Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an..

On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:18:12 -0800, noman wrote:

> On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:30:24 -0500, Jenny100 <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:25:05 -0800, noman wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:18:16 -0500, Jenny100 <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>>>Don't look for adventure game reviews on general gaming sites. They
>>>>aren't reliable at all. Check websites that are created by and for
>>>>adventure gamers.
>>>>
>>> I find better adventure game reviews at Gamespot than the usual
>>> over-enthusiastic ones at adventure genre fan-sites.
>>
>>They are unreliable. Check the reviews for Barrow Hill and Ripper. Ripper
>>is one of the best adventure games I've ever played, and there's no way
>>Barrow Hill deserved that low score.
>
> Not agreeing with a review score doesn't mean an entire site is useless. I
> posted scores for every game they have reviewed since Jan 2005, and you
> came back with a game release 11 years ago. What has that got to do with
> this discussion and how does it make your earlier blanket statement any
> valid ?
>
> For the record, I also believe Ripper was a mediocre game. Not as bad as
> the GameSpot review suggests but not good either.
>
>> Gamespot seems to routinely take two
>>or more points off a game's score simply because it is a point-and-click
>>or because the developers didn't have millions of dollars for a state of
>>the art real time 3D graphics engine. Never mind how fun or enjoyable the
>>game was to play.
>
> Again, your claim has no bearing on reality. For the third time in this
> thread, let me repeat that they gave Culpa Innata,

A decent review for a single game does not mean they are a good source for
reviews on all adventure games. Even if they're trying to be less biased
in favor of technical enhancements or against traditional adventure
gameplay in their current reviews, they haven't taken down the reviews
which are. If you're someone with no knowledge of what year a game came
out, do you want to go to a site with that kind of variation in review
quality?

> one of their best ratings, and that is in no way a high-budget or a
> hyped title. You'll also see that in the list I posted, all the higher
> ranked titles (7+) are point-and-click ones except Dreamfall and several
> of those don't have a 3D real-time engine.

Evil Under the Sun deserved better than a 5.0, and it is a recent game.

They count off for changing the story? Would you want to play a game where
you already know the ending? I did not find the pace to be "ponderous"
(which is how he described it). It helped a lot that you could
double-click to instantly exit a screen so it didn't take long to get
around. I could go on, but there's a lot of what he wrote that I disagree
with after playing the game myself. It's like he had a checklist and
failed to see the game as a whole.

There are some very old reviews on Gamespot that I can agree with. And
there are some fairly recent ones that look reasonable. But there are too
many of them that are so far off the mark that I can't recommend them as a
reliable source of adventure game reviews. Not without checking other
sites as well to see if their reviews are in line with adventure game
review sites.

> What Gamespot doesn't do is to give adventure games a free-hand and
> relaxed criteria, just because it's a genre in trouble. They largely
> review a game based on its merits and that's something I appreciate.
> There will always be odd reviews which you won't agree with or some that
> may even be factually wrong, but I am talking about a trend in general.

All I know about a trend in general game sites is that any that are
supported by advertising dollars aren't even reliable for assessments of
action game reviews. Maybe it was always that way, but I've become more
aware of it recently.
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:38:49 -0500, Jenny100 <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:18:12 -0800, noman wrote:
>>
>> What Gamespot doesn't do is to give adventure games a free-hand and
>> relaxed criteria, just because it's a genre in trouble. They largely
>> review a game based on its merits and that's something I appreciate.
>> There will always be odd reviews which you won't agree with or some that
>> may even be factually wrong, but I am talking about a trend in general.
>
>All I know about a trend in general game sites is that any that are
>supported by advertising dollars aren't even reliable for assessments of
>action game reviews. Maybe it was always that way, but I've become more
>aware of it recently.

You can keep repeating this but it doesn't make your argument any more
valid. The fact is, that based on the list of adventure titles that
Gamespot have reviewed since Jan 2005, the advertising dollar claim of
yours (or the one about general dislike of adventure games in general)
doesn't seem to hold true. It's not just one game, it's a list of
dozens of titles that I posted.

Now, you may not agree with some of these reviews. That's okay. I
don't agree with most of the reviews on adventure fansites. I think
they sell the adventure genre short by ignoring severe gameplay issues
and are, for the most part, worthless. But that's a separate debate
and one I don't want to take part in.

