Recommend me some Adventure games from 2000 through this year

[GarageGothic]

You could give Telltale's Sam & Max games a try. Most people around here found them shorth and lacking compared to the original, I rather liked them as did a lot of other reviewers.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Rule of thumb for modern adventure games: All of them are bad, but some are worse than others.

Rule of thumb: take these statements with a pinch of salt. It's obvious that most people can agree to disagree about games. It's also fairly obvious that rules such as this may apply to some people but not other people.

All in all, rule of thumb - play a LOT of adventure games, be them good or bad. You're new to the adventure genre, right? Try everything out. Then make your own opinion. Then read reviews, see the ones you agree with, and you'll know you can trust THOSE.

THERE's a good rule of thumb.

[LimpingFish]

Agreeing to disagree is redundant when dealing with GK3. The flaws I see in it aren't simply down to taste.

Take The Longest Journey. I dispise that game, for reasons different to GK3, but I understand that some people like it. That's down to their tastes differing to mine.

GK3 on the other hand is inept. Being boring or bland doesn't enter into the equation for me.

It's technically stunted, its design having absolutely no redeeming features. I've stated in the past that adventure fans as a whole have a tendency to be very forgiving of their chosen genre, and people who "like" GK3 have taken this failing to the extreme.

As to Fleshstalker, if Grim Fandango is the first adventure you've played, you would be better off sticking to pre-2000 adventure games, as GF was the last of the great LucasArts adventures. TellTale's games ape this style, so you may get some enjoyment out of those also.

Game published by The Adventure Company are, by and large, po-faced and substandard. I'd make sure you really wanted any of them before parting with cash.

Play demos of everything that interests you.

Most adventure games have a demo to try. I get most of my adventure demos from GamersHell.
They have demos for Niburu, Syberia, Still Life, The Delaware St. John games, TellTales stuff, and the like.

For demos of pre-1998 LucasArts and other games just go to the ScummVM site. You'll also need to download ScummVm itself to play most of them.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Heh. I said "agree to disagree". I actually meant "agree OR disagree".

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I noticed these 2000 and up titles don't have the wacky characters and cartoony art I so like. I'm not much into realistic settings.

If this is true yeah, you should probably look for older games.  I can't really think of any modern adventure games (aside from Bone and the new S&M episodes which aren't really that good) that fit your interests.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

And maybe Beyond Good and Evil. Not a "straight adventure", but it does have that cartoony feel.

[ravenfusion]

Runaway 1 and 2 are definately worth checking out, they're great modern lookin' point and click adventures.

[Snarky]

Murder on the Orient Express.Ã,  What an insulting, inane excuse for a game, but then again it was made by The (Mis)Adventure Company.

And Then There Were None:Ã,  Only The (Mis)Adventure Company could think they could improve on an Agatha Christie story.Ã,  They were mistaken.

The Adventure Company merely published those games. They were made by AWE Productions.

Runaway 1 and 2 are definately worth checking out, they're great modern lookin' point and click adventures.

Great-looking modern point and click adventures, more like it. They suck in pretty much every other respect (far more than most games listed so far).

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The Adventure Company merely published those games. They were made by AWE Productions.

Oh no!  This was certainly an important point!  :

[MillsJROSS]

I would check out review sites if I were you, rather than listening to our oppinions. I only say this, because, in general, we seem to be crotchety old men pining for the golden years of adventure games, and not too many of us have been happy with the newer games. That isn't to say that there isn't truth in our dislike of newer games, just that if a game doesn't fit exactly into our perception of adventure games, we automatically write it off. Or so it seems.

The problem you'll find with the newer games, is because not as many of those games are being made, there are a lot less good ones. Just as if you looked at all the old games in the 90's you'd probably find a hell of a lot of bad adventure games, too. Just everyone seems to forget the bad ones over time.

-MillsJROSS

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Heck, just go on over to the underdogs, download all the aventure games you find and play the ones you can get to run. That should slake your thirst. Also, it proves Mills' point about the number of bad adventure games in the 90s.

