Inca II – Final Rating

By Ilmari

My short affair with Inca II – and oh boy was it short, this is a quick game – has finished with more amiable terms than the stormy relationship I had with the progenitor. While both were pretty to look at, Inca senior was definitely the grouchy one, always kicking me in the groin when I least expected it, while the offspring was more tender and forgiving to play with. We’ve agreed with Inca II that this was it and we won’t ever be getting back together, but at least the little time we had together was entertaining enough. I am sure the fonder memories will reflect on the final rating.

Missed Classic 134: Death in the Caribbean (1983) - Introduction

 Written by Michael

I’m back to an Apple IIe game this time, from another short-lived company from the early days of adventure gaming.

In the early 80s, computer firm MicroLab created a gaming division, MicroFun.  Their role was to publish games created by others.  They made some interesting acquisitions, but were somewhat unfocused.  Arcade games, adventure games, sports games, but no specialty.  They published the ColecoVision port of Electronic Arts’ popular basketball game, One-on-One, the original of which would be the baseline upon which EA grew a sports game empire.  While today, we know them as leaders in the world of micropayments, in the 80s, they were generally the best sports game publishers in the industry.  This game was an officially licensed product, using the pixelated likenesses of Hall of Fame basketball players Dr. J (Julius Erving) and Larry Bird.

Homeworld - Final Rating

Written by Reiko

It's been a bumpy ride with Gateway II: Homeworld, including some technical issues, but I'm finally able to put together my thoughts on what made this game fun and where it surpassed or fell short of its predecessor. You might remember that I really enjoyed the original Gateway for a number of reasons. I enjoyed this one too, but I suspect that the overall result may not be quite as high as the first. Sequels are hard: providing everything that made the first installment good while creating new but similar content is a very delicate balance. Let's see how Homeworld compares.

Puzzles and Solvability

I found the puzzles to generally be fair and logical. There are only a few places where points seem optional, most notably when saving Diana. I may have been helped by remembering some bits of the puzzles, but even so, I think the pieces fit together well. I had very few issues solving anything. The puzzles are clever in a way that makes the player feel smart for figuring them out.

The puzzle with the magnetic clamps is one of my favorites.

I enjoyed mapping the ice maze even though it wasn't necessary, but it's good that there was an interesting non-mapping solution to finding the way through as well. While mazes are cliche in text adventures now, that is a maze done right.

Score: 7

Inca II – Won!

By Ilmari

Now that was easy! But let’s not be hasty, since we still have things to do.

Breathtaking landscape, part XVI

Discussion Point: Modern Adventures

 Written by the TAG Team

One of the most well-known adventures of the new century, but there's been others.

In our blog posts, we've focused on the past.  30, 40 years ago, during the so-called Golden Age of adventures.  But while the genre slowed down after that, it didn't stop completely.

What are your favorite adventures from the past 20 years?  Perhaps even ones that the other commenters have never heard of.  While everyone has likely heard of games like Thimbleweed Park, SpaceVenture, and Hero U, there have been others.  Something not written by one of the household names of the 90s?  A great Kickstarter you were happy to be a part of (unlike, say. the experience with SpaceVenture?)

Have no worries of spoiling our appetites for these games -- the blog won't be getting to them anytime soon.  But it might give us something to play in-between posts.

Inca II – By the power of Inca

By Ilmari

Last time I had crash landed on a planet, where a local astronomers set up her computer to calculate positions of three planets, where I should place three great powers of Incas, which would help to destroy an asteroid, which Aguirre, leader of space conquistadores, used for some malevolent purposes. While the computer was doing its calculations, I took a train to…

…search some caves?

I thought I was supposed to use the train to transport my spaceship. Apparently not. Caves it is then.

Kronolog - More Games About Buildings and Food (Request for Assistance)

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Last time, I stopped just after the Proconsul's secretary told me I had something to pick up in his office. It's another elevator down, and as I go down to floor F, I get told that today's thought is "remember the Zeppelin". Some interesting stuff here, cuttings from the now defunct Black Forest, and in this world, everyone's a big fan of Ministry's hit song "Everyday is Flag Day". Well, in Germany everyday is Flag Day, anyway. I wonder if the door I can't enter is a trap or not, or in fact, where I'm actually supposed to go. Oh, looking tells me. I appreciate that a lot.

Sweet digs, but I can't help but notice that the secretary isn't here. On the right we have some classy stuff, pay no attention, it's just there for flavor, you can't even open the cabinets. The game calls the painting on the right a mediocre example of German naturalist, but it still looks better than most modern art I've seen. The one in the back looks about right.

