Not a genre - but I want some new You Don’t Know Jack. Come on, it’d be perfect for the Wii!
In fact, give me some trivia games in general on the Wii. It’s a perfect setup - everyone has their own buzzer.
The website has a daily Dis or Dat game, and the host’s dialogue is as hilarious as ever. But I agree, YDKJ was excellent and would be tons of fun on the Wii.
It’s not on the Wii, but it is on the web.
Aventure Games are barely hanging on, but they’ve sort of morphed into “survival horror” games. When I say “Adventure Games,” I mean games that involve a lot of exploration, talking to people, finding items, solving puzzles, but little or no actual “action” or fighting or anything of that sort - think “King’s Quest,” “Maniac Mansion,” “Monkey Island,” “Police Quest,” the Gabriel Knight games, Myst, etc.
There are still a few around - Trace Memory for the DS was a great this-gen adventure game, and the same developer is releasing the noirish “Hotel Dusk” in a few weeks, which looks to be outstanding.
“Survival Horror” games like the Silent Hill and Fatal Frame franchises sort of came out of adventure games by way of games like the “Clock Tower” series, but they tend to feature more fighting and action (which are usually half-assed, making you wonder why they didn’t just have the guts to make it a full-on adventure game with no combat).
RPG’s aren’t dead, but it’s just a genre that’s growing anymore. Even though I personally dislike MMORPG’s, that’s sucking (pun intended) up all the investment money. I get three RPG’s a year, but at least one will stink.
Does anyone know how to run these? I downloaded two C64 emulators and I can’t seem to load a game on it. I so desperately want to play Adventure and that one with the Vampire. All those hours standing at JC Penny’s acting like I knew how to use a computer will amount to something!
I bought the first episode, and was desperate for it to be good, but it was really disappointing if I’m honest. The writing was insipid, the voice acting (particularly Sam) teeth-grindingly awful, and the puzzles not really challenging. Quite annoying load times as well between none-too-huge areas, and ones you find yourself traversing quite a lot.
Maybe I’m looking back with rose-tinted glasses (or maybe I’m just grumpy), but it just doesn’t seem anywhere as snappy as the original, the comic books themselves or even the short-lived TV series. Pretty grating having Sam say, “you crack me up, little buddy,” when Max hasn’t said anything remotely funny.
Too true. They’re still around, but you have to look harder to find them. I’ve noticed also that, over the years, there seem to be fewer and fewer joysticks to be had. Joysticks were once what everyone used to play all sorts of games (at least those with graphics), and now the industry’s gone to “controllers”.
Oh dear; I appear to have just roundly slated a former doper’s work. Sorry, didn’t mean to be crass - I completely missed your post, Miller. Would’ve been a bit more diplomatic… :o
Well, he keeps insisting that they cut all the good stuff out of what he wrote, so he might view your post as a sort of vindication.
Avalon Hill, the company that kept that tabletop genre alive for so long here in the US was bought out by Milton Bradley a while back. Since then, they’ve tried to create some newer hex based combat games… but nothing that has truly blown my skirt up.
However, for the PC, there are a handful of games out there… Games for Windows Magazine (formerly known as Computer Gaming World, has a review of one new Wargame every issue.
I have played and enjoyed the hell out of Steel Panthers:World at War, which is a very modable PC wargame. Fun fun fun!
Now, if I could just find the same in a modern context, that would be awesome
You can find lots of wargames at www.matrixgames.com. I really like Norm Koger’s Operational Art of War III. I like the flexibility and the tons of scenarios that come with it.
Download VICE and extract the contents of the ZIP file to any folder. Browse to it and run x64.exe.
When it opens, ignore the command line (that is, if you don’t remember commands from twenty years ago - I know I don’t!) and go to the File menu and choose “Autostart disk/tape image.” That will open up a file browser. Find the place where you stored ADVENTUR.D64 (or whatever game you want to play), and double click on it.
Happy old-school gaming!
To be fair (and this is going to sound a bit mealy-mouthed now, but it’s true), I think the problem may well be largely down to timing. The original and cartoons worked with quickfire dialogue that may not have all been comedy gold, but kept the thing rolling. Here there are such clunking gaps between every line delivered that it seems like a beat before a really big punchline, which rarely actually comes through. I think the software does a pretty poor job of managing the dialogue to good effect.
Rail shooters, i.e. shoot-em-up games where you have little or no control over your movement but instead just get to control where you’re aiming. Panzer Dragoon Orta seemed to be the last gasp for that genre.
Urk…axes, man, axes! “Axises”…shudder…
Forgot to mention: ALT+D will throw it into fullscreen, so you don’t have to play the game in a little box.
Was I the only one who enjoyed Spaceward Ho!?
Anyhow, I hope we get more platform games with minimal combat. I liked the first Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia. Hated the sequel, too much combat. I always thought that Tomb Raider and King’s Quest would merge and that would be the future of adventure gaming. That never really came to happen.
Laser-video arcade games. Remember Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace and Cliff Hanger?
I’m not sure if “extinct” is the way to describe them, though, as much as “freakish mutants who clawed their way into being after being mutated by an atomic bomb and burned themselves out after stomping their gargantuan wave of destruction across the land.”
Nanostray 2 is coming out Any Day Now and is supposedly very good.
Ok, I downloaded it to a file I called “commodore 64,” but I can’t run it. I double-click it and I highlight and select Open from the file menu, but nothing happens. What do I have to do?