Best Adventure Game Ever!

[Lechuck]

Which is in your oppinion the best adventure game of all times?

My answer is easy, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Basicly that is the game that got me hooked on adventure games, so it's the king for me.
Simon The Sorcerer is a good runner up, but isn't really where Monkey Island 2 is in my heart.

[Nickman]

I have to say i agree. But thats because Sam & Max / Full throttle / Day of the tentacle / Grim fandango nerver made it to the Amiga platform.

Monky 2 is tha king.

[eriktorbjorn]

Which is in your oppinion the best adventure game of all times?

My answer is easy, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Basicly that is the game that got me hooked on adventure games, so it's the king for me.
Simon The Sorcerer is a good runner up, but isn't really where Monkey Island 2 is in my heart.

If I had to pick just one favorite, I think Infocom's A Mind Forever Voyaging was the one that most captured my imagination when I played it. It's an unusual game, both for its serious tone and for having almost no puzzles but still lot to explore.

Of the Infocom games, honorable mentions would go to Deadline, Enchanter, and maybe Suspended for the sheer chutzpah of it.

I haven't really kept up with the text adventures of recent years, though I know there are a lot of high-quality fan-made games out there. One that really impressed me when I was playing it was Andrew Plotkin's Spider and Web.

But I guess I should mention some graphical adventure games, too. The first one that springs to mind is ICOM Simulations's Deja Vu, but I'd be letting nostalgia cloud my judgment if I said it was the best of them, amazing though it was for its time. I guess I have to say Grim Fandango even if it is a slightly uneven game.

Honorable mentions would go to Day of the Tentacle and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, with a big chutzpah award to The Last Express.

By chutzpah I mean that the game may not necessarily be fun to play at all times, but that you have to admire the designer for what he was attempting to do.

[Adventureguy]

Hmm, that's difficult, many games are quite impressive .
Well, I think Maniac Mansion is by far the best adventuregame of all time, because it's the most original adventure with many possibilities to finish the game. Name me one other adventure where you can choose a party of characters with different abilities as it is in Maniac Mansion. Also, it was the first P&C adventure ever (Thank you Ron Gilbert ) and is not so linear as other adventuregames. 2nd place for me goes to Day of the Tentacle. The humour is outrageous, oh boy, what times of fun I had and have with that game . Though, it's much more linear than MM, but that doesn't matter. Sam and Max is also a very funny adventuregame, comes right after DOTT for me. Geez, I think all LucasArts adventures are something great and fantastic: Indy4, Zak McKracken, Monkey Island, and so on are all great games. I sometimes even can't decide what game is my favorite one.
Now some non-LucasArts games I like: Broken Sword, espacially the first one. Serious adventuregame with a historical context, but yet with funny dialogs and interactions which lightens the atmosphere. (e.g.: "Freeze! Hold it right there!" - "Woah - don't shoot! I'm innocent! I'm an American!" - "Can't make up your mind, huh?" )
Boy, I LOVE this series! ( I think you already figured it out by my avatar ) Can't wait for BS 4 and the fanmade BS 2.5 (which will hopefully get supported by ScummVM when it's done).
There are also good original fanmade adventures which are pretty good imo(e.g. 5 Day a Stranger).
But honestly, I sometimes can't decide between those awesome adventures which is the best.

[Jimbob]

Hmmm, The Hobbit on the ZX Spectrum ... probably not the sort of adventure game you meant but it is an adventure!

[eriktorbjorn]

Hmmm, The Hobbit on the ZX Spectrum ... probably not the sort of adventure game you meant but it is an adventure!

I played that with a friend. Definitely one of the classics, but also extremely maddening at times.

One of the things it was famous for was the computer-controlled characters. In some games, any character you meet is basically just a piece of furniture. He stays in one place throughout the game, and only reacts to what you do. This is simple to implement, and can still work quite well.

Other games call for more intricate actor behaviour. In Infocom's murder mysteries - Deadline, The Witness and Suspect - each character would go through a scripted series of actions, regardless of whether or not you were there to see them do it. Sometimes they would react to what you were doing, and sometimes they would appear to react to each other. This is harder to implement - as this article shows - but it gives a much better illusion of intelligent behaviour.

The Hobbit took a different approach. The characters would have some scripted behaviour: Gandalf would always start by giving you a curious map, Elrond would always say hello and, eventually, give you some food, etc. But most of the time, they would walk around and act pretty much randomly. Gandalf might decide to take back the map, and then wander off and drop it somewhere. Sometimes they would get into fights off-screen; sometimes they'd even get themselves killed.

There were some puzzles where you would need to ask them to do something for you, but often they would randomly ignore your suggestions, forcing you to repeat them. To add insult to injury, they might then decide to tell you to hurry up or, even worse, start singing about gold. The worst part of it was probably the goblins dungeon. You needed help to escape, but even if you did you were likely to be re-captured every few moves since the goblins behaved just as randomly as everyone else. And then, of course, you had to wait for Gandalf or Thorin to join you so you could ask them for help again.

It had all the annoyance of the Monkey Island 2 endgame - and more - but without the cool music to go along with it. Perhaps there was a trick to make it easier, but we never found out.

In the end, we skipped the whole goblins area (and the ring), and just went for the dragon's treasure and getting back as quickly as possible, since that's all you had to do to win the game. We didn't care what happened to Thorin or Gandalf, as long as they didn't get in the way.

