7 Discs for Phantasmagoria 1 actually and 5 for Phantasmagoria 2. Oh, Phantasmagoria 2 is pretty small. Took me about a weekend to play through it and it was an utter blast.
My mistake. I thought I read somewhere it took 7. Then again, I guess I could have looked it up! Hmm, I doubt the first would take much longer. I think I'll snag it today. I should probably get Dark Seed as well.
Don't get more wrong, I do love Dark Seed 1 as well. You'd probably still want to play it first, if you want the full story. However, it does have alot of flaws. The only character voiced in the first one is Mike. There's also a scene that you can easily miss, that makes the game unwinnable later on. The Giger style art is good, but alot of the areas can look a bit unfinished. The time limit is kind of obnoxious as well. The 2nd game pretty much improves on everything, in every area. It's much easier to enjoy playing it again now than going back to Dark Seed. If you only have time to choose one, I'd probably go with Dark Seed 2 an just read the story cliff notes from the first one.
I don't think it would hurt. You'll probably need one eventually, since there can be a few confusing things in the game, that can leave you stuck or out of time.
Perfect Assassin was a bit of a strange one. Not sure if I ever really got anywhere in it. It was difficult from what I remember. I really wanted to play through it, but didn't have the patience for it. Think it kind of went under the radar at the time. Grim Fandango was a personal favourite of mine though. Played the demo to death and then got it for my birthday. Best day ever. I played it all the way through to the end. First PC game I ever owned and first PC game I ever completed. Just bought the remastered version on steam (it's on offer right now), so, I might try and play through it all again.
I love the Sam & Max games, but does Riven and Myst count? I remember playing those as a kid and not really understanding them too much. Playing it now really has me into it when I find the time.
Just procured Phantasmagoria. Working on getting it to run in full screen, then I'm going to give it a go.
Thanks for temporarily blowing up our General Gaming section! I just finished the 3rd chapter of Phantasmagoria, and can't help feeling both confused and offended. Not to spoiler, but I wish I could enact Rockstar's Manhunt to take care of Don. I'm using a walkthrough, but it didn't prepare me for what exactly would happen. Despite this, I'm enjoying the game. I'm very interested where the mystery takes us. EDIT: Just finished. That last chapter was a frustrating mess. Lost my save right before the dark room and had to figure out how to move forward. It felt pretty harsh to have my means of receiving the blessed object destroyed right before it's needed. I had a good time, though. The game was so 90's. It could definitely use a remaster.
The Neverhood Chronicles The 7th Guest Already mentioned: Full Throttle Monkey Island series Grim Fandango Myst series The Longest Journey Syberia
Zak Mckracken is my favourite one, but it may not appeal to every adventure player since you also have to take notes and draw stuff. I really like it when the game goes beyond the screen. Another good one is Black Mirror. It combines puzzles from third and first person adventure games.
IMO Space Quest/Police Quest/Leisure Suit Larry/Quest For Glory/Kings Quest dont count as point & click because they involve a lot of typing. Not that they aren't awesome adventure games, they just dont count as point & click IMO. Myst and its sequel Riven are awesome games but they fall more into the genere of Puzzle games than Adventure games. Day of the Tentacle is easily the most fun point & click adventure game I have ever played and I wish it was available to purchase legally (GoG isn't selling it and I cant see it on Steam either)
There's a Grim Fandango style remake of DoTT in the works. Oh, and I can't believe people are actually liking the Phantasmagoria games. They're just awful, especially the second one that has a plot that can stand up to David Cage's worst brainfarts.
A really good new adventure was released back in September called Dropsy. Has no text but everything is communicated visually. It's probably pretty close to being on par with alot of the old Sierra and Lucasarts classics. It doesn't really contain any puzzles, but it features a wonderful story an very interesting characters Forgot to add the trailer... It also features some really beautifully composed music throughout the game. Phantasmagoria to me, is entertaining because it's like playing an over the top B-movie. I remember when Phantasmagoria was new. Even back then I was having a chuckle at some of the hilarious overly dramatic scenes. Haven't ever tried the sequel, so I can't say much about it.
