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Adventure game meme
Feb. 22nd, 2012 05:49 pmMediocre reviewing site Adventure Gamers posted a publicity-seeking, ultimately-meaningless list of the top 100 adventure games according to them and blah de blah blah.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have completed.
2) Italicize those you've played but not completed.
3) Underline the games you love, and strikeout the games you played but didn't like.
(6 finished, 2 played, oh, man)
#100 – Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time
#99 – Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor - How did a Nancy Drew game get here? I'm not saying they're synonymous with low quality, but they're produced at such a rate that I don't think quality's the main consideration. Oh, wait: "Really we could just as easily have picked any other Nancy Drew adventure to include in this list. The mind-boggling 25 game series (and counting) has achieved an unprecedented level of success that deserves to be acknowledged, though the formula has remained virtually identical through them all." So it's not good; it's just sold well. Well, they use the same rationale for the Oscars, I suppose.
(On another note, or perhaps on the tangent raised in that quote: as someone who grew up on the Case Files series, it is neat that they've managed to produce another prolific Nancy Drew series in an entirely different format; it's one of the smarter instances of adapting an old property for modern times I've seen, though not grounds for inclusion in a best-of list.
I've seen the start of an LP of one of the games, which is in essence Nancy Drew does The Ring by way of the Okiku legend. There's some over-obvious lampshade-hanging regarding a student of Nancy's named "Sakura" who "enjoys playing by the seaside cliffs" and is "very interested in wells.")
#98 – The Space Bar
#97 – Runaway: A Twist of Fate
#96 – Gold Rush!
#95 – Ripley's Believe it or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu
#94 – Faust (aka Seven Games of the Soul)
#93 – Toonstruck - '90's PC FMV meets Cool World-esque animation. I saw an LP of this and was not impressed, despite the presence of Christopher Lloyd.
#92 – The Dig
#91 – The Feeble Files
#90 – Spycraft: The Great Game
#89 – The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time - Got this in a pack-in with a '90's PC. I can't see including it on a list like this, as its value is purely historical. I do remember a) this touchy but genuinely tense globe puzzle it had where you had to pinpoint locations worldwide with a slippery cursor under a very narrow time limit and b) that the supposedly nonviolent ways of disposing with the killer robots on your trail that earned you "Ghandi" [sic] point bonuses were no less violent than the less-desirable ends.
#88 – Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe
#87 – Penumbra: Black Plague
#86 – Dark Fall - Played this, albeit not to completion, when I had a GameTap subscription. Remarkable for its day in that the plot revolved around a same-sex relationship that was (to my knowledge) handled with reasonable maturity.
#85 – The Dark Eye
#84 – Colonel's Bequest: A Laura Bow Mystery - I got a copy of this in a big King's Quest compilation I bought a looooooong while ago but never played it. I probably wouldn't be able to get the discs working anymore.
#83 – The Black Mirror
#82 – The 7th Guest - I thought we were over this title - collectively, as a species, I mean. "A bold vision of the future of gaming" - oh, please.
#81 – Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
#80 – Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
#79 – Gemini Rue
#78 – Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist
#77 – Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - Stretching the definition of "adventure" a bit, don't you think? I've heard the gamut on this remake, from stellar and insightful to bleh. I have to get through the original game first.
#76 – Drawn: The Painted Tower
#75 – King's Quest: Quest for the Crown - Do they mean the VGA remake or the original? ::checks:: The original! I remember playing this with classmates on an Apple II every morning before school. We never got anywhere on it, as though we knew how to save, we never loaded saves for some reason, but we had fun just wandering around the amiable land of Daventry plucking carrots out of the ground over and over nonetheless. One of my acquaintances earned no small bit of fame for snatching the solution for the Rumplestiltskin puzzle from his babysitter, though I don't think we ever got to the Rumplestiltskin puzzle.
