SecretAsianMan

I love thoughts like this. They reveal how adventure games turn us into kleptomaniac horders, picking up every possible thing on the off chance it might be useful later. I also love the blind puzzle solving that goes on. Working a few steps into a puzzle solution even though you have no idea what problem you're trying to solve, doing certain actions for no reason other than the fact that the game allows you to do it, or seeing something that could happen if you had the right item without any indication that such an item exists. Makes me wish I could erase my memories and play these games for the first time again. I envy you Zeus.

I've had that thought more often than I'd care to admit. Life would be easier with quick saves. Until your save gets corrupted.

I'm a fan of the Voight-Kampff test, mostly because I like saying "Voight-Kampff".

I saw talk of a drinking game involving taking a shot every time he said Jesus. Pretty sure I'd be dead if I tried it.

I completely agree. You can see what they wanted to do in the SNES game and there are some great ideas, but the controls always felt clunky to me. One boss was almost unbeatable for me and I had to save all my nova bombs just to get past it. I felt that Star Fox 64 fixed a lot of those issues, almost too well. The original Star Fox was too hard, Star Fox 64 was too easy. As for the voice acting, I miss the weird gibberish the characters speak in SNES game. That was so hilarious.

I'm thinking about standing up tomorrow. Laying down is good but it's fun to mix things up.

Arrested Development was the best at the preview spoilers, showing scenes that never actually occur in the next episode and often cap off a short plot thread.

This isn't a hint, Zeus don't read this until you're finished with both Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken, assuming you're playing both.

I was hoping that even though you weren't going to be at PAX, you'd still be around for a Thumbs meetup. Good to know that can still happen! Thanks Steve!

I agree with you here. His standard response to be provoked is to be an asshole, something he has acknowledged many times. Saying it out loud doesn't excuse the behavior though. If I say "I'm going to shoot you" and then shoot you, my telling you didn't make it ok. I think he does need to learn to curb his belligerent reflex. What I'm defending isn't the words he used, but maybe his meaning. One of the tweets that got people upset basically amounted to "men have a penis and women have a vagina". They called him insensitive to transgenders and maybe it is, but I understand the sentiment behind such a statement. If you ask me what the difference is between a man and a woman, I'm probably going to give you the same answer. I'm not trying to be sexist/bigoted/insensitive/asshole/whatever, it's just how I've always thought of it. I don't have any LBGT friends, not because I dislike anyone who is, my life just turned out that way. I have a better understanding of some of these issues now that this thing has blown up a bit, but a few weeks ago I would probably have said similar things as Krahulik sans the douche tone. As for PAX itself, I've been to 2 Primes and 1 East and I've found them to be some of the best experiences I've ever had. Not just because of the games, but because of the people. I've said it many times, but the living, breathing heart of PAX is the Enforcer army, who for the most part have nothing to do with Penny Arcade other than running the show. They're volunteers (who I think get minimum wage now but that's not the point) and they pretty much just like helping out at a really fun event. To associate those people with any of the negative vitriol that I see getting thrown at Krahulik makes me sad. I understand he's the public face of PA so there's going to be some spillover but when I see people (not here but on the internet at large) immediately imply that PAX is also bigoted I get mad. I really hope you guys understand what I'm trying to say.

I'm one of the people who think the internet is being a little too hard on PA. I will totally admit they handled this situation (and others in the past) poorly, but I also don't actually believe they're racist/bigots/sexist/whatever. I'm not excusing them or what was said, but I'm also not going to hold an eternal grudge against them. I also don't feel bad about going to PAX because to me PAX is more about the community and less about PA. I say this because I know several Enforcers and they're the ones who are the blood, sweat, and tears of PAX. I know that simply because it's called the Penny Arcade Expo people are going to be upset about it. That's totally fine, but I'm not one of those people. All that said, I again want to say that I completely support the Fullbright Company's decision. Whether or not I agree with their reasons, I admire that they're willing to stand up for their convictions and that says more to me than a demo would (although I still want to play said demo).

And for the sake of completeness So Jake is the Richard Dreyfuss of video games.

Image taken from his talk with Molyneux. Celebrity Look Alike Generator.

I respect the Fullbright Company's position and the fact that they're willing to take a stand on it. I won't say I totally agree with their reasons (some parts I do and some I don't), but it is nice to see people acting on their convictions and I support them doing so.

