By Rob Bricken in
Daily Lists, Video Games
Thursday, Sep. 11 2008 @ 5:02AM
By Zac Bertschy
PC adventure games are a lot like Westerns; in their prime, wildly popular genres that dominated their respective mediums during their era, but died out surprisingly swiftly when consumer taste shifted. Few people will argue that PC adventure games as a genre are alive and well; sure, you have episodic adventure games still being produced (like the new Sam & Max and Strong Bad games) but during the 80’s and '90s, when it came to PC gaming, adventure games were king, and have all but vanished in the 21st century.
Some of them—like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle and King’s Quest VI, remain some of the best games of all time. But then a lot of them are really, really bad, and some of these terrible games cost a hell of a lot of money to make. Here’s a look at 10 of the worst offenders.
10) The Dig
Lucasarts released The Dig back in 1995 to the delighted anticipatory drooling of nerds across the country. The plot was pretty basic: a giant asteroid is threatening Earth, so NASA sends up a crack team of astronauts to blow it up. During the mission, the astronauts accidentally activate an alien spaceship that takes them to another world. With a lead character voiced by Robert Patrick and promising stellar character animation and amazing CG, fans expected The Dig to be one of the best adventure games ever made.
Instead, it’s a humorless, incredibly dull “adventure” where you wander around a lifeless monochrome planet solving boring puzzles (Assemble a turtle skeleton! Change shapes on a stick!) and trying to figure a way back home. The tone of the game is supposed to be “haunting”, since it’s a dead and abandoned alien world and all, but instead it’s kind of like hanging out in a new age shop where you’re waiting for the manager to come back from lunch and tell you about his prayer crystals but you don’t know when that’s going to happen so you just sit in a chair and listen to the soothing music for a few hours while assembling a plastic slide puzzle with a picture of Pac-Man on it. The game also advertised having dialogue written by legendary sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, which sounds great until you realize that in order to make this a selling point, the characters never, ever shut up and go on at length about every uninteresting thing they see. Simply picking up a metal rod will subject you to a minute-long monologue about the possibilities inherent in said metal rod. The Dig had so much potential but wound up being one of the most boring adventures ever.
9) Escape From Monkey Island
The first three Monkey Island games are, inarguably, three of the funniest and most entertaining adventure games ever made. Hilarious dialogue, clever puzzles, great characters; they had it all. So how do you go about totally fucking up a great franchise? Why, force it into 3D and ditch the people who wrote the previous games!
Escape From Monkey Island is a pretty dismal effort. The puzzles are unimaginative and the writing stinks. Gone are the clever interactions and dry wit; this time they went for Dreamworks Animation-style pop culture references in lieu of actual jokes, so there are locations like “Starbuccaneers”. Get it? They’re motherfucking pirates, so they DRINK COFFEE AT A PLACE CALLED STARBUCCANEERS. Fucking hilarious, right?
The worst part about Escape from Monkey Island, however, is the ending; you’re forced to play an incredibly unfunny, frustrating and badly designed fighting game called “Monkey Kombat." See, the Monkey Island series has a history of “insult swordfighting”, wherein you duel another pirate by trading quips. They did away with that and instead paired a Mortal Kombat parody with that go-to comedy animal that makes everything instantly side-splitting: monkeys. Yes, it’s as horrible as it sounds. Escape From Monkey Island was not only an unnecessary sequel, it killed the franchise for good by sucking so badly. Fuck this game.
8) Quest for Glory 3: Wages of War
The Quest For Glory series was an odd duck. It was an attempt at marrying classic adventure gameplay with hardcore roleplaying elements, including character stats and levels, skills, and combat. The first game in the series wasn’t bad, but the two genres seemed an odd fit. Still, it was amusing enough. At the end of the second game—wherein the villain, Ad Avis, escapes—the on-screen text announces that he’ll appear in the next game, suggesting a serial storyline. Turns out they decided to scrap that for the third game and instead send you to the land of furries.
That’s right. Furries. Quest For Glory III was inserted at the last minute into the franchise, and it was obviously designed by furries because you spend the entire fucking game interacting with creepy “Liontaurs” (which is a lion with the body of a horse and the penis of a horse in case your brain has not yet been invaded by the furry menace) who are warring against a tribe of Leopardtaurs (which is a leopard with the body of a horse and.. fuck it). Not only is the story fairly uninspired, the whole game feels really slapped together; it’s shorter than the others, and there’s a bug that prevents you from getting a perfect score. It also ditches the series’ trademark humor and instead takes everything really goddamn seriously, which compounds the awfulness of the furry element. It’s like reading a really shitty furry webcomic that considers itself a straight-faced epic rather than something to be rightly mocked. That there likely exists lion-on-leopard furry porn based on this game is enough to damn it to this list.
