"The Operator", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "While the artsy cutscenes might seem like nothing but filler, this desktop investigation game kept me thoroughly entertained. Not only is the story thrilling, if predictable in its major beats, but it’s complemented by different gameplay elements with which you, as the person in the chair, become crucial to your team's success. It’s a shame you can’t spend more time with all your tech toys in extra cases that aren’t linked to the main story. I would definitely welcome a more sandboxy type of sequel or DLC, without a big conspiracy to uncover but just a bunch of standalone cases you as The Operator help solve. As it is, the emphasis lies on delivering a taut, intriguing cyberthriller that is highly linear but very well put together, and is sure to leave lots of gamers wanting more."

I finished my replay of "Police Quest III: The Kindred"!

I wasn't even tailing him so close...

Police Quest III: The Kindred was a replay for me, so I remembered most of the game, which is the only reason I could finish it in three hours time. And even then I had to restore several times, because I got killed or because I forgot to take along essential items.

What an ominous shadow...

After that first day on the job, things picked up pretty fast, resulting in a couple of very short days. I thought it very peculiar that Sonny leaves for work when it's already 1 pm, reaches the office in 6 minutes, then quits again around 4 or 5 pm only to get back home at 10! I really wonder what the guy is doing in those missing hours...

There goes my evidence...

As far as the case is concerned, turns out there are some pentagram-loving serial killers on the loose. I was able to locate a witness of the mall attempt, found my suspect in a bar but then the following chase went awry. Then suddenly a ghost from the past popped up, leading to a final showdown with lots of driving back and forth, followed by some treachery as well though luckily I came prepared for that (though I did get shot down for not paying enough attention first).

Incoming!

I finished the game with 447 out of 460 points. It's so easy to miss stuff in this game! It's not always obvious where to go and what to do, the clues are very subtle, and it's all very procedural. Before playing you really should read through the entire manual and study the police procedures described there, and then when you encounter something hopefully you realize how you have to act. I don't recall how long this game took me when I played it for the first time in my teens, but I can imagine it was quite a while before I figured out every little aspect.

You can find the Police Quest Collection on Steam!
It's also available on GOG!

Classic time: "Police Quest III: The Kindred"

New game!

It's been ages since I played Police Quest III: Kindred. I used to love this series, and I kinda still do, even though growing older I've learned about all the discrimination, prejudices, stereotypes and racism that hangs above it like the sword of Damocles. You just don't see those things as a kid... I know it's not the most popular series Sierra ever released, but I've always preferred games in more realistic settings and characters above fantasy and sci-fi games.

The struggles of leadership diplomacy...

In this third title in the series, Sonny Bonds has been promoted to Sergeant and thus has to take on a leadership role. The game starts with you giving that day's briefing, then interviewing one of the officers about a complaint against her. Said officer also needs help later on when a chauffeur she pulled over refuses to sign her citation, and procedure calls for a superior on the scene.

Never heard of this field sobriety test before...

This first day in Lytton you need to take care of an almost naked man upsetting some people in the park, and then patrol the highway. You need to pull over a couple of speeders, one guy driving too slow and holding up traffic, and another swerving from one lane to the other and back. Nothing truly exciting happens until at the end of the day you get called to the scene of an assault on the mall's parking lot. 

Uh-oh...

After one hour of playing, I reached day two. It's a replay for me, but I was a bit rusty and I had to restore my game a couple of times. First I forgot to pick up my nightstick in the changing room. Then I forgot to retrieve my gun after leaving it in the locker outside the prison. Finally I got run over on the highway.

A cop's salary seems to do you okay...

At the start of day two, I'm assigned back to homicide to investigate the previous night's murder attempt. So bye bye uniform, we're ready to hit to street plainsclothed! I found some evidence on the crime scene, so let's see if we can figure this case out again!

New game: "Intruder in Antiquonia"

New game!

Amnesia stories are usually good entertainment. Movies like Memento and The Long Kiss Goodnight. I've put off playing Intruder in Antiquonia for so long because the graphic style and character designs weren't really up my alley, but in the end I have to admit it was a really cool conspiracy story, albeit a bit on the cozy side. I finished it in a little under two hours, though I did have to do some digging regarding some puzzle solutions. Eventually I figured it all out and even though I'm still not a big fan of how it is all presented, I definitely had fun with it.

