Adventure Games

I think I want to try an "adventure" game. Something that is a little less heavy on the action. I don't think I can play through one more FPS game.

I remember a few years ago my brother was playing this game where he was walking around some French town and talking to people, figuring out some mystery. I am not looking for that game, but the general idea sounds interesting.

What is a good game with modern graphics to check out? Please don't recommend anything unless it is really good. I have a low tolerance for cheesy dialog and badly done "emotional" crap in games. I also don't like fantasy stuff. One of the Silent Hill games might be good.

There haven't been many genuinly "good" adventures in many years, so it's difficult to suggest anything. The best adventure games were released in the early to mid-nineties. These days, "good" seems to mean "better than the really awful stuff". Now, most adventure games come from Europe. They tend to feature the cheesy (or overly long) dalogue and overwrought emotional scenes that you mentioned, along with poor translation, slow pacing, and awful voiceovers.

The Silent Hill games aren't adventure games, by the way.

Sounds like the game your brother was playing may have been Broken Sword III.

What do you mean by 'modern graphics'? If you're talking shaders and such, I don't know of any. As JustLuke says, there haven't really been any released in years (as far as I'm aware).

Try Syberia its divided up into two games.
Se pictures from the second game here

Broken sword 3 is pretty good yeah. That one has you wandering some towns solving a mystery and is a lot of fun.

Another game I enjoyed was farenheit/Indigo Prophecy. It's a great game and unusual in that it has simon says type action sequences that worked really well with a gamepad. Less so with the mouse and keyboard.

IGN Indigo Prophecy review.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/652/652420p1.html

It's full 3D. I prefer both the above mentioned games to the old school 2D adventure games which tend to be a bit too static/event/puzzle driven for my liking.

I'm hoping to get Jack Keane soon, Which I'm keen on because it was done with Ogre and the look and feel reminds me of old Lucas Arts adventure games like full throttle.

Preview at http://pc.ign.com/articles/841/841401p1.html

The thing about Broken Sword III is that you'll get more enjoyment from it if you've played the first two game - which were 2D point-and-click. In-jokes, etc...

By "adventure" I mean a plot-driven game with a third-person view.

The earlier game I was talking about was actually FPS view, I think. It was modern or maybe the 1800s. I remember some old crazy woman starts going off on you when you go in one building, and she is kind of weird and scary.

But I just want that kind of feeling where you don't know what will happen next, and anything is possible.

You also walk around Paris (and Glastonbury) + more in Broken Sword the Sleeping Dragon. I like it.

Yeah, walking around Glastonbury in a game was weird - I used to do a day release course there, when I was on YTS, years ago. Don't think the game version of Glastonbury was much like the real place, though. :)

It's already out, if you're happy to buy online. It got held back through publisher wranglings outside of Germany, but it's available on Gamer's Gate among other places. It looks tempting, but I don't have any free time at the moment.

I concur on Broken Sword. But if you want something abit deeper you can try "The longest Journey" and "Dreamfall" they're both available on Steam. I really enjoyed those.

Darkstone. Not modern, but still very much enjoyable.

Jack Keane is good, a solid 8 in german. I don't know how good the english version is.

Sanatarium is an older game, but with amazing graphics for 1998. Its not "modern" so may not fit what your looking for , but modern games dont have the atmosphere of this one either.

Reviews are mostly praising the game, its truely one of a kind in the adventure genra.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/sanitarium/index.html

lol, I 100% concurr.

Actually I agree with the comment about not that many good modern adventure games, it seems all the classics were in the 90s.

I remember Sanitarium...played the first two levels...that was scary!

I want something sort of like that, but I want to be able to walk around in 3D, wherever I want to go.

It does sound as though you want Silent Hill or Resident Evil, but neither of them are very good on PC. They don't play well with keyboard and mouse and the PC conversions have vastly inferior graphics.

The only other quality plot-driven adventure with a good, scary atmosphere I can think of is Still Life, but it's a pure adventure. Story, puzzles, dialog, but no combat at all.

I recently played through Sanitarium and it's a very interesting game with some intriguing concepts. However the author saw fit to include a puzzle on the final level for which the game's control are simply inadequate.

Played Dreamfall earlier this year and really enjoyed it - however it's not so much a game as a fantasy page turner - there's a lot of dialogue but if you take it on that level (i.e. grab a cup of coffee and sit back), it's a great piece of entertainment. But the ending is inconclusive as it's part of a continuing story.

