Showing posts with label that. Show all posts
Showing posts with label that. Show all posts
Monday, April 6, 2015
Adventure of the Week Creatures that Live in the Sun 1981 2013
After a few posts spent in point-and-click territory, this week were returning to the Roger M. Wilcox text adventure archives. Creatures that Live in The Sun was Wilcoxs eleventh game, originally written for the TRS-80 in 1981 and converted to Windows in 2013. Mr. Wilcoxs games remain freely available at his website, and theyre well worth checking out, especially for adventure fans that may have missed these back in the day.
Im sure a few readers have noticed the similarity of this game series authors name to Space Quest protagonist, Roger Wilco. Any resemblance appears to be purely coincidental, but one cant help noting that many of Wilcoxs games feature science fiction motifs, and this one is a time-constrained escape adventure, in which the players ship has run out of fuel just after landing on the suns... surface? (The author notes that this game was based on a creative writing project he wrote in the fifth grade, so well dispense with any scientific nitpicking.) Lets hope we can find enough fuel to achieve escape velocity!
As always, I encourage the intrepid adventurer to sample Creatures that Live in the Sun before proceeding here. For the historical record and entertainment purposes, Ill be detailing my playthrough and giving away everything I discovered. In other words, there are inevitably going to be some major...
***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****
At the start, we are aboard our grounded ship, with a closed airlock and a console populated with patriotic buttons (not, like, Whip Inflation Now, but red, white and blue.) An engine room west of the starting point features a Better-than-asbestos suit -- presumably this means it is both heat-inhibiting and non-carcinogenic -- an empty fuel line, an empty bucket, and Strange dark goggles, suggesting that we may have missed some important equipment training in solonaut school.
Weve got nothing in inventory, so lets grab everything we can; the fuel line is fixed in place. We should also SAVE before we start messing with the buttons, if past experience is any guide. PUSH RED, and the airlock opens -- the suns temperature melts the capsule from the inside out, and were dead. If we PUSH BLUE instead, a transparent cover envelops the interior of the capsule -- a heat shield, perhaps? PUSH WHITE produces a warning light, "NO FUEL", so that will probably be one of our final actions at the end of the game.
With the shield up, the sun doesnt damage the ship, but if were not wearing the BTA suit, were vaporized anyway. We may note in passing -- literally, while dying -- that Its too bright to see!, so thats probably why we have the dark goggles.
With all the right stuff in place, we can see that B.T.A. sheets protect everything -- not quite as high-tech as Id imagined, but I like that this new material is apparently named by the same people who produced Uneeda Biscuit and Better Made Potato Chips. We can exit through the airlock to reach the photosphere of Sol.
(This all reminds me of the old joke -- "How does the [insert favorite ethnic/national/occupational stereotype] mission to the sun plan to avoid burning up?"; [adopt favorite accent]; "We plan to go at night.")
We can see that the capsule is slowly dissolving in the heat, so time is of the essence. We can also see a solar disturbance, likely wreaking all kinds of cable service havoc back on Earth. GO DISTURBANCE yields a Scott Adams-esque misleading prompt: Are you just going to walk through that solar flare? And while a thoughtful "No" click yields A wise decision, a reckless, foolhardy "Yes" click gets us through without apparent ill effect.
This is an interesting idea -- we find ourselves on a river bank, but its a river of salt (sodium chloride melts at 1474 degrees Fahrenheit, per a quick web search). We can FILL BUCKET to obtain a bucket of salt, and we can GO RIVER, though there doesnt seem to be a reason to do that yet. We cant FILL FUEL or FILL LINE with the bucket, though, so we must have to do some further work.
We can POUR BUCKET -- on the surface, it just Soaks into the photosphere. Actually, it does this anywhere, even inside the ship with the airlock closed. I spent some more time exploring the river and the bank, but before long, it seems, were notified that Your space capsules non-tempered hyperdiamond casing is disintegrating through! and we are in major trouble... unless we return to the ship and close the airlock, which buys us a little time... except, no, wait, it doesnt actually reset anything, and next time we open the airlock the meltdown continues, eventually melting the capsule and ending the game.
What else can we do? EXAMINE SUIT reveals a yellow button on its left hand. PUSH YELLOW does nothing of note in the engine room, but if we try it in the river, A ray of cold shoots from your fingertips, doing nothing. It seems that it will fire, but do nothing, while the airlock is open, but if the airlock is closed it does nothing at all.
