i have always thought this since the DS came out, its perfect for point & click adventures so how come TTG & lucasarts aint bringing out their games on what is a potential gold mine for this genre of games?
also anyone know if theres any acronym for point & click adventure games please as i kinda get tired of typing it all the time lol!
Look at the resolution of the ds what is it less than 800x600. It has 2 screens also the ds is great for new ideas but just to bring back old ported point and click games isn't worth the time to produce. MYST DS was and is disappointing look at gamefly rating of it.
Member Rating: 3.6 (272 ratings) thats 3.6 out of 10 folks
To be honest I wasn't looking for ported games. If a game originally came out on the PC I'd generally try to get it for the PC. If it came out for some other console and I happen to have it then I might get that game. If I don't have the right console I'd wait and see if it gets ported to one I have.
[EDIT] Thinking about it... If there's on game I'd like to see in a 'special edition' I think it would have to be Myst. Water in games looks so realistic, these days, that I cringe whenever I revisit myst.
Look at the resolution of the ds what is it less than 800x600. It has 2 screens also the ds is great for new ideas but just to bring back old ported point and click games isn't worth the time to produce. MYST DS was and is disappointing look at gamefly rating of it.
Member Rating: 3.6 (272 ratings) thats 3.6 out of 10 folks
yeah but i am sure the DS is powerful enough to run decent versions of sam & max etc
of course dumbed down gfx, but the touch stylus makes the DS a perfect platform for adventure titles
[EDIT] Thinking about it... If there's on game I'd like to see in a 'special edition' I think it would have to be Myst. Water in games looks so realistic, these days, that I cringe whenever I revisit myst.
Play realMyst please
The water isn't photorealistic, but it's a heck of a lot closer than the original Myst.
Man, I wish that realMyst would be released on Steam and such. The only place to play it legitimately is GameTap, and that's a bit of a hard sell.
Also, jared25, Myst DS didn't fail due to the DS's flaws, it failed because Midway sucks, and delivered one of the worst ports of all time.
I though the Touch Detective games and the CSI port were okay. Ankh had a lot of problems, Jake Hunter... I wouldn't recommend that one. I'm still playing Miami Law, so the verdict's still out for me, but I'll be reviewing it for Adventure Gamers in the near future.
Funny, I sat through the intro of Runaway 1, then completely lost any interest in playing it at all. Seriously, the game starts with the main character chilling in the chair and telling us the back story as a bland monologue? Kudos to you for forging onward, that's some serious will power.
I'm sorry I missed this post;you really hit the nail the head about the intro. And it doesn't actually get better after the intro. I don't actually know if I even got half way through. I seriously hope I did because I wouldn't have liked to endure another stretch as long as what I did play. Were it a smaller fraction, say a third or a quarter, I'd have had to kill somebody just to relieve tension.
And you're so right about the protagonist's monologue at the beginning. It wouldn't be so bad if you could cut past it... Actually, it would still be pretty bad. The dialogue is terrible. I know it's common for a writer to make the hero of their story an idealised and romanticised version of themselves but they should at least try to hide it. Ever heard the term “Mary-Sue”?
This, to me, looks like an adventure, but I've been mistaken before. Can anybody verify?
And this and also this... [EDIT], ok i googled that last one and it does seem to be an adventure but I think I'll wait until its been out a few weeks and other people have tried it before getting it so that somebody can verify it doesn't have any professor layton type puzzles.
At least one of those games is an interesting subgenre known as "Hidden Object" games. You're presented with a picture with a lot of objects, and you have to find specific ones. They may tie the whole thing together with a story, but I don't know if that necessarily makes it an adventure game.
At least one of those games is an interesting subgenre known as "Hidden Object" games. You're presented with a picture with a lot of objects, and you have to find specific ones. They may tie the whole thing together with a story, but I don't know if that necessarily makes it an adventure game.
This, to me, looks like an adventure, but I've been mistaken before. Can anybody verify?
And this and also this... [EDIT], ok i googled that last one and it does seem to be an adventure but I think I'll wait until its been out a few weeks and other people have tried it before getting it so that somebody can verify it doesn't have any professor layton type puzzles.
