Hardest point n click adventure game?

[Family Fry]

I am just playing through The Dig and I swear there was NO clear solution to this, until I literally spammed inverntory items with things.

->Open Spoiler<-

You have this alien turtle which keeps getting eatin by this monster, once it's eaten it spits out it's bones which you have to put back in order, you then have these crystals which can bring this turtle back to life. So you do the bones, bring turtle back to life then turtle gets eaten again. Anyway queue you having to put a cannister/bomb onto of the bones before you use the crystals to bring it back to life, I swear this took me 2 and half hours! of just random clicking and replies.

Deffo one of the most annoying I have encountered.

[redstar_dan]

I replayed Discworld 2 over my christmas break. I would say its certainly one of the easier adventure games I have played thus far. I would say from on-off play, it took me a total of 4 - 5 days at a very casual, couple of hour play style a day. Im not sure if that was down to the fact I played alot of this game when I was much younger. It was good fun, the humor was a bit hit and miss in areas mind.
I started Full Throttle, however I am actually stuck at the moment (quite early on aswell lol) so gave it a rest. I really dont want to resort to a guide, as I concider that cheating, heh.

[Catmoo]

If you get really stuck Dan you can always try

http://www.uhs-hints.com/

You have to download the reader but I always used to find it useful for games without spoiling anything and without finding out directly what I needed to know.

You've played the Broken Sword's and Simon the Sorcerer right?

[redstar_dan]

If you get really stuck Dan you can always try

http://www.uhs-hints.com/

You have to download the reader but I always used to find it useful for games without spoiling anything and without finding out directly what I needed to know.

You've played the Broken Sword's and Simon the Sorcerer right?

I have never heard of that before, thanks Catmoo.

I have played both of the Broken Swords and loved them. I have played about half of the first SS around the time when it was released, I cant recall finishing it tho. There really is a healthy amount of this genre, quite impressive thinking about it. I need to play Mechanarium aswell, I hear thats quite good.

[Family Fry]

Best thing about these type of games is they are still being made and you will always have the classics at hand to play or buy.
Just picked up the lucasarts bundle from steam as I have never played the Indy point n clicks, always wanted to. Thought I would go through The Dig first, also Loom. So many classics.

[slicer1000]

I would have to say one of the myst games 2/3/4 as they are just mind bending with some of the puzzles. discworld had some strange puzzles but I had a guide. I never played the DIG so I can't comment on that my guess would be very few people did.

[fallenangle]

I haven't played enough point-and-clickers to be able to make any sort of general comparison but two I have which I've needed (Gamefaqs) help to complete were Broken Sword: Shadow of The Templars and Riven (the sequel to Myst).

Both were done pretty early on in my serious gaming career so it could be that now I might not find them as difficult. However I've played all the other console released Myst games and I still think that Riven is the toughest nut of the bunch.

What other puzzle game dumps you in an 'alien' world almost clueless as to what you're meant to be doing let alone how to do it?

[Family Fry]

Well ever since Myst broke the genre of doing that, there were shed loads of clones that all did that same style of 'stranded' fps/still picture gameplay. Still being made to this day too, check out the Rhem Series if you liked Myst.
Also Jonathan Blow (the guy who made Braid) is doing a new game called The Witness, you walk around in first person on an island, alone with puzzles for company think it's XBLA/PC.

[Catmoo]

I have never heard of that before, thanks Catmoo.

I have played both of the Broken Swords and loved them. I have played about half of the first SS around the time when it was released, I cant recall finishing it tho. There really is a healthy amount of this genre, quite impressive thinking about it. I need to play Mechanarium aswell, I hear thats quite good.

Np, UHS in my eyes was made for point and clicks, although as it's all done by the community you may not find help for everything.

Good to hear you've done the Broken Swords, as I noticed you hadn't mentioned too much of what you've played.

It's not so much retro but you should give Axel & Pixel on XBLA a go, I thought it was a cute little title, quite short and not too hard.

Picked up lots of point and clicks from the steam sale as well so I have digital copies of some of the games.

Also talking of recent ones there was quite a interesting Lovcraftian horror point and click that came out recently called Darkness Within 2, made by a few guys.

The Whispered World is also a very recent beautiful game that point and click fans should give a go.

Going back on older games, I always quite liked Blade Runner, Under a Killing Moon, The Neverhood (must play game). However I found the neverhood rock hard at times.

I really wanna bust out all the oldies if I can get them running alright and play through them

[redstar_dan]

Good to hear you've done the Broken Swords, as I noticed you hadn't mentioned too much of what you've played.

