This game is a part of my childhood (12) so this is going to be a partially biased review, though objectively this is one of the best point & click adventure games out there with its witty humor and unique artstyle that ultimately make it a timeless classic. You could argue that the previous entries in the series were better, but I started with this one (1 & 2 would come years later when they were remastered) and for me it kickstarted my love for point & click adventures. The conversations with Murray alone makes me want to give it 5 stars. Escape was the one I had a problem with, due to it ditching its cartoony handrawn(?) artstyle for 3D models and controller based controls. It is also the one that now looks and feels very aged because of it. They should really remake it and do it right.
Apart from not being as good as the previous installments in the series (though Tales wouldn't be much better) but not bad either it was the change from 2D to 3D that put me off. Gone was the fantastic cartoony artstyle from Curse with in it's place a somewhat ugly looking world that tried to the same but just could't because of the graphical limitations of the time. And where Curse still holds up pretty well after a little over 20 years Escape suffers for it. It didn't look great then and it definitively doesn't look good now. Sure the first and second Monkey Island games don't look good now either (if you're not into the whole 8bit thing) but at least they remade and they remade them well. Same game but with an updated art style that does the games justice. They should do the same for Escape from Monkey Island. It deserves it.
A very bland point & click adventure with bad writing, dull conversations and the only laughs it got from me were due to how bad it actually was at some points. I'd give it a miss and try out anything from either Lucas Arts or Telltale.
When we think video-games countries that would come to mind are probably Japan, UK and the US. And though many of the great games do come from Western and far Eastern developers many forget or don't even realize that some of the truly exceptional games we have played over the years actually came from Eastern Europe. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is probably best known for being one of these ambitious titles. But while often being concepts full of potential the end result was almost always very raw and crude, like a rough diamond. The Witcher falls right in to this category. Developed by Polish studio CD Projekt Red The Witcher does a lot of things right and throws in a few features not done or not taken to this level before. It is a RPG as we know it from titles like Diablo and Titan Quest but dares to take it a step further, like combining the classic mouse driven controls with real-time key movement. These ambitious ideas do work but often feel like they are not fully developed yet. And this goes for pretty much the whole game. It has a very rich story set in a very big world with lot's to see and do and chock full of mature content . The music, in-game lore and beautifully realized setting really pull you in and create a immersive experience. But it is all very rough around the edges next to being a game that you have to really sit down for and put some time in, and if you are able to keep this in mind and be okay with it you will possibly have one of the best RPG experiences to date. I do realize that by now The Wither 2 is out with a third one on the way and these are likely to be far more polished, but i have yet to play the second installment. I thought i would start with the first one and then work my way up. It does look a bit dated in terms of graphics but there are some excellent HD-texture packs out there that greatly enhance the visuals.
Not as great as the first three Monkey Island titles but to be fair, they did set the bar pretty high back then. This reboot of the series still makes for a very good and very funny point & click adventure in the series that adjusted well to modern times and out performs almost any other game in genre out there , not from Telltale, by a long shot.
I'll be honest, I don't like unforgiving platformers that often throw you in what seem to be impossible situations. I've moved on from the 90's and i suck at 'em. Yet I don't seem to be able to get enough of Rogue Legacy. I've had numerous "alright, one more go" moments after dying. So why is it that something that i usually steer clear off mainly because i'm not all that good at it and has me dying 14 times in 30 minutes, doesn't frustrate me as much as it should and instead makes me come back for more? Then , while upgrading my health and buying a new piece of armor after dying for the so many-eth time, it suddenly hit me. It's because the game gives a positive spin to dying imposed to it being the negative experience it usually is by rewarding you . But while rewarding you with upgrades after death that make you stronger in the process (which you do have to buy with the money you gathered in your pre-death run) and give you a sense of progression , there are also the rogue-like elements this platformer implements that help a replay from becoming repetitive, unlike your typical (classic) platformer. I remember playing the original Super Mario Bros. and making it to world 7 or 8 or so where i had to clear this massive chasm in the ground by jumping over it and using this tiny piece of ground sticking out in the middle of it as a stepping stone of sorts. You had to do a speed run, jump, then land on this little bit of ground and straight away do another jump to reach the other side, and i just couldn't clear it, up til the point i was game-over and i would have to start the whole game over again. This was so utterly frustrating. Not so much because i wasn't able to make the jump, though it didn't help, but more because i now had to go through all those levels again just to reach