That Mystery Stories is a hidden object game, like Mystery Case Files, where on each level you have to find the objects listed. Kind of like Where's waldo, or those I Spy books, but with more difficulty. I like them, but I do not consider them adventure games.
Me too.
It's basically an adventure game with most of the puzzles removed, but has a really clever plot.
That may sound weird but If you've ever tried the last game by the same author (Shadow of Destiny on the ps2) I think you'll agree it's actually an improvement.
It's as if he looked back at his previous work and said, "OK, it's clear we're not the best in the world. Next game we make, we just won't bother with all of the bits that we suck at, we'll just do the bits we're good at. And so rather than end up with a game that tries to copy how adventure games are supposed to work, but is annoying to play, we'll end up with a really odd game, that is fun to play."
My favourite adventure game on the DS is Hotel Dusk, hands down. The game is just full to the brim with atmosphere and has so much style. A brilliant title which I'd recommend with hesitation.
Ace Attorney/Phoenix Wright is different to what fans of LucasArts and Telltale style adventure games might expect, but don't let that put you off. The blend of amazing dramatic stories, memorable characters, and hilarious dialogue is pretty much unparalleled in the genre. Most of the LucasArts ones have a really good story, or are very funny, but few consistently do both (although Tim Schafer is good at it).
Gameplay-wise, the point and click segments are the weakest part of the game, but the courtroom chapters integrate the gameplay into the story amazingly well, as you have to pay attention to the clues and evidence to progress. The episodic style, with an overall plot arc tying them together, reminds me a bit of Telltale's games, but the episodes start out short (like, half an hour) and grow in length throughout the game as the cases become more complex (until they become several hours long).
There's also an upcoming spinoff, Ace Attorney Investigations, which actually does look more like the usual point and click adventure, with some AA elements (like interrogating people) in there as well. Should be really good.
Anyway, enough of my raving about some of my favourite DS games. Another Code/Trace Memory is good, but somewhat breaks a cardinal rule of adventure games: you usually can't take an item until you need it. This leads to some really awful and random backtracking late in the game, when you wouldn't really think to do that. Maybe Japanese developers don't know everything about the genre... Hotel Dusk is better, especially as the small hotel setting makes it easy to go back to anywhere in the game at any time. Although the lack of new areas and environments is a downside, too.
My favourite adventure game on the DS is Hotel Dusk, hands down. The game is just full to the brim with atmosphere and has so much style. A brilliant title which I'd recommend with hesitation.
I've only played a few DS adventure games, so far, but I suspect you're right.
My one problem with this game is that there were too many loose ends left untied.
In any case, I can't help but think that many games would need to be remade, at least to an extent, to take advantage of the game's systems instead of just porting them straight over.
I'm not just talking about replacing the stylus with a mouse - I'm sure that's the least of the problems, and possibly something that made fans of the genre hopeful of seeing adventure games in future. It's the whole extra screen I'm being mindful of. (Although 'Secret Files: Tunguska' looks like a pretty direct port, from what I've seen - I haven't played it on anything except the DS - but for the life of me I can't remember what the other screen was used for, though I am sure it was used for something)
Hotel Dusk made excellent use as tablet was used to display a bird's eye view of the area - though as a map, rather than a particularly graphic display - through which the stylus was used to navigate the corridors while the upper window displayed the rooms from a 1st person perspective.
When interacting with other characters the DS was to be held on its side, like a book; 1 character (I think it was the protagonist) was shown on the left (upper) screen and the person he was addressing was on the right (tablet) screen. Or it could have been the other way around, which might have made more sense as the dialogue options were on the tablet screen.
I really hope some developers (hint hint) turn to the DS as a future platform for classic adventure gaming. ScummVMDS has really reignited my interest in the genre, it's a perfect console to play the old LucasArts games on and the graphics look SO good on the smaller screen!
I really hope some developers (hint hint) turn to the DS as a future platform for classic adventure gaming. ScummVMDS has really reignited my interest in the genre, it's a perfect console to play the old LucasArts games on and the graphics look SO good on the smaller screen!