To this day I don't remember the precise method by which I obtained MI, but I think it was from a friend of my parents who ran a computer store. I spent a few weeks there one summer helping him reformat hard drives and install Windows. He kept giving me random games which was my main source PC play. I remember Doom giving me nightmares, really liking Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II, then being disgusted by Duke Nukem 3D years later.

The only thing I remember from MI4 is their version of the dialog combat.

That's one of the reasons I really love the LucasArts games. There are so many situations that they must have known most players would never see, yet they wrote amusing dialog anyway just in case one person decided to sit there for 15 minutes and ring the bell. It's what compels me to click everything a million times in all the LucasArts games.

That's fair enough, but maybe they could have asked if you wanted the default choices or wanted to make the choices yourself. Maybe that's not an ideal way, but in a series that's largely about choices and the results of your actions, not giving me any choice in this situation really annoyed me. I don't blame Bioware since losing the game save was my own fault, and I'm glad they made the series because it was different and I really like that universe. I'm just upset that my personal story got ruined in the way it did. As for hex editors, I played it on Xbox.

This isn't the best example but Mass Effect 2 for me. Between ME1 and ME2, I moved and lost the memory card with my ME1 save on it. Because I didn't want to spend 40+ hours playing ME1 just to spend 40+ hours in ME2, I started a new game. Almost all the default choices were the opposite of the ones that I made in my ME1 playthrough. I realize Bioware had to make some kind of starting point for people who didn't play ME1 or have a save, but I think they could have just asked you a few questions for the big decisions instead of just picking them for you. It's part of the reason I never played ME3. I was bummed I couldn't finish the story I started and didn't want to spend all those hours doing it again.

While we wait for Zeus to start his LucasArts adventure run, I want to talk about The Secret of Monkey Island for a bit since A)he's already played it and B)I'm too lazy to look for an existing thread. I'll start with some random anecdotes. Spoilers ahead if for some reason you haven't played it and yet are reading this thread. The hardest puzzle in the game for me was getting past the vicious poodles. The other two trials I figured out easily, but it took me forever to get into the mansion. In fact, it was my friend that figured out that puzzle. It didn't occur to me to try combining things in my inventory. I spent so many hours throwing every item I had at those dogs. I must have fed them a thousand pieces of meat before we got it. But the note informing us that the dogs were SLEEPING and not dead was so hilarious it made me feel a lot better. I completely didn't get the red herring joke until I was much older, not understanding what the phrase "red herring" meant. I probably spent about 10 minutes haggling with Stan to buy the boat. I actually went through the all the extras he tries to sell you, either rejecting or accepting each one thinking they might actually have a use on the trip, not realizing at the time they were all jokes. I was disappointed when the extras that I thought I had purchased turned out to be nothing. My favorite jokes were: Saying "I'm Bobbin, are you my mother?" in the circus tent after being shot out of the cannon. I never played Loom so the joke was a non sequitur to me but the phrase was so funny I laughed out loud. The fake game over/rubber tree. I was so mad that there was a random game over but when Guybrush came bouncing back up I laughed for 5 minutes straight. What was even funnier to me was my friend who figured out how to get past the dogs actually turned his computer off when he thought he died. His later surprise at being told it was fake may be the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Escaping from the cannibals and coming back. Each time they lock you up again the door lock gets more elaborate until you get a bank vault with a flashing ARMED sign. I don't know why that image was so funny to me in retrospect.

Yeah, sadly all of the really good ones everyone loves are missing. I liked Fate of Atlantis and The Dig, but DOTT, Curse, Full Throttle, Grim... those are the ones I really want to play again.

That's not entirely true. Steam has the Lucasarts Adventure Pack which contains Last Crusade, Fate of Atlantis, Loom, and The Dig. I bought it a while ago and started playing The Dig again, but I think I'll wait for Zeus to catch up before I continue.

I played DOTT without ever playing Maniac Mansion. It was kind of weird not to know the characters, but that game is so wacky in a way it made sense that I didn't know anything. Maybe there are some references I missed, but I still loved it and I'm confident you'll have fun either way.

I didn't get into the games until Monkey Island and I've never completed any of the ones before it, so I'm useless until you get to Fate of Atlantis. I think chronological order is good because you can see how the games evolved over time. The interface alone will be a big jump once you finish Day of the Tentacle.