33 replies to this topic

[Metal Ghost]

Thanks in advance to the community for any insight you may have....it is greatly appreciated!

So, in preperation for Double Fine's upcoming 'old school' graphic adventure game coming up (for which I highly recomment any interested individuals to contribute...it's an exciting time if you're into such games!), I wanted to get get one of the classics under my belt.

Admittedly I've never really played an old school point-and-click adventure, I guess unless Myst counts.  So if I were to just play one such game prior to Tim and Ron's new one coming out, what should it be?  I know of a lot of the classics....Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle.  However, I want to balance this with an ease of getting my hands on the game too.  For example, I the oldest OS I have is XP (and I'd prefer to play on my newer W7 laptop), and I don't really want to do a lot of fiddeling around with trying to get the game to work on such a set-up.  Also, I'd prefer not to have to try and get my hands on a physical copy, though I'd be willing to look around if that's what the concensus was.  And really, a good genre example in my mind doesn't even have to be one of the 'classics' for my purposes, as long as it is recognized as really good and representitive of the genre.  So for example, the Sam and Max XBLA game....should I go with that?  Or doesn't Telltale games have a newer Monkey Island game?  Should I go with that?

Sooo....I just don't know what that one game I should play is, when balancing out some of the ease of access stuff mentioned above.

I apologize if this forum was a poor choice given the topic, however I really couldn't think of a better place to ask.  Hope no one minds.  And thanks again!

[Official Ninja]

I'd go with Monkey Island. I recently played through on the ST and it was a blast.
I'm pretty sure if you google you wil be able to find windows versions of these games.

I know there are modern versions of the kings quest games available on the net.
If you haven't tried those, you should!

[Asaki]

It seems rather obvious that you should try Tim's previous games. You can't go wrong with the first two Monkey Islands. I liked the third MI too, but the fourth one wasn't very good. Dunno about the new one.

Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle was pretty great too. You don't really have to play the first game to enjoy it (there's only a few subtle references to it), but it helps, and was a childhood favorite of mine.

You don't have to fiddle at all to get them to run on newer OSes (as far as I know), just get this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScummVM

[Rex Dart]

Certainly stay away from the recent junk put out by Traveller's Tales (new Monkey Island, Sam & Max).  They're really nothing like the older games, apart from the most basic gameplay mechanics.  
The first three Monkey Island games are excellent, and I agree that you ought to try out ScummVM for running these games on pretty much any hardware you wish.

[jtoubeaux]

Legend of Kyrandia book 1 for MAC or DOS - great story, great puzzles, great graphics, great sound/music.

[Metal Ghost]

If I were to go with the Monkey Island games, any substantive reasons not to go with the XBLA remakes?  I don't want to get into whether any nuances dicatate that playing on a computer make them better or worse.  But from a content perspective, or if the controller interface moves beyond nuanced preference towards actually making the games difficult or frustrating to play, are those good alternatives?  I happen to have a points card sitting at home.  Before I researched today based on Official Ninja's comments (thanks BTW!) I didn't even realize that MI 1 & 2 had been released on XBLA, but apparently that's the case.

Also, cool for the suggestion jtoubeaux....that's one I had never heard of, but will need to look into it!

[Rex Dart]

Not at all; I thought the Special Edition remakes on XBLA were excellent.  MI2's done better than MI1, but both include the original game along with the redone version, so you can't go wrong.

[jtoubeaux]

Not a problem, glad I could help. You can also give LoK book 2 and book 3 a try as well after Book One. 2 and 3 are good but I still like Kyrandia 1 the best. You can check out the screenshots on mobygames.com

[Arkhan]

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is frikking sweet.

[jtoubeaux]

Arkhan, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:17 PM, said:

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is frikking sweet.

Another quality point and click adventure, agreed! Good story, great puzzles, and it's INDIANA JONES!

[Arkhan]

I love the fight scene in the back of the theatre.  It's great.

[jtoubeaux]

Arkhan, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:35 PM, said:

I love the fight scene in the back of the theatre. It's great.

Absolutely - love that part. The other fight with the Nazi near the end of the game is pretty cool as well, but the fight with the bruiser is the best.

[Metal Ghost]

You guys are great....thanks!

Not sure if anyone here would know the answer to this or not, but here's a question for you: through some research I noticed how there was a 'Monkey Island Special Edition Collection' released for Xbox 360....basically the XBLA re-releases of 1 & 2 in retail packaged form.  It apparently never made it stateside, however a retailer on eBay said that he had an NTSC version available.  When I asked him about it he said that actually it was a PAL/Region free version released in Europe, but that it would work on my US 360.

Does that sound correct?  Gosh....I didn't think that any console had region free games anymore, and if it's PAL, wouldn't there be issues playing on my TV beyond simple region-coding?