What I have argued against in this thread is this claim of yours that
I see repeated often times on usenet and webforums by people who have
no basis to say that. I thought the huge game list from Gamespot
should be an eye opener, but apparently for you it's not.
--
Noman
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

noman typed on Thu 3 Jan 2008 8:32 AM:
> Ending a game without any resolution is quite a disservice to gamers,
> when there is no gaurantee at all that the next game in the series
> will be made. Longest Journey was better in that regard.

I read somewhere they were going to continue it with shorter episodes
(downloaded, like S&M and HL2), picking up the story where Dreamfall
left off, but heard nothing about it since. That must have been about
six months ago.

I agree about the cliff-hanger endings - not the best way to wrap a
story.


--
};> Matt v3.2 <:{
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

>

>Have you tried "The longest journey" from Funcom? I think it came out
>around 2000. Received multiple awards: http://longestjourney.com/

Totally forgot about that. I almost bought it when it first came out.
Might be to "weird" for us though. And I don't want to have to fuss
with getting a game that old working on XP.

Seems there is a more current version of "The Longest Journey"
reviewed here
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/longestjourney2wt/review.html?mode=gsreview

I am reading it now.

Thanks,

-pw
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

"noman" <no_m_an RemoveThis @zzzyahoo.yycom> wrote in message
news:c2vqn39b0jtieg10jr8n795jlin69sc4en@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 21:51:09 -0500, "Mary" <nospam RemoveThis @invalid.swl> wrote:
>
> ><snipped some stuff I wrote in my previous message>
> >
> >Mary said:
> >
> >" There are other games listed above such as Myst Exile which I would
give
> >8.0.
> >
> >I made a mistake above. "Myst V: End of Ages" is on the game list not
Myst
> >Exile. But I checked Gamespot and there is a Review of Myst Exile. It
says
> >Gamespot Score 0.0 - what does that mean?
>
> I see that it got 8.7 and quite positive review. The link is below
> http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/myst3exile/review.html

On the review I saw (I'm sure it was on Gamespot) it said 0.0 where the
review score usually is, but on the same page said there was 39 reviews and
15 player reviews. I read some of them. Do you know where the page I am
talking about is?
I don't think I would have given it 8.7 but I said 8.0. But if I thought of
the games I've played since I first started PC games, there would be others
I liked more through the years. I am not a Myst fan except for Myst Exile. I
liked a lot of the early games such as Monkey Island series and Gabriel
knight. I will be interested to see what Gray Matter will be like. Its been
a while since Jane Jensen has made a game. For me, it will be hard to beat
the GK series. They are among my top favorites.

Mary
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

"PW" <paulremove_williamson858.TakeThisOut@removehotmail.com> wrote in message
news:undrn3110jj7dn0bm5e3vfuvldor1mhfag@4ax.com...
> >
>
> >Have you tried "The longest journey" from Funcom? I think it came out
> >around 2000. Received multiple awards: http://longestjourney.com/
>
> Totally forgot about that. I almost bought it when it first came out.
> Might be to "weird" for us though. And I don't want to have to fuss
> with getting a game that old working on XP.

The Longest Journey was a good game. I don't know what you call "weird" so
can't comment.You should look up some reviews of it and that gives you an
idea if you would like the game or not. I played it on Win 98. I still use
Win 98 most of the time, but also have a Win XP partition for newer games,
though my video card is getting old and will probably not run many of the
new games coming up.

> Seems there is a more current version of "The Longest Journey"
> reviewed here
>
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/longestjourney2wt/review.html?mode=gsreview

Thats the sequel to The Longest Journey called "Dreamfall" - I didn't play
it. Quite a few people said it wasn't as good as The Longest Journey though
some liked it.

Mary
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 22:34:40 -0500, "Mary" <non RemoveThis @invalid.ddd> wrote:

>"noman" <no_m_an RemoveThis @zzzyahoo.yycom> wrote in message
>news:c2vqn39b0jtieg10jr8n795jlin69sc4en@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 21:51:09 -0500, "Mary" <nospam RemoveThis @invalid.swl> wrote:
>>

>>>I checked Gamespot and there is a Review of Myst Exile. It says
>>>Gamespot Score 0.0 - what does that mean?
>>
>> I see that it got 8.7 and quite positive review. The link is below
>> http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/myst3exile/review.html
>
>On the review I saw (I'm sure it was on Gamespot) it said 0.0 where the
>review score usually is, but on the same page said there was 39 reviews and
>15 player reviews. I read some of them. Do you know where the page I am
>talking about is?

Did you try the link I posted. It should go to the review page.

>I am not a Myst fan except for Myst Exile. I
>liked a lot of the early games such as Monkey Island series and Gabriel
>knight. I will be interested to see what Gray Matter will be like. Its been
>a while since Jane Jensen has made a game. For me, it will be hard to beat
>the GK series. They are among my top favorites.

Gabriel Knight is my favourite adventure game series. I am looking
forward to Grey Matter too.
--
Noman
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

PW wrote:

>>
>
>>Have you tried "The longest journey" from Funcom? I think it came out
>>around 2000. Received multiple awards: http://longestjourney.com/
>
> Totally forgot about that. I almost bought it when it first came out.
> Might be to "weird" for us though. And I don't want to have to fuss
> with getting a game that old working on XP.

I've played this on XP - I don't remember any major problems getting it to
work. Perhaps simply setting compatability mode did it?

> Seems there is a more current version of "The Longest Journey"
> reviewed here
>
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/longestjourney2wt/review.html?mode=gsreview
>
> I am reading it now.

That's Dreamfall - not a more current version, more of a sequel of sorts. As
a piece of interactive storytelling it's excellent - probably the best I've
come across. However, it's not a classic adventure game; it's quite light
on puzzles and there's an occasional fight to handle too. There is another
issue - Dreamfall comes to an abrupt end and is in dire need of a sequel to
finish things up.

Both The Longest Journey and Dreamfall are (in my opinion) well worth
playing. The characterisation and story are exceptional - the protagonists
in both games have depth in a way that is lacking in many stories (be they
games, novels, movies or whatever). I found myself completely immersed in
the story in both games - the final stages of Dreamfall in particular were
very moving (trying to avoid spoilers here).

> Thanks,
>
> -pw

- Arthur
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

"noman" <no_m_an RemoveThis @zzzyahoo.yycom> wrote in message
news:ek2tn31uv5mrkv63gjlckmrmcc6cv8upr3@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 22:34:40 -0500, "Mary" <non RemoveThis @invalid.ddd> wrote:
>
> >"noman" <no_m_an RemoveThis @zzzyahoo.yycom> wrote in message
> >news:c2vqn39b0jtieg10jr8n795jlin69sc4en@4ax.com...
> >> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 21:51:09 -0500, "Mary" <nospam RemoveThis @invalid.swl> wrote:
> >>
>
> >>>I checked Gamespot and there is a Review of Myst Exile. It says
> >>>Gamespot Score 0.0 - what does that mean?
> >>
> >> I see that it got 8.7 and quite positive review. The link is below
> >> http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/myst3exile/review.html
> >
> >On the review I saw (I'm sure it was on Gamespot) it said 0.0 where the
> >review score usually is, but on the same page said there was 39 reviews
and
> >15 player reviews. I read some of them. Do you know where the page I am
> >talking about is?
>
> Did you try the link I posted. It should go to the review page.

Yes, the link you gave me showed up 8.7 for Myst Exile, but when I was on
Gamespot on main page I think , I used a link which I think said Myst Exile
and it showed 0.0 for Gamespot score, but the review was good below where it
said 0.0 so I was wondering where I got that page.

> >I am not a Myst fan except for Myst Exile. I
> >liked a lot of the early games such as Monkey Island series and Gabriel
> >knight. I will be interested to see what Gray Matter will be like. Its
been
> >a while since Jane Jensen has made a game. For me, it will be hard to
beat
> >the GK series. They are among my top favorites.
>
> Gabriel Knight is my favourite adventure game series. I am looking
> forward to Grey Matter too.