I got hung up here -- my attempts to SWIM and DIVE and FLOAT down the river went unacknowledged, but a peek at the source code reveals that we can FOLLOW RIVER once were in it to reach its end, where a =Deadly gronk gronk= blocks the way. The freeze ray doesnt do anything about this guy either. POUR BUCKET here causes an unexpected result -- A silvery line extends from one of the gronk gronks fingers, and hits you, piercing your suit! Hmmm? Ah, this happens randomly, it has nothing to do with whether weve emptied the bucket. (For some reason, I am picturing the Gronk Gronk looking like the Crunchberry Beast. I dont know why!)
I had to look at the code again to find out that we can FEEL RIVER -- I was trying to do something similar by DIVEing, but anyway -- to discover a Hyperdiamond "eye," marked Medusa H.D. Company. So this might be useful -- and yes, SHOW EYE turns the deadly gronk gronk into stone (Good work! The Medusa H.D. Company comes through again!) I assume H.D. stands for Hyperdiamond and not High Definition.
Now we can reach the "solar junction," a crossroads where an Alien blueish-green man is standing (no word on whether this individual is littleish-small.) We cant TALK MAN, so well explore some more.
A sunspot area features a locked sunspot case (?) that cant be opened at this point. Another solar flare is decidely not safe to walk through, of course. And theres a makeshift landing field, where the not-makeshift Solar Challenger (airplane) is parked. We can GO CHALLENGER to reach the cockpit, where we see green, black and orange buttons, most likely color-coded to prevent confusion on the part of the parser rather than the player, and having nothing to do with The Troubles and/or the Black Irish.
We PUSH GREEN and the plane takes off; we can see a Gronk Gronk Fighter out the window, which based on previous experience we should probably try to dispatch. We PUSH ORANGE -- and A mechanical voice intones, "What is the password?" We dont have the password, so PUSH BLACK fires a cold ray, but the fighter evades it. Fortunately, we can PUSH GREEN to land again.
We can LOOK MAN (or, oddly enough, FEEL MAN) to prompt conversation -- he asks us to defeat the Gronk Gronks fighter (we suspected as much) and also obtain the key that opens the sunspot case. He then slips something into our hands -- its a Gold Credit Card? There are no retail establishments on our map so far, but closer examination indicates that its smudged, but we can read an "S."
Back on the Challenger (which was the name of a still-operating Space Shuttle when this game was originally written), we note that obvious guesses PASS and SOL dont work as passwords. We can WIPE CARD, though, to see "Srill" (briefly, before the card somehow smudges up again.) PUSH ORANGE and SAY SRILL activates the planes SADAR tracking, allowing PUSH BLACKs cold ray to lock on and do the job properly.
Were getting closer, but this was my second serious attempt, and I had taken too much time -- the capsule was once again melting, and were too far away to do anything about it now.
Back on track after restoring, we havent found any reason to PUSH YELLOW or POUR BUCKET yet, so we should see if we can find opportunities to do so. POUR BUCKET in the solar flare area puts out the solar flare, opening up a passage south to an insignificant part of this granule. Theres a large hyperdiamond here. We can PUSH YELLOW, and the ray shoots out, this time freezing the hyperdiamond extensively.
I tried to HIT, KICK, PUSH, and SMASH the frozen diamond, but we just need to BREAK DIAMOND to form a hyperdiamond key. Upon seeing us again, the alien takes us to the sunspot (which was being used as a freezer) and opens the case, revealing a Container of solid fuel, which ought to be just the ticket home.
Moving as quickly as we can, lest our ship dissolve again, we run all the way back to the ship, close the airlock, FILL LINE with the solid fuel, and PUSH WHITE to take off to... ACK! Not quite, I missed it by just one move it seems!
Doing it ever-so-slightly more efficiently, we get the best ending, marred only by boring transportation!
No treasures, just a fine story to share at the Space Bar after we cool down a bit. Creatures that Live in the Sun was good fun. More Roger Wilcox adventures await!
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Im sure a few readers have noticed the similarity of this game series authors name to Space Quest protagonist, Roger Wilco. Any resemblance appears to be purely coincidental, but one cant help noting that many of Wilcoxs games feature science fiction motifs, and this one is a time-constrained escape adventure, in which the players ship has run out of fuel just after landing on the suns... surface? (The author notes that this game was based on a creative writing project he wrote in the fifth grade, so well dispense with any scientific nitpicking.) Lets hope we can find enough fuel to achieve escape velocity!
