Curly's World

I don't know how can you "believe that you love something" , you either love it/feel good with it or don't. Basically, I think that people have some hidden (because not yet explained) power of favouring pleasurable things over unpleasurable things (like babies who smile when you put sugar on their tongues, yet they didn't learn the taste before). If so many people feel nostalgic for something, to the point that huge community arises around the tool which recycles all their memories, my conclusion is - somehow all these "old point'n'click adventure games" were good and satisfied gamers' needs.

Dizi wrote:Also how about the DS style adventure games phoenix wright or another code. With this touch screen ability does this give the adventure games a new platform in which they could take advantage of and be highly sucessful?

So far for NDS games, I have completed and found the following games to have excellent storyline & character development. They include some exciting parts in the game so one doesn't feel bored playing.
- Phoenix Wright series (3 Phoenix Wright+Apollo Justice+Miles Edgeworth) -> There is some humour injected as well; game alternates between poink & click and finding contradictions; the beginning ones are best for story but more difficult to solve. Miles Edgeworth 2 never got an English version.
- Trace Memory -> Includes science fiction theme; point & click
- Time Hollow -> Includes science fiction theme; gives "Butterfly Effect movie" feeling where things keep getting worse when the past is changed. Happy ending though.
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors -> Includes science fiction theme; involves logical puzzle solving; have to replay game minimum one more time to complete story

After reading people's recommandation that those who liked "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" should play the popular game, "Ever 17:Out of Infinity", I found that it was true that Ever 17 is a great game. However, it is more a digital noval where a lot of reading is require. It is like watching an non-moving anime in Japanese and reading english subtitles so patience in reading is require. This game includes science fiction theme mixed with teenage love / childlike "puppy love". Story is more exciting / moving / towards the end. Have to replay game minimum 4 more times to complete story. It is sad that the other series related to "Ever 17:Out of Infinity" never got translated to English. Sometimes, I wish that I could understand Japanese because there are quite a few nice adventure games that are only in Japanese language (with heavy text for reading).

I am looking forward to the release of "Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward" - the sequel to Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. I go for adventure games with good storyline & character development as it give as much satisfaction as watching a good TV serial. Touch screen is only the second consideration (an added bonus if it helps the game) and is not the main consideration.

Ever 17 is a "visual novel." I wouldn't really call those adventure games. More like choose-your-own-path for the most part. I go through a bunch of those when I have time enough to read through the mostly bad writing. I don't know whether to blame the translators or the originals, but I'm guessing 99% of them are just poor writing to begin with.

Anymoose, there have been releases of new sequels, such as Secret Files 3, but I'm feeling loath to touch them. The puzzles seem to be getting more and more degenerate. I still shudder when I think about the salted pizza cat puzzle in Secret Files 2....... and Yahtzee just reviewed some adventure that sounded so illogical it was painful. You should go watch the latest Zero Punctuation (FIFA 13) for that, it was hilarious.

Has anyone else played J.B. Harold's Murder Club? It's an old PC game, but I thought it was terrific playing it a few months ago.

For a brief time I wondered who murdered Parvini, but - as it sometimes happens in crime movies - corpse arises from dead and proves that local community, despite its deep collective consciousness, can be outwitted.

If you haven't kept up with the new adventure games, GOG has a -60% weekend deal on some pretty good ones.

The new Broken Sword (number 5, The Serpent's Curse) was released todayish. So far so Broken Sword.

I believe the reason Grim Fandango is often said as the last great adventure game is that it tried to push the boundaries by going 3D and dropping mouse controls. It tried. BS5 doesn't try and the mechanics feel outdated. They're not poorly done, on the contrary but the genre is showing its limits. There was a fork in the road, the other lead to Beyond: Two Souls and the other to Assassin's Creed. The third path was tiny indie stories like Machinarium and Limbo... oh wait. I said this last year already, didn't I. In short, BS5 performs as I expected:

However, I'm a bit worried that most of these efforts won't evolve the genre, but follow the tried-and-true mechanics.

I decided to go on a nostalgia trip and re-read this thread, only to find this Post from Oct 26, 2006

Dizi wrote:.. I am hoping they do make a third longest journey and that it will hopefully not take as long to release as the second one...

Well almost 8 years to the date of me posting that comment the next chapter of the longest journey came out, so it has lived up to its name sake as it has definitely been a long journey or wondering what would happen after the cliff hanger ending on the second game.

While I didn't like the mechanics of the first Dreamfall game I did love the story, the new game is a 5 part episodic continuation of the Dreamfall arc which starts pretty much where the last game left off. Its also went in the direction of a lot of adventure style games these days and rather than being puzzle heavy its more of an interactive choose your own adventure movie where the choices you make effect how the game plays out. This is a style of game I've grown to really enjoy as it adds replay value just to see the other ways the story plays out, but it also can question your own morals if you play them through in a "what would I do in that situation" style rather than trying to be good or bad in them, and it also helps you build a connection with the character you are playing as.

It isn't without it's issues though, animations are slow and clunky at times, some of the voice acting is to be desired, but on a whole I'm enjoying the story and its good to get to see a bit more of Kian in this one, as really his impact on the first Dreamfall wasn't that great and I never understood the point of him being a playable character.



Another game in this style that is a quite good, if you can get past the cheesy stereotypical teenage clichés, is Life is Strange. The 3rd episode was just released and with each one it just seems to get better. This one has short term and long term consequences to your actions and while some of these choices aren't there to drive the games story forward its nice that there are these little extra things you can do within the games environment.