My silliest memory from the game (not an exact transcript, but you get the idea) went something like this:

There is a dragon here.
Bard is here, carrying a bow and an arrow.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"
Bard says, "No."
The dragon goes north.
>GO NORTH
You go north. The dragon is here. Bard follows.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"
Bard says, "No."
The dragon goes north.
>GO NORTH
You go north. The dragon is here. Bard follows.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"
Bard says, "No."
The dragon goes north.
>GO NORTH
You go north. The dragon is here. Bard follows.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"

[Bard proceeds trying to beat the dragon to death with his bow. The dragon kills you.]

The correct command here was asking Bard to shoot the dragon, not kill it. Ah, the memories...

[Jimbob]

Hmmm, The Hobbit on the ZX Spectrum ... probably not the sort of adventure game you meant but it is an adventure!

*Snipped*

There is a dragon here.
Bard is here, carrying a bow and an arrow.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"
Bard says, "No."
The dragon goes north.
>GO NORTH
You go north. The dragon is here. Bard follows.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"
Bard says, "No."
The dragon goes north.
>GO NORTH
You go north. The dragon is here. Bard follows.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"
Bard says, "No."
The dragon goes north.
>GO NORTH
You go north. The dragon is here. Bard follows.
>SAY TO BARD "KILL DRAGON WITH BOW"

[Bard proceeds trying to beat the dragon to death with his bow. The dragon kills you.]

The correct command here was asking Bard to shoot the dragon, not kill it. Ah, the memories...

Yes, definitely one of the many memories I have of computer gaming from the Speccy era.

[clem]

anybody remember "Countdown"?
some parts & the story were fun

and after fighting with the dictionary to play it I was the only 14yr old in English class who knew what rigor mortis was

[Lechuck]

I have to say i agree. But thats because Sam & Max / Full throttle / Day of the tentacle / Grim fandango nerver made it to the Amiga platform.

Monky 2 is tha king.

Just like my scenario, I was so mad that Sam & Max wasn't ported to Amiga.
I only had a A1200 when I grew up, but boy did it have better graphics then my friends PC-version.
The PC looked so pixelated and crisp while my Amiga games were smooth and nice.

[Adventureguy]

I only had a A1200 when I grew up, but boy did it have better graphics then my friends PC-version.
The PC looked so pixelated and crisp while my Amiga games were smooth and nice.

Here's a comparison of MI2 for Amiga (left) and PC (right) made by a friend of mine:

It might be only my opinion, but I think the PC's graphics are slightly better.

[clem]

Here's a comparison of MI2 for Amiga (left) and PC (right) made by a friend of mine: <snip>
It might be only my opinion, but I think the PC's graphics are slightly better.

I assume your friend made these screenshots using an emulator? While the Amiga generally has less colors available than the PC, the gfx might look smoother on the real thing because of the Amiga monitors (which looked as far as I remember more like a TV monitor than a PC monitor)

[JKing]

Also, JPEG is -really- not suited for screenshots, especially for comparisons of graphic quality....

[Lechuck]

I only had a A1200 when I grew up, but boy did it have better graphics then my friends PC-version.
The PC looked so pixelated and crisp while my Amiga games were smooth and nice.

Here's a comparison of MI2 for Amiga (left) and PC (right) made by a friend of mine:

It might be only my opinion, but I think the PC's graphics are slightly better.

Yeah as stated it's not correct, if you compared the Amiga(AGA) version to PC version the PC didn't look better. Plus I think you used the ECS version of MI2 on the screen, I meant the AGA version.

I assume your friend made these screenshots using an emulator? While the Amiga generally has less colors available than the PC, the gfx might look smoother on the real thing because of the Amiga monitors (which looked as far as I remember more like a TV monitor than a PC monitor)

Is that true?
The Amiga 1200 could display 256 colors of a 16.8million palatte, I don't think PCs is those days had more colors than the Amiga.
I meant the AGA version of MI2, that was only compatible with A1200 & A4000 that could display 256 colors.
Maybe that is the ECS version in those screenshots, the Amiga 500 version. It had much less colors. But real gamers had the A1200 or A4000.

But yeah everything looked smooth because of the TV-style monitors.
Plus did the resolution have anything to do with it? The Amiga 1200 ran at 640x480, didn't most PCs run at 320x240 in the old days when MI2 was released?

[Kirben]

Yeah as stated it's not correct, if you compared the Amiga(AGA) version to PC version the PC didn't look better. Plus I think you used the ECS version of MI2 on the screen, I meant the AGA version.

There was no AGA release of Monkey Island 2, the Amiga version only used 32 colors.

[Lechuck]

Yeah as stated it's not correct, if you compared the Amiga(AGA) version to PC version the PC didn't look better. Plus I think you used the ECS version of MI2 on the screen, I meant the AGA version.

There was no AGA release of Monkey Island 2, the Amiga version only used 32 colors.

Yeah sorry I mixed up Simon The Sorcerer AGA with MI2.
But the other stuff I still say it's true IMO

You must be a magician to make a game like Monkey Island 2 with only 32 colors! I wouldn't be able to pull this off
Makes me even more impressed by the game

Wonder why they didn't release a AGA version?