7) The Adventures of Willy Beamish
Willy Beamish was advertised as the adventure game equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon; colorful graphics, revolutionary character animation for a PC game, and a story right out of the children’s programming playbook, but with humor aimed at an adult audience. Instead, Willy Beamish turned out to be a shockingly ugly, badly-animated, unfunny mess.
Whoever they hired to do the art design on this game should be shot. The background art looks like it was rejected from a 1970s Christian cartoon, with weird, fucked up character design that never, ever looks good. They also used some kind of strange system to do the animation, which was being advertised as “hand-drawn," meaning the artists drew each frame individually and animated them by hand. The result is that no two frames ever seem to look alike; the characters are constantly off-model, their faces and bodies distorting strangely even in the most basic of movement. It’s like watching a cartoon put together by retarded children.
The story isn’t anything to write home about. There’s an evil babysitter, a frog-jumping contest and ultimately you’re doing battle with an evil capitalist, who happens to be a lame (and now extremely dated) parody of Leona Helmsley. But the real kick in the balls is the game’s conclusion; it wraps up at the “Nintari Championships." Throughout the game you have access to Willy’s Nintari console, which you have to “practice” at for the championships, and by “practice” they mean you watch the same cutscene of Willy playing a platformer for about 30 seconds. If you don’t do this shit over and over again—at least once or twice per “day” in the game’s timeline—you lose the championship and get a shitty ending. They seriously included a game mechanic where if you don’t watch a cutscene of SOMEONE ELSE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME then you lose. What the fuck is that shit?
6) The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
The first Gabriel Knight game was indisputably awesome. It had great 2D graphics, excellent characters, a sincerely creepy story and Tim Curry voicing the lead character. So when it was announced that the sequel, The Beast Within, would be about werewolves in Germany and use the same odious “look, real people!” interactive movie style that the adventure game industry had been collectively orgasming over for a few years, fans were worried.
But that didn’t stop Sierra! The second Gabriel Knight game has all the same problems most other “interactive movies” do—the acting is really bad and the sets look cheap. To make matters worse, all the charm of the original—which focused on Voodoo legends in New Orleans, a unique subject matter to be sure—is gone in this one, focusing instead on a boring werewolf legend that basically amounts to “Oh my god, it’s YOU! YOU’RE the werewolf!” You also get stuck playing as Gabriel’s assistant Grace Nakamura for a few chapters, who in the first game was pleasantly sarcastic but in this one comes across as a bitter, shrill bitch to everyone she talks to. There isn’t much “mystery” here, really, and the conclusion feels rushed. This game basically wasted most of the promise of the original.
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31 comments
Comments
n. said:
Mate just admit that you suck at playing adventure games and get over with it.
sweetestsadist said:
What about "Mixed-Up Mother Goose?" I'm sure there's hundreds of these crapfests even worse than what's up here. It'd be more difficult to find ten that are good. Even ballsier, would be to do it without using the phrases, "Monkey Island" or "Maniac Mansion". Try it TR.
Mars said:
Holy. Shit. Willy Beamish.
"Starman" Matt Morrison said:
I've got to call BS on this article for a couple of reasons.
1. You've got a mad-on for Al Lowe. Fine. But complaining about his games being full of juvenile humor is a bit like complaining that a Woody Allen movie takes place in New York and has Jews in it. You know what you're in for going in. And just for the record, you can't blame the lame mini-game "Cum Laude" games on Al. Despite fan demand and Al offering to work on the project as an adviser for cheap, The Powers That Be at Sierra decided they'd rather make mini-games for frat boys than revive the adventure game.
2. Aside from Tex Murphy, you don't seem to have played any adventure games that weren't by Sierra or Lucasarts. There are a LOT lamer adventure games than the ones you listed here. Where's Noctropolis? Where's Companions of Xanth? Where's The entire Legend of Kyrandia series?
3. If you're going to put a Quest for Glory game on the list, it should have been Quest For Glory 4. The game itself was pretty good and it had a decent storyline... when it worked. Buggy as all get out with a Windows version that just plain didn't work, this game was also one of the first to be released too early and then use it's entire customer base as unpaid tech support.