That said: despite its inarguable historical value, the game has enough major design issues where I'm not sure it deserves to be here by itself on its own merits. Or, rather: if it deserves a spot, then its more=polished descendants do as well.
#74 – Shadow of the Comet
#73 – Discworld II - I'm not sure is Discworld really suits itself to cartoony interpretation. It's odd to say this about a series where a walking, talking treasure chest is following around a bumbling wizard, but the books seem too mature and grounded in real life for that.
#72 – Maniac Mansion - Way down at #72? Gimme a break.
#71 – Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail!
#70 – Amber: Journeys Beyond
#69 – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
#68 – Shadow of Destiny (aka Shadow of Memories)
#67 – Pepper's Adventures in Time
#66 – Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
#65 – Hotel Dusk: Room 215
#64 – The Book of Unwritten Tales
#63 – Black Dahlia
#62 – Obsidian
#61 – Loom - I got this when I bought the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade VGA game I'd been wanting since fifth grade off Steam, though!
#60 – Another Code (aka Trace Memory) - There's some sharp, knowing writing in here regarding the teenage protagonists and good mechanics involving the use of the DS, but I'm not sure it deserves a spot on a "best of genre" list. Since the Adventure Gamers folks are from the PC tribe, they might just be wowed by the novelty of the controls.
#59 – Myst III: Exile
#58 – Star Trek: Judgment Rites
#57 – Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) - You can tell this list was written by a PC-gaming outlet. You'd never be able to mention Indigo Prophecy in the console community with a straight face.
#56 – In Memoriam (aka MISSING: Since January)
#55 – Syberia II
#54 – Samorost 2
#53 – Return to Mysterious Island
#52 – Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
#51 – Zork: Nemesis
#50 – Infocom text adventures
#49 – Sam & Max: Season Two (aka Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space)
#48 – Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
#47 – Professor Layton and the Curious Village
#46 – The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time
#45 – The Curse of Monkey Island
#44 – Simon the Sorcerer
#43 – John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles
#42 – Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood
#41 – Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - I've read raves, but the art style just has zero appeal for me.
#40 – Myst IV: Revelation
#39 – Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - Import prices are killer, and my interest in Kyle Hyde, though lingering, is limited.
#38 – Full Throttle
#37 – Stacking
#36 – Sanitarium
#35 – The Neverhood
#34 – Amnesia: The Dark Descent
#33 – L.A. Noire
#32 – Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
#31 – Portal - This isn't an adventure game. C'mon, now.
#30 – Bad Mojo
#29 – Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
#28 – Sam & Max Hit the Road
#27 – Discworld Noir
#26 – Heavy Rain - I find the genuine-interactive-movie idea here intriguing, but I keep hearing on Something Awful that it's crushingly misogynistic, which is not a usual hobbyhorse of that crowd and therefore raises some serious eyebrows. I'll never own a PS3, so I suppose the question is moot in any case.
#25 – Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon
#24 – Police Quest 2: The Vengeance
#23 – Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness
#22 – The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel
#21 – Blade Runner
#20 – Still Life
#19 – Beneath a Steel Sky
#18 – Myst - This title attracts unreasonable hate from the traditional gaming press & core demographic nowadays. I think its wide-reaching popularity in its day might now be considered the forerunner to the casual-gaming invasion.
#17 – Machinarium
#16 – Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
#15 – Syberia
#14 – The Secret of Monkey Island
#13 – King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
#12 – Zork Grand Inquisitor
#11 – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
#10 – Portal 2 - And again.
#9 – Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive
#8 – Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
#7 – The Last Express
#6 – Day of the Tentacle
#5 – Riven
#4 – Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
#3 – Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within
#2 – The Longest Journey
#1 – Grim Fandango - Shallow, but I just can't be moved to care about a game that stars a cast of talking skeletons.
Interesting omissions; a lot of King's Quests; only one Space Quest. The beloved Quest for Glory and Monkey Island series are only spottily represented, but The Journeyman Project is copiously covered; what the heck. There's no mention of how many of these games are lost to the ages thanks to PC backwards-compatibility issues, but that would've taken foresight, I suppose.
