Recommended Adventure PC Video Games?

[Oddlot]

Years ago I enjoyed the early Myst games (through Exile), but haven't played any PC games for quite awhile. Got the itch to try a few again.

I prefer games with realistic detailed artwork and challenging, logic-based puzzles woven into an intriguing story line (Adventure genre). I don't care for "cartoon" games or quick reaction shoot-em-ups.

Any recommendations? I did some googling, and "Grim Fandango", "The Beast Within", "The Longest Journey", "Syberia", "Myst IV Revelation", and various others popped up. A problem is that many of these games were long ago discontinued and apparently the Adventure genre is not one that appeals to the gamer crowd, so newer offerings are slim. Thus availability and technical requirements can be issues. (I do have an old WinXP machine still set up if necessary).

Thoughts?

Thanks, Oddlot

[Default User BR]

There are some interesting older games archived here:

http://homeoftheunderdogs.net/

Some of the ones you mention might be there. I prefer not to generate a discussion about the merits of the site's philosophy. People can make up their own minds.


Brian

[jridger2011]

Try Good Old Games http://www.gog.com/

They have old games that work for Windows XP

[AlohaJoe]

In addition to the above excellent suggestions there are actually new adventures games that are worthwhile. (All links are to Valve's Steam service but all of the games can also be purchased elsewhere.)

The Walking Dead. Based on the comics books (and TV series) but you don't need to have read/watched them. Many consider this the best game of 2012. Realistic characters and packs an emotional punch rarely seen in video games. http://store.steampowered.com/app/207610

Machinarium. Solve puzzles to save the city and your robot girlfriend. http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/

To The Moon. An old man's dying wish to go to the moon. http://store.steampowered.com/app/206440

[LadyGeek]

I highly recommend The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It took me over a year to complete, not to mention the add-on packs. Works fine on Win XP.

Then, I spent another year+ with Fallout 3 and the add-on packs. That was on the xbox 360, but there's a PC version. It might be closer to the FPS genre, though.

There's also The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Dibbels81]

I think Portal 2 will be right up your alley. Check out a video on youtube.

[LadyGeek]

I think Portal 2 will be right up your alley. Check out a video on youtube.

Absolutely. Go for the original first, though: Portal (video game)

[Bungo]

"Grim Fandango", "The Beast Within", "The Longest Journey", "Syberia", "Myst IV Revelation"

Most if not all of these are available from GOG. Their titles are all DRM-free and have been patched where necessary to run under WinXP (and in most cases Win7 as well). Most of their games are either $6 or $10, with frequent sales of 50% discount or more. All completely legal - they have obtained distribution rights from many of the old publishers, very impressive for a small company based in Poland. They also recently started distributing many newer "indie" games, quite a few of which are similar in spirit to the old adventure games.

http://www.gog.com/

Of the ones you listed, I've only played The Longest Journey and would highly recommend it. Also excellent are Sanitarium, Dark Fall: The Journal, and Simon the Sorceror.

[Oddlot]

Thanks to all for the great suggestions. I will check these out!

Oddlot

[TSR]

I agree with the folks above who say that Portal and Portal 2 are a must. They will involve some reflexes, but they are in the service of true puzzle-solving, and you will find it's well worth it. They are also hilarious, in the style of Grim Fandango (also a good one). I also agree with the Steam recommendation. What a great service that is. You may find that a lot of "adventure" games have sort of become rpg/shooters, but that's not a terrible development. For example, you might enjoy the Bioshock series, which has some great writing as well. Good luck!

[Jerilynn]

I highly recommend The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It took me over a year to complete, not to mention the add-on packs. Works fine on Win XP.

Then, I spent another year+ with Fallout 3 and the add-on packs. That was on the xbox 360, but there's a PC version. It might be closer to the FPS genre, though.

There's also The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Skyrim was great. Both my boys loved it. I would have liked it much more if it had a mini map, but I put several dozens of hours into it.

Kindoms of Amalur was very enjoyable, the company has gone belly up, but it's still being sold. (it had a GREAT mini map)

Diablo 3 was fantastic.

But, my current favorite is Civilization V - Gods and Kings

I just got Sins of a Solar Empire - Rebellion about 2 weeks ago, but have been so blasted busy I haven't had time to mess with it.

