NES's Top 5 Fav Games: Adventure Games [Archive]

im_so_blue

06-06-2010, 10:56 PM

alright who forgot to remind me ....:unamusedpopcorn:

i am gonna be kinda quick about it cause that new sharp shooter show on History channels in 30 so here we go! :spin:

Adventure games atleast as far as i am to understand from a member of this forum is game that starts you off with a story and has no advancements in a RPG like setting or shoot em up style like Resident evil.

Basically its like games like...

Siberia
(for the PC and XBOX)

http://e2beard.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/siberia.jpg
an excellent 3rd person game which puts you in a town as "Kate Walker" who is looking to seal a deal for her law firm and move on.. But little does she know shes about to take a journey to various towns pitted away from everything else known as civilization and is intrigued by mechanical devices working from wind up fashion even a whole train and its conductor. Known in the science world as Automatons (look it up... you might be facinated with them yourself!)
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t2QYIdT75sU/0.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4IstDuvyzc

and Point and click based games like "Myst"

http://rtmulcahy.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/myst.jpg
This game was amazing for its time too (was started in the late 80s as a project and then released in the early 90s believe it or not despite its graphical interface). It really amazed people and open their eyes to idea of adventure fantasy and what its capable of.
Myst was a game that pretty much put you on a island and you were told find about a man and his 2 sons you really don't know much of whats going on at first and they unravel for you down the road.. And you basically in the end have to figure out which one to believe. Kinda like a choose your adventure story.
With amazing artistical backgrounds for its time.. and amazing story and jaw dropping sound track. You can easily see why people were just amazed by this game when it came out and why people loved fantasy and the sense of adventure in the 90s.
http://saptestele.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/myst_01.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1kJxHDXgUI

So whats your top 5?

SRTie4k

06-07-2010, 01:52 PM

I'm a big adventure gamer since I love a good story, so I've got quite a few to list off. This post is going to be pretty long, but I guarantee you each of these games is worth its weight in gold, ten-fold.

The nice thing about adventure games is that they're almost all timeless - they will always be excellent games whether the graphics are up to standard or not since the story is so strong, and you can play all of them on pretty much any Windows PC.

They're all worth playing for different reasons depending on the game. Here's my list:

10. King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow - An excellent adventure game from one of the pioneers of the genre, Sierra. A great mix of fantasy and mythology and great gameplay come together to create a wonderful and memorable game. Some of the others in the series are great too, but the 6th game is the pinnacle of the series. All sprite based and would need to be run in DOSBox.

9. Indigo Prophecy - A very fresh take on the adventure genre with the inclusion of quick-time events, multi-path gameplay choices, and great atmosphere. The game is fully 3D.

8. Still Life - A great thriller with bits and pieces of horror thrown in, the game tells the story of an FBI agent tasked with tracking down a serial killer copycat from murders committed in the past. Loads of atmosphere provide a frightening undertone. The game is a basic point-and-click 3D with rendered backgrounds adventure game.

7. Sam & Max series: Hit the Road and Seasons 1-3 - Hit the Road was a sprite based 2D adventure game from back in the 90's, released by the #1 adventure game studio of yore, LucasArts. It's about two detectives, a dog and a rabbity-thing, who try to track down a Big Foot who's been kidnapped from a circus. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's a very funny and witty game that set the stage for the modern adaptions, Season 1-3. You'll need ScummVM, a free utility downloadable from the internet, to play any of the old-school LucasArts titles.
Seasons 1-3 were made by Telltale and are released in "episodes" of about 4-6 hours worth of gameplay each. Each season follows a central story arc, although each episode is a different investigation, and they all tie together at the end of the season. The games are hilarious, ludicrous and very witty, and are excellent adventures. These games will all run natively in Windows.

6. Day of the Tentacle - Another gem from LucasArts, the game is a crazy tale about a sentient tentacle that grows arms and becomes evil after being exposed to toxic waste. 3 characters are then tasked with stopping Purple Tentacle. The interesting part of this game is the fact that each character has been transported to a different time period in the same location and have to help each other solve puzzles by cause and effect and by passing items through a time-machine toilet to one another. It's a very funny game and very clever. This game requires ScummVM to run.