that one bit where i would probably die again like i already did so many times before and start the whole thing over yet again. It's a vicious cycle i tell ya, and i hate it. Rogue Legacy doesn't have that. Well it does, but not in the classic 'game-over, start-over' kind of way. By randomly placing and re-using different rooms in the castle your adventure takes place in each playthrough, it will take away a bit of the frustration that comes with character death and at the same time creates a new and different playthrough for your next try. You will come across rooms you've been in before eventually but by that time you will most likely be ready to try it again, or not and you'll just head the other way as soon as you can. This together with the upgrading system that will make you stronger and give you better abilities each time you die creates a game that makes parts of it progressively easier over time while still giving you a different experience every playthrough. Not to mention that with every playthrough you will play with a different character, a descendant of your former deceased character, who each have their own abilities combined with both good and bad qualities which on a side note often make for very clever and hilarious outcome that also affect the gameplay in either a positive or a negative way, or both. Does that mean the leveling up system and becoming more powerful in the process will make the game too easy for the veteran platformers among us? Well no, because here's the beauty of the whole thing. While everyone will go through the same tough experience at the start of the game, the more experienced players will have less trouble progressing through the game while still on a lower level, where as someone like me who is not all that good at avoiding hits and has the reaction speed of a sleeping baby will have to grind longer and level up a bit more (a lot more) before he'll be able to defeat the first boss without too much of an issue. This works really well and is genius in my opinion. It just opens this type of genre up for a wider audience. As for the presentation Rogue Legacy does it right as well. The visuals are simple, but it's no 8-bit retro look either. It's just enough to appeal to most modern gamers and pull of a convincing creepy castle atmosphere that with it's sense of humor creates a very enjoyable experience all together. There are numerous treasure chests to be found scattered throughout the castle(grounds) of which some can only be reached by successfully completing challenges. There are 4 dungeon bosses to be defeated before you can confront the final boss and as far as completion time, well, as mentioned before that will be entirely up to you and your play-style. Will you grind up your stats until you're a double jumping ninja tank before you proceed any further in to the castle or will you aim to beat the game by relying entirely on your skills alone and level up as little as you can. So yes, Rogue Legacy is a pretty solid rogue-lite platformer with a well implemented upgrade system that give it a lot of replay value. Well worth a buy at full price and a real steal if it's on Sale.
A treat for the fans having good old Tex back in a new and modern adventure, plus the glorious returns of the full motion capture cut-scenes a lot of adventure games from the late 90's were notorious for! Unfortunately I did not enjoy my play-through (with the demo) as much as i would have hoped. I'll be honest, this was my first Tex Murphy game, but i am a big fan of point & click adventures and i miss them. That's why i was somewhat curious about this title, but during my time with the demo that curiosity slowly turned in to boredom and even slight frustration after a while. The puzzles weren't all that great, some i didn't even want to do at all (I hate sliding-square puzzles), and for a recent title with 2K cut-scenes the actual in-game graphics are really bad. Now i'm not expecting Crysis-like visuals but come on, there are 10 year old titles that look better then this. It just took me out of the experience a bit, also because it sometimes made it more difficult to find certain items. But again, this is something for the fans and for the fans i think it does what it did best. It's not for me however and i think that a lot of newcomers will have the same experience.
Unless you have played this title back in the day and are in love with the series I'm finding it very hard recommending it to anyone who would like to start with it now. It hasn't aged well both visually and gameplay wise and I quite frankly find the voice acting a bit difficult to stomach. I will say that it is better than most point & click adventures out there, though that isn't a big accomplishment seeing as the majority of those titles are terrible anyway. When compared to point & click titles Lucas Arts has brought out over the last 25 years The Longest Journey is just not that good, plain and simple. Sure the story might be compelling placed in an interestingly realised setting but when it all moves along at such a slow pace with average dialogues i personally get bored very quickly. Having heavily outdated graphics doesn't help with it either and in the end just make me lose all interest and actually make me want to reinstall the 3rd Monkey Island again. Now that is a timeless point & click adventure. Thanks to it's cartoon look it still holds up very well till this day while also having great voice acting and being genuinely funny. They even remade the first 2 titles in the franchise because they were outdated and that instantly blew new life in to them ready to be enjoyed by the current generation. So perhaps that is something that should be done with The Longest Journey as well. The story is there, the characters are there, you just need to give it new life because as it is i cannot recommend it to anyone else than it's fans. Sorry fans.