As always, I encourage the intrepid adventurer to sample Creatures that Live in the Sun before proceeding here. For the historical record and entertainment purposes, Ill be detailing my playthrough and giving away everything I discovered. In other words, there are inevitably going to be some major...
***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****
At the start, we are aboard our grounded ship, with a closed airlock and a console populated with patriotic buttons (not, like, Whip Inflation Now, but red, white and blue.) An engine room west of the starting point features a Better-than-asbestos suit -- presumably this means it is both heat-inhibiting and non-carcinogenic -- an empty fuel line, an empty bucket, and Strange dark goggles, suggesting that we may have missed some important equipment training in solonaut school.
Weve got nothing in inventory, so lets grab everything we can; the fuel line is fixed in place. We should also SAVE before we start messing with the buttons, if past experience is any guide. PUSH RED, and the airlock opens -- the suns temperature melts the capsule from the inside out, and were dead. If we PUSH BLUE instead, a transparent cover envelops the interior of the capsule -- a heat shield, perhaps? PUSH WHITE produces a warning light, "NO FUEL", so that will probably be one of our final actions at the end of the game.
With the shield up, the sun doesnt damage the ship, but if were not wearing the BTA suit, were vaporized anyway. We may note in passing -- literally, while dying -- that Its too bright to see!, so thats probably why we have the dark goggles.
With all the right stuff in place, we can see that B.T.A. sheets protect everything -- not quite as high-tech as Id imagined, but I like that this new material is apparently named by the same people who produced Uneeda Biscuit and Better Made Potato Chips. We can exit through the airlock to reach the photosphere of Sol.
(This all reminds me of the old joke -- "How does the [insert favorite ethnic/national/occupational stereotype] mission to the sun plan to avoid burning up?"; [adopt favorite accent]; "We plan to go at night.")
We can see that the capsule is slowly dissolving in the heat, so time is of the essence. We can also see a solar disturbance, likely wreaking all kinds of cable service havoc back on Earth. GO DISTURBANCE yields a Scott Adams-esque misleading prompt: Are you just going to walk through that solar flare? And while a thoughtful "No" click yields A wise decision, a reckless, foolhardy "Yes" click gets us through without apparent ill effect.
This is an interesting idea -- we find ourselves on a river bank, but its a river of salt (sodium chloride melts at 1474 degrees Fahrenheit, per a quick web search). We can FILL BUCKET to obtain a bucket of salt, and we can GO RIVER, though there doesnt seem to be a reason to do that yet. We cant FILL FUEL or FILL LINE with the bucket, though, so we must have to do some further work.
We can POUR BUCKET -- on the surface, it just Soaks into the photosphere. Actually, it does this anywhere, even inside the ship with the airlock closed. I spent some more time exploring the river and the bank, but before long, it seems, were notified that Your space capsules non-tempered hyperdiamond casing is disintegrating through! and we are in major trouble... unless we return to the ship and close the airlock, which buys us a little time... except, no, wait, it doesnt actually reset anything, and next time we open the airlock the meltdown continues, eventually melting the capsule and ending the game.
What else can we do? EXAMINE SUIT reveals a yellow button on its left hand. PUSH YELLOW does nothing of note in the engine room, but if we try it in the river, A ray of cold shoots from your fingertips, doing nothing. It seems that it will fire, but do nothing, while the airlock is open, but if the airlock is closed it does nothing at all.
I got hung up here -- my attempts to SWIM and DIVE and FLOAT down the river went unacknowledged, but a peek at the source code reveals that we can FOLLOW RIVER once were in it to reach its end, where a =Deadly gronk gronk= blocks the way. The freeze ray doesnt do anything about this guy either. POUR BUCKET here causes an unexpected result -- A silvery line extends from one of the gronk gronks fingers, and hits you, piercing your suit! Hmmm? Ah, this happens randomly, it has nothing to do with whether weve emptied the bucket. (For some reason, I am picturing the Gronk Gronk looking like the Crunchberry Beast. I dont know why!)
I had to look at the code again to find out that we can FEEL RIVER -- I was trying to do something similar by DIVEing, but anyway -- to discover a Hyperdiamond "eye," marked Medusa H.D. Company. So this might be useful -- and yes, SHOW EYE turns the deadly gronk gronk into stone (Good work! The Medusa H.D. Company comes through again!) I assume H.D. stands for Hyperdiamond and not High Definition.