But I didn't do anything wrong, officer, I swear!

I'm Sarah Campillo. Or at least that's the name on the ID I'm carrying. Until the local police figure out it's actually fake. So who am I, and where did I come from, and what exactly am I doing in this small town called Antiquonia where people seem to hate everything that has to do with computers and the internet?

No quaint town without some old guys on a bench...

It's a mystery ready to be unraveled by resourceful adventure gamers. Probably too easy for most, but it will probably challenge newcomers to the genre. There are plenty of inventory puzzles and even one cool mechanical puzzle where you have to redirect wires in a breaker box. 

I'd probably die if I had to do this in real life...

There aren't any voice-overs, but you can click through the dialogue manually if you don't want to wait for it to automatically progress. There's an autosave feature but you can also save manually (yay!). And you can double click on exits for fast travel. There's also a handy, though very basic map if you really want to jump between locations, but not all locations are on the map. For instance, you need to jump to the town centre and then enter the guesthouse or the store the regular way.

Now THAT's a subtle modern reference!

Aruma Studios, developer of Intruder in Antiquonia, is currently working on a more old-school style, pixel art point 'n click adventure, Shadows in the Afterland, which looks amazing and which I hope to play one day, too!

You can find Intruder in Antiquonia on Steam!

You can find Shadows in the Afterland on Steam as well!

Joe Richardson time: The Preposterous Awesomeness of Everything

New game!

I never played a Joe Richardson game before. Since his last game Death of the Reprobate came out last year (November '24), the adventure game community already started laughing with the anticipation of laughing with everything the game would have to offer. Instead of playing it immediately like everyone else seemed to have done, I decided to travel back in time (not literally) and play through ALL of Joe Richardson's games available on Steam, starting with The Preposterous Awesomeness of Everything.

Not the most dashing main character...

After playing for 9 minutes, I got tired of it. I knew the graphic style and character designs would need some getting used to. And yes, that was the case. Also, stupid me got "stuck" by not realizing the screen could sidescroll. So after I don't know how much time and other games went by, I decided to return and lo and behold, the game actually grew on me. I started to appreciate the social, political, anthropological, philosophical satire -- and of course the plain silliness of it all. Though is it really silly? I think a part of me really thinks it's brilliant.

Guy's got some dance moves...

So you play a guy on an island, you find old rocket parts and you decide to engage everyone to build it up again. A couple of other islanders grab leadership, however, but don't really succeed in getting anywhere with society since they take turns in being elected and spend all their time nullifying all progress of their predecessor; basically the way actual politicians conduct their business today.

These storybook segments stole the show!

The game is very short, I finished it in 97 minutes. It has some inventory puzzles, some dialogue puzzles, some main character trickery onto non-playable characters. It doesn't have a manual save function but autosaves whenever you make some progress. Its cutscenes are storybook-style text and pictures that are quite fun to read. Joe Richardson truly is a funny guy who gets his message across.

So in the end, not a bad game at all, and I'm looking forward to the next one, Four Last Things...

You can find The Preposterous Awesomeness of Everything on Steam.

I've finished "Martian Memorandum" in 6,5 hours!

Getting some "Total Recall" vibes here...

Wow, that wasn't easy... It was like travelling through time, to an age where you didn't just have to save your game if you wanted to continue playing at a later time. You had to save your game to continue five seconds later! I finally found my way to Mars, after dying several times. On the red planet I could finally follow up on some leads and talk to some people I couldn't before. But I was so anxious by then I kept saving each new room I entered.

This makes the Willy Beamish maze look eazy...

Then suddenly I found myself in a classic adventure game maze! But I didn't get it: I really tried picking up the blueprints I found earlier, but I swear Tex didn't want to pick them up. No problem, I thought, I had encountered many things he didn't want to pick up before. But suddenly I had ventured into the maze way too deep to find my way out again (I know, stupid of me...) so I had to reload and I swear, this time Tex DID pick up the blueprints!

Cowabunga!

Finally I found my way into the office of the local crime boss. I had to pilfer his safe because it contained something with which I could persuade another guy to spill the beans. But not before I had to surf through a gauntlet of laser beams to reach it! This was very tricky and resulted in lot of reloads as well.

The elusive Alexis!

