Chasing Dragonflies

I'm now playing the second day of Gabriel Knight 1 (the game timeline is divided into days). I love the storytelling in the game, the dark shroud of voodoo and mysterious characters. Although, Tim Curry's voice acting in this game is pretty lackluster -- I'm wondering if he did it on purpose. The other characters are fantastic, though. I should probably stop procrastinating and finish up my Christmas shopping (why yes, yes I am a procrastinator -- why do you ask?)

So I finally finished Bad Mojo. I was really iritated towards the end because I had forgotten to do something earlier in the game, and had to backtrack a ton. The game's navigation system between various rooms was completely confusing. And the ending...Urgh... I will update this post later, because right now, I'm installing Gabriel Knight 1: Sins of the Fathers! Check out the GK voodoo museum in the picture. Edited to add: So back to the ending of Bad Mojo -- the ending was so abrupt, and it really didn't make very much sense. Also, I wasn't very happy with the timed sequences that they threw into the end. It really forced me to rely on walkthroughs. I'd give this game a limited recommendation. It was very gruesome, but the interface was extremely intuitive. There were a ton of imaginative game play elements, but not enough to overcome a bad ending and just plain grossness. So, I was able to install Gabriel Knight 1: Sins of the Fathers. The game was designed by Jan...

This game gets progressively grosser and more disgusting by the minute. And. Yet. I. Can't. Stop. Playing. There are brief moments where you get a break from the horror factory, but they are few and far between. However, Roach Roger is getting closer and closer to discovering why he has been turned into a roach and how he can become human again. It's all metaphor and mystery -- things aren't always what they seem. So I splurged and purchased Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition from Amazon. The first game, Sins of the Fathers is supposed to be a spectacular example of adventure gaming at its best: fantastic story, interesting puzzles, great dialogue. We'll see. It's a very old game (came out in 1993), so I may end up just writing about my travails even getting the game to run on this computer.

I've been a bit lazy about posting. Mostly because I've only had bits of time here and there before and after work to play any adventure games and then to post here. I've continued a little bit more with Jessica Plunkenstein and the Dussledorf Conspiracy. It's still pretty funny, but it's kind of annoying to watch slow low-res Jessica plod across the screen. While this is a common complaint of adventure games, with games that have much higher quality graphics, you can spend your time looking at the gorgeous backgrounds; not so with Jessica. Still haven't played any further in Bad Mojo. It's a great game, don't get me wrong. It's just kind of hard to play in the morning. When I'm eating my breakfast, I really don't want to be watching little roaches scurry across my computer screen. Also, I must admit to have picked up another game! Well, I'm just continuing it, really. I mentioned it in a previous post, but I have Fahrenheit (or Indigo Pr...

The thing I love about AdventureGamers.com is that developers of the games visit the boards and will interact with forum participants. So, I'm no fan boy , but I do get giddy when I see the developers on the boards -- they're like my rock stars (I mean, how happy was I when David Cage, of Fahrenheit -- or Indigo Prophecy for those of you in Europe -- fame answered one of my questions during an Adventure Gamers developer chat.) Check out Alex Louie answering some questions about full motion video in the Bad Mojo game. Also, here's a great interview by AG's Laura MacDonald. I'm still playing the game and have made it all the way to the kitchen -- woohoo! What boiling traps and fiery hazards await roach Roger?

Since Bad Mojo was freaking me out too much, and because I have the attention span of a gnat, I decided to download the free game, Jessica Plunkenstein and the Düsseldorf Conspiracy . What began as a senior class project for computer science students at Yale has turned into a hilarious point and click adventure game. Now, this isn't a game that's going to knock your socks off in the graphics department. In fact, the developers seem to revel in the low-tech with graphics stolen straight from the pages of Microsoft's clip art books. But that's all part of the game's quirky charm. I've only just started playing, but I'm finding the writing both plucky (not unlike the story's plucky ingenue) and funny. The story starts off as the liberal, feisty protagonist Jessica Plunkenstein gets sent by her parents to Miss Pernilla's Institute for Unwifely Women. When Jessica's plane ticket accidently get's swapped with Indiana Jones' Ha...

Dang, Bad Mojo Redux is definitely not for the squeamish. It's so shiver inducing, I don't know how I keep playing. It certainly turns the concept of exploring beautiful and fantastical worlds that one normally equates with games on it's head. Gotta stop, since hubby and I are going to The Hungry I in Boston for brunch.

Ackkkkk!!! Bad Mojo Redux -- What a creepy game! A very different adventure gaming experience for me anyway. So you start off as Roger Samms, like Gregor Samsa, get it? This weirdo with his bowlcut hair lives in a dingy little apartment above Eddie's Bar. He seems to have stumbled across quite a bit of money and is ready to start the good life and get out of dodge. Only before doing so, he tries to pack up his mother's strange locket, and all of a sudden he's been zapped into a cockroach. Yuck! Your objective is to maneuver poor Roger through different hazards to get to the bottom of what happened to him. The game is in third-person, and the only controls you have are your arrow keys to move roach Roger. I don't know if you'll be using any inventory yet. So far, I'm thoroughly squicked out by the game. But intrigued.

Well, I've finished it. Or rather, I've finished Beneath a Steel Sky with massive help from my little friend, Mr. Walkthrough . The puzzles just didn't seem that intuitive to me. Oh well. The story was not too shabby, with a very interesting plot twist towards the end. It's a game that I'll shelve, and maybe come back to it later so that I can play it for the story and not switch back and forth between the game and the walkthrough. Now it's on to install Bad Mojo Redux -- we'll see how long I can last on this one. It's a game about cockroaches. *shivers*

So it's not really Day 2, only my second post. So far, I'm lumping this game along with the old Lucas Arts games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max (By the way, looks like Telltale Games of Bone fame will be one day developing Sam and Max 2 ) . The puzzles in BASS are just too obscure for me, and often I find that I'm not sure where to go next. This is a problem with the plot which doesn't really give you any good direction. You'll find items that are meant to solve future problems, rather than first discovering problems and then trying to figure out how to solve them (a cardinal adventure gaming sin according to an article on the Grumpy Gamer site. Grumpy Gamer, A.K.A, Ron Gilbert of Lucas Arts fame). Even though the story isn't really helping me in the gaming portion of the, uh, game, the story is actually pretty interesting and kinda creepy. Without giving too much away, it's a sci-fi story with drones, plastic surgeons, fur-coat wearing factor...

Here begins my sure to be dreadful entry into the blogosphere. I've decided to blog about the adventure games that I'm playing. Hubby has been patient (so far), what with all of the the crazy things I've downloaded so that I can play older games. ("Honey, the machine is running too fast, any way to slow it down?") And Roger Ebert be damned -- video games can be works of art, or so I keep telling myself to justify the many hours I put into it. Check out the insightful commentary to his remarks about how video games are inherently inferior to movies. (Gee Ebert, any reason ya had to put the ones who agreed with you at the top?) Ebert said that he hadn't yet met anyone who could talk about a game they kept playing 20 years after it's been published. Well, that couldn't possibly be because it's still a pretty young industry, could it? I mean, I really feel like I'm participating in an exciting community that is witnessing a turning point in...