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Jan 2, 2022 21:27
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I just bought the following : - Whispers of a Machine - Feria d'Arles - A Golden Wake To add to my backlog! I still have most of the Blackwell games to play. I don't usually buy pc games as I use my console most, except for adventure games. Adventure games are surprisingly cheap on pc. Like often just a couple of bucks.
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Jan 3, 2022 10:47
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Megazver posted:This game is on Epic, so right now you could buy it for $15 - $10 coupon = $5 at the moment. EDIT: Also, Lake. I had a good time with Lake, but I don't know that I'd call it an adventure game. There's nothing to solve or figure out. It's a lot closer to something like Gone Home, a story-based game where you mostly passively watch events unfold. There are a few key choices that can alter the ending you get, but generally it's a set story that tells itself as you deliver mail to the town's residents. It's also free on Game Pass if you want a bargain.
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Jan 3, 2022 17:15
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Usually I've seen the Telltale/Life is Strange-likes that Lake belongs to described as "narrative adventure games" to set them apart from more traditional point-and-clicks. Gone Home is more of a walky sim where the player doesn't have any impact upon the story at all.
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Jan 3, 2022 18:26
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Finished Rhem 3 and started Rhem 4. The final stretches of Rhem 3 were kicking my rear end but there was an element of fatigue to it. By the time I'd reached the zone with the loudspeakers I just wanted to be done with it, and it also affected the SE area which in hindsight I feel was a pretty easy one but it just felt overwhelming at the time. Also one problem with that kind of intricate nonlinear puzzle box design is tiny oversights might mean you need to comb the whole world and check everything you did again, in search of that one scribble on a wall you might have missed. But interestingly one of the bits where I was stuck was a puzzle that felt to me like I should search for more clues elsewhere when it was in fact just completely self-contained and I hadn't fiddled with it enough to understand how it worked. Rhem 4 feels stangely flat so far, and by that I mean geographically, the previous games lost no time in establishing they had at least two floors in the entrance areas, while in this one I've yet to see a flight of stairs or pathway that isn't at ground level. Also it cracks me up that the plot still is "That thing you got opens up a new part of Rhem, go explore it to find the next key", almost verbatim despite involving two brothers and a third guy, who have basically no interplay whatsoever? When that third guy popped up and also you had access to a device checking the mcGuffin for authenticity I was sure there was gonna be a twist, but no, everything went just as everyone said it would. Also half the videos are just straight up shot in someone's living room with a cheap camera or something, it's amazing. But the puzzles and world design are soooo good. I had a huge smile when I found the stairs to a basement in Rhem 3 and it turned out to lead to the final room you discover in Rhem 2, but from the other side of the closed passage. One nice feature that pops up in Rhem 3 is you can take pictures of paper clues so you don't need to backtrack or write those down. Or, well, that's the idea since of course some of those clues secretly required making note of some nearby elements to be correctly interpreted. To be fair it became clear pretty fast that some context must be missing from the photographs. One big caveat is that you can't use the colorpicker on those, so I had to go back to check some colors. Chev fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 00:20
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Captain Hygiene posted:I just spent an enjoyable couple hours with a charming little game, Feria d'Arles. It's extremely on-point in graphics and dialogue feeling like the classic LucasArts point-and-click era. It's about a little kid who wants to be a matador and has to finagle her way into the arena - I hate bullfighting in real-life, but this is very disconnected from the serious side of that and I had to check it out based on how oddball of a premise that is and since it's on sale for $2. Definitely recommended if you want a nice little bite-sized nostalgia trip. ... As usual during the winter sale, I'm handing out gifts. https://steamcommunity.com/id/Xander77/ Add me, mention you're from this thread, get a new-ish and interesting-ish game. In return, post a short review here and\or ride the gift train
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Jan 4, 2022 23:42
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This was apparently a year ago, but I just learned now that Duncan Jones wrote a spec script for a Full Throttle movie adaptation. It will obviously never get made, but I'm just surprised anyone remembers that game enough to devote that much energy to it.
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Jan 10, 2022 01:36
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That reminds me, I watched this retrospective of the Maniac Mansion TV show recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XASUxLnFZE I got really bummed to hear that the original pitch was basically an Addams Family or Munsters kinda show with the Edisons. Would've loved that take compared with what we got.
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Jan 10, 2022 01:42
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Finished Broken Sword, a game I held fondly in my heart for 20 years. Sad to say that I'm not so fond of it now. :-( Many of the puzzles towards the end of the game were annoyingly obtuse, and the back-pedalling and instant deaths really let down what's overall a cool concept; with charm; and great art direction (if you ignore some of the dodgier animation and character design in the cutscenes). Of course I'm straight onto the second one now. What did people think of the fifth one? I have it in my GOG catalogue...