Now we can reach the "solar junction," a crossroads where an Alien blueish-green man is standing (no word on whether this individual is littleish-small.) We cant TALK MAN, so well explore some more.
A sunspot area features a locked sunspot case (?) that cant be opened at this point. Another solar flare is decidely not safe to walk through, of course. And theres a makeshift landing field, where the not-makeshift Solar Challenger (airplane) is parked. We can GO CHALLENGER to reach the cockpit, where we see green, black and orange buttons, most likely color-coded to prevent confusion on the part of the parser rather than the player, and having nothing to do with The Troubles and/or the Black Irish.
We PUSH GREEN and the plane takes off; we can see a Gronk Gronk Fighter out the window, which based on previous experience we should probably try to dispatch. We PUSH ORANGE -- and A mechanical voice intones, "What is the password?" We dont have the password, so PUSH BLACK fires a cold ray, but the fighter evades it. Fortunately, we can PUSH GREEN to land again.
We can LOOK MAN (or, oddly enough, FEEL MAN) to prompt conversation -- he asks us to defeat the Gronk Gronks fighter (we suspected as much) and also obtain the key that opens the sunspot case. He then slips something into our hands -- its a Gold Credit Card? There are no retail establishments on our map so far, but closer examination indicates that its smudged, but we can read an "S."
Back on the Challenger (which was the name of a still-operating Space Shuttle when this game was originally written), we note that obvious guesses PASS and SOL dont work as passwords. We can WIPE CARD, though, to see "Srill" (briefly, before the card somehow smudges up again.) PUSH ORANGE and SAY SRILL activates the planes SADAR tracking, allowing PUSH BLACKs cold ray to lock on and do the job properly.
Were getting closer, but this was my second serious attempt, and I had taken too much time -- the capsule was once again melting, and were too far away to do anything about it now.
Back on track after restoring, we havent found any reason to PUSH YELLOW or POUR BUCKET yet, so we should see if we can find opportunities to do so. POUR BUCKET in the solar flare area puts out the solar flare, opening up a passage south to an insignificant part of this granule. Theres a large hyperdiamond here. We can PUSH YELLOW, and the ray shoots out, this time freezing the hyperdiamond extensively.
I tried to HIT, KICK, PUSH, and SMASH the frozen diamond, but we just need to BREAK DIAMOND to form a hyperdiamond key. Upon seeing us again, the alien takes us to the sunspot (which was being used as a freezer) and opens the case, revealing a Container of solid fuel, which ought to be just the ticket home.
Moving as quickly as we can, lest our ship dissolve again, we run all the way back to the ship, close the airlock, FILL LINE with the solid fuel, and PUSH WHITE to take off to... ACK! Not quite, I missed it by just one move it seems!
Doing it ever-so-slightly more efficiently, we get the best ending, marred only by boring transportation!
No treasures, just a fine story to share at the Space Bar after we cool down a bit. Creatures that Live in the Sun was good fun. More Roger Wilcox adventures await!
The Year That Was 1989
1989 was yet another year dominated by Sierra. Out of the eleven games I played for the year, six of them came from Sierra! While LucasArts continued to produce one game a year (and as usual it was a beauty), Sierra was keen to milk as much as they could from the successes of the previous years. That meant sequels for Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest and Manhunter, yet it was good to see them also attempt to expand their reach by introducing new series that might appeal to different audiences. The Colonel’s Bequest was a refreshing old school murder mystery. Codename: ICEMAN tackled James Bond-like territory with a naval / spy crossover. Yet it was Hero’s Quest that brought with it the biggest success, with its RPG / adventure gameplay and fantasy setting becoming a favourite for many fans (myself included).
1989 was the year the genre began to cross-pollinate
If anything, it was this hybrid nature that was the biggest introduction to the genre in 1989. Apart from Hero’s Quest, which included many typical RPG features such as character class selection, skill stats and combat, other games such as Mean Streets, Codename: ICEMAN and particularly Neuromancer, also blurred the lines between their main genre and others. Not all of this crossbreeding was successful, but it was a sign of how few creative boundaries there were back in this era, when failed experiments didn’t automatically mean bankruptcy. 1989 also marked the first major year where someone stepped up to challenge Sierra and LucasArts, with Access’ Mean Streets announcing a solid new player on the scene. The game received only the sixth highest PISSED rating for the year, but it was the first game since Below the Root to get over 50, and proved it was indeed possible to match it with the big boys. Enough chat though, it’s time to award this year’s TAG (The Adventure Gamer) awards!