.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have completed.
2) Italicize those you've played but not completed.
3) Underline the games you love, and strikeout the games you played but didn't like.
(6 finished, 2 played, oh, man)
#100 – Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time
#99 – Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor - How did a Nancy Drew game get here? I'm not saying they're synonymous with low quality, but they're produced at such a rate that I don't think quality's the main consideration. Oh, wait: "Really we could just as easily have picked any other Nancy Drew adventure to include in this list. The mind-boggling 25 game series (and counting) has achieved an unprecedented level of success that deserves to be acknowledged, though the formula has remained virtually identical through them all." So it's not good; it's just sold well. Well, they use the same rationale for the Oscars, I suppose.
(On another note, or perhaps on the tangent raised in that quote: as someone who grew up on the Case Files series, it is neat that they've managed to produce another prolific Nancy Drew series in an entirely different format; it's one of the smarter instances of adapting an old property for modern times I've seen, though not grounds for inclusion in a best-of list.
I've seen the start of an LP of one of the games, which is in essence Nancy Drew does The Ring by way of the Okiku legend. There's some over-obvious lampshade-hanging regarding a student of Nancy's named "Sakura" who "enjoys playing by the seaside cliffs" and is "very interested in wells.")
#98 – The Space Bar
#97 – Runaway: A Twist of Fate
#96 – Gold Rush!
#95 – Ripley's Believe it or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu
#94 – Faust (aka Seven Games of the Soul)
#93 – Toonstruck - '90's PC FMV meets Cool World-esque animation. I saw an LP of this and was not impressed, despite the presence of Christopher Lloyd.
#92 – The Dig
#91 – The Feeble Files
#90 – Spycraft: The Great Game
#89 – The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time - Got this in a pack-in with a '90's PC. I can't see including it on a list like this, as its value is purely historical. I do remember a) this touchy but genuinely tense globe puzzle it had where you had to pinpoint locations worldwide with a slippery cursor under a very narrow time limit and b) that the supposedly nonviolent ways of disposing with the killer robots on your trail that earned you "Ghandi" [sic] point bonuses were no less violent than the less-desirable ends.
#88 – Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe
#87 – Penumbra: Black Plague
#86 – Dark Fall - Played this, albeit not to completion, when I had a GameTap subscription. Remarkable for its day in that the plot revolved around a same-sex relationship that was (to my knowledge) handled with reasonable maturity.
#85 – The Dark Eye
#84 – Colonel's Bequest: A Laura Bow Mystery - I got a copy of this in a big King's Quest compilation I bought a looooooong while ago but never played it. I probably wouldn't be able to get the discs working anymore.
#83 – The Black Mirror
#82 – The 7th Guest - I thought we were over this title - collectively, as a species, I mean. "A bold vision of the future of gaming" - oh, please.
#81 – Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
#80 – Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
#79 – Gemini Rue
#78 – Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist
#77 – Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - Stretching the definition of "adventure" a bit, don't you think? I've heard the gamut on this remake, from stellar and insightful to bleh. I have to get through the original game first.
#76 – Drawn: The Painted Tower
#75 – King's Quest: Quest for the Crown - Do they mean the VGA remake or the original? ::checks:: The original! I remember playing this with classmates on an Apple II every morning before school. We never got anywhere on it, as though we knew how to save, we never loaded saves for some reason, but we had fun just wandering around the amiable land of Daventry plucking carrots out of the ground over and over nonetheless. One of my acquaintances earned no small bit of fame for snatching the solution for the Rumplestiltskin puzzle from his babysitter, though I don't think we ever got to the Rumplestiltskin puzzle.
That said: despite its inarguable historical value, the game has enough major design issues where I'm not sure it deserves to be here by itself on its own merits. Or, rather: if it deserves a spot, then its more=polished descendants do as well.