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Jan 20, 2022 12:20
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yung lambic posted:Finished Broken Sword, a game I held fondly in my heart for 20 years. Sad to say that I'm not so fond of it now. :-( I think people are mostly fond of the Paris half of BS1. I haven't gotten around to the fifth one. I thought it looked a bit rear end on the screenshots, tbh. Having played through 1-4 in a single go, I recall thinking 4 was pretty good in comparison to what I'd just played, even though a lot of people didn't seem to like it.
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Jan 20, 2022 12:44
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yung lambic posted:Of course I'm straight onto the second one now. What did people think of the fifth one? I have it in my GOG catalogue... I'm currently about half-way with BS5, I started it like 4 years ago and got stuck, now I figured that I should just run through it with a walk-through (when needed) and clear it from my backlog  It's good enough that I want to follow it through. Certainly not as good as my memories of BS1 or BS2, but no surprises there. It's a "pleasant" game to spend an hour at a time; it has pretty art, somewhat intriguing backstory and I liked how they showed same settings in daylight and evening light. But the dialogues are not very good, I've noticed that I kind of want to get through them fast. Anyway, I'll want to finish it and probably a good part of your run as well. edit: oh god, there was a dancing scene 
Bolivar fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 13:21
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Megazver posted:I think people are mostly fond of the Paris half of BS1. Love the game, hate that loving goat though!
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Jan 20, 2022 16:17
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If anyone's jonesing for a Disco Elysium fix, take a look at the demo for an upcoming game on Steam called NORCO. It's a cyberpunk game set in Louisiana, and has the same kind of surreal vibe to it.
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Jan 22, 2022 03:09
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Neddy Seagoon posted:If anyone's jonesing for a Disco Elysium fix, take a look at the demo for an upcoming game on Steam called NORCO. It's a cyberpunk game set in Louisiana, and has the same kind of surreal vibe to it. This looks interesting. Hope it turns out good. It mostly hangs on the writing -- if it's mediocre or worse, then it's a waste of neat visuals.
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Jan 22, 2022 03:41
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Saoshyant posted:This looks interesting. Hope it turns out good. It mostly hangs on the writing -- if it's mediocre or worse, then it's a waste of neat visuals. I enjoyed my time with the demo, if it stays consistent in quality it's going to be really interesting to see where it goes.
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Jan 22, 2022 05:05
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Neddy Seagoon posted:If anyone's jonesing for a Disco Elysium fix, take a look at the demo for an upcoming game on Steam called NORCO. It's a cyberpunk game set in Louisiana, and has the same kind of surreal vibe to it. Wishlisted for now to check it out later...looks intriguing for sure. Just need some post-launch comments whether it stands on its own as a game and not just a Disco Elysium hommage (for instance that conversation UI looks pretty much like a copy of DE, which is fine but also an obvious way to grab people's attention).
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Jan 22, 2022 07:26
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I didn't really know what to make of Norco's demo when I played it. It's definitely going for aesthetics and the prose is good but I couldn't tell if there was an actual narrative being told. It's a lot of proper nouns and heady passages which is fine just not what I was expecting as a first impression. I finished Backbone recently and I don't know what to make of it. It definitely puts its best foot forward then really goes weird places the more you get in. It never lost me because it was a neat world to experience but it is an absolutely bizarre game that I don't quite know what they were going for. A sequel was recently announced but I have no idea how it would follow up on this or what the central conceit would be.