Which game will get the Atlantean Medallion this year!?
The Charles Darwin TAG: For the Most Evolutionary Game of 1989
Winner: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
This was a tough category this year, with quite a few games that really pushed the envelope. I’ve decided not to include Hero’s Quest, despite really wanting to, because its biggest innovations (a true RPG / hybrid, more realism such as night and day, eating and resting) can’t really be considered part of the adventure game evolution. I’ve chosen Indy for one reason really, which is branching dialogue options. Sure, it didn’t do it massively well, but it’s a feature that would be built into pretty much every third person adventure game for the next decade and beyond!
Branching dialogue! A critical moment in adventure gaming evolution.
Mean Streets – for 256 colour VGA graphics, RealSound technology that included snippets of voice, and the first example of video
The Colonel’s Bequest – time based advances, meaning the player solves a mystery as it happens. Had a huge influence on games such as The Last Express.
The Lament Configuration TAG: For the Most Ridiculous Puzzle of 1989
Winner: Emmanuelle
I could have picked just about anything out of this horrible game, but the one that stands out involves a bird. After making my way to Iguacu by helicopter, I was transported to a waterfall where my character dived off a cliff into the water. However, I was only able to do this because earlier on I’d purchased a toucan from a shop owner. I can just picture the poor bird desperately flapping its wings to stop me from gaining too much velocity during my descent! Ridiculous!
Perhaps I used the toucan to break my fall?!
Also worth a mention:
Leisure Suit Larry III – Yeah, I know the game is not meant to be taken seriously, but the climax to the whole thing became more than a little bit stupid really. Trapped in a cage being lowered into boiling liquid with Passionate Patti, there appeared to be no way to escape. Lucky I picked up that magic marker back at the casino hey! That’s right, I simply drew a door on the cage with the marker and opened it, escaping death and entering...well that’s another story for later.
Manhunter 2 – So I’m on a staircase right, and there’s this statue with a gem and the word HEAVEN on it. A previous hint had given me the idea to rub the gem, so I did. The statue’s mouth opened and the letter F just appeared in the air right in front of me. Then an image of an oar appeared where the F had been! This was shortly followed by a P, and then a ruler, all just floating in the air as if held up by an invisible hand! Sure, I eventually figured out that it was all supposed to represent four pinches (f + oar p + inches), but the way it was communicated was strange to say the least.
The Rains of Castamere TAG – For the Most Memorable Moment of 1989
Winner: Leisure Suit Larry III
It had been well over twenty years since I first attempted to play Larry III, yet I still vividly remembered Tawni appearing mostly naked on the beach. Yes, this says a lot about where my head was at around that time of my life, but it proves that the scene has serious staying power regardless. If I include the bit later on at the beach where Larry sunbakes nude while a red lizard stands upright in the foreground, and the game’s incredibly awesome finale, well I don’t really have any doubts about which game had the most memorable moments!
Exactly how I remembered it!
Also worth a mention:
Hero’s Quest: The moment the hut of Baba Yaga lurches forward, then seats itself in front of the The Hero, beckoning him to enter if he dares.
Space Quest III: When The Two Guys from Andromeda finally smash down the fourth wall and take the player to Sierra headquarters to meet Ken Williams. It’s hugely arrogant of the designers to do such a thing, but somehow we loved them more for it!
The Needle’s Eye TAG – For the Most Unsolvable Puzzle of 1989
Winner: Emmanuelle
The manual gave me one instruction prior to beginning my quest to have sex with Emmanuelle. Find Mario! There’s only one problem with this suggestion though (well actually there’s lots). You see, Mario’s room number can only be found by seducing Nancy at the bar in the Salvador hotel. Unfortunately, Nancy only tells the player about Mario’s location about one in every four successful seductions, and only if the player chooses specific options at that point. Since there’s no real reason to seduce Nancy more than once in the game (as far as the player knows anyway), and trying to find Mario by looking in every hotel room generally results in an unfinishable game, this is one puzzle that relies completely on luck.
You mean by sleeping with every woman you can find.