As I continued getting the right answers from the right people, I finally found the kidnapped Alexis! By then I had discovered WHY she had been kidnapped, and that her father, the guy I'm working for, had a lot of secrets... But no sooner had I discovered a means of escape and we were gassed and locked up behind a forcefield by the big bad guy in the story, once a good guy though, but corrupted by the promise of power. As often happens.

Mars is home to some strange people...

Reload after reload and using all inventory items all over the place finally forced me to look up a hint. Turned out I had gamed my way into an unwinnable state, because I had missed a key item way back when. So, reload to a much earlier safe, move one item to find another, then play through to the finale again and yes, finally, mission accomplished! The girl is saved, we're both still alive, and nobody has entirely blown up either Earth or Mars. I'd say, that's a good day in the life of Tex Murphy! A hard and difficult day, extremely at that, but good nonetheless!

You can find Martian Memorandum on Steam.

"Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer" - my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "I really enjoyed Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer, which, just like its predecessor, is like a continuation of the classic point-and-click adventure game genre in its heyday. It’s got a great story, with fun puzzles, amazing graphics, and a wonderful voice cast, and what more can anyone really ask? From the moment I entered Kathy’s office all the way through to the finale, I felt the awesomeness of a beautifully compiled work of interactive fiction. That’s no exaggeration: I was glued to the screen, eager to finish the story and discover the identity of the Soothsayer as fast as I could, even though I wanted the experience to last as well. For fans of the first game, this is exactly what we wanted from a long-awaited sequel. And now the wait begins anew, as I really hope Kathy Rain becomes a bigger ongoing franchise with even more cases to solve."

"Neon Hearts City" - my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "While I wish Cosmic Void would start to make longer, deeper games, because I really think its solo developer has the right stuff, there’s surely an audience for short games like Neon Hearts City. Even I often enjoy playing through a quick game between larger behemoths, just to relax the mind a bit while still enjoying a cool story and some fun puzzles without demanding any major commitment. In this case, however, I thought the ending came even more abruptly than in Devil’s Hideout, leaving me wanting more. At least the story makes you think about life, its most important question being who you would choose to be if you couldn’t remember anything and had a chance to start over. But when it comes to sci-fi tales of androids and lost memories, I fear this one might wind up as just one more among many, even with stylish pixel art, music and voice overs combining to bring it very much to life. Which would be a shame, because if Philip K. Dick were alive today and fancied a career in adventure games, his work might bear some similarities to Neon Hearts City."

3 hours into "Martian Memorandum" and I've hit a reload record...

I think she wants something from me, as well...

I'm 3 hours into Martian Memorandum and I lost count of how many times I had to reload. Not only is this a game where you can die, apparently there's also a dead-end if you don't give the correct replies during a dinner date. I really felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day trying over and over again to sweettalk Andy MacDowell. Either she fell asleep, or emptied her wine glass in my face, and then I had no means to continue that conversation. So countless reloads later, eventually I got her to answer my questions, and I was able to follow another lead.

FYI: this screen sidescrolls...

Only to get a bit stumped there as well, by either being mangled by a dog or poisoned, over and over again. It took me a long time to realize I could actually move further to the right, and the screen sidescrolled. To be honest, I had to look this up online, because even the HELP function mentioned objects I just couldn't find in the scene. And even then it was tricky, because each time I tried walking to the right, I'd either get too close to the dog, or too close to that pool of red ooze. Tex just wouldn't walk to the spots I clicked. So I decided to try something and yes: I could move him directly with the arrow keys as well, and I could finally maneuver between the two danger zones. I did find a glitch though: when I tried to shoot my way through the door and into the wagon, a ladder would magically appear against the side. So I could have cheated my way forward if I really wanted to, but I didn't.

And to think I used to love dogs...

So after lots of trial and error, I found my next lead and wound up in a jungle somewhere. After being flattened by a log, drowned in quicksand, and eaten by a snake, I discovered some final pieces of information and then it became obvious I had exhausted all my options on Earth. All my remaining leads are all located on Mars, so now I have to sneak on board a smuggler shuttle (because the regular one is four weeks out of commission, naturally...). But not before my frustration rose even higher because I had to backtrack over the quicksand pit again! I hadn't memorized which stones were safe and which would sink, so it was back to the save/reload trial and error technique to get across.

