Snooglebum

Is anybody a sad human like me, and have not played any LucasArts adventure games?

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This thread is getting me nostalgic. And makes me want to ask what the worst and/or most obscure adventure game is you've played?

Mine would be something like Arc of Time. Not horrible, but very middling.

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I played the Kyrandia stuff fairly recently, although I never finished the third one (it was kinda weird). The first one has all sorts of boring backtracking through samey forest screens. Required items would respawn in screens you had already traversed, requiring you to slowly walk across a dozen of them to solve puzzles. Not fun. Otherwise it was good.

The second one was at the LucasArts standard of greatness, and it had a sassy female protagonist! I really enjoyed that one.

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The Kyrandia series is fantastic! The first one is a rather King's Questy swords and sorcery tale that takes itself seriously.

The second, Hand of Fate, is superb. You play as Zanthia, a spirited sorceress out to save the world. The great thing this time is that the world is so wonderfully crazy and funny, filled with detail and animation.

The third one goes in yet another direction. It's by far the weirdest game in the series, but incredible nonetheless. You play as the evil jester Malcolm and you have a dial that puts you in different moods and attitudes, from friendly to menacing. The world has gone bonkers in this game, with people literally talking backwards, fish empires, Elvis Presley in the afterlife... it was amazing and truly bizarre. And filled with hilarious jokes, not to mention!

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While I consider all these old adventure games to be treasures of enormous value, I totally understand why new-fangled people would find them boring, too hard, too old-timey, etc. A lot of the quality of a game is tied to the time its released, and nostalgia is a powerful motherfucker.

Consider this: In the future there will be hipster youth that spend their time playing Halo and Gears of War on an old 60" LCD screen. There will be sites where you can read how to solder your own HDMI converters so you can hook up your PS3 to your television and play old games. There will be retro enthusiasts running PSN and XBL server emulators where you can download abandonware like Batman: Arkham City and Milo.

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I'm going to go out on a limb and say really the most essential LucasArts adventures to play are Full Throttle and Grim Fandango for various reasons. Almost all of the rest are good and shine about the other adventures of the time, but those two have the strongest story, characters, and creativity out of any adventure I've ever played still.

Actually, this (Fate of Atlantis) is the only LucasArts adventure that I have not beaten. I really need to install it on Steam and get on that shit.

Yeah that and The Last Crusade seemed like something a lot of non PC game player kids I knew had somehow played when I was much younger in schools.

Honestly, the biggest problem with adventure games is that they aren't avilable anymore. I still can't belive how big of a luck I had to find english(since I buy most of my games in Austria, at least I did, where most games are localized with no english option) Full Throttle and 3rd Monkey island in some local online store. Also just bought the Steam packege couple of days ago and am enjoing Fate of Atlantis more than I expected.

Don't linch me if I haven't played so many adventure games as I should. They just didn't exist for me.

And this is what sucks most about LucasArts. Compared to Sierra and a few other companies, their games have been been really sluggish or nonexistant in any kind of value rerelease outside of Germany and other particular European countries. The digital distribution of the old LA adventures started last year looks like it has come to a halt. It's ridiculous a company that made all these great games and is still around can't keep the fucking things available constantly one way or another. The biggest problem with the need for abandonware is that developers disappear and go under. LucasArts hasn't ever.

The Kyrandia series is fantastic! The first one is a rather King's Questy swords and sorcery tale that takes itself seriously.

The second, Hand of Fate, is superb. You play as Zanthia, a spirited sorceress out to save the world. The great thing this time is that the world is so wonderfully crazy and funny, filled with detail and animation.

The third one goes in yet another direction. It's by far the weirdest game in the series, but incredible nonetheless. You play as the evil jester Malcolm and you have a dial that puts you in different moods and attitudes, from friendly to menacing. The world has gone bonkers in this game, with people literally talking backwards, fish empires, Elvis Presley in the afterlife... it was amazing and truly bizarre. And filled with hilarious jokes, not to mention!

