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10 ALL-TIME CLASSIC POINT-AND-CLICK ADVENTURES

1/8/2018

33 Comments

 
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"Hello, everyone. I'm Feargal Sharkey. You probably remember me as the lead singer of The Undertones, and my 1985 solo hit, A Good Heart. I'm here today to... oh! Oh, fuck shit, guys! There's a fuckin' wasp in here!

"Typical. I always used to enjoy adventure games, and was hoping to lead you through this list of some of the greatest point-and-click adventures ever released.

"Unfortunately, it looks like now I'm going to have to spend the whole time dealing with this fuckin' wasp.

"...Stop telling me not to swear, mammy! There's a fuckin' wasp in here! God, 
I really hope it doesn't sting me on the fuckin' butthole!"

THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND
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What set Ron Gilbert's The Secret of Monkey Island and its sequels apart is how funny they were. They had jokes - actual, proper, jokes - something that games had rarely attempted before with any great degree of success. It was also unusually knowing - a game that was aware of being a game - with fourth wall-breaking, and parodies of other games, and that.

Typically for LucasArts games, death was almost impossible in Monkey Island, with the focus on exploration, character interaction, puzzles, and the funnies. The aim seemed to be giving the player a real good time, keeping the interface stripped-back, rather than frustrating them with narrative dead-ends and obtuse puzzles.

Get this: it was inspired by Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride. Having gone on the ride as a child,  Ron Gilbert always wished he could get off and explore the pirate world. In some sort of irony, when Disney bought LucasFilm, one of its first moves was to close down LucasArts.
BLADE RUNNER
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Man, at the time this was hyped to "retirement" by Virgin Interactive, and the finished product almost lived up to that hype.

Rather than star Deckard, and follow the plot of the movie which inspired it, Blade Runner starred a character called Ray McCory and focused on a parallel plot that, well, more or less followed the plot of the movie which inspired it.

Nevertheless, the pre-rendered backdrops were gorgeous, you got to fanny around with that machine which analyses photographs, and use Voight-Kampf empathy tests on suspects. Its production values were off the chart, with several of the movie cast (NOT Harrison "Plane Crash" Ford) even reprising their roles; a rarity at the time.

Notably, this wasn't the first Blade Runner game; there was one released for 8-bit home computers, but due to being unable to acquire the movie rights, publisher CRL described it as "video game interpretation of the film score" by Vangelis.
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"Hi, guys. Feargal here again. I'm still dealing with that wasp, so just carry on without me for now. I'm going to try to open a window."
BROKEN SWORD: SHADOW OF THE TEMPLARS
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Charles Cecil had form as a point-and-click adventure boy, having already had huge hits with Lure of the Temptress and Beneath A Steel Sky. Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars stepped things up a notch, with a genuinely gripping plot, gorgeous hand-drawn visuals, a stunning soundtrack, and the novel idea of featuring two protagonists, who could share theories and hints. 

The series returned in 2013 with a fifth instalment, having wrongly embarked - for 3 and 4 - into ill-advised 3D territory. Those were horrible.
TOONSTRUCK
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As famous for how massively delayed it was as it was for featuring a live-action Christopher Lloyd transplanted into a cartoon world, Toonstruck is slightly better than its reputation suggests.

Nevertheless, the self-consciously wacky humour - apparent even in the early cut-scenes set in the "real" world - failed to undercut the over-the-top silliness of cartoons in the way Who Framed Roger Rabbit? managed.

Also, there was no getting away from the static nature of Lloyd's avatar, who spent most of the time staring into space, or failing to convincingly interact with his environment. No offence to the man, but judging from his dead-eyed performance in anything other than Back to the Future, this might've been the perfect role for him. 

What's that? I'm having a pop at a global treasure? And? And!
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"Hi again. Sorry - thought I'd gotten rid of the wasp, but I guess I made a mistake. It's still in here. Well, they say (sing) that a good heart these days is hard to find - too bad that doesn't also apply to wasps! Those these days are easy to find. There's one in here with me right now, and I just hope it doesn't sting me on the fuckin' butthole!"
LOOM
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Unlike many of LucasArts adventures, Loom was a more serious, and epic endeavour. Even if it did feature a main character called Bobby "Bobbin" Threadbare, and begins with a sequence in which somebody is turned into a "swan's egg".