Hmm lets see now,
Beneath a Steel Sky (My personal favourite out of this genre, that I have played), Sam and Max, Discworld 1 + 2 + 3, Full Throttle, The Dig, Day of the Tentacle, Broken Sword 1 + 2, Indy Fate of Atlantis, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Samrost (not sure if this qualifies), Ripper, Normality, Blade Runner, Simon the Sourcerer, Monkey island 1 + 2 + 3. I think thats them all. The odd one or two I never saw the ending of.

Edit - If I had to pick a top 3, it would be;
1) Beneath a Steel Sky
2) Discworld 1
3) Blade Runner

[fallenangle]

Well ever since Myst broke the genre of doing that, there were shed loads of clones that all did that same style of 'stranded' fps/still picture gameplay. Still being made to this day too, check out the Rhem Series if you liked Myst.
Also Jonathan Blow (the guy who made Braid) is doing a new game called The Witness, you walk around in first person on an island, alone with puzzles for company think it's XBLA/PC.

Thanks for thjat Rhem link. Never heard of the game series before but it looks and sounds really interesting.

[gizmo1990]

Broken Sword. Some of the puzzles in that game defied all logic.

I still don't understand the esteem it's held in.

['Press Start']

Hmm lets see now,
Beneath a Steel Sky (My personal favourite out of this genre, that I have played), Sam and Max, Discworld 1 + 2 + 3, Full Throttle, The Dig, Day of the Tentacle, Broken Sword 1 + 2, Indy Fate of Atlantis, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Samrost (not sure if this qualifies), Ripper, Normality, Blade Runner, Simon the Sourcerer, Monkey island 1 + 2 + 3. I think thats them all. The odd one or two I never saw the ending of.

Edit - If I had to pick a top 3, it would be;
1) Beneath a Steel Sky
2) Discworld 1
3) Blade Runner

'In bold'
Great game, story and humour. Happy memories of this game on the trusty Amiga

[Deuteros]

Sierra's adventure games are one of my most beloved game series. Ah, so many memories... Mostly fond, but some quite infuriating.

They're often accused of being unfair or obtuse and, while I can certainly understand the reasoning for that, I also think people forget that Sierra were trailblazers. They didn't have an handbook to rely upon, they were laying down the rules for adventure games as they went along. The problem mostly comes from the unflinching compromise to realism they had on some of their earlier games, though.

In one of the first Police Quests, if you entered the police station without putting your gun inside a locker first, it was game over. The same thing happened if you entered your car without examining it first, by walking around it with your character. But, really, the Police Quest series is, quite understandably, one of the worst examples of the compromise I mentioned.

On the first Space Quest, if you didn't pick up a shard of glass from your crashed escape pod early in the game, you'd be stuck on a much later section where you'd need it to reflect a laser beam. That's just plain bad game design. You also had to order a drink at the bar on Ulence Flats three times in order for the story to unfold! That stopped me on my tracks for a while...

I can't believe I completed so many of these games as a kid without having access to guides, hintbooks, helplines or, for obvious reasons, the internet. Sometimes, a friend would have played the game and could help me get past a certain part, but that was it! By the way, does anyone remember those infamous hintbooks that Sierra pioneered? The text would be printed in a light blue colour and there would be random gibberish printed in red all over the pages, making them very hard to read unless you read them through a red-tinted adventure window that came included. I'm not sure if Sierra created the hintbook, but they certainly were the first to come up with the idea of spoiler tags!

Yeah there were plenty of situations in Sierra's early games where you'd have no chance of progressing all because you made the wrong decision or missed an item. Can't remember the name of it now but it had Quest in the title (wasn't a Kings Quest game), I got up to a certain point where you had to learn the ability to pick locks to progress, problem was I'd missed it and had no way of going back

That must have been on one of the Quest for Glory games, my favourite series! You were never required to learn how to pick locks in order to progress, though. If you were playing a magic user, for instance, there was a spell that allowed you to open things. If I remember correctly, playing as a thief (or any other class, provided you had learned the 'lockpicking' skill) merely granted you access to two or three places that were otherwise unaccessible, such as some of the houses of the fine people of Spielburg in the first game or the thieves' guild in the fourth game.

[fallenangle]

Broken Sword. Some of the puzzles in that game defied all logic.

I still don't understand the esteem it's held in.

I agree whole heartedly on the first point. Many of the puzzles, particularly in the first Broken Sword, were often obscure, defied all logic or were just plain stupid. Maybe a bit of a spoiler but I remember one where you had to carry around a bar towel, acquired in a ridiculously complex way, soaked in water just to be able to wring it out at the appropriate point.

But whilst the puzzles elements were sometimes highly questionable in their conception the overall production quality, humourous script and storylines were outstanding. In George and Nico BS created two genuinely pleasing and involving characters. That's something many games never manage and why BS should be highly regarded.

Recently I did old Xbox BS: The Sleeping Dragon, which really can't be called a point and clicker, more an action/clicker. One major flaw aside it was the most unexpectedly enjoyable games I played last year.