Looking forward to the next effort from Frogwares.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge - Special Edition
Still funny, still the best introduction to the genre
A classic no doubt, and for a lot of people a brilliant introduction to adventure games. They could have done much worse as this is solid, classic point and click with great graphics (notice I am not specifying: “for its time”) and the self-aware humor SoMI players loved at first sight in 1988.
It’s clever, it’s funny, and for a game you could fit on a few 1.4MB disks the MI universe you get to explore is more memorable than most of today’s 60-hour RPG epics.
Some decried the ending but this type of self aware, meta shenanigans had been a staple of the series from the start. Get a sense of humor, and if you already do, this is one adventure you won’t want to miss.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Dig, The
A timeless adventure from Spielberg and LucasArts that just missed its chance
A truly classic point and click. It’s very easy compared to other LucasArts games mainly because it doesn’t have those wacky random inventory puzzles that plagued the genre now and then.
Very noticeable is the standard of production, which could be argued to be the best of any SCUMM game:
The animation is smooth and precise, the lovingly crafted pixel-art backgrounds look just as beautiful now as they did then, displaying a great sense of depth, perspective, composition, color and detail. I’d take graphics like that over late 90s/early 00s’ horrendous static CGI backgrounds anyday. Hell, this 256-color palette is more vibrant than the brown truecolor sludge you find in most modern games.
What’s more the soundtrack is also one of my favorites and combined with the graphics creates a startling sense of place and atmosphere. The Dig is desolate without feeling drab, deserted without feeling empty. It feels foreign and hostile yet beckons exploration. The voice acting is great - Robert Patrick as Boston Low being the highlight here - especially compared to what today’s standard is for adventure games.
Boston and his team have fully realized personalities and play well off each other. The dialogue is great with a touch of humor that fits the situation really well without veering into the slapstick that defines more cartoony LucasArts games.
Is it perfect? Not quite. It’s fairly short and the ending is a bit of a let down. But looking back The Dig has held up. It’s aged better than most games of that era despite getting panned at release after being plagued with delays.
In my opinion it is a greatly underrated game and I can’t wait to explore it again.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Secret of Monkey Island, The
The essential adventure game
If there was any adventure game I could play again like it was the first time it would be this one. It’s not only the funniest in the series but one of the funniest games ever made, period. The humor is still fresh and the self-awareness it exhibits is still spot on - a rare game that both lampooned and defined a genre.
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Time Played: Over 20 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy
