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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: FREE GAME: Return of the Phantom
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2024 10:38:31 -0400
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On Sat, 02 Nov 2024 09:21:59 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Sat, 02 Nov 2024 01:39:57 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
>
>>What was your favorite adventure games? I did like the humor in the 
>>beginning of Space Quest IV on my friends' fancy full tower 386 PC! I 
>>was jealous!
>
>Hero's Quest, later renamed to Quest For Glory is my favorite
>adventure game of all time. It is also my favorite series. King's
>Quest IV, V and VI are also some of my favorites. Maniac Mansion is
>the game that got me into the genre so obviously I have a lot of love
>for that one.
>


Ah, favorite adventure games. I can't say I have a favorite but there
are definitely some I hold above the rest.

"Kings Quest VI" was impressive largely for its production values.
It's story and puzzles were pure Sierra tripe, but man that game
looked and sounded great; it was head-n-shoulders above anything else
at the time (especially the CD-ROM 'talkie' version). You really could
believe that one day video-games might surpass Hollywood! Also, it was
one of the first games to offer 'multiple endings', which felt
amazingly forward-thinking.


"Loom" wasn't that great a _game_, but boy did it have atmosphere!
Even moreso the CD-ROM version, which replaced the tinkly MIDI with
real CD-Audio. But even the EGA version (which introduced dithering to
large swathes of the gaming population) was gorgeous; it was amazing
what you could do with just 16 colors. 


"Mission Critical" is one of my favorite games, ever. While the
live-action video (mainly used in the intro and closing cinematics)
weren't that all impressive (sorry, Michael Dorn!) the rest of the
game was fantastic, with an excellent story, fantastic MIDI
soundtrack, a fun strategy mini-game and a realistic sci-fi setting.
Even thirty years later, every time I play it I'm surprised at how
well it holds up. Well, with the exception of those live-action bits.



"Zork" (in all its many forms) may not be one of my /favorites/ but it
definitely ranks up there was one of my more memorable adventure
experiences. I can still remember the vivid impression it had on me as
I crept through its dungeons one spring morning so long, long ago.


"Full Throttle" doesn't get a lot of love but I think it's one of
LucasArt's best adventure games. It's got humor, drama, and action;
it's got an terrific voice-acting, great visuals, and an awesome
soundtrack. The puzzles were a bit hit-or-miss but that was always an
issue with LucasArts adventures. The action sequences and the game's
shortness were turn-offs to many too. But the overall package was a
fantastic experience; LucasArts at their very best.




And there are so many more! Adventure games used to be the
bread-n-butter of the PC platform. The genre really allowed the PC to
show-off its impressive RAM, storage and CPU capabilities even as it
hid the fact that it couldn't move sprites very fast. There were a lot
of stinkers in the genre too, but so very many classics. 

After Myst (or, more importantly, the flood of Myst-clones that aped
the style but lacked the atmosphere) the adventure game crashed for a
while, but even then there were still a trickle of games coming out.
Some of those were quite good too, but none had the impression on me
that those early DOS-era titles had.