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Jan 22, 2022 13:40
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So I just finished Full Throttle Remastered. Stupidly, I played through the copy I got free through GOG Connect, rather than the copy I bought on Steam, so know I'm going to try and speedrun my Steam copy to see if I can get all the achievements in record time. As far as the remaster goes, I have to say to say that it's really good! Contrary to the Monkey Island special editions/remasters, the Full Throttle remaster adheres closely to the original's art design. Toggling between the remaster and the original, most of the 2D art is drawn nearly 1:1 with the original. There's also some neat, new effects in certain areas (Ben has a glow cast on him in the Remastered view when he's standing near the blow-torch pit outside the trailer.) That said, there are some faults to it, I find. The scaling is hit or miss in some cases. In some scenes where characters faces are smaller/pixelated in the original view, they're redrawn clearly in the Remastered view and it looks nice. On the other hand, when you're on the map in Melonweed, in the original view, Ben gets pixelated, but the Remastered view draws him like normal, and it looks very off (that's just one example, but there are others). There's spots where some of the elements look like they were filtered instead of being redrawn. The redrawn 3D elements fare worse when it comes to the scaling issue. That's not to say that they look bad, per se, but I think they blend a lot better with the original's visuals, rather than the new art. It varies, though; Ben on his bike looks fine, but stuff like the cops on the flying platform or the Cavefish look off. I also noticed that there were some animation errors in the Remastered version, where there's a 'pop' between two animations. For example, when Ben pulls the rope outside the junkyard, the palette on him messes up, and his poses change slightly when he stops. Another is when you attach the ramp to your bike, where the bike shifts slightly when the animation starts. Visual stuff aside, the audio is extremely well done. I'm guessing they had access to the original recordings, because the audio sounds a lot clearer than in the original, and hearing the late, great Roy Conrad in high quality is just sublime. What's cool is that if you toggle back to the classic view, the audio adjusts to sound more like the original (with the voice quality being more muffled, and the music reverting back to iMuse style). I didn't listen to the audio commentary, but I think it's because I was disappointed by the audio commentary in Monkey Island 2 SE (FT commentary seems like it's a bit more extensive though, so maybe I'll check it out in the future.) As far as the game itself goes, it's still holds up really well. I was able to remember what to do up until I got to Corely Motors, which is where I resorted to looking at a walkthrough for aid. The bike combat (which I skipped when I played the game originally) I actually went through easily (I think they tweaked both it and the destruction derby section where everything flows a bit smoother). The only really weak/bad puzzle in the game I think is the minefield bunny puzzle, and that's only because it feels tedious, and you might not think to pick up the bunnies when you let them out of the box. I think the game really benefits from being on the short side. If you don't have it, I think it's worth picking up when it goes on sale. Max Wilco fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Jan 23, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 23:19
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To me, Full Throttle is one of the weakest Lucasarts titles. I remember being bored by it when it came out. I played the Remastered version recently and I couldn't finish it, I still think it's a very boring game. The world is boring, the story is boring and the characters are boring. Great visuals though. Thank you for reading.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:15
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It starts strongly though. That "The bar!' bit is gold.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:23
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Full Throttle is a “perfect” adventure game to me because it’s the closest a game has felt to an interactive cartoon. Then they just stopped making games like this even though it was LA’s best selling game ever at least in the 90s.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:51
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I'm also kind of take-it-or-leave-it on Full Throttle, but I do think its world is intetesting and the game didn't come close to realizing its potential.AbstractNapper posted:It starts strongly though. That "The bar!' bit is gold. I appreciate forums user THE BAR for making me think of that whenever they post.
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Jan 24, 2022 16:06
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AbstractNapper posted:It starts strongly though. That "The bar!' bit is gold. Full Throttle has probably the strongest intro sequence of any game that I can remember to be honest. Like maybe it's just that it came out at the right time or something for me, but the intro sequence is great. The first puzzle with the nose ring and "The bar" in his growly voice. It just fully captured the idea of being a tough biker guy, and it felt like you were playing an interactive cartoon or something There are definitely parts that don't really hold up, but so much of the game is great. The world might not be something truly special or unique, but the game is dripping with style and personally I like Maureen and Ben. I dunno that I could really name any other characters though, other than I guess the chairman guy and the evil boss The voice work in general is fantastic as well, at least imo
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Jan 24, 2022 16:08
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I love the style of Full Throttle but it kind of exemplifies what I don't like about Tim Schafer's puzzle design that I think is emblematic is most of his games - the worst being Grim Fandango - where you just have to pause everything to do some stupid nonsense that has nothing to do with what the actual goal of the game is. Which is true for a lot of adventure games, but it stands out in his games more because of how strong the style is and for how hard they focus on plot.
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Jan 24, 2022 16:31
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I find Full Throttle to be the least of that though. The puzzles are largely self contained and environmentally based and the biggest distraction is the road rage rear end mini-game that can thankfully be cheesed but that's the worst of it. I thought the destruction derby scene was hokey at first but thinking back on it it's a fun way to do an action segment in an adventure game that's not just a static cutscene or just dragging an inventory item over a character with specific timing. It is a really strong intro where the central conceit is established instantly. So many adventure games have this long buildup in the beginning where it's like "you show up on scene, now do some arbitrary things before the story actually begins" but DotT and Full Throttle just start you in the poo poo from the beginning.
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Jan 24, 2022 17:02
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The best joke in the game was right at the end, let's be real. That license plate was just  .
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Jan 24, 2022 18:41
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Oh hey, webcomic artist Meredith Gran's Perfect Tides coming out next month.
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Jan 24, 2022 19:12
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Surely Day of the Tentacle is THE definitive point and click! We really need a league table!
