Re-live the classics: Adventure Game reviews
Adventure games... if you were to think back to the early 90's or late 80's thats probably the kind of game you would think of. Classics like Monkey Island, Kings Quest, Sam and Max, and many other brilliant pieces of work. Nowadays they seem to have been replaced by RPG's and games like Zelda, and the spotlight has turned over to the Shooter games. But why? what caused this change of power in the video game industry? some say it was illogical puzzles and the sheer difficulty of the games that did them in, but is this really fact? are these old classics filled with solutions to puzzles that make no sense except to brain-dead game developers? How do these games compare to modern games on a pure fun factor? The best way to find out questions like these is to take a player who has had no experience with these games, thus no nostalgia factor, and compare them both to each-other and the games that dominate the modern market. That player would be me, besides for a few glimpses at KQ V I somehow missed the Age of Adventure games. Its only been this year that I have started playing these classics, so by no means am I a authority on them, but I do know a little of game design, so I'll apply classic values whenever possible. And so My first Review: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Indiana and the Last Crusade, although probably not as well known as its successor, The Fate of Atlantis, Is a brilliant game in its own right. By combining numerous Multiple path puzzles, Randomization (many puzzles play out a little differently every game) and a nice combat system The Last Crusade managed to keep me captivated till 1:30 AM. It really was a FUN game to play, however it does have its design flaws. The very aspect that gives the game re-playability, the randomness of the puzzles and the multiple path puzzles, is its own worst nightmare. While at all times the game is, at least in theory, possible; it can become so incredibly hard that your better off restarting. I'll give an example: On arriving at the Nazi Castle where his father is being held captive, Indy finds himself greeted by the butler, the player ultimately has 2 choices: knock him out right there, or find the right conversation path to get him to leave. while getting him to leave requires you to load every time you say the wrong thing (frustrating) ultimately its the better choice. eventually the Nazi's catch wind that there is an intruder in the castle, and knocking out the butler only speeds that up. So the player would probably get about half way this time, and then find that all the guards don't buy his disguises. While this seems like a really good realistic game play element, in the end it makes the level next to impossible. The sound and music in the game are about on par with what you would expect for the time. However I do have one gripe... the overused "thud" sound. used in everything from the librarian stamping books, to gun shots, this sound was really REALLY overused. Music was very well placed, all in all a good job with it. Now for its big downside: Length. This game is short. thats all there is to it. It took me longer to beat Super Mario Bros then to beat this. its puzzles really don't require allot of guess work, and besides a few rare cases, are quite logical. The game has tons of re-play value, but only as much as adventure games allow. If I were to replay it now, It would take me maybe 4 hours to beat at the most. The first time around it took me 8-9. Now for modern games, this is actually really good! most shooters can be beaten faster then this (Portal took me 1 hour 20 mins) but in contrast to games like Monkey Island and Kings Quest, theres just not enough to it. Now as far as sheer fun goes, this outdid any modern game on the shelves right now. (exclusion of Super Smash Bros Brawl and Halo 3) like most adventure games, it detailed a nice story (although a little jumpy) excellent puzzles, and a wonderful difficulty. I'm not content to be able to breeze past any level at will like you can in modern games. Indiana Jones and The last crusade made me EARN moving from point to point, but at the same time was not difficult enough to force me into using a walk through. Comparing it to the likes of Monkey Island or Sam and Max, you see a few more downsides: The dialog can be a bit dull at points, (with a few wonderful exceptions) and as mentioned before, just isint as long. However the liberal use of minigames and a nice balance in difficulty give it a plus over these games. All in all a wonderful game that could be played over and over again. A perfect difficulty, and despite its downpoints, a Fun adventure game. If i had a rating system, it would be something like 8/10, but I'll work on the details of that later.