Yeah this series is great, they are a personal favorite of mine. The music is especially amazing in every single game. The first one plays more like an RPG or old style fantasy dungeon crawling game in a way merged with a point and click mentality, and I love it for it. It might strike some people as odd, since it's sort of to much of a hybrid for many.

The second Kyrandia I agree is just the best in terms of game design, story, art, and animation. That game was just gorgeous to look at.

I often wish the third Kyrandia wasn't so strange in game design. Besides having way too many puzzles that need you to collect x amount of y to go on, the multiple paths thing (which everyone always calls for in adventures) just tends to make the game ultra confusing. I also felt like the incorporation of many prerendered 3D scenes and objects brought the art direction precedent set by the second one down a notch, which is a shame.

Yeah Kyrandia, great games to get into that aren't always talked about that much. I wouldn't recommend them to someone who wasn't played adventure games before, though. It's strange the LA adventures are almost the best in terms of introductions and at the same time design. I think that doesn't happen often with other genres.

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While I consider all these old adventure games to be treasures of enormous value, I totally understand why new-fangled people would find them boring, too hard, too old-timey, etc. A lot of the quality of a game is tied to the time its released, and nostalgia is a powerful motherfucker.

Consider this: In the future there will be hipster youth that spend their time playing Halo and Gears of War on an old 60" LCD screen. There will be sites where you can read how to solder your own HDMI converters so you can hook up your PS3 to your television and play old games. There will be retro enthusiasts running PSN and XBL server emulators where you can download abandonware like Batman: Arkham City and Milo.

For the record, I play those old games, but I'm not hipster. Or nostalgic. Or...older than 21. My point being that there are people who actively seek things they like, no matter how old.

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the first lucasArts adventure game I ever played was full throttle. which I thought was amazing but really difficult. I think I must have been around 10 or 11 years old when I first played it and I remember I got to the junkyard bit at the beginning and couldn't figure out how to get the damned forks without the guard dog attacking me :S.

Well now I really feel like digging the game up and trying again lol

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I'm actually really looking forward to my copy of Full Throttle turning up now. I've no doubt I'll play it for about 10 minutes, get stuck, then never play it again, but I'm sure those ten minutes will kick ass.

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I hate adventure games. I forced myself through Grim Fandango for the aesthetics. Tried the monkey Island remake more recenlty and it was terrible.

Marginally enjoyed one of the LA Indiana Jones games when much younger and also played and hated TLJ at some point in my life.

:getmecoat

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I hate adventure games. I forced myself through Grim Fandango for the aesthetics. Tried the monkey Island remake more recenlty and it was terrible.

I'd really like you to qualify what was terrible about your experience. I can't imagine.

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I'd really like you to qualify what was terrible about your experience. I can't imagine.

PnC doesn't do it for everyone.

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Obscure as in weird? or as in dark?

If the former, then the most obscure adventure game I played is probably Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen.

If the latter, then it's probably Post Mortem by Microïds.

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PnC doesn't do it for everyone.

Ok, this might not be the "Lucasarts fanclub", but I'm pretty sure this is the "Point n' Click" club.... We're mostly PC fans and play FPS, adventure game and strategy games.... which are mouse, a.k.a. "PNC" games?:erm:

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Yes. I occasionally play point and click strategy games..

:fart::fart:

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I'm fairly positive the podcast is mostly PC-centric.... The whole WIIIIZZAAAAARD thing came from Diablo III, right? Which is PnC...

Fine, hate adventure games, but hating PnC games all together and joining this forum is like being a vegan and joining the "***** IS AWESOME" forums! :erm:

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I'm fairly positive the podcast is mostly PC-centric.... The whole WIIIIZZAAAAARD thing came from Diablo III, right? Which is PnC...

Fine, hate adventure games, but hating PnC games all together and joining this forum is like being a vegan and joining the "***** IS AWESOME" forums! :erm:

I think it's only PC centric due to games Remo, Breckon, Gaynor and Jake (sometimes) play. Remo likes a lot of Eastern European games, Breckon strategy games, Jake doesn't play games (except TF2). It's been kind of refreshing having Sean, who is predominantly a Console gamer.