I go behind the desk and the scene changes. Somewhat unnecessary, because as soon as I look at the desk, other actions are invalid...

Inca II – Training session

By Ilmari

Last time Atahualpa was caught sneaking to beat some conquistadors by his papa, Eldorado. The conquistadors were still pissed and started an all out attack.

The WWI flying ace is also here

Papa don’t preach

So, the goggle guy took his fighter and Eldorado took my ship and they left me waiting in the main ship. With nothing else to do, I tried to access the ship controls.

Caught red-handed

The Han Solo wannabe wasn’t angry, although I was meddling with his ship and had even disarmed all the alarms, but he also asked me to be careful with his precious cargo. I still couldn’t help in the fight since the gun turret were broken and some joints were frozen.

Even the control lever is not doing anything

Pepper's Adventures in Time – The Dude Abides In Philly

Welcome back to the first exploration phase of Pepper’s Adventures in Time! A short recap: Our pet was dognapped by the spoiled daughter of an evil British colonist and we are looking for clues on how to infiltrate their mansion and bring Lockjaw back. Also, Pepper is looking for Ben Franklin who has succeeded in turning Philadelphia into a veritable Hippie town. Parts of it, at least. Our objectives for this act are simply to meet the colonists and Ben Franklin. To pass the obligatory test we’ll need to be all ears whenever somebody starts talking about British taxation acts, millinery shops, Ben Franklin’s influence on the colonial post office, the Penn family, and potholes. 

It may just be my pot-luck. 

It’s right on the first screen that we meet some laid-back fella called Marty Hardy tossing a frisbee off the screen, calling me “little dude”, going on about “big bad Ben” and whatnot. He’s not exactly helpful with any of my inquiries; we only learn that the Guvner is big on taxes and curfews. Marty also tells me that the “flying disk” (aka, the frisbee) is Ben Franklin’s greatest invention which would not be too shabby for anybody but people like Ben Franklin, I guess. 

Who will win? Historical inaccuracy or the last-minute addition of self-referentiality?

I leave the screen to the left and arrive at the Governor’s Mansion. Unfortunately, there are several guards blocking my passage, and I am unable to sweet-talk them into letting me pass. Maybe Pepper’s story is just not good enough – she’s claiming to make a delivery of nice, fresh air. Try selling fine leather jackets next time, kid! There is some kite string stuck in a tree but Pepper can’t reach it. The two guards mock me when I try to grab it but they still take it down and give it to me. When I talk to them one of them hints that he may be corruptible if I bring him food. Other than that they are quite rude, insulting me when I try to approach the bridge or even the little river.

Inca II – Tickle my fancy

By Ilmari

Last time, I failed to pass the space battle initiation test and was forced to choose the other one involving wisdom instead of action.

Game 148: Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox AKA Red Hell (1993) - Introduction

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Almost as long as we have recorded history have we wondered what would happen if history went a different way. What if the Persians won the Greco-Persian wars? What if Pope Leo X did away with indulgences? What if Napoleon won at Waterloo? What if the Nazis won WWII? Idle speculation or the odd piece of fiction for a long time, until the beginning of the twentieth century.

What it was that caused the genre to start picking up steam is not that tricky to figure out, people who were never there were sore they didn't live in a world where the American Confederacy won the Civil War or Napoleon lost. What prevented the genre from being dumped in the wake of stuff like Gone With the Wind is that actual historians became interested in the subject.

Enter J.C. Squire, himself quite the character, deciding to get a bunch of historians to write on the subject with a more scholarly interest. The resulting book, entitled If It Had Happened Otherwise is mostly notable now for having an essay from a pre-PM Winston Churchill.

TAG by the Numbers

Written by The TAG Team

With the final post for Myst, our blog has continued to grow and review many memorable games, some forgettable ones, and also some regrettable ones.

So a quick look back at what we’ve done so far (as of August 3rd):

We’ve played 274 games, not including the ones in progress right now.  The breakdown:

• Games played by Trickster (the early years of the blog): 45

• Guest Reviews during the Trickster era: 2

• Main line games after the blog became a community effort: 96

• Missed Classics, which started after Trickster retired: 131

Out of these games, only 4 weren’t completed. Three have a status of “Abandoned” and another “Indefinitely Delayed”.

• The first one was Captain Blood, which Trickster abandoned after 9 hours and very little to show for it.

• Another was a missed classic by one of our early, more (ahem) colorful commenters, Kenny McCormick. The Scoop, a mystery game with an advanced (for the time) interface.

• Next was Wonderland, played by another past commenter, The Mad Welshman.  Circumstances beyond their control caused them not to be able to finish the playthrough.