OK I know I can google this thing, and I probably will once I've finish typing, but an online review never really does justice to something; I would much rather have the opinions of a normal person.
I've heard there are some special kinds of memory card you put in your DS that let you play downloaded games. I haven't seen them, though. Is ScummVMDS something you put onto these cards to make the game play or is it the card itself or perhaps something else entirely?
OK I know I can google this thing, and I probably will once I've finish typing, but an online review never really does justice to something; I would much rather have the opinions of a normal person.
I've heard there are some special kinds of memory card you put in your DS that let you play downloaded games. I haven't seen them, though. Is ScummVMDS something you put onto these cards to make the game play or is it the card itself or perhaps something else entirely?
Wanting real opinions is one thing, but for objective facts like "what is a ds flash card" and "how does scummvm ds work," google is your friend. I'll let it slide this time... your first guess is right, you have to buy a little cartridge that lets you play homebrew games, and then install ScummVM onto that.
ScummVM on DS is cool. I played through Day of the Tentacle that way.
I actually didn't mind Myst on the DS... but perhaps this is because last time I tried to play the pc version it crashed my pc every single time I tried to enter a book. Grr.
As it was, the sound was a bit cruddy unless you put headphones on (and even then) and the resolution was horrid but I found it playable and rather enjoyed it... so go figure. To each their own I suppose.
I liked Another code, but the whole not being able to pick things up really annoyed me after a while. It was that old "I KNOW this will be useful in a while! LET ME TAKE IT!!" issue.
Haven't played Hotel Dusk yet but my husband informs me that if you mess up speaking to people, you lose (read: DIE)
I hate that in adventure games, it breaks narrative flow! But i'll give it a shot soon enough.
It's a shame more adventure games haven't been specifically made for the ds, it's a great oppertunity to really take advantage of the stylus thing. The ports well, they're ports... of games I already OWN so why would I want to buy them again?
I just object to that sort of thing really. And unfortunately all the adventure games being made are a bit too.. well.. kiddy/simple. Another code was interesting but had some DAMNED irritating features. The end of chapter recaps started to grate after about a minute, I mean... what was the point of that? Some cool puzzles, but yeah... I don't think I have the patience to play it again. Once is enough for me.
I so want scummvm on my ds, but I can't find anywhere that sells those little cards and my tiny little brain can't quite understand how to do it anyway ahahaha.
Ported Titles Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Director's Cut (also on Wii) Syberia (just the first one), Myst Ankh Jake Hunter Undercover : Dual Motives
The Ace Attorney series: They're a combination of visual novels combined with court scenes. Not adventure games, but I love them to bits. The first 3 games form a sort of story arc and should be played in order (check wikipedia for more details).
I would recommend Hotel Dusk. It's by the same developer as the Another Code series and has it's own sequel coming out in the UK in september.
Secret Files: Tunguska is a slightly shoddy port of a PC adventure and I really would recommend playing the PC version.
The 'two versions' of Another Code are the original game an a sequel (Wii one is the sequel) and both are worth playing. Not sure why you'd assume they're the same game...
A word of warning about any Cate West and Mystery Files games: They're hidden object 'games' that pretend to be adventure games. They're the bane of my existence as an adventure gamer. I have my suspicions about others on the 'maybe' list as well.
Lastly, Jake Hunter. They're less ports and more remakes of old Famicom visual novels. Not really adventure games, but quite good. WARNING: The DS compilation of Jake Hunter games was released twice. The first version cut over half of the content from the game and was poorly translated. The second release had everything in it and a much better translation. The good version is titled Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past. Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles is the bad one.
I own the wii version of Secret files; Tunguska, and i wish i bought the DS version instead. The voice acting is incredibly annoying. They hired someone who has a really strong, Female USian accent to play the main character, who is German. In fact, the whole cast seems have similair accents, and it gets really annoying.
I own the wii version of Secret files; Tunguska, and i wish i bought the DS version instead. The voice acting is incredibly annoying. They hired someone who has a really strong, Female USian accent to play the main character, who is German. In fact, the whole cast seems have similair accents, and it gets really annoying.