Also worth a mention:
The Colonel’s Bequest – I realise that others managed to solve this puzzle unassisted, but I thought it was a bit shitty. Apparently the cook Celie is missing a necklace. I didn’t hear anything that suggested she was, but...well, she was. The necklace turned out to be hidden in the doghouse, but I couldn’t get to it because Beauregard (that’s the dog) was in there. I was supposed to give him a bone from the fridge to make him leave his doghouse so I could get the necklace, but of course, I didn’t know it was there. To make matters worse, I’d looked in the doghouse already and not found a necklace there, so there was definitely no reason why I would want to look there again. Add to all this the fact that the game let me give the bone to Beauregard earlier on in the kitchen, and this basically sucks!
Leisure Suit Larry III – I’ve already mentioned the magic marker puzzle, but what I haven’t talked about is how the player is expected to get it. It’s pretty similar to the Colonel’s Bequest puzzle really, in that the magic marker is sitting on a board in the casino bar right from the beginning of the game. I tried to pick it up early on, but the game wouldn’t let me. I didn’t think to try picking it up later as, well why would I!? Long story short, after surviving a bamboo maze, a bungy jump off a cliff, a dangerous rope climb across a chasm, an attack by a wild boar, and a hair-raising trip down an obstacle filled river on a log, I found that I needed that marker to draw my way out of captivity!!!
The Golden Mop TAG – For the Best New Character of 1989
Winner: Indiana Jones
Was there any question? It’s hard to beat one of the most loved characters of the past few decades, and Indy’s personality and abilities come across wonderfully in LucasArts first adventure game to feature him. If only we had a game with Han Solo in it now!
Who doesnt love Indiana Jones?!
Also worth a mention:
Tex Murphy – Tough talking and well, just plain tough, Tex is a character that would quickly develop into a fan favourite. A lover of film noir, this hard-boiled P.I. is hugely influenced by characters like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. We’re yet to see the best of him, but at least he’s here!
Laura Bow – This young girl might be a detective like Tex, but she does her thing in a very different way. Laura does everything by the book, trying to solve mysteries without taking advantage of others or risking lives. My own experience made her seem completely useless, but I don’t think Laura can be blamed for my shortcomings.
The Severed Head TAG – For the Worst Game of 1989
Winner: Emmanuelle
Seriously, this game was terrible! Not only was the plot juvenile and borderline offensive, the puzzles were almost non-existent and the game mechanics close to unusable. It wasn’t even good to look at, which would have at least have made the game’s purpose somewhat satisfying, and don’t get me started about the randomness and lack of a save game feature. This is one of the few games that I wouldn’t play again, even if you paid me!
Emmanuelle: About as titillating as spying on old ladies
Also worth a mention:
Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess – with a storyline that simply had to be written under the effects of hardcore drugs, this game at least had some interesting puzzles and a unique interface. Unfortunately it was extremely ugly, and had an ending that made very little sense.
Codename: ICEMAN – I’m happy that this game gets on a negative TAG list, as I really disliked it. ICEMAN had numerous potential dead ends that were usually enforced through a completely inadequate parser. There were also more bugs than I’d experienced in any other Sierra game, and some very boring and frustrating mini games to boot. Not fun!
The Atlantean Medallion TAG – For the Best Game of 1989
Winner: Hero’s Quest: So You Want to be a Hero?
If anyone asked me for a list of my favourite games (and no, no-one ever has), this would have to be on the list somewhere. It probably has something to do with my love of RPGs and adventure games, making this hybrid a fair amalgamation of my tastes, but it’s also the music, the fantastic visuals, the humour, and most of all, the sheer wonder of it all! There are so many memorable characters and moments, and thankfully the Cole’s were given the opportunity to take us on more magical adventures in years to come.
So Youve Become An Atlantean Medallion Winner!
Also worth a mention:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: I always see The Fate of Atlantis on top adventure game lists, but rarely this one. Now that I’ve played it I have to wonder why, as it’s a very entertaining and playable game, which captures the excitement and the adventure of the classic film trilogy (I’ll always just remember it as a trilogy).
Leisure Suit Larry III: I really didn’t expect this game to be as good as it was, particularly after the disappointing (and hugely buggy) first sequel. But Al Lowe got things right for this one, returning to what made the original so fun, yet with countless clever puzzles and some seriously funny moments!
Thanks for joining me for this year’s TAG Awards! Agree or disagree with any of my selections? As usual I encourage discussion, and look forward to getting stuck into 1990! This one should be very interesting indeed, with a few unquestionable classics (Monkey Island, Loom, Quest for Glory II) mixed into an eclectic bunch of lesser known games. No who’s with me!?
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