They just don’t make them like they used to.
That’s an overused term by all accounts these days and is often applied to so very many things. Many of these things are pure nostalgic throwbacks with rose tinted glasses to a “better” time when things were different.
I think computer gaming is one area where this is a valid figure of speech, for the most part. I know there are some pretty damn good games out these days across a wide variety of platforms, but something keeps taking me back to the good old days.
There are some games which I wish we could erase from history, but others where I’m really glad that conservative efforts such as ScummVM are keeping the dreams alive.
I’ve spent most of this evening playing through Day of the Tentacle. I remember first buying this from a computer fair oh so many years ago. The game came with a hints FAQ that was sealed with a sticker to prevent accidental exposure to puzzle hints. I also seem to remember a lot of fun with the sound. Back in the days when memmaker ruled and it was all about the first 640kb of RAM.
You had to have a special bootdisk for games that only loaded your sound card drivers and your cd-rom drive drivers, special autoexec.bat and config.sys, heh that was fun. Probably explains why I like poking around in a Linux console so much too.
Today’s gamers never had it so easy with their plug and play technology. I remember plug and play when we used to call it plug and pray. I also remember having a PC mag that detailed the upcoming processor technology named MMX (MultiMedia eXtensions). I think the POD racing game was one of the first games to take advantage of that.
Heh, that was back when you could have a Cyrix CPU too, wow, memories are flooding back now.
Anyway, Day of the tentacle. It’s all about the story. All of those Lucasarts classics – The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle. Even the non-LA games like Beneath a Steel sky. I can sit down and play through these games from start to finish and have fun – even though I’ve played the game a gazillion times before. It’s like watching a really good movie. An interactive movie. Where I call the shots.
“if my body were being controlled by some demented, sadistic puppet-master”
Bernard Bernoulli- Day Of The Tentacle
Sure your First Person Shooters are good for a bit of mindless fun (and some are good for thinking fun – bioshock is a thinker for example), but the point and click adventure game is your thinking man’s game. Where you can take your time to work out just what you need to do with the rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle or just who you need to speak to in order to find out the secret of Monkey Island(TM).
You couldn’t die (for the most part), there was never a case of you doing something so stupid that you couldn’t complete your task) and you could always find a way to get ahead in navigating.
There’s no doubt that I like a broad variety of games, but these particular ones hold a special place in my heart. It’s a shame that so many companies felt that the time had passed and cancelled such projects as Sam and Max 2 (which turned into a bunch of episodic games, weren’t a patch on the original though) and Full Throttle 2 (WHY LUCASARTS, WHY????).
Before the PC, I remember having Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island on the Atari ST. No messing around with memmaker on that system :p
Monkey Island is a particular favourite of mine too. The first two are probably the only ones written in the true spirit of the whole thing, probably because they were done by Ron Gilbert. Some of the dialogue in that game is just simply priceless. Without a doubt the best part of the game for me is when you’re learning the skills for swordfighting.
Guybrush Threepwood “You fight like a Dairy Farmer”
Scary pirate “How Appropriate, you fight like a cow!”
The Secret of Monkey Island
I remember my dad buying Full Throttle, again from a computer fair. Back when games came in cd cases inside huge unnecessary boxes. I miss those things, at least you felt like you were getting something for your £30. It had a slightly different menu from the push, pull, give, use block I’d been used to, but it worked surprisingly well. Again, the dialogue, story and gameplay made it an amazing game.
Ben “You know what’d look better on your nose?”
Bartender “What?”
Ben “The bar” *THWACK*
Full Throttle
We need more games like this back in the mainstream, there’s still a market for them. The adventure game studio provides an engine with which to build your own games and there are hundreds available for download. You’ll even find some from Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation fame).
Some of the games are even worth a play through. There’s a fan version of an Indiana Jones game coming out (when it’s done, it’s not been in development for quite as long as Duke Nukem Forever though)
I can’t tell if my love for these games stems from me playing them as a child or just because they are so damned good. I do know the world is a worse place with out them though.
This has been my first decent content post for a while, I missed writing, hopefully it won’t be too much longer before my next post 
Come back point ‘n’ click adventure games, we miss you dearly.