My son got Assassin's Creed 3 about a month ago and really likes it. It's a good game if you like that style. (personally, I don't)

Let's see, what else..... Oh, Dragon's Age II was very very good.

[lightheir]

Grim Fandago is one of the best games I've ever played, and I'm comparing favorably against current-gen stuff like Fallout3 and Skyrim (both of which I also liked a lot). Totally different style, more of pure adventure and not role-playing, but so original, elegant and even poignant. It's a real shame that it's been relegated to the 'abandonware' pile.

I also highly, highly recommend playing "To the Moon" - it's an indie PC game from late 2011 for about $10-15 download, and while it's not as much of a game than experience, is well worth it. Google it and read the reviews - it's as good as they say it is. It's probably the most beautiful game I've played.

[JupiterJones]

You might give "interactive fiction" a try. The only artwork is in your own head, but it's very realistic and detailed!

Back in the day, these sorts of games were put out by the likes of Infocom and Scott Adams (not the cartoonist). We just called them "text adventures". But there's a community of people who still create new games, and you can still play the old classics thanks to modern versions of the old interpreter engines. (I recommend Planetfall, personally.)

JJ

[Default User BR]

We just called them "text adventures". But there's a community of people who still create new games, and you can still play the old classics thanks to modern versions of the old interpreter engines.

Indeed. A text-adventure game was my C programming training project. I at one time was involved with the usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction which was for developers of games. When I get to retirement I might get back into it.

(I recommend Planetfall, personally.)

Floyd Here Now!


Brian

[JupiterJones]

I at one time was involved with the usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction which was for developers of games.

Ha! I posted a few times there back in the mid-90s myself.

Man, I miss they heyday of usenet...

JJ

[Default User BR]

Man, I miss they heyday of usenet...

Yeah. I know.


Brian

[smackboy1]

I smell a Wumpus...

[Sam314159]

I recently read a good review of Machinarium. Seems on target for you.

[mhalley]

While not a true "adventure" game you might look into The Walking Dead game. Based on the comic/tv show about the zombie apocalypse, the game is not your typical shooter. You make decisions, such as if two party members are attacked at once and you can only save one, which will it be? and the game takes these choices and alters the story line accordingly. There are very simple puzzles, (not taxing by any means) with the occasional need to press some keys several times to fight the zombies, but by no means an FPS or twitch-type shooter. Note there are several walking dead games around, the good one is the one from Telltale Games. It is availabe for PC, Xbox, Ios, etc.
Here is a review:

http://www.gamesradar.com/the-walking-dead-review/

Mike

[JupiterJones]

I smell a Wumpus...

I feel a draft


JJ

[Nummerkins]

Check out GOG's selection of adventure games: http://www.gog.com/catalogue/adventure

They have some of the Myst games as well at lots of other adventure games like Sam N Max, Still Life, Syberia, etc.

GOG secures the rights to older games, updates them to be WinXP/Win7/Win8 compatible and then sells them DRM-free (no pesky copy protection). Most are around $6 and they have frequent sales.

EDIT: Didn't see Bungo's post about GOG so this is my +1

[sls239]

The Longest Journey pretty much marks the beginning of my interest in this genre that and Syberia went to a relative. In my box (so the one's I've kept) are Keepsake, Dracula Origin, Mata Hari, Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper, and the Book of Unwritten Tales, which is definitely newer and I highly recommend it.. And I remember there was a series of Agatha Christie one's that were pretty good too.

[HardSphere]

I grew up playing adventure games back when they were still regularly made, and one I particularly enjoyed which may be aligned to your tastes is not listed here: The Last Express.

Although a lot of the artwork is hand-drawn, giving a sort of "cartoony" look to the characters, they were produced with live actors using rotoscoping, so it ends up looking highly realistic. They shot everything on a set of old Orient Express train cars from the time period of the story, so the result ends up being that you really feel like you're on the Orient Express in 1914.

The game itself unfolds in real time (although at an accelerated rate; I think one minute in reality is about six minutes in game). Every one of the characters on the train has a routine. The conductors will make beds and gossip among themselves about who tips well, passengers will go to dinner at different times and make conversation among themselves, etc. Several of the games puzzles involve paying attention to the patterns in characters behavior and exploiting them, and many of those puzzles have at least two solutions which will change how events on the train unfold slightly. The game also has a unique save system that allows you to "rewind", which will make some of these puzzles more forgiving. The puzzles are challenging but they all have rational solutions, and even though time is very significant you're never made to feel overly-rushed. There are a few action sequences (usually in the form of a fist fight), but they are not the sort of super-twitchy thing you'd see in modern games which I gather you're not interested in.

