If only... W ritten by Vetinari Not to put too fine a point on it, this game sucks. But – how much does it suck? Let's find out with the final rating. Puzzles and Solvability This game has been misconstrued as being an adventure game, where there is exactly 0.001% of gameplay in this stinker that could even be assimilated to adventure game-like. What passes for a puzzle in this game. While most of…
Written by Vetinari What?!? Already? Yes, dear reader. Saying that this game is short is an understatement. Compared to this, “ Daughter of Serpents ” feels like “ Der Zauberberg ”. Or Heimat 2 if you are more of a cinephile. So, this game starts with Flash near the wreckage of his spaceship. I seize the opportunity to try some of the keyboard controls, like ducking, jumping and so on. You know,…
And the Oscar goes to... Written by Michael Okay, this game was short, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to score in the single digits. Remember, this was a children’s title aimed at those barely starting to use computers at the time, and this game is so well designed in that regard that, if the iPad and Android versions released a decade ago were still maintained, they would require…
Written by Vetinari Welcome one and all to this new playthrough for the Adventurers’ Guild. The game that we will tackle in this series of posts is “ Flash Gordon: il rapimento di Dale ” (Dale’s kidnapping). The character of Flash Gordon originated in 1934 and was created by comic book legend Alex Raymond. The idea was for the new character to compete with the similar and already established Buck…
Written by Michael In our last meeting, we came across Mrs. Halibut, who is concerned because her daughter Gabby is stuck inside this cave. But before we can do anything, she tries to go in after Gabby, and gets caught in the small opening. If Pixar made pornography. Of course, Freddi and Luther are helpful, so they pull her out. Then they go in to do the job the right way. Gabby is stuck under a…
Written by Michael Not unexpectedly, this was a quick game to solve. But that doesn’t mean it was bad. I enjoyed the little bit of time I spent in this game world. Let me share that with you now. I head a screen west from Luther’s tree, and begin to explore. As is the case in nearly all the screens, the pathways are marked with posted signs. Most of the arrow signs are blank, but some have icons,…
Written by Morpheus Kitami One of the most beloved RPGs of the last decade is Disco Elysium. A game in which you play a cop who wakes up in a dingy hotel room with no memory of anything, and he has a murder to solve. What follows is a very strange game set in an alternative Earth with its own strange history, countries and technologies, before you even get to the actual game itself. You have…
Written by Michael We haven’t played a game from Humongous Entertainment in a little while, since Ilmari played 1993’s Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon . While he tackled the first three of their games covered by the blog, I’m happy to settle in for a new series of theirs. Much like Ilmari in 2018, I also had no exposure to Humongous Entertainment. I might have heard something about Ron Gilbert making…
by Will Moczarski Disclaimer: Because this is an episode with a lot of attention to detail (and because work and life are just crazy right now) I've decided to split the post in half, you know, to let you know I'm still alive and all. The third mission is called No Man's Land, and it really feels like a proper Star Trek episode. It begins – as it so often does – with a routine mission that is…
Just how deep is my despair for having played this game? Written by Michael I was thinking of taking some time off between my last post and writing this scoring post, but I didn’t want my memories to fade. This isn’t a bad game, but certainly not the best Sierra has to offer. One could argue that they hit their peak with Gabriel Knight , although they certainly have a couple more well-done stories…
Written by MenhirMike I left you with a cliffhanger last time, but unlike Dallas’ “Who shot J.R.?” I’m not going to let you wait four more episodes to resolve it - the caller was Herbert Briggs, who tasked Matt with picking up a parcel from a woman named Sabien at Lisson Grove 17. If you remember the intro to the game, Sabien was the woman mourning at Matt’s grave, so this is the romance act of…
Written by Morpheus Kitami It's nice to get back to some normal, standard and uncontroversial adventure games after what in retrospect, was a year consisting entirely of more experimental titles, the most traditional of which was arguably the most insane in other respects. (This was actually written in 2025, since I know it's 2026 when you read this) Yes, sir, it's nice to get back to the realm of…