[Snarky]

The Adventure Company merely published those games. They were made by AWE Productions.

Oh no!  This was certainly an important point!  :

Well, if you're going to take cheap digs at a company, you should at least get your facts straight. Not that TAC doesn't deserve some flak, but most commercial adventure games in recent years have been published by them (everything from Darkfall to Syberia and Still Life to Return to Mysterious Island). If the TAC games suck, maybe that's just because it's difficult to find good adventure games to publish.

But yeah, it wasn't a terribly important point. Just a matter of giving blame where blame is due.

[Ali]

It's technically stunted, its design having absolutely no redeeming features. I've stated in the past that adventure fans as a whole have a tendency to be very forgiving of their chosen genre, and people who "like" GK3 have taken this failing to the extreme.

I won't dispute that GK3 is poorly designed in terms of interface. I feel most of the puzzles, with a few well known exceptions, are well excecuted.

The problem is not that you shouldn't use cat fur and sticky tape to make a fake moustache, it's that you shouldn't do that in a predominantly realistic game. That puzzle is particularly misconcieved, but it does suit the light-hearted mood of the game's opening. The later puzzles are more inkeeping with the style of the game and the tone of the narrative.

I'm not interested in being overly forgiving my favourite genre; I didn't enjoy Gabriel Knight 2 at all, the puzzles, the graphics, or the performances. For these reason I suggest that to a significant extent, the flaws you identify in Gabriel Knight Three are down to taste.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

But yeah, it wasn't a terribly important point. Just a matter of giving blame where blame is due.

Certainly you don't believe that they just sit back and let developers make a game?  Publishers are increasingly getting their fingers into all aspects of production, from schedules to quality control.  They are the ones who ultimately decide if the game will be released, so yeah, I think they deserve plenty of blame.

[Snarky]

Actually, I think TAC tends to pick up games either after they're completed, or at a late point in production. For example, they only announced that they would publish Broken Sword 4 in North America after the game had already been released pretty much everywhere else. I don't know exactly when they signed the contract, but I'm guessing they didn't get to have a lot of input on the design. And Dark Fall, just to take another example, was independently distributed before TAC picked it up.

To some extent this is probably because TAC is a North American publisher, while many of the games are developed elsewhere for a local publisher (see, for example, the recent HC Andersen adventure). In some cases TAC make changes for their release (Keepsake got a patch, a map, and one of the voices was re-recorded with a different actor), but usually they just seem to be acting as a distributor.

[LimpingFish]

For these reason I suggest that to a significant extent, the flaws you identify in Gabriel Knight Three are down to taste.

Apparently my taste doesn't stretch to incompetently designed and executed white elephants.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Actually, I think TAC tends to pick up games either after they're completed, or at a late point in production. For example, they only announced that they would publish Broken Sword 4 in North America after the game had already been released pretty much everywhere else. I don't know exactly when they signed the contract, but I'm guessing they didn't get to have a lot of input on the design. And Dark Fall, just to take another example, was independently distributed before TAC picked it up.

To some extent this is probably because TAC is a North American publisher, while many of the games are developed elsewhere for a local publisher (see, for example, the recent HC Andersen adventure). In some cases TAC make changes for their release (Keepsake got a patch, a map, and one of the voices was re-recorded with a different actor), but usually they just seem to be acting as a distributor.

Fair enough.  I was just making a point that most people tend to level hate towards developers rather than publishers, which is what publishers want you to do, really.  They look good if the game does well and nobody really cares about them if the game doesn't.

[Snarky]

Clearly not working so well for TAC... 

To go even further off topic, this debate reminds me; didn't someone (might have been me, but I don't think so) once suggest that there's a niche waiting to be filled for an AGS "publisher"? Someone who would pick promising games-near-completion, set them up with beta testers, find a server to host the download, make a nice-looking thread in Completed Games, send off an email to indie adventure game sites and bloggers, and basically take care of the hassle of releasing a game? Seems like this would serve a useful function for developers who just want to focus on making the game.