Stinger

“April. Daughter. I have been waiting for you. Because it begins here, with you, as it always has.” The state of adventure gaming at the end of the last millenium was depressing, to put it mildly. If not for DreamCatcher, we would have had literally nothing to sustain us as adventure fans, and the vast […]

“Go, Sir Graham! Go and bring me back those treasures. If you succeed, you will inherit the throne.” Before I even begin today’s entry, a few words about historical importance as a factor in this ranking: Three years ago, in the previous incarnation of this countdown, I gave much higher weight to historical importance. As […]

“Whatever are you on about, Holmes, so early in the morning?” I’m a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I’ll say that right at the top here so there’s no mistake. I’m also a fan of detective stories and games in general. I absolutely love a good murder mystery. Now, before you go crying unfair bias and […]

“Ooh! Does this mean we get to kick some puffy, white, mad scientist butt?” There’s probably nothing quite as painful as failed humor. This has been my experience with quite a few amateur games that have attempted to channel the spirit of LucasArts, and also some of the Leisure Suit Larry games, among others. When […]

“Sorry for the wait, Mr. Flores. I am ready to take you now.” I have spent most of this countdown justifying why a certain game ranks as high as it does. Somehow I have a feeling that with Grim Fandango, I’m going to be justifying how I could possible rank it so low. The adventure […]

“Alright Jones, how you gonna find that statue in all this junk?” After three successful (but rather mediocre) game adaptations of the Indiana Jones movies, LucasArts struck out on a new direction for the game informally referred to as “Indy4” and wrote a new original story centered around the famous Lost City of Atlantis. The […]

“Did you dream about the fire and the hanged guy and that lion thing last night?” The graphic adventure was peaking in 1993, and Sierra was hard at work on sequels to their established dynasties: Police Quest 4, Space Quest VI, King’s Quest VII, Quest for Glory 4, and Leisure Suit Larry 6. In the […]

“The city holds many memories for me, of cafes, music, of love…and of death.” Generally, we tend to divide adventure games into three categories: Sierra, LucasArts, and Other, and for good reason; no companies have ever been able to duplicate the productivity, or the success of the two adventure kingpins. Over the last five years, […]

“Alexander, here you are! You’re not still thinking about Cassima, are you?” The rise and fall of Sierra On-Line parallels the rise and fall of graphic adventure games, for obvious reasons, because Sierra was a major part of all the genre’s stages. They gave birth to the graphic adventure, nurtured it to its peak level […]

“My name’s Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate!” Never has a company produced such a magnificent run of great games as LucasArts did during their golden era, from 1990 to 1995. But they weren’t always pumping out the hits in rapid-fire fashion. After the release of Maniac Mansion in 1987, the SCUMM […]