At this point, saying "Dragon Age: Origins" is "good" is akin to saying, I don't know, the German football team is good. Of course it's good. It's exceptional. There are times you want to punch it—the random difficulty spikes being the major caveat (your party will be able to take on all sorts of armies, enemies, etc., but get mauled to death by wolves; there's also one battle where one enemy has set traps everywhere and blows both your team and hers up)—but my god is that irrelevant by the end. The writing! The music! The sense of goddamn adventure! The mix between crapshoot world and high fantasy. Just...great, great game that's stood the test of time. I played it two years ago and I can't stop thinking about it.
"Resonance" is my ninth Wadjet Eye game, a company which at this point means quality. These are *good* games, going toe-to-toe with the LucasArts games or pre-"Walking Dead" Telltale, and designed the same way: no dead ends, no death. The games are all very well-written, look beautiful, have great soundtracks (my favourite "Resonance" track is "Last Goodbye"), and the puzzles in them are logical (in a way that LucasArts wasn't always). However. The games also tend to reinvent themselves a lot—no two "Blackwell" games play in the exact same way, for example. This means there are different levels of emphasis on various adventure game mechanics: "Primordia" doesn't have as much inventory stuff, for example. In "Resonance," the big thing is long and short-term memory that's used to bring up topics of conversation. In other games, if your character examines something, they'll store it away for later reference automatically. In "Resonance," you need to do this yourself. While this is a great idea on paper, it sometimes leaves you frustrated; more than once, I knew what to do, and just didn't know how to express it. It's an idea that needs development, in other words, like how the 16 verb system in games like "Maniac Mansion" eventually became use/examine/talk to in "Full Throttle." The other thing is a minor pet peeve. I really like the actor Abe Goldfarb, who is present in every single Wadjet Eye game, but sometimes he plays two characters in a game and winds-up talking to himself. It's really distracting. When he's well-cast, like in "Gemini Rue," he's a delight. When he isn't—say as a gorilla of a police officer (a tertiary character here)—he's a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. But *you should play it anyway*. Great game. Great story. Great puzzles. "Gemini Rue" and "Primoria" remain my two favourites, but this one is really, really good.
"Kathy Rain" surprised me. I'd grown up a big fan of the LucasArts adventure games, and have been playing the WadjetEye and (RIP) Telltale stuff since. "Kathy Rain" is easily, easily among the best of those. The writing is great, although the game isn't as funny (nor trying to be as funny) as, say, "Day of the Tentacle" (although it can get pretty funny). The puzzles are good, eschewing the dreamlogic that makes a lot of those older adventure games unplayable while being challenging (although one puzzle is a bit unfair). The actors are on fine form, especially Kathy's. And the game just ooozzzzes atmosphere—a melancholy "Twin Peaks" focused on character. That bit's important—Kathy actually has an arc, growing over the course of the story. Loved, loved, loved it. I think it took me about 12 hours to beat, which is great value.
"I am one gifted with the Second Sight," says the Voodoo Lady, "adept at manipulating the forces of nature for the benefit of all who enter my door." "You're a fashion consultant?" says Guybrush. "The Curse of Monkey Island" is the best of a phenomenal series. A+ writing, acting, art; the puzzles are adventure game-y and therefore a little out there, but they're pretty good, considering. This is a steal. Thank you so much to GOG for bringing this classic back.