Sorry to stray off topic, but I like the idea of a packaged version of these 2 games, even though then my points card goes unused

[Rex Dart]

Nah, it should work.  That's what I've got.  The xbox hardware can deal with PAL/NTSC on its own (since the first xbox); it's region locks that are trouble, but if it's region-free then you're good.

[Metal Ghost]

Thanks Rex!  Shows that I'm a bit behind the times on the technical side....I thought that the console itself was still bound by PAL/NTSC considerations!  Now I just need to figure out whether I go the cheaper and easier route with downloading the titles, or go with the physical media.

D'Oh!  Guess that's a good problem though.

[Asaki]

Metal Ghost, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:12 PM, said:

If I were to go with the Monkey Island games, any substantive reasons not to go with the XBLA remakes?

I can't imagine playing them with a controller instead of a mouse, but I've heard that the controller interface "works okay".

But then again, we used to play Maniac Mansion, Deja Vu, Shadowgate, and Uninvited with a controller on the NES back in the day @_@ I don't know how we used to tolerate it.

Other than that, the only bad thing I've heard about the remakes is that you can't have the good (original) graphics and the voice acting turned on at the same time =( But maybe they've patched that since then, Idunno.

[maibock]

Monkey Island is indeed a great game, though my favorite graphic adventure would have to be Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood http://en.wikipedia....d_of_Robin_Hood

Just a really fun adventure game with a good story, great characters, interesting in-game challenges and avery nice feel to the game. Highly recommended for this genre..

[Rex Dart]

Asaki, on Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:45 AM, said:

Metal Ghost, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:12 PM, said:

If I were to go with the Monkey Island games, any substantive reasons not to go with the XBLA remakes?

Other than that, the only bad thing I've heard about the remakes is that you can't have the good (original) graphics and the voice acting turned on at the same time =( But maybe they've patched that since then, Idunno.

Monkey Island 1, no.  Monkey Island 2, yes.  Though the (redone) art in MI2 is a big improvement over MI1's redrawn art, I still love playing it with the old VGA graphics & Dominic Armato voicing Guybrush.  Man, that guy nailed that voice in my opinion.

[Asaki]

Rex Dart, on Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:12 AM, said:

Monkey Island 2, yes.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, I'd love to play through the first game with the voice acting, but I don't like the redone graphics at all. And I sure as heck am not one of those weird people who have a vendetta against low-res =|

I know some guys were working on porting the speech to SCUMMVM, but I haven't checked up on it in ages, so no idea if that ever got anywhere.

[Seob]

Flight of the amazon queen is also a good graphical adventure.

Scumm is a nice program to run graphical adventures. There are ports for almost every os made. I know i replayed a lot of these adventures on my windows mobile 5 pda.

A few games are even legal to download for free, since the developer has made them public domain.
I'm lucky because a friend of mine gave me his lucas arts adventures last year so i now have a lot of games to replay. Full throttle and days of the tentacle are my favorite games.

Free games
Flight of the amazon queen
Beneath a steel sky
Lure of the temptress
Dracula: the vampire strikes back
Soltys

Edited by Seob, Thu Mar 1, 2012 12:20 AM.

[Metal Ghost]

Thanks Seob!  Beneath a Steel Sky....hmm, I've heard of that one before.  And the fact that you can get it over at GOG (I think) is a defnite plus.

Seeing someone post over in the Proto section about the game The Neverhood got me curious about that game as well.  Anyone have any opinions about it and, if possitive opinions, anyone know of ways you can easily play it (i.e. GOG, Gametap, etc)?

[Metal Ghost]

Ok, I finished Beneath a Steel Sky last week.  Hard to beat 'free' from GOG.com.  I may hit Machinarium next....just purchased it last night as part of the Humble Indie Bundle.

Anyway, am I the only one who thought that Beneath a Steel Sky was kind of reminiscent of the movie 'Brazil'?  Maybe with a slightly more comical veneer to it, but otherwise errily similar.

[cimerians]

My top four in no particular order:

Day of the Tentacle
Sam n Max Hit the Road
Indy Fate of Atlantis
Monkey Island 1 or 2

Old Graphic Adventures I've played and beaten:

Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis
Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle
Monkey Island 1 & 2
Sam n' Max Hit the Road
The Dig
Full Throttle.

I missed some here and there like LOOM and the The Last, Crusade not to mention Grim Fandango.

[carmel_andrews]

If we are talking from the classic period, you can start/stop at the 'magnetic scrolls' twosome (i.e Pawn and Jinxster), Different league from anything L9 (level 9) published

Some even say that Pawn/Jinxster revived interest in adventure games on computers (seeming as though they improved the gameplay element a bit)

Shame that MS didn't release anything else, they could have become the next 'infocom'

[high voltage]

Where to start? Mystery House of course