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Jan 24, 2022 21:37
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Manwithastick posted:Surely Day of the Tentacle is THE definitive point and click! I agree, DOTT is the absolute peak of adventure gaming imo. Also Monkey Island 2. I actually prefer MI2 because of how open it is. Compared with those, Full Throttle almost feels claustrophobic.
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Jan 24, 2022 21:48
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Speaking of MI, we've been playing through the series again since we got the limited run collector's edition stuff We're on MI4 at the moment, it's still not very good. It's also got this like.. weird late 90s libertarian vibe in the dialogue. Guybrush is a very like.. "jerk Homer" kind of character where, rather than being a little naive and/or sarcastic, they've just made him a complete buffoon and also a jerk. Starting with the end of the intro scene where he's talking about solving the first puzzle and standing on things Elaine is pulling out of the hold of the ship. And it basically treats him as completely henpecked to a frankly absurd degree. There's also a TON of anti-union and anti-government kinda jokes too. Its a very strange game and I can't really figure out if the whole writing team changed between 3 and 4 or what. Maybe that's just a product of it being a late 90s/year 2000 era game or something Surprisingly, while the controls are still terrible regardless of how you slice it, using an X-box controller instead of the keyboard + numpad makes the game surprisingly tolerable to play. I never would've thought I'd recommend controller over mouse + keyboard in an adventure game but Escape is a weird game in every regard.
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Jan 24, 2022 22:25
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I think Monkey Island 2 is the definitive classic point-and-click example for me, in mostly good but also sometimes aggravating ways.
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Jan 24, 2022 22:29
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Day of the Tentacle gets the win for being tighter, more focused, and more self-contained. Monkey Island 2 has higher highs, but is less cohesive and singular.
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Jan 24, 2022 22:36
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I made the mistake of playing EMI right after a Grim Fandango play through years ago. I think right after they both became completable through ResidualVM. Night and day difference. I’ve replayed Grim many times over the last 20+ years, but only got all the way through EMI twice.
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Jan 24, 2022 22:41
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It gets less mention, probably because it’s never been remastered, but The Dig is also awesome. It’s unique among the LucasArts adventure games in that there’s not really any humor, just solid story and puzzles. I played through it again recently and other than one puzzle (you know the one) it hold up perfectly.
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Jan 25, 2022 01:21
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The Pirate Captain posted:It gets less mention, probably because it’s never been remastered, but The Dig is also awesome. It’s unique among the LucasArts adventure games in that there’s not really any humor, just solid story and puzzles. I played through it again recently and other than one puzzle (you know the one) it hold up perfectly. The Dig was great, but the whole uh.. hand thing used to absolutely terrify me when I was younger and it first came out
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Jan 25, 2022 01:36
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I loved The Dig, but I'm probably the only person who read the Alan Dean Foster novelization first, so to me that was always the real storyline of the game. My personal favorite is probably Loom, though. I'm not even a big fantasy fan, and it's not like the story is super deep, but there's just something about it, the music, the visuals, the gameplay, the short length, that all just meld together into a great experience every time.
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Jan 25, 2022 01:43
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The Dig is probably my favourite, just a perfect symbiosis between puzzle design and aesthetics and storytelling. I even love the stupid turtle puzzle that everyone hates.
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Jan 25, 2022 01:44
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I don't know what my actual favorite is, MI2 just typifies the best of the genre as well as some of the flaws that eventually pervade a lot of the games - getting a bit too spread out and less cohesive, as mentioned. I definitely have a huge soft spot for the first Monkey Island as the first point & click game I played as a teen, after reading about it in my dad's old computer magazines for years and years. And it was the exact charming, snarky game I'd imagined, and maybe the first game I played that was written as an outright comedy. It just landed exactly right for me. e: I think this dialogue option in the ending is still my favorite funny moment in a game 
Captain Hygiene fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 01:51
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I’ve always loved Full Throttle for how short it is. It tells the story it wants to tell and gets out. Beginning is good, ending is good, it looks amazing. The original’s art is still some of my favorite PC game art of all time. It hits this unique sweet spot of top-of-its-game pixel art, and cel drawn animation and 3D, all in service of an impressively unified look. Nothing else looks like it and nothing ever will. Some puzzles in it are rough, that is true. Monkey Island 2 will always be at the top for me, though. It wasn’t the first adventure game I played, but it was the first one that grabbed me enough to complete it, when I was around 11. And I think it was the game that taught me how comedy works, AND the first game I played where the creators hands were so apparent in the work that I really understood for the first time “people make these.” ja2ke fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 02:03
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Full Throttle taught me the important life survival skill of how to siphon gas out of someone else's tank.
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Jan 25, 2022 02:10
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