• Ilmari played Freedom: Rebels in the Darkness, and was unable to finish the game most likely due to a technical reason.

Which means we have a 98.5% completion rate, which isn’t too shabby!  (We do have rules for reviewers abandoning a game after a certain number of hours, but we tend to be masochists and stick with it.)

Who's keeping score? We are, with an average score of 40 awarded to the games. The most common score? 30, given to 15 different games. The highest rated game? That's over in the left-hand column, along with the rest of the top 10. But some other notables:

• The lowest rated Missed Classic? Drive-In Adventure, checking in at 7. That beats the lowest main game, Psycho, which at least hit double digits for 10.
• The highest rated Missed Classic? Would you believe it's one of Morpheus's recent Japanese-language conquests? Urotsukidoji came in at 57.

If we break it down by game type, Main Line games average about 48, and Missed Classics about 31.

Not counting Trickster, 20 reviewers have played 229 games.  Later this month, it will have been exactly ten years since Trickster’s last review, marking a transition to our current blog.  Two months later, Aperama set the standard for all reviews to follow with their take on Countdown.

Our top reviewers?  Tied for first place for completed Main Line games are admins Joe Pranevich and Ilmari Jauhiainen with 13 each, but if we count Ilmari’s unlucky attempt at Freedom, he takes the top with 14.  Tops for Missed Classics?  Joe Pranevich with 58.

As for interacting with the readers, the blog has posted 1595 entries (including this one), and the readers have commented over 28,000 times. That's an average of 17 comments per entry. There's no easy way to verify this, but it appears that the introduction post for Day of the Tentacle is our record holder, with 161 comments, and all the entries in that playthrough combine for a really impressive total.

As a way to meet and greet the readers, Trickster started a tradition of having them answer a few questions for the blog.  The feature titled “What’s Your Story” has 54 responses.  Is yours one of them?  If not, please look over on the left-hand side of this page, a little bit down, and submit yours!

And if you’ve already taken the time to do that, then we can talk about time a little.  The longest game we’ve played?  Well, technically, when one reviewer took over for another on a review of The Legacy: Realm of Terror.  But to keep it fair, let’s skip that one, and go to the 36+ hour ordeal that was Dungeon.  Well, maybe not ordeal, because it looks like Joe enjoyed it, but... wow.

Short games?  There’s a handful of missed classics that didn’t even last an hour, but the shortest main line game played for the blog was 1992’s Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, clocking in at just under an hour.

As for reading the blog?  You'd think that the most-read post would be for one of our high scorers, but instead it's Alice in Wonderland, with a below-average rating of 33. 

Speaking of numbers, it seems our time here is numbered, so tell us your thoughts!

Game 154: Inca II: Nations of Immortality (1993) – Introduction

By Ilmari

I see there’s a World War I pilot ace in this game. I wonder whether he will fly a Sopwith Camel

Myst - Final Rating

Written by Vetinari

It's time to input some ratings.

So, we arrived at the end of Myst, and we are left to explore the five worlds contained in this game at our leisure. But is that something that we would want to do? Let's find out with the final rating.

Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade - Over and Done With (And Final Rating)

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Right, let's get this over with. The Genesis version, hallowed be thy joypad mouse cursor, on earth as it is in hell, etc., etc..

Welcome to Detroitica, is that right? Five CAPs if I'm wrong and you correct me. I think the music was intended for the Genesis primarily, if you can believe that, because it sounds the least like the person designing it wishes pain upon players. Or maybe just luck, considering everything else I don't believe that to be true. The only thing I can interact with here is a computer, which is switched off. I can't use it, so I guess I have to turn it on somewhere else, like how most computers work.

You know, Dante's depiction of hell is really lacking in the platforming stages from this game. Yeah, sure, being a head stuck in a frozen, screaming vortex while Satan is at the center crying and screaming sucks, but imagine having to live in this stage in real life. This is merciful in one way, you don't die by getting hit by lasers, but it is crueler in the sense that you get shot and you are slowly taken back to the start of the level. This is right after a password point. (I decided against playing this from the start.

Myst – Won!

Written by Vetinari

We still have a final age to go, but will there be any other surprises or will this truly be the end of the game?

Yes, it will, you can see it right there in the title of the post.

Channelwood is an interesting locale, different from the other ages in that it is not an island, but instead something more akin to a swamp, or a mangrove forest, or something like that.

Discussion Point - Best Sequels

 Written by The TAG Team

No, this movie is NOT better than the original.  But the image was a good match for this blog post.

We all have our favorite games, out favorite designers, and favorite series.  But, sometimes they don't start out strong.  Which adventure game sequel came out that was remarkably better than the original?

