Quest for Glory 1-5

Quest for Glory 1-5

I began writing this as a comment following ‘Love letter to the developers.’ It outgrew the comment box, and this series deserves my full review so here goes (and then some!) Let me start by saying I am a long-time Point ‘n Click Adventure/RPG fan. Quest for Glory was not my first, but it was one of my favorite series! I began with QfG 3: Wages of War. It brought me much enjoyment! (I believe I enjoyed QfG 1+2 & 4 somewhat more though!) QfG 5 was part of the less-well-advised foray of Sierra into CGI animation. It was bold but basically misguided in my view, and I did not play Qf5 or any of the King’s Quest titles past VI (6) since they were effectively different genres (also I understand the writing suffered!) Trivial detail: King’s Quest 5 was actually my first P’n-C Adventure game and I will cherish that one in particular (darn you, Cedric!) alongside several QfG titles, notably 2, close to my heart FOREVER!

Real player with 65.4 hrs in game

I grew up playing the third game in this series, and it wasn’t until I was about 18 that I was able to track down and play the rest. I immediately properly, wholly loved them. So glad these are finally available on Steam. This is an charming, enchanting series and there’s nothing else quite like it.

The worldbuilding in this series is off the charts. Each entry sees you in a completely different land inspired by real-world mythology (e.g., Egyptian mythology, Slavic folklore, etc.) It rivals anything of today and surpasses most of it. Coming from the current sea of the same tired Tolkien derivatives it’s a breath of fresh air. The individual stories are pretty good, some even great, but as a complete saga this is fantastic. And that’s really the best way to experience it (and the only way to appreciate the genre switched fifth game). So set aside a good chunk of time, and let yourself sink into this marvelous world.

Real player with 42.6 hrs in game

Quest for Glory 1-5 on Steam

MirrorMoon EP

MirrorMoon EP

OK, I bought this game a couple days ago and started by putting a couple hours on it. I made it through Side A (basically the tutorial) and visited a few stars in Side B (the main game). If I had written the review at that point it would have been a fairly negative one. The next day I decided to have another go at it before writing a bad review. My intent was to only play an hour or so… I ended up spending basically the whole day and logged about eight more hours on it, lol. Needless to say, MirrorMoon had really grown on me and I had slowly fallen in love with this game.

Real player with 22.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Cult Classic Sci-fi Games.


So far, this game looks like it’s going to be one of my favorite games of all time. However, I cannot say that it’s perfect or spectacular without a lot of bias. This game happens to have just about everything I love in a game, so of course I really, REALLY like it, but it is not without faults.

The reason why I like this game so much probably has to do with my favorite attributes to have in a video game. They would be: exploration, puzzles, atmosphere, huge size (why I like games that use procedural generation so much, which this game has) and space.

Real player with 13.3 hrs in game

MirrorMoon EP on Steam

Armikrog

Armikrog

This game is actually not as bad as most reviews state it is. Though coming from a Neverhood fan, it has its pitfalls.

First off, let’s start with the game’s artistic features. The claymation style is rather wonderful to look at, fitting with Armikrog’s whimsical style (like the Neverhood). It was pleasing to hear Terry Taylor return to make the soundtrack, albeit taking a more “earthy” and electronic turn than the blues and Dixie soundtrack he wrote for the Neverhood. Despite the musical shift, the music is still great to listen to through levels. Last but not least, the return of the near-entire staff who made the original game. Tennapel and several of the original members coming on board again truly helped make this game amazing. Most of the quirky humor was still prevalent with the characters and situations, from many of the game’s writers. Those aspects helped shape the experience to be enjoyable.

Real player with 16.1 hrs in game

This review contains spoilers, mostly from The Neverhood

I don’t know how many attempts at writing this review I’ve had before. And to be honest, I still don’t entirely know how I feel about this game - but I’ll do my best to express all that comes to my mind.

Let me start by saying that The Neverhood is my ultimate favourite game. As in, for me it’s an absolute perfection, a masterpiece among games, my favourite game ever since I first played it as a ~6-year-old.

The Neverhood has everything.

Real player with 8.1 hrs in game

Armikrog on Steam

Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon

Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon

When Under a Killing Moon debuted in 1994 it was a marvel, the first story-based adventure game to incorporate both 3D first person movement and FMV (Full Motion Video). When it showed up on Steam at a bargain price I decided to replay it and see how it held up against the recent spate of indie-made story games that I’ve been playing. The verdict - it’s still pretty amazing.

Sure, the graphics are pixellated and the controls are a little…odd. But the production values are stellar - great sound, acting, writing, and game design. The mouse-based movement control took a little getting used to, but actually worked much better than the fidgety controls in recent games like Edith Finch and Stories Untold, which just about drove me mad.

Real player with 23.0 hrs in game

Trawling through the relics of adventure gaming’s past can often be more frustrating than fun, but I’m happy I gave Tex Murphy a chance! Under a Killing Moon tells a great tale set in a near-future, post-apocalyptic world, done up in the most advanced tech 1994 could muster. Even if – unlike myself – they don’t see beauty in jerky live-action videos so low res they contain weird rainbow blotches, everybody who enjoys adventures will find something to love in the silly-serious narrative, and especially in the character of Tex Murphy: a down-on-his-luck, fedora-wearing PI torn straight from the pages of a Raymond Chandler novel. Some of the actors are pretty good, some are so bad they’re good, and some of them are just straight-up bad – tough, yet affable, yet goofy ol’ Tex, though, is consistently played to perfection (perhaps that’s because he’s portrayed by Chris Jones, who is also the series' head designer). It’s easy to see why this character picked up such a cult following!

Real player with 16.8 hrs in game

Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon on Steam

Psychonauts

Psychonauts

First time playing in 2021 and it is still worth it!

Real player with 22.0 hrs in game

its style is timeless

its gameplay IS NOT

psychonuts

Real player with 19.1 hrs in game

Psychonauts on Steam

The Silver Case

The Silver Case

The Silver Case is a great debut from Goichi Suda featuring a hard-boiled detective story, which also somewhat an unpolished experience with too many ideas which didn’t exactly follow through with interesting conclusions.

The presentation of this VN is a departure from “NVL” or “ADV” formats we’ve known from other contemporaries such as Enix, 07th-Expansion, Key and other developers. It’s a mixture of not only text, background and limited 2D character animation, but also live-action sequences, 3D exploration(although the scope is very limited – it’s pretty much on-rail), and full-motion video shot in documentary-style. Not to mention the highly stylistic character designs.

Real player with 40.0 hrs in game

The Silver Case would be very difficult (nigh impossible most likely) to review in a standard fashion. I will note upfront that this is my first experience with SUDA51’s work so I won’t be able to make comparisons there.

This VN is very unconventional. It has fantastic music but the typewriter effects sound more like a jackhammer (you will eventually acclimate to this I hope – I did – and I recommend having the effects volume around half the music volume). The visual layout consists of panels everywhere, all the time — sometimes 2d, sometimes 3d, and sometimes FMV. Sometimes all 3 at once. Scene, time and location transitions happen frequently with 3d model illustrations and sometimes a brief exploration sequence suddenly appears – with an old school gaming clunky-but-completely-serviceable interface.

Real player with 36.4 hrs in game

The Silver Case on Steam

Beyond Good and Evil™

Beyond Good and Evil™

About The Game

Beyond Good & Evil, published by Ubisoft in 2003. Where do I start with this game? First off, I want to say that this is a good PC port. It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done. I will explain why later. What’s the premise to this game? You play as Jade, a reporter who lives with her pig-uncle Pey’j, taking care of orphans on your lighthouse reservation. In this planet called Hillys, Hillyans fight for survival as evil DomZ, alien-like creatures, take over the planet. A combat force called the Alpha Sections has been sent to fight back the DomZ, but when the Alpha Sections fail to show up during attacks, a suspicious Jade goes undercover for a resistance force called IRIS to see what the Alpha Sections are really up to. Camera in hand, you participate in various undercover missions to expose the Alpha Sections for who they really are.

Real player with 18.4 hrs in game

Beyond good and evil - это классическое игровое приключение, сделанное с душой, во времена когда у юбисофта еще была душа… Я играл в beyond good and evil в 2021 году впервые, и ей все равно удалось очаровать меня до глубины души. Хотя, как и со всеми старыми играми, над ней пришлось поколдовать, прежде чем запустить ее в нормальном разрешении и фпсе, все же по сравнению с многими играми это было довольно легко. (не слушайте тех, кто что-то пишет про порты и подобные глупости, это вам не инсёрдженси)

Real player with 16.0 hrs in game

Beyond Good and Evil™ on Steam

Nancy Drew®: The Captive Curse

Nancy Drew®: The Captive Curse

This was my first ever Nancy Drew game and now I’m hooked! I thought this game was going to be really corny and the characters looked silly, but i was intrugued by the German castle setting and i love point and click puzzle games which are so hard to find! I wasn’t expecting much from the game and i was very pleased. Some of the puzzles i ended up looking up clues for online, but found if i would of just tried a little more i would of gotten them. But overall i found them challenging and fun. I liked many aspects of the game, which i think really sold it to me.

Real player with 23.9 hrs in game

♥ Spooky spooky.

The first time I played Captive Curse, I was absolutely terrified.

Though the game firmly keeps with being family friendly, it does an excellent job of conveying the castle and its array of characters fear. From the dark atomsphere to the animal skull in the dungeon to the monster lurking outside the castle walls, replaying it gave me the shivers!

If you’d like to play a spookier Nancy Drew game, this one makes for a great choice.

♥ Love the mini games.

Usually I tend to skip the mini games unless they’re directly related to clearing a task or two. Playing Raid? Killing cows in search of the hidden monster? Loved them! The two mini games added a great amount of replay value to the game. Admittedly I wouldn’t mind if they made more of the mini games as fun as those two!

Real player with 20.1 hrs in game

Nancy Drew®: The Captive Curse on Steam

Outcast - Second Contact

Outcast - Second Contact

Outcast has been and always will be my favorite game of all time and this remake is a dream come true for fans of the original. Sadly, to get the full experience from it you must have played the original back in the day because the nostalgia plays a huge role here, there’s no working around it. If you play this as a new player you will definitely still have a great time as long as you keep in mind this is a 22 years old game with good graphics and modernized combat mechanics but same very outdated everything else, like map design, quest design, cutscenes and especially animations. It’s hard to call it a remake, it’s more of a glorified remaster but I’ll call it a remake since that’s what the devs call it and to be honest they deserve it, it’s easy to see how much effort and love they put into it. Also you’ll have to bear with the new and extremely clunky combat/movement system which I’ll talk about later.

Real player with 33.5 hrs in game

A true and beautiful remake that absolutely keeps with the spirit and gameplay of the original while still managing to add a few changes or additions to the gameplay. These appeals to modern gamers while at the same time are not a detriment for old fans in any way. Graphically, this game looks three times more beautiful than the original with it’s sharp and clear renditions of the terrain and characters as well as the background art, and I personally think it (the original) is still a beautiful game in its own right.

Real player with 27.3 hrs in game

Outcast - Second Contact on Steam

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition

I think that this is a really well made game. I’ve enjoyed the freedom and atmosphere that the game gives you, the unique setting was really cool, and I felt that the choices that you make in this game have more of a impact than later Elder Scrolls games. There are some problems though, mainly with the fact that there is no way to manually fast travel on your own (without using Mark/Recall or having to pay for it at specific areas in the game), and slow run speed. There was also a bit too many fetch quests in my opinion, but theses problems are small and minor when in comparison to the wealth of great things that the game does well. Highly recommend it!

Real player with 160.8 hrs in game

A true no frills adventure game. I cannot highly recommend it enough. A few points to follow though -

  1. Download mods. Please do not play this without them and expect a great experience. Don’t turn yourself away from the game right away. It’s nearly 20 years old at this point, the game could use all the help it can get.

  2. Take it easy. There’s no wrong way to play. There are certainly “sub-optimal” builds for your character, but that’s the fun of the game. You want to swing a big ass mace and cast spells in light armor? Go for it.

Real player with 138.4 hrs in game

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition on Steam