4. If you're going to use a Gabriel Knight game, you should have used the third one; "Blood of the Sacred: Blood of the Damned" Yes, the 2nd one had FMV, which always sucks. But the third one...
* used an even worse interface than the second game. After promises that Sierra was going to switch back to 2D artwork, they wound up switching to an experimental "rendered virtual reality" 3D interface that looked like a primitive version of The Sims but with even less emotional characters
* had an even more cliched storyline involving vampires and The Holy Grail.
* brought back Tim Curry with his gawds-awful American South accent. Proof positive that just because you CAN get a famous actor doesn't mean you should when your lead is a 30-something New Orleans native and your actor is a 50 something Brit.
* was - in what was now a requirement for Sierra - rushed to the stores for Christmas, buggy as all get out, with the people who bought it being unpaid beta testers.
* featured what were - even for the adventure game genre - nonsensical puzzles. Ever hear of the cat-hair mustache quest? That's this game.
MattK said:
I'm afraid I'm in agreement with "Starman" on almost all points, especially on the "mad-on for Al Lowe". I enjoyed the games growing up for its double entendres and humor (which didn't COMPLETELY consist of dick and fart jokes). And Freddy Pharkas was perfectly fine to me. If you're going to go after unfunny adult games with terrible graphics for the intended fopping, point the hate towards the Les Manly series (well, its two games) that actually tried to compete with the Leisure Suit Larry series and had terrible renderings of "real" women.
And even though it was one of my favorites, Quest for Glory 4 was definitely too buggy. "Lame" indeed. At the risk of being placed on your "pro-furry" list, 3 wasn't that bad. Sure it was missing some of the humor of the first two and was not the advertised sequel, it still worked (despite the bug) and the furry thing wasn't that prevalent. And the conflict was between a tribe of African tribesmen (or a reasonable facsimile) and shapeshifters (they weren't leopardtaurs, more were-leopards). And thanks for the imagery of a liontaur's junk.
How about Police Quest 4, where they got DARYL F GATES! to design the game to give it the gritty, urban realistic feel and had retarded, conincidental puzzles that were definitely hamfisted and stretched the imagination (a cop being dragged by a dog to the killer's hideout? sure...).
I will agree with the critism against Beamish, KQ 7, and Phatasmagoria (though I can enjoy that as an interactive grindhouse flick).
Still, thanks for the memories. Looking forward to more articles based on adventure games. Good or bad, I remember them all fondly.
Hartz said:
Aw, not Willy Beamish! I seem to recall it being available for the Sega CD and my experience with it being slightly more pleasant than what you described, though that might simply be nostalgia fucking with my brains.
Tissa Tack said:
I remember with my first computer came this game that Christopher freaking Lloyd starred in, where he had to travel through this cartoon land (Lloyd was a cartoonist in this) along with his creation, Flux Wiley... If you really want a crappy game, that thing was equivalent to a bag of a vomit. The other hip cameo was Ben Stein, if that'll give someone any inclination as to how bad this game really was.
And holy crap, Willy Beamish....
Cassie said:
Man i loved the princeless bride! Complete staple of my childhood and one of the reasons I know work in the gaming industry. Ahh to be an 8yr old girl again.
Mind you I loved Torins passage too, untill i tried to play it a few months ago. And for the same reason I wont touch the Princeless bride, it will remain a strong favourite forever!
mike said:
Does anyone remember Commander Keen?
mike said:
Does anyone remember Commander Keen?
JEC said:
Honestly, I didn't think Escape from Monkey Island was that bad. Sure it wasn't quite up to snuff compared to the earlier games in the series (The Curse of Monkey Island is still one of my top picks, though a recent replay of that game showed it was tremendously shorter than I remember, and the jokes weren't quite as funny as they were when I was 14). The reviews reflect that, but it's by no means unplayable. I got some good laughs out of it (Monkey Kombat excepted) and I think it's worth giving a whirl if you like goofy adventure games.
If for nothing else...
"Hmm, brass monkey."
"THAT FUNKY MONKEY!"
Yes, maybe you don't like anachronistic pirate themed pop culture references, but I can still get a laugh out of them. Don't you know pirates make everything better, just like ninjas? If only they had put ninjas in EFMI, then all of its problems would disappear because combining the awesomeness of ninjas with the coolness of pirates would have made the player's heads explode into a happy, pulpy mess due to the sheer force of magical delight.
Anonymous said:
oh come on! Willy Beamish was a great game at it's time.
TOXIC said:
In retrospect the fact that my PC sucked balls during the whole 93-96 age of suckage wasn't really that bad.