It offered a unique gameplay conceit; players could learn to perform tunes on a magical "distaff" - which would cast spells. You know: a bit like in Nintendo's Ocarina of Time. Unusually for an adventure, there were three difficulty levels, which affected how accurate your tune-playing needed to be. 
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"I'm swatting at it with a teal towel now."
DAY OF THE TENTACLE
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The archetypical LucasArts adventure in many ways, Day of the Tentacle was a sequel to the groundbreaking Maniac Mansion (a game so iconic it even spawned a long-forgotten TV series, created by that dad from American Pie).

​With a time-travelling plot that spanned three different time periods, each featuring a different protagonist, puzzles would often require a solution which necessitated all three characters working in conjunction. Nicely, the entirety of the original Maniac Mansion could be played within Day of the Tentacle, on an in-game Commodore 64. 
GRIM FANDANGO
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A brilliant consolidation of everything Tim Schaffer had learned from working on his previous LucasArts adventures (including Full Throttle), Grim Fandango was nevertheless a commercial flop, and led to LucasArts' decision to stop developing traditional point-and-click adventure games.

With a setting and visual style inspired by Mexico's Day of the Dead festival - as later seen in Disney's Coco - Grim Fandango was a hard-boiled, and frequently funny, noir detective tale, which just happened to star a skeletal "travel agent".

Its bizarre, twisty-turny, plot was spread over a span of four years, which lead character Manny navigated via an almost invisible interface. Unlike most other adventures, the on-screen cues were all character-led; if there was an object Manny could interact with, his head would turn to look at it. Imagine how exhausting that'd be in real life. 
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"My mam keeps shouting at me, telling me that all I'm doing is making the wasp more agitated, and that if I keep going it's definitely going to sting me on the fuckin' butthole. This is such a shame. I really wanted to enjoy this list with you, but I've got my hands full here. Sorry, everyone."
THE LONGEST JOURNEY
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One of the most recent entries on this list, The Longest Journey was set in a high-tech world, and starred an 18 year-old female protagonist who discovers she has the ability to travel to a magical alternate dimension.

It was apparently inspired, in part, by Joss "His Ex-Wife Doesn't Like Him" Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and main character April displays the same sort of knowing "sass" Whedon employs for his female characters. You know: when he isn't trying to get off with the actors playing them, allegedly.

A sequel was released in 2006, with a crowd-funded second sequel being pumped out in 2014.
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"Okay. Phew! I got rid of it. I flicked the wasp out of the window and it flew away. My mam's not happy, though. She says that wasps are more scared of me than I am of them, and wouldn't let me squash it. She wouldn't be saying that if she'd been stung on the fuckin' butthole by one!

"Anyway. Let's just crack on, and enjoy the rest of this list together."
SPACE QUEST IV: ROGER WILCO AND THE TIME RIPPERS
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The truth is, I loved all of Sierra On-Line's games a the time, but they haven't aged well - in all kinds of areas.

Certainly, Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers features some very of-its-time misogyny - see Wilco's encounter above with the Latex Babes of Estros - but had a completely unique concept.

​To wit: Wilco could travel along his own timestream, entering future, as-yet-to-be-released games, as well as earlier instalments in the series (with the graphics reverting to a more primitive style, and encounting a group of aliens who mock him as "Mr Look-At-Me-I'm-In-VGA").
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"Well, we're nearly at the end now, and though things didn't get off to a great start, I think this list has been pretty successful overall. Just one more game to go. I hope it's a good one!"
PHANTASMAGORIA: A PUZZLE OF FLESH
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Created by the company's founder Roberta Williams - she of the twee King's Quest games - Phantasmagoria was the final adventure released by Sierra before it was sold to CUC International. Phantasmagoria bridged more traditional point-and-click adventures and interactive movies, using a purpose-built studio to film the live action sequences, and with a budget in the $4.5 million range.

The visceral horror nonsense boasted a censorship option, allowing the player to decide whether the screen should be blurred to remove violent or sexual content. Indeed, a rape sequence received widespread criticism, though given the level of the actors' performance, the soap-y music, and primitive graphics, is more absurd than it is disturbing. Nevertheless, there's a general tone of violence towards women which makes it a difficult experience in today's climate. Not least given Williams' prior output.

