Doing the drywall at the new McDonalds
Gender: Male
Rank: Ace Attorney
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 1:46 am
Posts: 1586
Ash wrote:
D.A. McCoy wrote:
I own all of the Gabriel Knight games but I haven't played them yet. I have so many games (especially old point and click games because they're always like 50 cents at garage sales and thrift stores) that there are adventure games I've purchased years ago that I still haven't played yet. Someday I'll get around to them. Someday.
I have the same with the Tex Murphy games. All on GOG, but never really get started on them. As for GK, there's also a 20th Anniversary remake of the first game. The new 3D graphics don't look as good as the original graphics/style, in my opinion, but overall, it does streamline the experience for the better, for example with some reworked puzzles. Probably the easiest way to start the series. I loved GK2's story, but this one is an interactive movie P&C adventure, and can feel a bit tedious at time because of the acting and occasional odd puzzles. GK3 has...aged really badly.
On first/third person: I don't really like playing first person games anyway, no matter the genre. Some games offer both styles (Frogwares' Holmes games for example), and I always go for third.
I probably played Broken Sword (1) most often. I think I played it on PC, iOS, GBA, Wii... The "recent" Broken Sword 5 was pretty okay too, I thought!
I generally like Tex Murphy, although I certainly don't like all of it. I think Mean Streets is great. It's a really bizarre mix of random genres in a way which doesn't really happen anymore. You travel around San Francisco in a flight simulator, and when you land at a building you enter into an AA "Investigation" style of conversation game where you ask the witness questions about witnesses - only unlike AA you type it in by hand which is always fun. Occasionally you have to fight your way through bad guys in a kind of side-scroller shooter which is okay but not great. What I really like about it is that it makes you feel like a real detective since you have to take real notes about addresses and names and you fly around in real time so if you're into that kind of thing it's fantastic despite its age. (Also, you have a secretary you can call up who will do research for you AND FAX IT TO YOU. IN THE 2030's. Amazing.) I loved it. However, a lot of people find it outdated and Tex Murphy: Overseer is basically a remake so you can always skip it but I'd recommend trying it out first.
Martian Memorandum is awful in my opinion; the story doesn't grab me and I don't like the controls. It also lets you screw up, not pick up a certain item, and then play for like 4 more hours until you realize you needed it and you're not allowed to go back (and there's an awful maze later on in the game as well). Under a Killing Moon is decent and I like the FMV but I'm not as big on the humor in this game. The Pandora Directive is great though, Overseer is good as well and I enjoyed Tesla Effect so overall I enjoy the series; only the 2nd and 3rd installments are a little iffy for me.
I considered buying the new version of GK1 but I already own a copy of GK1 and I also heard the new version doesn't have Tim Curry doing his voice, which I've heard is a staple of the series. I'll probably try it soon. I played the original Broken Sword 1 and loved it but haven't gotten around to the other yet.
I generally like first-person just because I tend to like adventure games that use more environment puzzles and less conversation puzzles (I'm talking specifically about Myst-style puzzles where it doesn't use inventory items but rather you have puzzles in the world that you need to work out [sometimes with a pencil and paper] and not so much the "combine stick and line to make fishing rope then use fishing rope on lake" kind of puzzles) although I still greatly enjoy 3rd person games as well. I think 1st person games are great for adventure games where the location and immersion is the main focus (ex. in Myst there are characters but the real star of the show is the island and how you can explore it) but aren't good at character interaction. Characters in first-person adventure games will shout monologues at you without you talking at all. For some games this works (like Myst - I can't believe I'm bringing it up again - where you are literally meant to be playing yourself) but other games try and establish the player's role as a specific character (for instance Gage Blackwood in The Journeyman Project) which doesn't work because you can't have an interesting character who you never see and never hear. I don't think any strictly first-person adventure game has a really well-developed player character because of this. Tex Murphy is a good example of blending styles to get around this. You do all the investigating in 1st person but he monologues as you look around like you're reading a crime novel and then when he interacts with someone it suddenly goes into FMV mode and you're playing an interactive movie.
I also greatly enjoy 3rd person games, too, and 3rd person games are able to do character interaction really well; in fact, in a lot of them interacting with NPCs is the main focus of the game. Only reason 3rd person games take a 2nd place in my adventure game love is because I can sometimes get bored of having to watch my character walk around the environment after I click (some games let you skip that which is great) and I sometimes get tired of the long conversations and "use blank on blank" puzzles mostly just because I'm bad at them haha. But I still love 3rd person adventure games too. I've been meaning to play all the classic Lucasarts games soon. I haven't tried Monkey Island yet but I recently finished Sam and Max Hit the Road and that was fun so I'm sure I'll get to it someday.
Right now I'm caught up in Uru: Complete Chronicles as well as Dual Destinies but once I'm done with those I may start with Gabriel Knight 1 because it's sat on my shelf for years and talking about it has gotten me in the mood.
CatMuto wrote:
Quote:
Scratches is pretty good. I enjoyed it but I remember it being a little frustrating because often it didn't give you a clue as to what to do next so every time you think you changed something you'd have to walk around the whole house and estate before finding the new event.
Yeah, despite the LP not being done, I decided to just read spoilers up. And that game is really mean. You need to click everything, multiple times, because sometimes you pick something up and only realize later that you were supposed to pick a second thing up, but you didn't notice. Or that stupid rock you have to pick up. The atmosphere of the game is really good, though. I know I wouldn't want to play the game, the music in the basement (or when it LACKS music) is enough to make me tense up.
C-A
Yeah I remember the first couple hours of that game was great and really creepy, especially the first couple nights with the dreams and going into the basement and the mask appearing in places. Something about hidden rooms in houses really freaks me out. After that though I began to get a little bored with the story, I think. It's been years so I don't really remember. I remember the little "expansion" Scratches: Last Visit wasn't very good and I remember feeling like it was almost entirely focused on trying to explain the events of the main game in a non-supernatural context which I feel is unnecessary.
I used to have Sam Waterston as my avatar but photobucket added a watermark and also Law & Order has been cancelled for 10 years so it's time for me to move on.