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I'd really like you to qualify what was terrible about your experience. I can't imagine.

I take it back, the only LucasArts adventure game I've played is the first Monkey Island remake, and I wasn't a huge fan. My problem was that a lot of the time the point and click puzzle combinations were really unintuitive as a result of the weird humor.

Best example I can think of was the pot for a helmet. I didn't feel like the game established a theme or anything for its wacky puzzles so I didn't think to look for something like that. Also, in the remake it was flattened into the background so I just presumed it WAS part of the background

Contrast that with the latest season of Sam and Max where the puzzles are still kind of weird, but the game does a good job of fleshing out its universe BEFOREHAND that the logic comes naturally.

I'd still love to find and play through Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and Last Express especially.

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I take it back, the only LucasArts adventure game I've played is the first Monkey Island remake, and I wasn't a huge fan. My problem was that a lot of the time the point and click puzzle combinations were really unintuitive as a result of the weird humor.

Best example I can think of was the pot for a helmet. I didn't feel like the game established a theme or anything for its wacky puzzles so I didn't think to look for something like that. Also, in the remake it was flattened into the background so I just presumed it WAS part of the background

Contrast that with the latest season of Sam and Max where the puzzles are still kind of weird, but the game does a good job of fleshing out its universe BEFOREHAND that the logic comes naturally.

I'd still love to find and play through Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and Last Express especially.

Wow, you thought MI was unintuitive? Then never play a Sierra game! Those are BRUTAL! XD

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I'm actually really looking forward to my copy of Full Throttle turning up now. I've no doubt I'll play it for about 10 minutes, get stuck, then never play it again, but I'm sure those ten minutes will kick ass.

I think besides one or two parts I specifically remember as stupid puzzling, you really shouldn't have a problem getting stuck with Full Throttle. I remember some instances in the game if you only half do what will most likely solve the puzzle, it'll fill in the blanks for you. There's also a lot of fast clicking beat 'em up road rage stuff, which is pretty easy.

So I think the first hour or so of the game shouldn't present a problem.

I'd really like you to qualify what was terrible about your experience. I can't imagine.

The art? :buyme:

I'd still love to find and play through Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and Last Express especially.

That's probably the best route to take. It's hard to recommend many good adventures because they all seem to have some kind of idiosyncratic hang up that makes it hard for someone who hasn't played ten adventures previously. More so for parser or text adventures and even more so for any game carrying the older design philosophies of player punishment.

...and also played and hated TLJ at some point in my life.

A lot of adventure game types won't agree with this but I find The Longest Journey to be seriously hard to get into and to have terrible design, writing, and story. So much of the way the characters acted just made me cringe, the diary carrying was just the poorest amateur writing, and the dialogue, while good in a few points, just carried on immensely long. It's like they didn't play their own game and see immense editing was required. The puzzles were almost non existent between all of the slow talking.

A lot of people recommend TLJ as a good intro and token adventure and it has gotten a lot of praise over the years, so I feel like the odd man out on this, but it just seems like such a disjointed start that could possibly alienate many trying to get into the genre.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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Wow, you thought MI was unintuitive? Then never play a Sierra game! Those are BRUTAL! XD

Awwww, why hate on the Sierra games? Then again I'm not going to try and claim you're wrong about them being unintuitive.

That's why we had the hint books with the magic pen. It was half the fun. ORIGINAL DLC.:grin:

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Wow, you thought MI was unintuitive? Then never play a Sierra game! Those are BRUTAL! XD

Or Simon the Sorcerer 1 & II or Discworld 1 and 2

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OK, most older non-Lucasrts games tend to very un-intuitive, but I do think many of them were good.... If you used a guide! XD

Although in many of them I somehow messed up so bad I had to restart even WITH a guide! :frusty:

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