It’s not just an esoteric clue whose significance only struck me some years later (damn you, Ifnkovhgroghprm, and your stupid spinning wheel), but it also conveniently sums up the experience of adventure gaming rather well. I mean, how else do you arrive at the solution of chucking a bra into an incinerator to get a wire to bend into a lockpick to open up the general store? Exactly.<\/p>\n
After dominating home computers for over a decade, adventure gaming just sort of choked and died shortly after LucasArts released Grim Fandango in 1998. King’s Quest 8 smugly presided over the genre’s funeral. For a few years, everyone was too busy shooting stuff in Dr. Carmack’s Amazing Three-Dee! to waste their time actually thinking about anything, so further attempts to resuscitate the genre failed miserably. “O tempora o ludi,” Cicero seemed to say, camping an enemy spawn. <\/p>\n
Then in 2006, Telltale Games managed to whip up some interest after picking up Steve Purcell and LucasArts’ cult darling Sam & Max franchise, and reintroducing the world to a talking dog and a hyperkinetic rabbity-thing who solve crimes. “Omg, this is so much better than that Counter-Strike rubbish,” squealed reformed snipers, thinking and gaming at the same time, for the first time, ever. <\/p>\n
So, risen from the grave like a huge phantom rubber chicken on a pulley, adventure gaming suddenly seems to be cool again. The recent re-release of LucasArts’ iconic The Secret of Monkey Island has precipitated a veritable frenzy for retro revisions, with fans bawling for remakes of this, that, and the other thing. Thinking backwards is totally the new black. With that in mind, here’s my Hot Five Most Wanted: Developed by Westwood and originally released in 1997, Blade Runner cast players as Ray McCoy, one of the eponymous cops tasked with the termination of replicants in a bleak, dystopian vision of the future. Following on fifteen years after the film’s release, and not having much to do with the events of the film anyway, Blade Runner adheres to the law that Games That Are Released After the Film And\/Or Have Nothing Much To Do With It Anyway Will Not Suck (see Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, GoldenEye, and The Godfather). <\/p>\n Space Quest III<\/strong><\/p>\n I just really, really, really want to see Fester Blatt’s World O’ Wonders in HD. Also, the Orat-on-a-Stick is still one of my all-time favourite game props. Because it’s an ickle widdle Orat on a stick. So cuuuuuuute!<\/p>\n Day of the Tentacle<\/strong><\/p>\n Every bit as magnificent as the Monkey Island series, it’s kinda mad that LucasArts hasn’t done a remake of this one already. Besides, everyone secretly thinks it’s better than Monkey Island, anyway.<\/p>\n Quest for Glory II<\/strong><\/p>\n I dithered between Quest for Glory I, Quest for Glory II, and Quest for Glory III here. Actually, Quest for Glory IV too. Everything except Quest for Glory V, which was patently crap. But Quest for Glory II wins in the end because you get to ride dinosaurs. <\/p>\n Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers<\/strong><\/p>\n His memory forever eclipsed by that insufferable King Graham and his brats, New Orleans’ voodoo fancier and self-styled modern-day inquisitor is criminally overlooked in Sierra’s catalogue. The second game wasn’t great, and the third one was ghastly, but Sins of the Fathers is jumping up and down screaming for another visit.<\/p>\n
Blade Runner <\/strong><\/p>\n