Written by Michael Unfortunately, the game fizzles out along with the volcano at the end. We’ve reached the end, and there’s not much to it. So, this will be a rather short entry. When the scene begins, we return to the underground lair where the two troll kings are fighting each other. While I can’t tell which is which from the animation, the voice of the real one tells me to turn the imposter…
Written by MenhirMike I am not going to lie, this session was a real struggle for a while. Not so much because of the game, which is still great despite some interface troubles I will get into. But because these last three sessions were essentially me keeping notes in an Excel sheet and then writing those notes into prose that read more like math homework than a blog about a game. I am happy to…
Written by Michael Now, onto the most tedious part of the game so far. More tedious than a lazy George Harrison song (although it DID inspire a great parody by Weird Al ). We use a lute, rather than a whistle, but the concept holds. We landed on what ends up being the Grand Central Station of Etheria, a floating island with four rainbows positioned around it at the corners. If you click on one of…
Written by Michael Don’t blog angry. Welcome back to Falderol, and back to Queen Valanice’s side of the story. First, I feel the need to note: this is, by far, the most boring chapter of the story so far. “Nightmare in Etheria” is the title, but if this is a nightmare, it’s on the level of Groundhog Day , because we are going to be going back and forth, repeating actions, and really just running…
by Will Moczarski In our second mission, the crew of the Enterprise is looking forward to taking leave on a planet called Nova Atar. Just like in the TOS episode "The Immunity Syndrome", that ain't happening. There's a bit of crew banter about Kazakhstanian Cognac, and then an emergency call from the Science Vessel Demeter interrupts all further planning. Demeter was located in orbit around Balkos…
Written by MenhirMike This session started with me having a closer look at my available tools. I really wanted to do the Jeweller the last time, but couldn’t find an accomplice that could open the safe. Would the game really give me a location and no way to burgle it? It’s possible, but it’s had a pretty good progression so far. So I went back and looked through every tool available and found that…
Written by Michael Seriously? Part 2 of our post-Halloween post. Or pre-Halloween post, depending on your level of optimism, I suppose. When we last were here, I was making my way to the swamp creature from the blue lagoon, armed with a potion from the local sawbones. So, through the main gates to what I think of as a garden. A garden of evil, mind you. In my last game for the blog, a flower gave…
by Will Moczarski Last time I promised to take a look at the manual with you and walk you through it before starting my first mission in Judgment Rites . However, the manual is quite long (36 pages) and takes a no-nonsense approach to explaining the game, meaning it is far more informative and much less entertaining than the manual for, say, Pepper's Adventures in Time . Two pages stand out,…
Written by MenhirMike Last time, I ended up liberating the bones of Karl Marx, but unfortunately the police liberated my car from me. So I started this session with a trip to Cars & Vans, Wellington Road to buy a new one. You can go to the parking lot and look at available cars, which includes the cheap Fiat Topolio in various model years. But since that was only a 2-seater, I turned to the 4…
Written by Michael We will be avoiding this creature today. Good morning! The sun is rising on my country cottage as I prepare to enter the midnight black woods of Ooga Booga. This is truly the Halloween chapter of this game, but sadly, I wasn’t able to time my gameplay to the real-world calendar. When we last left Rosella, she was hopping in the bucket elevator from the troll kingdom, repaired by…
by Will Moczarski Source It's time to boldly go where only Joe has gone before...for this blog, at least. Riding on the success of Star Trek: 25th Anniversary , Interplay decided to do a quick follow-up using the same engine. Star Trek: Judgment Rites was released just in time for the holiday season in November 1993 and is generally considered to be the better game. Taking into account that 25th…
Written by MenhirMike Before I start, I wanted to thank a commenter on an earlier gameplay post who clarified that “jemmy” was indeed a proper term for a crowbar used by burglars in British English. So I’ll take back my criticism on that. I still think there are some translation issues, but apart from “prey”, nothing really stood out as terrible. And definitely nothing that broke the game or made…
Written by Michael Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue... Welcome back to the saga of the Ladies of Daventry! This installment is rather short compared to the last two, so let us get to it. What does a newt say when you catch it in a lie? I amphibian. When we last were with the queen, she had entered the cave behind the Aztec-looking door, and was confronted with a large lizard of…