5. Syberia 1 & 2 - As stated before, Syberia is another excellent adventure series. Much more conservative gameplay in this one, the puzzles are not nearly as complex as other games. Where this game lacks in hardcore game mechanics, it more than makes up for in its wonderful story, beautifully interesting visuals and environments, colorful characters and its heavy atmosphere. Each game complements each other very well, it's definitely a series you will want to play from the beginning. Both games will run in Windows.

4. Gabriel Knight series - Now we're getting into the heavy hitters. The Gabriel Knight series are 3 games that should never be overlooked. The first is a game about a voodoo cult in New Orleans, is a 2D sprite based adventure game, and sets the stage for the introduction of Gabriel Knight and his ties to the occult. This game requires DOSBox.
The 2nd game is an "interactive movie point-and-click" style game made up of hundreds of FMV's and revolves around werewolves. The acting can be a bit cheesy at times, but the massive story and backstory split between Gabriel and his assistant Grace is second to none. You can download an installer for this game by searching online, although in some instances it will run in Windows.
The 3rd game is a 3rd Person point-and-click hybrid with a controllable camera. The controls are a little clunky and take a little while to get used to, but not a problem after some playing. The story and literature in this game is MASSIVE. There is so much reading, backstory and research needed to play this game it feels like you're an actual detective. But the game pays off in the form of story line, and it's a great one about vampires. This game should run in Windows.

3. The Longest Journey/Dreamfall - TLJ is one of the best adventure games I have ever played, period. It follows the story of a girl named April Ryan that finds out that reality is not quite as 2 dimensional as it seems. The game essentially blends sci-fi with fantasy and literally splits them between 2 worlds, each with fascinating locales, very interesting characters, excellent puzzles and a wonderful story. One of the most overlooked games in history, it's a game anybody who loves a good story should play. The game will play in Windows.
Dreamfall is essentially a continuation of TLJ, but revolves around a girl named Zoe. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as TLJ, but it continues the story pretty decently. This will also work in Windows.

2. Grim Fandango - A truly epic masterpiece, the game is centered around a dead guy named Manny Calavera who works as a grim reaper and helps shepherd souls to the afterlife. Manny gets caught up in some under-the-table deals with a fellow reaper, and ends up chasing a woman across the land of the dead with a demon named Glottis. The game is wonderfully unique with a storyline straight from a noir comic/novel. The puzzles are just as interesting and challenging, and the characters are second to none. Music and atmosphere is first rate in this game, as are the locales. Truly a game one should never EVER pass by. This game will probably run in Windows, although you might have trouble with modern graphics cards. I believe there's also an installer that can be downloaded for it to run right.

1. The Monkey Island series - I'm not going to list the different aspects of every game in the series since there are 5, but believe me when I say the series is easily some of the best adventure games ever made to date. Comedy is a central player in this series, as the puzzles and characters are all laugh-out-loud and sidesplittingly funny. I mean, in what other game do you stick a banana on a metronome to hypnotize a piano-playing monkey named Jojo, only later to use him as a "monkey wrench" to stop a waterfall? LucasArts recently just remastered the first game by releasing a Special Edition on Steam and XBox Live, and the SE version of the 2nd game is coming out in a month or so. The 3rd (which many consider one of the best) needs ScummVM to play, while the 4th (the worst of the series, but still good) should play in Windows. Tales of Monkey Island is the 5th which was released by Telltale recently, and is made up of a 5 part series of episodes at 4-6 hours per. They will work in Windows.

Whew, that was a lot of typing, but as you can see I take adventure games seriously. There's just no match to an adventure game when it comes to good story telling :D If you have even the slightest desire to play any of these games, I URGE you to do so even if you have to buy a used copy off of ebay (or download illegally...but I didn't say that). Some of these games can be difficult to find, but passing up any of them is like never seeing a movie on the top 20 best list, or never reading a classic book.