I love the Sam & Max games, the style of humor really tickles my funny bone: Sam: "That's the most non-relaxing sign I've ever seen." Max: "What about the one at the barber shop that says "low fatality rate"?" Sam: "I stand throughly corrected." Sam: "Random, but innocuous comment." Max: "Irrelevant reply that hints at mental instability!" Sam: "You crack me up little buddy." Both the original "Hit the Road" and Telltale's episodic Sam & Max games are great.
This is another new adventure game I really enjoyed, which I feel is worth mentioning. Here's a simple review I had wrote up on Steam today, to help better describe it. Read Only Memories is very much a well crafted adventure game in every sense. You follow the developing plot in the role of a down on his luck journalist assisting your newly befriended self aware A.I. companion Turing. Deciding to set out on a quest together. In order to try and unravel the mysterious sudden disappearance of Turing's creator. Set in Neo-San Francisco in late December of the year 2064. You're placed in a world where humans and implant enhanced hybrid humans share a shakey coexistence. Here you'll encounter ominous, shady, corporate entities, a "pure human" activist group, along with a varied cast of other rough and tumble characters. Ranging from a young detective to some even younger street punks who can help aid you along. Helping to further fuel the intrigue and assisting Turing and yourself to piece together the puzzling situation as you progress. This all unfolds in a beautiful art style, that I would kind of describe as a mix of 80's and 90's anime, robo, sci-fi inspired awesomeness. The immediate influences from movies and gaming like Snatcher, Phantasy Star, Akira, Bladerunner and even Deja Vu are very clear. This game isn't a bland clone however and stands worthy on it's own two legs. I consider it a very excellent first entry by Midboss into such a lofty kingdom of fondly remembered cult titles of the past from which it invokes. The beautiful pixel art, not to mention the fantastic mood driven synth music and creative sound effects makes it a pleasure for the eyes and ears. The writing has alot of humor and offers tons of dialogue if you chose to interact with your surroundings thoroughly. Alot of attention is given to even small details. Which helps to give off a feeling of truly being immersed in this shadowy world. The menu system is very much like that of Snatcher. Pixel hunting is never really a problem, since you can usually use the keyboard itself to run through all the background to find things to interact with. One of my favorite things this game includes, is that it allows you to try just about every option when interacting with the environment. Many times yielding some pretty hilarious results. Alot of games would take the lazy way out; just by repeating the same line over again about that doesn't work. While ROM on the other hand, makes an effort to reward your curiosity to keep making you want to explore. Of course much of this is optional and not required if you're just looking to cover the main story quickly. David Fennoy and Adam Harrington do a fantastic job of lending their voice talents to this project. The voice acting comes off very professional and adds some good personality. My only real complaint would be that they weren't used as often as I would have liked to have heard. In fact one of the few real complaints I have with this game would be that it could use more voiceover work. I'm guessing that budget an time constraints might have played a role in that matter. Aside from that complaint. The only problem I have with the game at the current time of writing this are with the few bugs and crashes that I've encountered. Some of the puzzle sections can present bugs which render them impossible to complete. Reloading the game seems to fix these bugs that can come up. At least on the one puzzle bug that I did encounter. Most all of these I believe the developers are aware of and working to fix at the moment. However these things can make it rather hard to gain the achievement for finishing the game in a single attempt, without having to continue or reload a save. Not to mention making you lose alot of playtime hours if you didn't manage to create a save before hand. The game features multiple endings scenarios. The main deciding factor on how you obtain these is through how you treat certain characters. This doesn't just change the endings, but also bits of the dialogue and story as the chapters progress. Offering a good reason to replay it again. It throws in a few puzzles as well, that offer a bit of challenge, but are fairly easy to grasp. It even features a few shooting portions very similar to the grid style shooting scenes in Snatcher. As you can probably tell from the length this review ended up becoming I was very impressed with this game. All in all I found it to be a great game and would recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of that detective noir spun in a futuristic dystopia setting. Even if you're a newcomer to genre, I think this game offers enough to keep you entertained for many hours.
