Just thought I’d list my opinions and see what other people's opinions are too, plus find other games I’ve probably overlooked over the years
Plus I haven’t played some of these in a few years so the details may be a little lacking in places.
Post Mortem - Good
Although this uses a keyboard for movement its first person perspective was quite good for keeping the point and click element as you could look around then click on the objects and so forth
The Graphics aren't great (though I’d say they were good for their time) especially the textures on stuff like when you're in the pub and you can see compression artefacts everywhere
But from what I remember of this game it had a decent story line I can’t remember much about the voice acting and such but I don’t think it was that bad.
Monkey Island 4 - Excellent
Storyline Wise, Graphic Wise, Voice Acting Wise this is a great game it continues on the greatness of the previous
Games
The Only issue with this game is the controls it's a pain in the behind to navigate with the keyboard and remember all the controls for scrolling though the inventory and such, I always setup a joy pad when playing the game but other than that very enjoyable.
Grim Fandango - Excellent
One of the greatest adventure games of all time great story acting and good graphics for its time but like MI4 it also suffers from the same control problems.
Sherlock Homes and the Case of the Silver Earring - Great
This is one of my favourites of more modern adventure games it has good graphics, the voice acting is decent but I remember being a little annoyed by it though the game was originally German if I remember correctly the voice acting is never amazing from games that come from foreign developers
It has a good storyline and the controls are pretty good too from what I remember, I think you move the character with the mouse but can also use the keyboard (though don’t quote me on that) which is useful for the times the mouse just won’t cut it.
The only annoyances with this game are somewhere in translation they messed up one of the puzzles in the game that involves a jester playing card slot machine thing, originally if I remember correctly you complete this puzzle by getting 3 Aces, however in the English version it changed 2 3 random cards that make no logical sense (at least not to me) so when playing this game I usually have to and lookup the solution online.
One other thing of note is, at the end of each day in the game you compile your case notes of suspects and such while this does add an extra element of game play, it can be a bit annoying having to remember all the details to do this, though iirc I think there’s a difficulty setting you can change so you can skip those.
Normality - Good
A Classic 3D game still of the DOS age, good graphics for its time, just a shame DOS didn't have any anti-aliasing or bilinear filtering
A bit of a weird game but I like its crazy plotline though some of it seems rushed or randomly inserted
The control system is pretty good, you move around in a first person perspective with the keyboard then interact with items using the mouse, and it also has a doll for choosing your actions which reminds me somewhat of the way you choose actions in full throttle.
The Pandora Directive - Good
Now this is one of these games that uses video capture and as I’m sure you all know, video capture based games = cheesy as heck
Needless to say you see the same people replaying various characters in over acted ways however one thing that is a bit different is that each character's face is altered via makeup in a style that makes me think of sin city to some extent.
I've yet to finish this game, I believe I’ve played it about half way through but got Killed and haven’t gone back to replay that bit.
The Story is somewhat noir style and it seems to be a sequel in a set of games starting Tex Murphy (though before playing the game I’d never heard of them)
The control system is a combination of Keyboard Movement and Mouse interaction however you can also look up and down and duck (useful when chasing criminals and dogging bullets)
The storyline is quite good and you can play the game in 3 ways to end up with 3 different outcomes, good bad or neutral it also effects how puzzles and characters turn out as you play
Strongbads Cool game for Attractive People - Great
For an Episodic series on WiiWare this is a great little set of 5 games
Interface wise practically perfect its 3D toon shaded Graphics but uses classic point and click interface though there is the odd little annoyance where you click somewhere and he walks somewhere else
On average you can complete these games in 3 hours or so, and they aren’t too difficult to figure out the puzzles most of the time
But overall the jokes and awesomeness of Strongbad holds this game together greatly, can you handle his style?
And I say this because I must (some will get it some will not) TROGDOOOOOOOOOOR!!!
Simon the Sorcerer 3 - Terrible
I was expecting great things from STS3 Great things; STS2 had finished on a cliff-hanger and left most of us anticipating this game
However this game was a massive let down I’m sure to most of you like me just when watching the Intro sequence first you are presented with horrific graphics, horrific, granted this was made in 99/00 however 3D at that point was a little more advanced that cubes for heads
and another annoyance with the intro is the way they practically dismissed the storyline of STS2 at the end of STS2 you had sordid in STS’s body and quite glad to finally have a flesh body iirc, and not only that goes off to take over Simons home dimension, however it seems like the taking over the home dimension is dismissed and then he transfers back into his robotic body, something of which he was trying to get out of all the way though sts2! Since this does not make young padawan!
