Classic titles

Bit of a misleading title to this post, but picked up the following the other day;

The Dig
Full Throttle
Condemned: Criminal Origins
and Halo

I enjoyed The Dig. The graphics are dated of course (320x240 res), but still beautifully drawn, and what really makes the game is the sound. In fact, it doesn't matter that this game is 12 years old, the story is engaging, the voice acting excellent and it's almost like playing an interactive radio play. If Lucasarts were smart, they'd redraw the backgrounds at high-res, make the character sprites into 3d models and re-release as an updated classic at full price.

Been playing Full Throttle a little bit - not quite as likeable as The Dig - perhaps the subject/style seems a little contrived to me, but still an enjoyable adventure.

Condemned: Criminal Origins. This one's a gem. Took a little while to grow on me, but it's really creepy and just flat out horrifying in places. And I'm actually engaged by the storyline and characters. Plus the violence is extreme.

Halo. Never played it when it came out. Might as well give it a go now.

I've completed and loved almost all of the Lucasarts titles. The Dig and Full Throttle are interesting variations to their usual formula. They both play like interactive stories, with less interaction than in their other titles. The Dig was quite a strange and beautiful game.

I don't know if the original Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle are still available - but if they are and you haven't played them, they are both superb titles and well worth trying if like you say you don't mind the blocky graphics.

One classic of theirs I've been meaning to get is Grim Fandango. I think it's the only title I haven't yet played.

The PC needs more old school style adventures - proper ones where the humour, story and characterisation make the gameplay fairly irrelevant.

Caffy

Apparently The Dig went way over time and went through three production teams. For awhile it looked like it was going to be vapourware.

I've played Sam and Max and Grim Fandango - great titles as well and still worthwhile because of the excellent voice acting, story and artwork.

I played the demo of the new Sam and Max the other day and it just didn't grab me. Think it's something to do with the 3d graphics - 3d is just too 'solid', too well defined. I think seeing how an artist created the impression of a scampering rat (say) in 10x10 pixels (or less) is kind of fun in itself.

(Also, I'm not averse to using a walkthrough when I get truly stuck.)

As always, ScummVM is the best way to run all those old SCUMM-based Lucas titles. It's virtually bug free these days and really helps those gfx look less dated.

Remember The Dig came out after Full Throttle, so technology was greater and Lucas could do more with it (for example, all the 'digital' audio in Full Throttle are just recordings of the midi tunes using good (for the time, dated now) hardware. And Steven Spielberg had his part in The Dig too, which always helps.

MadJack-
Can't agree with you more on the Dig. A truly beautiful and memorable game. I bet those backgrounds are hand-painted and the boards are laying around somewhere begging to be re-scanned. Love the music and bought the soundtrack off Ebay recently.

Funny thing is, I don't remember it being well publicised. Few people have heard of it compared with other Lucas Arts classics.

Yes that "The Dig" was a great game.
Also the "Indiana Jones" adventures took a lot of my time.

What a coincidence. Just two days ago I was in our local
"King of Trade" and saw an original copy of The Dig on the
shelf in its huge, 4x sized box.

That game was as entertaining and engrossing to watch as it was to play.

Shoulda bought it.

drew

Yes, they've re-released it, which is why I saw it (gameplanet.co.nz) and ordedered it.

The other thing about these old adventure titles is that back in the day, it was unlikely you'd be able to grab a walkthrough from the internet, so they could be considerably more frustrating to play than today. Don't know about you, but I simply can't be bothered spending too much time now trying to solve some of the more obscure clues (and these old adventure games always seemed to have one or more points that just seemed to make little sense) - so I use a walkthrough for one or two hints.

But back in the really old days (text only adventures on a vic20 cartridge), you had to not only guess the correct action, but also the correct phrase, e.g 'use bucket on vampire' vs "use bucket with vampire". So I figure I've paid my dues so to speak.