The thing that annoyed me most about the VA was that the protagonist couldn't even decide how to pronounce her surname. I heard "Kalen-kow", "Kalen-kov" and "Ka-len-koh".
Lux-Pain is a game in the visual novel style like Ace Attorney and Hotel Dusk. Unfortunately, it has some spelling, grammar and article problems and the only other thing you do besides scrolling through text is play two mini games, one involving scratching the screen and the other is the "boss" fights which can differ in how to beat them. Go look it up, other people have described it better then me.
Comments
Look at the resolution of the ds what is it less than 800x600. It has 2 screens also the ds is great for new ideas but just to bring back old ported point and click games isn't worth the time to produce. MYST DS was and is disappointing look at gamefly rating of it.
Member Rating: 3.6 (272 ratings) thats 3.6 out of 10 folks
[EDIT] Thinking about it... If there's on game I'd like to see in a 'special edition' I think it would have to be Myst. Water in games looks so realistic, these days, that I cringe whenever I revisit myst.
yeah but i am sure the DS is powerful enough to run decent versions of sam & max etc
of course dumbed down gfx, but the touch stylus makes the DS a perfect platform for adventure titles
Play realMyst please
The water isn't photorealistic, but it's a heck of a lot closer than the original Myst.
Man, I wish that realMyst would be released on Steam and such. The only place to play it legitimately is GameTap, and that's a bit of a hard sell.
Also, jared25, Myst DS didn't fail due to the DS's flaws, it failed because Midway sucks, and delivered one of the worst ports of all time.
And you're so right about the protagonist's monologue at the beginning. It wouldn't be so bad if you could cut past it... Actually, it would still be pretty bad. The dialogue is terrible. I know it's common for a writer to make the hero of their story an idealised and romanticised version of themselves but they should at least try to hide it. Ever heard the term “Mary-Sue”?
At least one of those games is an interesting subgenre known as "Hidden Object" games. You're presented with a picture with a lot of objects, and you have to find specific ones. They may tie the whole thing together with a story, but I don't know if that necessarily makes it an adventure game.
That Mystery Stories is a hidden object game, like Mystery Case Files, where on each level you have to find the objects listed. Kind of like Where's waldo, or those I Spy books, but with more difficulty. I like them, but I do not consider them adventure games.
By 'Mystery Case Files' you mean 'Mystery Case Files; MillionHeir', right? Or another game in the same series?
Me too.
It's basically an adventure game with most of the puzzles removed, but has a really clever plot.
That may sound weird but If you've ever tried the last game by the same author (Shadow of Destiny on the ps2) I think you'll agree it's actually an improvement.
It's as if he looked back at his previous work and said, "OK, it's clear we're not the best in the world. Next game we make, we just won't bother with all of the bits that we suck at, we'll just do the bits we're good at. And so rather than end up with a game that tries to copy how adventure games are supposed to work, but is annoying to play, we'll end up with a really odd game, that is fun to play."
MillionHeir is the DS game in that series, but it's a series that spans multiple platforms, and they're all hidden object games, as far as I know.
Gameplay-wise, the point and click segments are the weakest part of the game, but the courtroom chapters integrate the gameplay into the story amazingly well, as you have to pay attention to the clues and evidence to progress. The episodic style, with an overall plot arc tying them together, reminds me a bit of Telltale's games, but the episodes start out short (like, half an hour) and grow in length throughout the game as the cases become more complex (until they become several hours long).
There's also an upcoming spinoff, Ace Attorney Investigations, which actually does look more like the usual point and click adventure, with some AA elements (like interrogating people) in there as well. Should be really good.
Anyway, enough of my raving about some of my favourite DS games. Another Code/Trace Memory is good, but somewhat breaks a cardinal rule of adventure games: you usually can't take an item until you need it. This leads to some really awful and random backtracking late in the game, when you wouldn't really think to do that. Maybe Japanese developers don't know everything about the genre... Hotel Dusk is better, especially as the small hotel setting makes it easy to go back to anywhere in the game at any time. Although the lack of new areas and environments is a downside, too.
I've only played a few DS adventure games, so far, but I suspect you're right.
My one problem with this game is that there were too many loose ends left untied.