Tough, right?  Usually they mess things up in sequels.  In movies, for example: Back to the Future 2.  But sometimes they get it right, taking something good and rolling with it.  For example, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit took the idea of role-reversal and make the game so much better by letting you be the cop instead.

Thoughts?

Missed Classic Spreadsheet, Rarities and Unplayables

Written by the TAG Team

We need more games to play.

Since we included a spreadsheet for readers to put in your suggestions for missed classics, we've gotten a rather modest 20 titles over the years, not including games that have been covered and removed, like Zombi or The Hound of Shadow; It's been a great resource, but recent events have suggested it could be a lot better.

There's not really a place for people to discuss these, and to some of us it seemed better that this be in a central place than randomly thrown about other entries. To this end we will occasionally asking for help, like Ilmari asking for the Peruvian version of Emanuelle (It completely changes everything!) or Morpheus asking if anyone knows how to get an Oric game running. (He's learning that Franscois!)

We've also made a few adjustments to the spreadsheet format, which ties into another ask. We ask that you be careful with links to where we can find the game. Generally speaking, we don't care if it's outright free, but abandonware is tricky. If you can't find it by searching for it on most search engines or if it's tricky to find on a search engine, add it, because we'll probably be asking about that anyway. We don't need, say, links to EA games or some major company even if they don't sell it. We can find them easily and when the Franchise Wars start up, we don't need to be among the first marked for an EA death squad.

But more importantly, we're adding two categories, time added, and sub-genre. You don't need to get into too much detail in the first, just month and year, so we know how long something's been there, we also ask that in the future people don't add their names, just to ensure we aren't biased by certain suggestions.

The second, sub-genre is where the ask comes in. Here, we'd like to know about graphic adventures that we've missed. 1992 and earlier. Not text adventures with pictures, graphic adventures, as it can be hard to find information on harder to find games. It's not like text adventures or VNs, which have their own dedicated sites, or ADV (Japanese-style adventures) which you can easily figure out about. Oddities are also appreciated.

This is also a great place for you to discover new games yourself, and if you feel up to the challenge, play a little and try writing a post of your own for the blog.  Some of us enjoy reading about the conquests of others, and some like sharing the details themselves.  

This post is going to be linked in the sidebar of the page, where the spreadsheet link previously was.  It'll be an easy resource to find and discuss these overlooked and truly Missed Classics.

Myst – Our Ancestors

Written by Vetinari

In this installment of the Adventurers' Guild Myst playthrough, we will be visiting our third age, the Stoneship age.

Nice flyover of the island as usual.

We find ourselves at the aft of the sailing ship, which is correlated with the location of the book on Myst island. Strangely enough, however, the room where the book was is now completely submerged by seawater.

Veil of Darkness - A Weight Lifted (Won! and Final Rating)

Written by Zenic Reverie

Hindsight is often referred to as 20/20, but looking back on the last hurdle I needed to cross to complete Veil of Darkness has soured the experience just a touch because as far as can I tell there's no indication I needed to do this.

Thanks to Agrivar for the assist, I instantly realized this is a hole and not the tree's shadow.

Agrivar indicated it was indeed an item I hadn't used, and I should look to use it where I found it. I thought maybe I'd lasso the plane and pull a section out of the swamp. As soon as I loaded the screen though, I looked at this tree and tied the rope. The main problem I have with this type of solution to a puzzle is there's no way to examine the environment to know that shadow was a hole. Sure, I can't walk over it, but there's plenty of other fiddly bits of terrain that block progress that I didn't think much about not being able to walk under a tree. If there was an NPC that mentioned holes in the swamp, then I missed it, but as dialog is the main way the game gives descriptions I would have hoped for some hint about them or the mushrooms growing below.

Myst - Invisible Cities

Written by Vetinari

So, for this post we are going to explore the spaceship age.

Actually the real name is Selenitic age, you know.

As already seen in the Mechanical age, we arrive in a place which is an exact correspondence of the one that we have just left (in this case the interior of the spaceship) but our surroundings are completely different.

Stepping out on a brand new world.

I expected this place to be a volcanic wasteland, based on Atrus's journal description of it, but instead we are just on another island, with some geothermal vents as the only feature giving away the idea of underground volcanic activity.

Pepper's Adventures in Time – What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Written by Will Moczarski

When we left Pepper last time she was just getting ready to mosey around the small settlement of Philadelphia in the year of 1764. There’s a man called poor Richard (after Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack) clapped into wooden stocks who tells me all about Benjamin Franklin’s strange transformation of late. The once wise man has now turned towards foolishness and frivolity, and Richard wonders why. Poor Richard has a very dry mouth and asks Pepper for her help. Naturally, I pick up a dipper conveniently placed nearby, fill it up, and help Richard to some water. I then free him from his conundrum and Richard is very thankful, although he suspiciously states that he must now hurry back to “B--, er, back to my family.” Does he mean Britain? Ben? Did I help the wrong guy?

