I was a fan of Myst, and I consider Riven to be one of the finest adventure games I've ever played, so I had high hopes for Obduction. I wouldn't say it's a bad game by any means; it features some lovely visuals and some interesting world-building, but coming almost two decades after Riven it feels like a disappointment. A lot of the puzzles feel like retreads of that game's puzzles, but lacking the same artful deftness. Riven, for example, had a great puzzle where you slowly came to the realization that Rivenese people's number system was based around the number five, and that helped you to solve greater puzzles and understand the world as a whole better. It was a very organic puzzle, and made me feel smart, like I was roleplaying an anthropologist. Obduction has a very similar puzzle, wherein an alien race has a number system in base 4, and...the game literally gives you a worksheet which tells you this, and how the numbers work. Obduction isn't an easy game, by any means, but it still feels like the developers don't have the same faith in the player that the first two Myst games did. And that's to say nothing of the load times. Every time you enter a new world, the game takes about 20-30 seconds to load, which wouldn't be so bad on its own, except for the puzzles that involve switching back and forth between worlds. Remember the 90s, when you had to swap 5 CD-ROMs to play Riven? Well, now it's a game mechanic. I really wanted to like this game, and the story was compelling enough that I managed to finish it, but I found its resolution confusing and unsatisfying, and it was an exhausting experience overall. If you're starved for a new Myst-esque experience, this is about as good as it's gonna get, but if you haven't played Riven before, I'd recommend that a million times before this.
The Hugo games are adventure game classics, no doubt. I certainly have a nostalgic soft-spot for them, and if you're like me you may find value in purchasing this set. I can't recommend it for anyone else, unfortunately. The game design doesn't really hold up too well nearly 25 years later. The games are often unfair and the puzzles are often obtusely designed and don't feel particularly fun to solve. If it goes on sale, maybe check it out as a curiosity, but for six bucks? Can't say I recommend it.
Very interesting game. Tries to do an exploration of gameplay using protagonists with various neuroses, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes the characters won't do what you tell them to do because of their weaknesses, which can be an interesting problem to solve, but often makes the player wonder if the game is broken (which doesn't help, because sometimes it is). The game's construction is actually very sloppy; the character animation is terrible, the backgrounds vary between ugly painted backgrounds and ugly 90s 3D pre-renders, and it's sometimes easy to get stuck or get a bad ending without any inclination that you screwed up. All that aside, the game actually explores some dark themes, especially for a game from 1995, and I'm tempted to recommend it on its weirdness value alone. Every point-and-click adventure enthusiast needs to give it a try. It does a lot of things wrong and a lot of things right. Much more compelling than the original short story, and Harlan Ellison is killer as the voice of AM.
A neat little series, and definitely interesting to check out as a curiosity, being one of the earliest FPS games. However, despite its historical status and marvelous 3D EGA visuals, I can't say I'd recommend it for anyone other than the extremely nostalgic or the most hardcore retro FPS fans, as the game hasn't really stood the test of time. Predating Wolfenstein 3D, the game was certainly novel in its own era, but with its repetitive game mechanics, it doesn't quite hold up against its successors in the genre.
