Well, Grim Fandango is a bit hard, but when you think about it, a lot of the stuff makes sense, just as long as you *think* about it. Unlike some adventure games, the tactics you employ aren't hit or miss (some of these adventure games were purely try all your items on everything and hope for the best). But the game makes it all worth it. Ridiculously funny, tremendous character and plot development, and the graphics are fantastic.
Having never played it myself I can't really comment. I should though. Dunno how well it would run in XP though.
As far as I can tell, Grim Fandango was the last of this adventure type game. And actually, it came out in 1998, so it's been five years. All together a very long time, but not as long as I had imagined. I was looking through my collection, and it's unbelievable how popular these games were at one point in time. Everybody and their mother was cranking out these games - and after GF, it all ended. You'd think GF would've revolutionized the genre.
Oh, I thought you meant since the last Sam & Max game. I remember playing that in 8th grade. That was 8 years ago. I'm old.
I'm not really surprised by the decline in these games. If your game today doesn't involve killing or seriously hurting someone, it's not "cool." If you have to THINK, it's not fun. If you have to play by yourself, it's lame. If it doesn't have the latest 3D rendered graphics, it's old and crappy.
I'd imagine part of it is the lack or replay--or perceived lack of replay value. I go back and play these games all the time (not recently though,
) because they're so damn cool. Well designed and executed. But it's a totally different market today. Everyone and their grandmother can produce a cheap game and hype the shit out of it. Back then you actually needed a good idea to get things done. But I digress.
Hopefully Sam & Max and the new Full Throttle games will get some attention and hit main stream success. Then maybe we'll see another Manic Mansion/Day of the Tentacle and other graphic adventures. Lord knows they've screwed up the Indiana Jones series though. Infernal Machine was kinda bland and the Emperor's Tomb controlls/camera angles are horrible for the PC. Too bad.
And what about King's Quest? KQ VI by and far was my favorite.
King's Quest was alright. I liked Space Quest better. And Leisure Suit Larry 3 and 5 were awesome. In fact I think the only two KQ games I played were 4 and 5. Both great games. Oh, and who can forget Quest for Glory? Shadows of Darkness was sweet. Though the bug that caused it to crash at the same place over and over was annoying to try and get around. At any rate, I love these games. I really hope this is their second coming. Oo, and Police Quest 2. God that game was SWEET. I also had SWAT, which was somewhat of a let down, but still cool at the time. I tried both SWAT2 and SWAT3 and found them both insanely hard to control well enough to be any fun. Trying to issue commands and switch tools etc with a mouse just doesn't work fast enough, especially when you find the bad guys.