I hated this sequence...

I've finally reached the location of the shuttle, and I'm betting I'll probably die a dozen or so more times before I'll actually reach the red planet. Wish me luck!

You can find Martian Memorandum on Steam.

Classic time: "Martian Memorandum" playthrough!

New game!

I've started playing the second Tex Murphy game, Martian Memorandum, and I'm one hour into it.

Alexis Alexander, daughter of business tycoon Marshall Alexander, has disappeared. Daddy believes she has been kidnapped and hires me, Tex Murphy, to find her. That's a pretty simple case for a veteran private investigator as myself.

Tex's office doesn't look too shabby...

Don't be fooled, though! Finding Alexis isn't that easy. And it's mostly the old school user interface making it so hard. That, and the pixel hunting. Thankfully, the "HELP" verb works as a hotspot locator. Usually I try to avoid those, because I often think they make an adventure game too easy. But this time, I must admit it's pretty essential.

Haven't gotten her to spill the beans, yet...

Basically I go around trying to convince people to giving me information, either by choosing the right combination of dialogue options (thankfully if you fail and get thrown out, you can just visit them again and start over as if nothing happened) or by offering them a key item.

Ah, the (almost) ever helpful Stacy...

The list of topics you can question people about will slowly grow, and you can also contact your secretary Stacy through your comlink to ask for further information -- if she has something to offer, that is.

So this is San Francisco in 8 years time...

After one hour of gaming, I'm running around 2033 San Francisco reaching one dead end after another. My last lead brought me to the abandoned offices of a movie production house, and the local cops won't talk to me unless I help them find some evidence for a murder nobody knows anything about. Guess I'll have to retrace my steps and try to find out where I missed something...

You can find Martian Memorandum on Steam.

"The Beekeeper's Picnic" - my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Its little blemishes show there’s still room for improvement, but these are more than made up for by the beautiful artwork, funny writing, and audiobook-quality voice cast. While the puzzles don’t hold much challenge, the writer’s commitment to providing unique and funny responses add even more charm to this cozy point-and-click adventure. Just be sure to set your expectations accordingly: Sherlock Holmes is retired here, after all, so don’t expect a dazzling mystery with blood spatters all over the place. Instead it’s the tale of a man finally trying to show his appreciation for his dear friend after years of rudeness and neglect. The story won’t go into the annals of literature with The Hound of the Baskervilles or A Study in Scarlet, but if you are in the mood for some lighthearted fun, The Beekeeper’s Picnic is good for a cozy afternoon of breezy adventuring with some honeyed tea and biscuits."

I finished "Old Skies" and yes... this is instant classic to me!

Sadly I had a different view when I visited Washington Square Park...

If you are a fan of Wadjet Eye Games, your zeal will be transformed into divine adoration after playing Old Skies. I reached the end in 15 hours!

Since last time, I finished chapter 4, which was basically an example of the proverb while two dogs fight over a bone, a third runs away with it. It was a very fun chapter, almost to the silly side.

"Old Skies" took me on a rollercoaster ride, alright!

Next came chapter 5. Oh man, this one brings back memories. Real life memories. It takes place right before (and after) an event a couple of decades ago of which I still remember where I was at the time (and always will; it was Disneyland in Paris). This case is a corporate conspiracy story. I felt some John Grisham vibes there. And just like with chapter 1, I had to make a very difficult decision. Which doesn't really affect the outcome, but it's more of a moral decision you carry with you. That's a very strange feeling, especially for people used to more straightforward games with obvious causes and consequences.

Chilling on the beach...

Then finally it was onto chapter 6, the last chapter. For some reason this chapter makes me think of Stephen King. Both him as a person, as well as his novel 11.22.63. And yet again Dave Gilbert succeeds in introducing a new gameplay aspect: yes, even in a time-travel story, you have to race against time once in a while.

Credit where credit is due! These people are artists indeed!

Wow. What an experience. There are many games from the 80s and 90s I've replayed often. I never really felt that urge with modern titles, moreso because there are way many more games to play these days, there's always a backlog, new titles coming out. But Old Skies? I have a feeling that's one I'll return to as well. This is just instant classic to me, and it should be instant buy for anyone who's serious about playing adventure games.

You can find Old Skies here.