I remember desperately wanting several of those titles but being unable to run them. Oh well.
Joenonymous said:
You can't make a list of the 10 Lamest PC Adventure Games of All Time, and not have more experience playing them than you have. You probably haven't played Reah, the worst PC game I've ever played. One of the puzzles in the first two hours was bugged, and you couldn't beat the game without a patch. (It was a game of mancala if I remember, correctly.) The voice acting was horrid, and it spanned 6 CDs.
Instead of going with the obvious hyperbole, why not just title the article, "The 10 Worst PC Adventure Games I've Played". I guarantee that you can walk into any Fry's TODAY, throw 15 darts in the adventure section and end up hitting 15 titles worse than the ones you have on this list.
sunsetsur4 said:
Neuromancer was the best pc adventure game ever! End of discussion.
GAMER said:
I haven't read this crappy article, but how the heck can you pick The Dig as nr 10??? It's one of the best adv. games ever!!!
DancingGolem said:
When you post the inevitable "Top 10 Least Researched Articles on Topless Robot" this will most likely be near the top.
And the Dig on this list? Now I know for certain you make these lists just to troll your readers for reactions.
dave said:
This list is missing 3 games..
Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller
Harvester
and
A Fork In The Tail (featuring Rob Schneider)
I loved all of these games, but they were just god awful.
legham said:
Some pretty vitriolic responses here, I thought the article was pretty accurate. I don't think the top 10 lists ever claim omnipresence or infinite infallibility, do they? Authors discretion, geez. I would like to see a follow up of the 10 best though, simply to relive the nostalgia
Reardon said:
What no Daikatana?
Dumbass Choice Awards said:
Jeezus, you know, I used to love Sierra games but I guess I gave up on them before a lot of this stuff came out. Holy shit do those live-action games look awful! The production values really are beneath most porn. It's insane that they went from making games with attractive painted backgrounds and hand-drawn sprites to that cheap-looking garbage. But nothing tops Kings Quest VII! The animation looks like those cheapo religious cartoons that local stations used to air on Sunday mornings. Is that Rosella from Kings Quest IV singing a song about how she longs to go to a magical land of adventure? Is that an empowering shmeminist message in the dialogue between Rosella and her mother? Did I just puke in my mouth?
Irrelevant said:
There actually were tits in the sixth Leisure Suit Larry game. You had to keep playing with the dyke's shirt until she flashed you, this also triggered a death scene.
Irrelevant said:
Oh and another thing about adventure games around the time of KQ7, they decided to 'revolutionize' the genre by eliminating the need for icons. Seriously!? Playing with the icons was fun. And what's really frustrating is that the few adventure games that have come out since, like Syberia and the Longest Journey, don't use them. They are still good games but come on, I liked seeing what it said when I looked at the tree stump, then touched the tree stump and whatnot.
SSH said:
Great read. I've made up some top 10 lists of adventures in my time, too (see my blog). Of course, with free adventure creation software like AGS, there are some pretty dire efforts there, but ta least they are free unlike the monsters in your list. I also agree entirely about Al Lowe, the Benny Hill of adventures.
shade said:
Hey, I like Benny Hill. Always had fun watching him run around with the ladies :)
Silver Screemer said:
I'll be honest here, I played Kings Quest VII and loved it. At the time I thought the graphics were great, the puzzles were amusing, the characters were cool, and the environments were very well done.
And I'm a guy, so I dono. Maybe a good game is a good game? I really didn't care that the leads were female...
Voja said:
This is definitely one of the lamest and worst articles I have read in past several years... how is it possible that this topic was left out to someone who doesn't even understand the adventure genre?
This was utterly disappointing... and I was hoping to see mention of "Flight of the Amazon queen", the most linear adventure ever made, and things from back in Amiga and C64 times, when adventure genre started...
This is the lamest adventure games related article of all times :) hands down :)
bimbim said:
This is sooo lame..
You actually believe you're capable of writing about lame adventure games?
This articles is shit..
SunshineSlayer said:
Wow, you had me agreeing with you until Gabriel Knight 2 came up. That is seriously a WTF? moment on this list. Amazing game.
SunshineSlayer said:
And wow, I shouldn't have even bothered to look at the second page. Most of the games in the top 5 are pretty good, if not great in some cases. Just what games HAVE you played if you think these are the worst of the bunch?
chad said:
Leisure suit larry ROCKs.... the last few have sucked... but the original typing adventures were very good games.... FLAT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