You can get it on GOG.com:

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/last_express_the

All of this talk makes me actually want to find my original game CDs...

[Jay69]

A question for the Adventure game players.

Do you think a 40 somthing dad would be able to play a game like The Last Express as noted above with his 14 year old son? We have a computer that we use as a DVR on the big screen with a wireless keyboard/mouse, for that matter maybe the rest of the family would have some fun with it.

We do have a wii but after about an 15min I'm board with it, I grew up with an Atari 2600 and a pinball machine!

Could be a fun winter deal is what I'm thinking.

Thoughts?

[climber2020]

I prefer games with realistic detailed artwork and challenging, logic-based puzzles woven into an intriguing story line (Adventure genre). I don't care for "cartoon" games or quick reaction shoot-em-ups.

Any recommendations?

Limbo. One of the best adventure/puzzle games I've played in years. It doesn't have realistic artwork, but I wouldn't really call it a cartoon either. It's not very long, but the content that is there is excellent.

Braid is another one. If you play Limbo and enjoy it, you'll like Braid as well.

I've played both of these on my PS3, and I'm pretty certain they've been ported to both PC and Mac.

[interplanetjanet]

You might give "interactive fiction" a try. The only artwork is in your own head, but it's very realistic and detailed!

Back in the day, these sorts of games were put out by the likes of Infocom and Scott Adams (not the cartoonist). We just called them "text adventures". But there's a community of people who still create new games, and you can still play the old classics thanks to modern versions of the old interpreter engines. (I recommend Planetfall, personally.)

Planetfall has a special place in my heart, it was the first IF that I won beginning to end. It fits together like a beautifully logical puzzle; everything you need to know is there, you just have to put the pieces together. I run across the map I made of it every once in a while, it always makes me smile.

(Floyd's eyes light up. "Oh boy! Are we gonna try something dangerous now?")

I at one time was involved with the usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction which was for developers of games.

Ha! I posted a few times there back in the mid-90s myself.

Man, I miss they heyday of usenet...

I remember posting there as well...the world is small. If it's any consolation, parts of usenet are slowly coming back to life as the spammers have started giving up more and more on the non-binary groups. Slowly.

[lightheir]

Planetfall was the ONLY Infocom game that I managed to solve on my own, without hints. Was still really, really hard for me.

I thought I'd relive the experience last year and downloaded, and was immediately put off by the difficulty and frustration level. I've gotten soft with gaming, unfortunately.

I still think though, that today's era of interactive fiction is SO much better than the Infocom frustration fests. One of the best pieces of interactive media (of any sort) I've encountered was "Blue Chairs", which won a lot of awards on interactive fiction. Elegant, not frustrating, and both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. Blows away any of those old school works.

[JupiterJones]

the Infocom frustration fests

While I didn't think Planetfall fit that category, I will admit to being one of the bazillion people who could never get past the Babelfish puzzle in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" game. Man, that game was brutal!

JJ

[ted123]

I'm planning to check some of these out.

http://indiegames.com/2013/01/top_10_in ... mes_o.html

[interplanetjanet]

the Infocom frustration fests

While I didn't think Planetfall fit that category, I will admit to being one of the bazillion people who could never get past the Babelfish puzzle in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" game. Man, that game was brutal!

Most Infocom games ended up taking me about 2 months of playtime, from what I can remember. HHGTTG took me a year to win, though that was in no small part due to an event that happens about 2/3 of the way through the story that basically kills you if you didn't do the right thing (with no way to know it is the right thing, at the time) in the first dozen moves of the game. I didn't touch it for a few months after that. Still, it made an impression; I remember it clearly now, the better part of 30 years later!

I think some of these games were easier if you were in school with other people playing them at the time. More eyes and all that, and a sense of shared struggle (and triumph!). Two or three of us sitting around a computer screen after school, trying to figure out what the heck to try next.

[HomerJ]

Portal, Portal2, and the Walking Dead are absolutely amazing.