Still, the controversy surrounding the adult nature of the content doubtless helped it to become a commercial success, and it became Sierra's biggest-selling game up until that point (we tend to forget that Half-Life was later released under the Sierra banner).

​Alas, it was a short-lived victory. Shortly after the company's sale, CUC was bought by Cedant International - and was implicated in a massive accounting scandal, with two of CUC's top executives going to prison for fraud. Sierra was eventually sold on to Havas Interactive, and the brand still exists to this day - now owned by Activision, which released a new King's Quest in 2015.
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"Ow-wow-whee-whooo! It flew back in and stung me on the fuckin' butthole! This your fault, mammy! I can already feel it swelling up! Ow! My fuckin' butthole!"
C'MON, KIDS - SEND AN EMAIL TO THE DIGITISER FRIDAY LETTERS PAGE!
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33 Comments
Gaming Mill link
1/8/2018 09:49:51 am

I loved (and still do) Full Throttle. I bought the remastered version earlier this year and still loved it. Short but sweet. Perfect.

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Nikolay Yeriomin link
1/8/2018 01:54:49 pm

Just discovered Full Throttle last year (via great article on Art of the Title: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/full-throttle/) and was very much pleasantly surprised.

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bit.bat
1/8/2018 06:10:59 pm

It is my favourite and probably the only adventure gane I have finished without looking at a guide. Ok I looked one time but only one time! Great characters and as you said, short (relatively) and sweet.

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MENTALIST
1/8/2018 10:04:34 am

You've missed out the fabulous original Gabriel Knight.

And also the sublimely weird, and so-modern-it's-not-even-actually-finished Kentucky Route Zero.

Good on you for including The Longest Journey, though, it's an under-appreciated classic.



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Mr Biffo
1/8/2018 10:48:51 am

Oh, I'm well aware that many were missed out, but the important thing was making sure there was enough Feargal Sharkey content.

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MENTALIST
1/8/2018 11:57:59 am

In which case, you missed out an obvious puerile pun based on stinging insects and British 1970s punk bands ;)

RG
1/8/2018 10:10:23 am

What about Simon the Sorcerer?

Actually - you're right, that was poo.

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Mark M
1/8/2018 10:22:22 am

What strikes me in retrospect is how hard some of these games were. Maybe your brain just has to work a certain way (read: I must be thick) but I remember plenty of frustration with some of these games.

I recently finished Primordia which was really good but had some very obscure puzzle solutions. I'll admit that a few times I had to search for help on t'interweb. :(

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RichardM
1/8/2018 11:07:18 am

Agreed. There was a puzzle in Monkey Island that really fucked me off: can’t remember what it was now, though. I found the puzzle solution in it a bit zany and obtuse.

Broken Sword, on the other hand, is brill. Even if the male lead - Stobart, I think? - is a bit of a dickhead.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
1/8/2018 12:32:42 pm

George Stobbart is great as a point-and-click hero. Like Guybrush Threepwood, he's the perfect mix of bland likeability, cleverness, occasional haplessness, sharp wit and total psychopathy that makes a good point-and-click protagonist, since it's a genre largely predicated on stealing things and manipulating people in the single-minded purpose of some goal or other.

*spoilers*

Aside from all the breaking and entering, thieving, lying, and that one time he got a swarm of wasps to sting a film crew in past entries, in the latest one he even tricks a grieving widow having a mental breakdown into thinking he's her dead husband for some reason I can't quite remember. It all seems to make so much sense in the context of the game until you think about it afterwards...

Hamptonoid
1/8/2018 04:36:53 pm

I quite liked Stobbart, and thought his character was well scripted - either way, a superb game, and one that works brilliantly on a mobile device.

Alastair
1/8/2018 11:54:56 am

Much as I loved the LucasArts games, there was one big puzzle in each that was just too awkward and required online help to get through.

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MrBee
1/8/2018 11:14:05 am

I remember playing a Discworld point & click game when I was young and loved terry pratchett.

I though the books were good too. But then I re-read them as an adult and they're basically all twee jokes stretched beyond being funny. The games probably the same too.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
1/8/2018 12:01:16 pm

The games are kind of annoying. There's some funny material in there (much of it taken verbatim from the books), but the puzzles in the first one were horrendously obscure, even by point-and-click logic.