Nice review, alas i cant really comment as i haven't played it :? TBH i haven't played anything in a long time, the last was Full Throttle and Sam and Max Culture Shock I liked FT a lot, apart from the bikes that just wouldn't work in the real world!! S&M was ok, but it ran badly on my pc so i that kinda pee'd me off so i didn't enjoy the game as the stalling etc got frustrating The last console games where MOH 1 and 2 on the PS2 i quite enjoyed both games, the strangest thing was the changed the control system between the two, and could never get the controller to match lol If you fancy doing some Lassie game reviews i can use them :wink:

Thanks, I'm not the best at getting my ideas on paper (or in this case on screen). I'll definitely do some Lassie games, But I plan this to be a more or less weekly thing, so Sam And Max hit the road is next up as thats what I'm playing ATM. It took me longer to beat Super Mario Bros then to beat this. :shock: How long did it take you to beat Super Mario Bros.?! I've still never beat it. playing it now on the wii, I still cant beat it. But back in the day i think it took me about 1 month :p

Problem with SMB is that it too needed a walk-through.... well, as much of one that existed in the day. That last castle is impossible, unless you know the way to go. So most people only figured it out watching someone else run through it. I don't think I have beaten it actually on a console, I did complete it a few times in an SNES emulator.

Heres a question, if Ron Gilbert was to make Monkey Island for the first time nowadays, do you think he would make it a pure adventure game? (ignoring market factors like the current popularity of shooters etc.).

I think it would probably get lost in the crowd, without the original MI series the whole adventure market would be different, would AGS, Wintermute, etc, even Lassie of come about without it? Would there be a huge fan base for adventure games now. IF adventures where THE NEW thing now, fan based games would be mind numbingly hard to do, I've only seen one free 3D engine that has some sort of adventure capabilities in house and that was very vague!

I can say for a fact that Lassie would not have been created without the classic Monkey Island. It was very inspiring, and always made me want to tell interactive stories though the adventure genre. That desire led me to tinkering one afternoon in an RIT computer lab between classes... it was October as I recall, probably '03. I still remember the lab I was sitting in. I can honestly say that I didn't expect to still be discussing that tinkering four years later. :D

My interest came earlier with more text based adventures and the Dizzy series :oops: I had a week or so in my downtime trying to figure out a way to do a Dizzy clone in Lassie but all the jumping around would be a problem lol my first game ever was with TADS it was the need for graphics that i turned to AGS not the influence of a single game, infact the first AGS game i ever played was Night of the Hermit by Roy Lazarovich, MI was a few months later Last week i took a look to see what Roy was up to, http://roylazarovich.freespaces.com/ check out his animations section, some awesome work! its great to see ppl evolve innit

A little addition to my review: By sheer chance yesterday i was watching the movie Last Crusade... and comparing the 2 really shows something about development values back then. When was the last time any of you saw a modern game based on a movie that was any good? (star wars excluded, as that is based on a universe, not a copy of a movie) Well back when Indy was being made, it seems not all movie based games were pushed out in 4 months and are incredibly boring to play. No back then, it was different, Indy and the last crusade, and many other games for that matter, are really FUN games even tho they are based on movies. and strangely enough Indy managed to be true to the movie it was from without hurting gameplay. I guess that whatever companies are funding the new movie games really are just more interested in profit then in good games.

Keep in mind, not many movies had adventure games based on them. LucasArts also released an action game for Last Crusade, and that game is probably more along the lines of what other games based on movies were like (meaning, not really all that good, except for the fact that it's based on a popular film.)

On a slight side note.... apparently the creators of ScummVM are working on a project called Residual, which is the same idea as ScummVm except for GrimE.

I also can't wait for the AGI support.... I didn't realize how many games on my old Atari ST ran on that system.... not only KQ games, but also, Black Cauldren (makes sense, same person as KQ), Donald Ducks Playground, Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Woods (I was in kindergarden at the time)

GrimX, the Grim Fandango launcher for Mac, does work, but the game is incredibly unstable. I wouldn't mind that much, except you can't save or load games, so no matter what progress you've made, if it crashes, you have to start from scratch.