(And yes, I know you can play them on ScummVM already but would much rather have bespoke versions)
In any case, I can't help but think that many games would need to be remade, at least to an extent, to take advantage of the game's systems instead of just porting them straight over.
I'm not just talking about replacing the stylus with a mouse - I'm sure that's the least of the problems, and possibly something that made fans of the genre hopeful of seeing adventure games in future. It's the whole extra screen I'm being mindful of. (Although 'Secret Files: Tunguska' looks like a pretty direct port, from what I've seen - I haven't played it on anything except the DS - but for the life of me I can't remember what the other screen was used for, though I am sure it was used for something)
Hotel Dusk made excellent use as tablet was used to display a bird's eye view of the area - though as a map, rather than a particularly graphic display - through which the stylus was used to navigate the corridors while the upper window displayed the rooms from a 1st person perspective.
When interacting with other characters the DS was to be held on its side, like a book; 1 character (I think it was the protagonist) was shown on the left (upper) screen and the person he was addressing was on the right (tablet) screen. Or it could have been the other way around, which might have made more sense as the dialogue options were on the tablet screen.
OK I know I can google this thing, and I probably will once I've finish typing, but an online review never really does justice to something; I would much rather have the opinions of a normal person.
I've heard there are some special kinds of memory card you put in your DS that let you play downloaded games. I haven't seen them, though. Is ScummVMDS something you put onto these cards to make the game play or is it the card itself or perhaps something else entirely?
Wanting real opinions is one thing, but for objective facts like "what is a ds flash card" and "how does scummvm ds work," google is your friend.
ScummVM on DS is cool. I played through Day of the Tentacle that way.
As it was, the sound was a bit cruddy unless you put headphones on (and even then) and the resolution was horrid but I found it playable and rather enjoyed it... so go figure. To each their own I suppose.
I liked Another code, but the whole not being able to pick things up really annoyed me after a while. It was that old "I KNOW this will be useful in a while! LET ME TAKE IT!!" issue.
Haven't played Hotel Dusk yet but my husband informs me that if you mess up speaking to people, you lose (read: DIE)
I hate that in adventure games, it breaks narrative flow! But i'll give it a shot soon enough.
It's a shame more adventure games haven't been specifically made for the ds, it's a great oppertunity to really take advantage of the stylus thing. The ports well, they're ports... of games I already OWN so why would I want to buy them again?
I just object to that sort of thing really. And unfortunately all the adventure games being made are a bit too.. well.. kiddy/simple. Another code was interesting but had some DAMNED irritating features. The end of chapter recaps started to grate after about a minute, I mean... what was the point of that? Some cool puzzles, but yeah... I don't think I have the patience to play it again. Once is enough for me.
I so want scummvm on my ds, but I can't find anywhere that sells those little cards and my tiny little brain can't quite understand how to do it anyway ahahaha.
The Ace Attorney series: They're a combination of visual novels combined with court scenes. Not adventure games, but I love them to bits. The first 3 games form a sort of story arc and should be played in order (check wikipedia for more details).
I would recommend Hotel Dusk. It's by the same developer as the Another Code series and has it's own sequel coming out in the UK in september.
Secret Files: Tunguska is a slightly shoddy port of a PC adventure and I really would recommend playing the PC version.
The 'two versions' of Another Code are the original game an a sequel (Wii one is the sequel) and both are worth playing. Not sure why you'd assume they're the same game...
A word of warning about any Cate West and Mystery Files games: They're hidden object 'games' that pretend to be adventure games. They're the bane of my existence as an adventure gamer. I have my suspicions about others on the 'maybe' list as well.
Lastly, Jake Hunter. They're less ports and more remakes of old Famicom visual novels. Not really adventure games, but quite good. WARNING: The DS compilation of Jake Hunter games was released twice. The first version cut over half of the content from the game and was poorly translated. The second release had everything in it and a much better translation. The good version is titled Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past. Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles is the bad one.
The thing that annoyed me most about the VA was that the protagonist couldn't even decide how to pronounce her surname. I heard "Kalen-kow", "Kalen-kov" and "Ka-len-koh".