Also the Playstation version of the sequel is bugged in a way that makes it impossible to finish...

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MrBee
1/8/2018 01:03:29 pm

Yes - I remember being on the roof off a building search for something for hours! So frustrating.
I think I had to follow a PC Format guide to complete it in the end.

S L Perrin link
1/8/2018 11:32:45 am

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis?

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Mr Biffo
1/8/2018 11:58:17 am

Again, it wasn't a list of EVERY adventure game ever. It was a list of 10, with some important Feargal Sharkey content.

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MENTALIST
1/8/2018 12:02:35 pm

Ah, a far better Indiana Jones 4 than the one which they ended up filming.

The lesser-known graphic adventure game based on The Last Crusade is also really good, too.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
1/8/2018 01:38:19 pm

If I recall right, didn't Fate of Atlantis have multiple solutions to most puzzles depending on your playstyle? That idea is brilliant, and it's surprising that it doesn't seem to have ever cropped again.

Salem Black
1/8/2018 12:15:01 pm

You missed off "You Little Thief", the wasp could have been stealing his sugar.

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DEAN
1/8/2018 02:03:35 pm

I really enjoyed the Feargal content!

Not fussed about the games - not my cup of teal and did you mean to write 'Teal Towel' and not 'TeaTowel'? I hope you did because it's better that way.

It's like this -

"The maniac wore a ripped teal shirt."

There's loads that can be done and it's always better - well done!

A few words about the off colour language, though - absolutely practical in this context.

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Nikolay Yeriomin link
1/8/2018 02:14:38 pm

In my humble opinion Sierra were king of point-and-click before Lucas Arts took the mantle in the 90's. I mean, of course they had successes in 1980's, as well, but it were the 90's when they started to push the limits: Sam and Max, Full Throttle (first ever video game with legit SAG-AFTRA cast), Monkey Island...

Both studios had very distinctive styles though: Lucas Arts were leaning towards cinematic stories, while Sierra right from the start were leaning towards a more immersive, world-building approach (of course, with a cinematic style as well, but more of a b-movie touch). Space Quest was an amazing series to the point that it was interesting to read the walkthroughs as a book. I really like Wilco/Vohaul arch-enemy dynamic and overall tongue-in-chick space opera style...

Interesting, my first reaction at seeing "Loom" was "Hey, that's the video game from Big with Tom Hanks". Then I remembered that movie is two good years older then Loom. Then I discovered what was in Big was never actually a real game, but a very convincing fake. Odd.

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THX 1139
1/8/2018 02:26:01 pm

B-b-but Christopher Lloyd was Reverend Jim on Taxi where he would go woah.

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Nikolay Yeriomin link
1/8/2018 02:36:58 pm

Every single time someone mentions the show, this starts playing in my head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_y4RFkNPqI

And that's a good thing. :)

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SevenLegs
1/8/2018 04:02:55 pm

Definitely! Taxi joins the ranks of 'TV themes that are much better than the actual shows'. See also: stranger things, danger man, airwolf etc.

Col. Asdasd
1/8/2018 04:37:02 pm

Cowboy Bebop.

Hamptonoid
1/8/2018 08:40:53 pm

Aw c'mon, bebop is brilliant on both fronts, man! Thirded for taxi though.

THX 1139
2/8/2018 01:24:21 pm

"Goodnight Mr Walters!" "Uh-uhnnn…" was better than "Sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog."

Hamptonoid
2/8/2018 05:19:51 pm

Classic line.

Chris
1/8/2018 04:50:34 pm

I know it's not a list of Every Adventure Game Ever, but I want to give a shout-out to:
The Book of Unwritten Tales
Fran Bow
and, of course, Thimbleweed Park.

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Starbuck
8/8/2018 11:24:30 pm

Yes, get Thimbleweed Park on her Switch, Biffs. Its ace!

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James
1/8/2018 06:14:23 pm

Let’s not forgot Broken Sword’s music was scored by Barrington Pheloung of Inspector Morse fame. No one does minimal incidental background mood honks quite like he

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Alejandro
1/8/2018 08:30:44 pm

I love adventure games and clicked on the link with a mixture of excitement and trepidation... I needn't have worried as I largely agree with Biff.

For those above who were seemingly looking for a list of every point and click game, there's actually a very good and comprehensive book by Kurt Kalata.

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