#74 – Shadow of the Comet
#73 – Discworld II - I'm not sure is Discworld really suits itself to cartoony interpretation. It's odd to say this about a series where a walking, talking treasure chest is following around a bumbling wizard, but the books seem too mature and grounded in real life for that.
#72 – Maniac Mansion - Way down at #72? Gimme a break.
#71 – Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail!
#70 – Amber: Journeys Beyond
#69 – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
#68 – Shadow of Destiny (aka Shadow of Memories)
#67 – Pepper's Adventures in Time
#66 – Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
#65 – Hotel Dusk: Room 215
#64 – The Book of Unwritten Tales
#63 – Black Dahlia
#62 – Obsidian
#61 – Loom - I got this when I bought the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade VGA game I'd been wanting since fifth grade off Steam, though!
#60 – Another Code (aka Trace Memory) - There's some sharp, knowing writing in here regarding the teenage protagonists and good mechanics involving the use of the DS, but I'm not sure it deserves a spot on a "best of genre" list. Since the Adventure Gamers folks are from the PC tribe, they might just be wowed by the novelty of the controls.
#59 – Myst III: Exile
#58 – Star Trek: Judgment Rites
#57 – Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) - You can tell this list was written by a PC-gaming outlet. You'd never be able to mention Indigo Prophecy in the console community with a straight face.
#56 – In Memoriam (aka MISSING: Since January)
#55 – Syberia II
#54 – Samorost 2
#53 – Return to Mysterious Island
#52 – Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
#51 – Zork: Nemesis
#50 – Infocom text adventures
#49 – Sam & Max: Season Two (aka Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space)
#48 – Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
#47 – Professor Layton and the Curious Village
#46 – The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time
#45 – The Curse of Monkey Island
#44 – Simon the Sorcerer
#43 – John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles
#42 – Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood
#41 – Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - I've read raves, but the art style just has zero appeal for me.
#40 – Myst IV: Revelation
#39 – Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - Import prices are killer, and my interest in Kyle Hyde, though lingering, is limited.
#38 – Full Throttle
#37 – Stacking
#36 – Sanitarium
#35 – The Neverhood
#34 – Amnesia: The Dark Descent
#33 – L.A. Noire
#32 – Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
#31 – Portal - This isn't an adventure game. C'mon, now.
#30 – Bad Mojo
#29 – Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
#28 – Sam & Max Hit the Road
#27 – Discworld Noir
#26 – Heavy Rain - I find the genuine-interactive-movie idea here intriguing, but I keep hearing on Something Awful that it's crushingly misogynistic, which is not a usual hobbyhorse of that crowd and therefore raises some serious eyebrows. I'll never own a PS3, so I suppose the question is moot in any case.
#25 – Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon
#24 – Police Quest 2: The Vengeance
#23 – Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness
#22 – The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel
#21 – Blade Runner
#20 – Still Life
#19 – Beneath a Steel Sky
#18 – Myst - This title attracts unreasonable hate from the traditional gaming press & core demographic nowadays. I think its wide-reaching popularity in its day might now be considered the forerunner to the casual-gaming invasion.
#17 – Machinarium
#16 – Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
#15 – Syberia
#14 – The Secret of Monkey Island
#13 – King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
#12 – Zork Grand Inquisitor
#11 – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
#10 – Portal 2 - And again.
#9 – Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive
#8 – Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
#7 – The Last Express
#6 – Day of the Tentacle
#5 – Riven
#4 – Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
#3 – Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within
#2 – The Longest Journey
#1 – Grim Fandango - Shallow, but I just can't be moved to care about a game that stars a cast of talking skeletons.
Interesting omissions; a lot of King's Quests; only one Space Quest. The beloved Quest for Glory and Monkey Island series are only spottily represented, but The Journeyman Project is copiously covered; what the heck. There's no mention of how many of these games are lost to the ages thanks to PC backwards-compatibility issues, but that would've taken foresight, I suppose.
.