The Portal games are great puzzle solvers. The Walking Dead may seem like a zombie action game, but it's not... It's all about the choices you make in the game. The game adapts to your choices (and you have to make the choices fairly fast, like in 10 seconds, which is a very interesting twist to a game). The people in the game will react to you very differently based on your choices... I really enjoyed it.

[Default User BR]

Most Infocom games ended up taking me about 2 months of playtime, from what I can remember. HHGTTG took me a year to win, though that was in no small part due to an event that happens about 2/3 of the way through the story that basically kills you if you didn't do the right thing (with no way to know it is the right thing, at the time) in the first dozen moves of the game. I didn't touch it for a few months after that. Still, it made an impression; I remember it clearly now, the better part of 30 years later!

That's the sort of thing that lead Graham Nelson to develop the "Player's Bill of Rights".


Brian

[interplanetjanet]

Most Infocom games ended up taking me about 2 months of playtime, from what I can remember. HHGTTG took me a year to win, though that was in no small part due to an event that happens about 2/3 of the way through the story that basically kills you if you didn't do the right thing (with no way to know it is the right thing, at the time) in the first dozen moves of the game. I didn't touch it for a few months after that. Still, it made an impression; I remember it clearly now, the better part of 30 years later!

That's the sort of thing that lead Graham Nelson to develop the "Player's Bill of Rights".

Yes, and I agree with them for the most part (and admire Graham's work, I've authored a couple things in Inform). However...I think of HHGTTG as a special case. It's not that it blindsides the player, it's more that it's actively abusive in parts ("we were lying about the exit to port") and I think that part of me would have been disappointed had it been more logically foreseeable; after all, the books certainly weren't!

I put it down for a few months, but then picked it back up with a vengeance and finished it not that long after. I think that was what the authors (Meretzky and Adams) were hoping for. I guess what I'm trying to say is that some rules are made to be broken, if you can do so cleverly enough with enough emotional impact.

(speaking of emotional impact, I cried when Floyd...well...if you played Planetfall, you know.)

[blu9535]

If you want to go very old-school, another genre that was very popular back in the original days of the Internet were MUD's, which are online, free, text-based multiplayer games that were a precursor to today's large commerical graphics-based versions. Believe it or not, MUD communities still exist and the games are played by many.

For example, try:
http://www.realmsofdespair.com

[Default User BR]

If you want to go very old-school, another genre that was very popular back in the original days of the Internet were MUD's, which are online, free, text-based multiplayer games that were a precursor to today's large commerical graphics-based versions. Believe it or not, MUD communities still exist and the games are played by many.

The one I played was End of the Line (EotL). It's still around. I was for a time a "wizard" (programmer) there. Technically still am, but in guest (inactive) status. I have an idea for a non-traditional area for there if I ever get back to it. Another retirement possibility.


Brian

[HardSphere]

A question for the Adventure game players.

Do you think a 40 somthing dad would be able to play a game like The Last Express as noted above with his 14 year old son? We have a computer that we use as a DVR on the big screen with a wireless keyboard/mouse, for that matter maybe the rest of the family would have some fun with it.

We do have a wii but after about an 15min I'm board with it, I grew up with an Atari 2600 and a pinball machine!

Could be a fun winter deal is what I'm thinking.

Thoughts?

I just finished replaying TLE. It may look bad on a big screen because it came out in the mid-90's, before 16:9 aspect ratios existed and 640x480 pixels was still considered a high resolution.

As for the game experience of playing it both at once... it would be kinda like watching a movie to the person not in the driver's seat. Which could still be fun; the story is interesting and you could talk among yourselves about how to solve certain puzzles or about what various characters in the game are up to.

[Easy Rhino]

They're all ancient, but i liked just about any of the LucasArts adventure games. The Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle. Grim usually gets the most nostalgic halo. There's the even older games of Day of the Tentacle, Loom, and Indiana Jones's, but I didn't play those.

[stilts1007]

I am more of a console gamer, but if you are looking for "thinking person" adventure games, the Portal games and Braid are must-try games. Definitely both made me think in ways that I have never had to think before, in or outside of a video game. Neither are huge time or money commitments, and your brain will hurt after a session, the same way your legs hurt after a run. In a good way. OR, you will have bashed your head on the screen in frustration..