It will be interesting to find out if Jane is as good as she used to be

Mary
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:58:59 -0800, noman wrote:

> On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:38:49 -0500, Jenny100 <nospam.RemoveThis@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:18:12 -0800, noman wrote:
>>>
>>> What Gamespot doesn't do is to give adventure games a free-hand and
>>> relaxed criteria, just because it's a genre in trouble. They largely
>>> review a game based on its merits and that's something I appreciate.
>>> There will always be odd reviews which you won't agree with or some
>>> that may even be factually wrong, but I am talking about a trend in
>>> general.
>>
>>All I know about a trend in general game sites is that any that are
>>supported by advertising dollars aren't even reliable for assessments of
>>action game reviews. Maybe it was always that way, but I've become more
>>aware of it recently.
>
> You can keep repeating this but it doesn't make your argument any more
> valid.

You can do the same. The fact is that when I first started playing
adventures, before I knew any better, unfavorable reviews at general game
sites like Gamespot kept me from buying and playing many adventure games.
Later, after being advised by other adventure gamers and discovering
adventure game sites, I gave them a try and many of them turned out to be
among my favorite games.


> The fact is, that based on the list of adventure titles that Gamespot
> have reviewed since Jan 2005, the advertising dollar claim of yours (or
> the one about general dislike of adventure games in general) doesn't
> seem to hold true. It's not just one game, it's a list of dozens of
> titles that I posted.

They have different ideas of what constitutes a good game than I do, and
I'm not all that different from others who play primarily adventure games
rather than action-oriented game.

> Now, you may not agree with some of these reviews. That's okay. I don't
> agree with most of the reviews on adventure fansites.

I think Quandary is the only site where I agree with most of the reviews.
But at least on adventure sites they don't preface so many their reviews
with tired old complaints about adventure games being dead and having
dated gameplay.


> What I have argued against in this thread is this claim of yours that I
> see repeated often times on usenet and webforums by people who have no
> basis to say that. I thought the huge game list from Gamespot should be
> an eye opener, but apparently for you it's not. -- Noman

The grades were all over the board and many of the reviews gave too much
weight to what the game "looked" like. How many of those reviews did you
read? Were any of them really helpful? If they helped you, fine. Too many
of them have been misleading and useless for me to trust any of them
without being able to compare with reviews on adventure sites.
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

"Jenny100" <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2008.01.03.22.18.35.316958@nospam.com...
> On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:08:14 +0100, B.C. wrote:
>
> >
> > "Jenny100" <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com> schreef in bericht
> > news:pan.2008.01.03.03.30.21.197820@nospam.com...
> >
> >> Ripper
> >> is one of the best adventure games I've ever played, and there's no way
> >
> > I've been hesitating to buy this game...........but now I 've ordered it
> > right away!!
> >
> > Barbara
>
> Be warned it will take some tweaking. I had no problem playing it in DOS
> on an old computer after patching it. But for a new computer you'll
> probably have to consult Inferno's site.
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~infernofilecabinet4/XpSetupsP_T/Ripper_Setup.htm
>
> It's a great old FMV game if you can get it working.

I guess I played it in Dosbox and I use Win 98 most of the time for older
games, so didn't have any problems. I tried to read what it said in the
above URL, just to compare it to my experience, but the red print against a
black background is too hard on my eyes, so I couldn't read it. I don't
really need to see it anyway. I just wondered what it said.

Mary
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:18:43 -0500, Mary wrote:

> "Jenny100" <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com> wrote in message
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~infernofilecabinet4/XpSetupsP_T/Ripper_Setup.htm
>>

> I guess I played it in Dosbox and I use Win 98 most of the time for older
> games, so didn't have any problems. I tried to read what it said in the
> above URL, just to compare it to my experience, but the red print against
> a black background is too hard on my eyes, so I couldn't read it. I don't
> really need to see it anyway. I just wondered what it said.
>
> Mary

Just so you know, you can copy/paste the text into MS Word or Wordpad and
then change the color of the text to whatever you want.
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an.. 

In article <pan.2008.01.17.06.31.29.870581.DeleteThis@nospam.com>,
Jenny100 <nospam.DeleteThis@nospam.com> wrote:

> Just so you know, you can copy/paste the text into MS Word or
> Wordpad and then change the color of the text to whatever you want.

Or use a browser (such as Opera) that allows you to turn off bad colour
choices with a simple click on a button.

Rikard
 >> Stay informed about: Any recommendations for an Adventure game for a husband an..