Also played the latest Broken Sword and had a bit of fun, but the blonde american dickhead irritated me in the end and I didn't finish.

Indigo Prophecy (a.k.a. 'Fahrenheit' anywhere outside the U.S. and Canada)

Played through it twice. Great game and great adventure. Ending was a bit 'meh' but the experience throughout was well worth it.

Assassin's Creed? probably a lil high on the action though.

Ico (on PS2) is undoubtedly the best adventure game I've ever played. 90% of the game is 3rd person exploring, solving puzzles and activating huge machines within the old castle to allow further progress. The remaining 10% involves fighting and action sequences.

It also has the best atmosphere / graphics / sound matching of any game ever - by themselves no one factor is particularly outstanding, but mixed together they become stunning - the first time you emerge from the darkness into the sun and get your first view over the sheer size of the castle, with the coast in the distance....WOW! One of the few times in a game when I've just stood still and panned the camera around for about 5 minutes just taking in the atmosphere.

Stunning game, truly stunning.

Of course, you'll need a PS2 as it's a single-format game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikron:_The_Nomad_Soul could pick it up on ebay pretty cheaply

Agree on Ico. It's awesome. Hey that 3D Indy Jones game that was a (better) rip off of tomb raider that came out about 7-8 years ago (maybe longer) was neat.

One of my fave PC games is a third person (with an fps mode) adventure game. Pretty old now, but can also get it on ebay pretty cheaply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(game)

http://uk.gamespot.com/features/1999/p3_02a.html

well if we are talking old games, here's some more I've finished over the years:

action-ish:

Star Trek DS9: The Fallen (this is 3rd person)
Dues Ex (not sure if you can go 3rd person)
System Shock 2 (not sure if you can go 3rd person)
Ecstatica (probably won't run on anything modern)
Bioforge
Fade to Black
Tomb Raiders
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (recommended)
Outcast
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
The Phantom Menace (kidding)
Ultima VI, VII, VIII and ascension

point n click:
Broken Sword
King's Quest
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Full Throttle
The Dig
Blade Runner
Day of the Tentacle
Sam n Max
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Curse of Monkey Island + the other monkey islands
Grim Fandago

Did they ever do a PC version of the Dreamcast game Shenmue? Probably not.

That game was supposed to be really good with complete freedom to go anywhere and do anything. I never did get around to playing it, though.

My friend raved about it for sure,

hmmm, wasnt that keen on shenmue, the pace was too slow the main characters controls were very clumsy and mechanical and you could pick up every single object in the game and search it.

Interesting features and breathdaking graphics for the time, but I found it a bit too cludgy to enjoy with the controls getting in the way of story immersion.

Maybe Loom fits well into the christmas time.

Wonderful old skool LucasArts adventure from Brian Moriarty.

SCUMM games, or games with similar art/atmosphere/story are great outlets for artists! That's somewhat of a point here, I'm sure a number of Blitzers could create an engine for that, it's not too hard. But where're you going to find the ~4..6 pixelers you're going to need -for free-?

The Witcher looks veeeeeery good. Downloading the demo now.

Witcher is cool, you can make decisions that can have concequences, like in the part where your kind of a detective you can make the wrong conclusions that wind up with innocent people getting killed asa concequence later on and it doesn't break the game. It can make it more difficult to solve but you get to make a lot of choices that make a difference in the game world even hours after you made them.

Hey there Josh - all the best to you btw -

I have played Siberia II on XBOX - from this stable (Microids) - these are about three years old and available on Xbox,PS2, and PC as I remember:

Siberia
Siberia II
Post Mortem

They are typical third person view, adventure games with inventory, tasks to achieve, characters to 'speak to' and generally look the part although not as good as the ultra graphics in something like HL2.

They were developed by Microids (who use the Virtools engine as middleware). You can purchase and download from their website.

http://www.microids.com/

All the best

IPete2.

Of things not mentioned, check out Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts for modern ways to use the style, Runaway (just for the graphics - really cool new approach) and if you're looking into Silent Hill then go for part II, the deepest and most unsettling of the series. A big plus one for Shenmue, as a flawed unbelievably special game, incredibly soulful and immersive. The ending of part II is one of the most amazing game experiences of my life!

Assassin's Creed is sweet!

Wait for "A Vampire Story"...

I concurr with Beyond Good and Evil and Silent Hill 2