We're talking about Boston, right?

Because the game is targeted at kids the inventory is very streamlined. Pepper decides that she has no use for the dipper anymore and puts it right back. A soldier then comes along and accuses me of helping a criminal to flee. Pepper tells the man to "chill out" but he won’t have any of it. He cockily informs me that he’s the King’s own watchman and proceeds to grab Pepper and handles her quite violently, especially considering she’s a child. Our trusty dog Lockjaw decides to get in there and bites the watchman but in the end we both end up trapped inside a wooden building. The watchman is walking to and fro outside and we can’t do anything without him telling us to stop, prompting humorous and snide remarks from Pepper. 

Myst – The Castle of Crossed Destinies

Written by Vetinari

Last time we were finally ready, after solving most if not all of the puzzles on Myst island, to embark on a journey to a different age.

I've decided to tackle the four tomes in the order that we discovered it, so the first one is the book which was hidden inside the cogwheels.

The flyover animation of the island is very nice.

After the usual sound effect of entering a new book (the same as when we load the game, incidentally) we find ourselves in a very similar environment to what we left, i.e. some opened cogwheels, but with the book gone.

Cosmic Spacehead - Dreadful Warnings

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Because of the password system, I have to start from scratch until the game decides I deserve a code. So I pick up everything I can in the starting area, joke book, 1 gold coin and a teleport key. As I go through one of the platformer screens, I realize that Mr. Spacehead looks like the Kool-aid Man's shifty cousin, who can get you stuff if you don't ask too many questions.

This is supposed to be a pun on "lucky day", but I kept mentally thinking it as "luke e day".

Cape Carnival. That there's a slot machine. 99.9% payout, it says. I would suspect that Cosmic is the 0.1%, but it turns out he gets 50 lino dollars from it. I feel as though, in giving me no difficulty whatsoever in getting more money, it has cheated us both. I have done nothing for what I have, and it has no reason to be played. Nearby, there's both an advertisement for bumper cars, and an all expenses paid trip to a car factory. "That's the trip of a lifetime!"

Unfortunately, to get the trip to Detroitica, Cosmic needs a driver's license, because he is probably 5, but the attendant gives him a balloon as a consolation. I try to go to the left, but that's the bumper car race and I can't go in without speaking to him. I accidentally end up talking to him again, and in trying to get out of the dialog, I press escape. This quits the game.

Discussion Point: How Would You Change The Game?

By The TAG Team

Here’s a tough game of “what-if”:

We’ve all played games at times and said, “if only they had done this instead of that.”  Or maybe just thinking of a new twist on something to breathe more life into it.

For example:  What if they remade Police Quest 1, but from the point of view of Jesse Bains?  Like, perhaps, an adventure game version of Grand Theft Auto.  There’s probably not too many adventure games that make you sell drugs to win, right?

Or, how about the other direction?  After all, they already made a card game version of The Oregon Trail, how about a tabletop role-playing game of The Secret of Monkey Island?  A roll of the dice determines how many bananas you’ll need to make a monkey wrench...

Yeah, this is a tough one -- but we’re sure you have some ideas.

Myst – The Path to the Spiders' Nests

Written by Vetinari

I am in great difficulty when I have to write something about Myst for this blog, because, let's be honest, nothing much actually happens.

It would be much easier if I could, I don't know, just post some random screenshot and say "Here's another gorgeous view from this game".

Here's another gorgeous view from this game.

Anyway, we had to finish exploring the two buildings which we haven't entered yet, that is the power supply substation and the wood cabin and its environs.

Veil of Darkness - Dying a Charmed Death (Request for Assistance)

Written by Zenic Reverie

I'll start by admitting defeat. I'm stuck. I've been doing my best to avoid it thus far by scouring every place for items or clues, even replaying the game to make careful notes of words in dialogue before I learned to ask Seth for a light. I'll admit I've been a bit lax on doing so since then, and it might finally be time to pay the piper for that mistake. I thought the game would naturally give me all the pieces by the end. This game though seems keen on making me work for it. I'm facing Kairn, surely on the cusp of victory, and yet missing at least one vital step.

Maybe I need to blind myself.

I had thought avoiding the vampire's charms would require some item, and yet I've so far tried everything I have available. I hoped it was as easy as wearing the garlic necklace, but that must provide a different kind of protection. I reviewed the prophecy: