Graphic Adventure games through the ages

baron calamity · Post by **baron calamity** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:26 pm

Mystery house

Space Quest

Monkey Island

Myst

Leisure Suit Larry 7

Grim Fandango

Syberia

Bone

Suitably Ironic Moniker · Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:41 pm

Nice screencaps, though I do Believe The Longest Journey belongs in there somewhere

.

Kaigen · Post by **Kaigen** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:50 pm

Bone seems like an odd choice to show current adventure games...

baron calamity · Post by **baron calamity** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:57 pm

Suitably Ironic Moniker wrote:Nice screencaps, though I do Believe The Longest Journey belongs in there somewhere .

Honestly I liked Syberia a bit more. The Longest Journey is one of the few adventure games I never finished because I got bored.

Kaigen wrote:Bone seems like an odd choice to show current adventure games...

Moment of Silence and Still Life are pretty close to Syberia. They all just sort of lump together in an eastern europe goo.

It was a toss up between Bone and Indigo.

O.DOGG · Post by **O.DOGG** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:26 pm

You could've put Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon there too - the best adventure game in recent years, in my opinion.

JayG · Post by **JayG** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:47 am

I hated the last Broken Sword. Found it imposible to control on the PC, which is ironic considering how perfect the controls on the previous games were. The first one is a classic. Put it on my PSP the other day and it looked amazing.

Bone's looking great. That and Fahrenheit are both very promising. With a bit of luck they will both be very successful and help kickstart the genre.

Kaigen · Post by **Kaigen** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:44 am

Moment of Silence and Still Life are pretty close to Syberia. They all just sort of lump together in an eastern europe goo.

It was a toss up between Bone and Indigo.

I would've picked Dreamfall.

ChaoZ · Post by **ChaoZ** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 3:47 pm

I think Gabriel Knight 1 and 2 belonged somewhere there too, after all, we did go through the FMV phase of adventure gaming.

JayG · Post by **JayG** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:24 pm

I loved the Gabriel Knight games. I wish there was still adventure games like that around.

knob · Post by **knob** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:35 pm

NO CURSE OF MONKEY ISLAND?!

The only adventure game to ever hold my interest all the way to the end. Two times.

Kaigen · Post by **Kaigen** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 6:49 pm

ChaoZ wrote:I think Gabriel Knight 1 and 2 belonged somewhere there too, after all, we did go through the FMV phase of adventure gaming.

Well, Myst could count as an "FMV game," sort of. There's not much FMV, but it's there. Still, there's a distinct lack of FMV in those screenshots.

Kyosho · Post by **Kyosho** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:51 am

I don't see any full 3D games there, so you could stick GK3 up there. Unless Bone is, I know nothing of that game.

Is Grim Fandango full 3D? I'm thinking it's like Syberia where it has 2d backrounds and 3d characters. Having played it, I'm actually not sure. It does indeed use fixed camera angles...

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:12 am

No Dreamfall or Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit?

JayG · Post by **JayG** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 9:21 am

Big interview about Bone here;

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60747

Interesting thing is it's out in a few weeks, and it has to be brought on-line. And the game takes 4-6 hours to complete. Fahrenheit's supposed to take 7 hours, so adventures are getting shorter.

Andrew Wonser · Post by **Andrew Wonser** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 9:56 am

With the exception of some RPGs (And it could be argued alot of it is filler) everything has gotten shorter. Honestly I'm happy about it. I've played quite a few games over the years where the developers felt that a certain play hour had to be reached and introduced generic or frustrating levels to make that play time. I'd rather see a focus on story and character development than figuring out why I'm in a sewer for the thousanth time.

Kaigen · Post by **Kaigen** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 11:45 am

Kyosho wrote:Is Grim Fandango full 3D? I'm thinking it's like Syberia where it has 2d backrounds and 3d characters. Having played it, I'm actually not sure. It does indeed use fixed camera angles...

It's 3D characters and 2D backgrounds. I think Bone, however, is indeed full 3D.

AttAdude · Post by **AttAdude** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:11 pm

Maniac Mansion anyone?

D.A.Lewis · Post by **D.A.Lewis** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:11 pm

Another good job Rob

But

being a long time and current adventure gamer I think your list is remiss without a nod to the Kings Quest series which reigned supreme for a long time and was probably one of the games most responsible for getting the PC (as opposed to apple/commodor) crowd into gaming.

Also as much as I loved Manny and Grim Fandango it was Sam and Max that reached the apex of comedic adventure gaming.

Still what are list for, but for discussion. Now when ya gonna do CRPGs?You started this.

Crawley · Post by **Crawley** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:32 pm

When the CD-ROM era started coming around some of the developers were playing around with the adventure game genre in new ways. One of the interesting first point-and-click graphical adventure games (ala 7th Guest) was The Manhole.

It had the unique concept of no dialogue, nor hints, nor anything but your mouse cursor which you had to figure out where to click to interact with objects on the screen to move around. Basically the pixel hunt you find in most of the adventure games of today.

I was bored to tears by it even though it was one of the first CD-ROM games I purchased; this is coming from someone who played that crummy Sherlock Holmes FMV CD-ROM over and over amazed at the FMV!

In any case here's a screen shot (from the Mac version; the PC version was in color):

The other thing they started playing around with was adding vocal dialogue as well as enchaning the game with true CD audio (none of that lame mp3 music back then). One of the initial graphical adventure games to do this was Loom from LucasArts. Loom was unique in its own way as you had to learn to read music, albiet at a novice level, so you could play it back to cast your spells.

I've tossed you lot a screen shot to help provide a visual aid which will no doubt enhance my spellbinding paragraph above:

So a bit-o expanded history on two other adventure games that are worth a footnote.

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 11:05 pm

I'm just popping in to say I love these retro-history threads!
Really puts a smile of fond remembrance on my face.

Funny how my memories of the original "Myst" look far better than the actual screenshot.