Interface wise this is nothing great, all the stuff is done on the keyboard iirc, personally I didn’t get that far in this game I got out to explore the world and didn’t even make it to the first village or whatever once in the over world setting, I believe the game crashed as its very unstable on newer PC’s
Saying this however, I would like to see the game remade on the Wii with updated graphics and controls sited for the Wiimote, I think it would work well on the Wii, and even though it has some plot disappointments form what I’ve seen I would still like to play this game to completion as a fan of Simon the Sorcerer
Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon - Good
I’m sure many of you think of this game and all you can remember is SO MUCH CRATE PUSHING! Granted I used to think of this game that way the first time I played it however I played it again not too long ago and there wasn’t all that much crate pushing, I guess just the first time you play you spend so much time moving stuff trying to figure out where to put it that it takes up more of your memory of the game,
Crate pushing out of the way let’s get down to the story, overall quite a good storyline, it goes back to the plot of BS1 and ties up loose ends and such and introduces some new ideas, the overall gameplay is pretty good.
The Controls are good but not perfect the controls DO NOT lend themselves to the keyboard which I will get to in a moment, overall quite a good job on the controls for moving and selecting items however it’s a pain having to use all the keyboard buttons for navigation the inventory and choosing actions and such, but the real pain is moving with the cursor keys especially if you are trying to run and move as you can only run and move left or right or up and down if you try and press 3 keys at the same time the keyboard beeps and you don’t move (at least on my keyboard but I think that’s the same limitation they all have on older keyboards)
there is a part of the game where you have to run down this tunnel away from the bad guys however on the keyboard this is impossible as you keep hitting the walls, you will need a joy pad setup to play this game properly and get past that puzzle without spending 10 hours of trial and error on the keyboard.
Broken Sword 4: The Angel of Death – Good/Bad
This game is both Awesome and sucks at the same time you start the game off, and all you can think is wow, now I am not merely speaking graphically here but as soon as you get the controls you think they wait a moment POINT AND CLICK CONTROLS ON A 3D ENVIRONMENT! That’s right the classic point and click interface we’ve all come to know and love has returned, but there s the added bonus of being able to move with the keyboard if you want to, plus the music kicks ass that’s another element you notice when playing this game.
That’s the disappointing thing; the game starts of so good! You play for a while and you think you’re about half way through then the next thing you know you’re at the end of the game, it seems as through half way through the making of this game they said right we gotta get this thing released and rushed it, it’s just way too short compared to the pace of the start of the game.
But that is not the worst thing, now the BS games have never been known for their great endings, there has never been much of an aftermath after the final puzzles but we’ve always had enough to keep us satisfied, however with broken sword 4 you do the last event, and it says the end and the credits roll, this is what truly pisses me off with this game (excuse the klation)
Plus they bring in the templar’s from seemingly nowhere to randomly add something to the game very bad work on the overall plot imo.
The Mystery of the Druids – Great
I love this game probably cos it was the first 3d adventure game I played that had mouse interaction, I’ve only played it through once and that was about 7 years ago now but I still have fond memories of the game, though it does have its share of problems
There’s a load of graphic bugs like people appearing in front of objects and such (there was a gold edition released of the game which I think they may have fixed a lot of stuff like that but I never managed to get my hands on it)
I like the storyline through, and you also get to play between 2 characters, it is a longer adventure game which is always good
Only bad points of the game is it’s a German low budget type game the graphics aren’t amazing, and the voice acting is meh but overall quite a good game for its time.
The Omega Stone – Terrible
Ok this game I bought for £40 I believe, thinking ooooo an adventure game, so I took it home I installed it 10 mins later I had put it back in the case and threw it soemwhere behind me, this game is horrid
The whole thing starts of intriguingly you can look around in complete 3 and use mouse moment but it uses video capture, the thing is too cheesy all the characters are played by one man and he’s the most hammy actor I’ve ever seen, and 2 I couldn’t figure out the first puzzle, it ticked me off, that’s about all I have to say on this I didn’t play it for very long
If you are still reading this i’ll reward you by shutting up now
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