h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I enjoy playing computer games but I don't seem to be very good at them. Ones like Tetris, card games, Worms & fairly open ended ones like Civ II & Zoo Tycoon are OK, but I come unstuck on the adventure ones.

I found Riven beautiful but incomprehensible; couldn't complete Discworld or Starship Titanic without strategy guides; enjoyed Black & White but after a hard disc failure got a bit bored getting back to where I was; struggling to get beyond a certain point in Baldur's Gate.

Diablo most successful so far, but I'd like an adventure game with less fighting. Any suggestions?

Hi Teasswill
As a short-term diversion from more serious work, I find Yahoo's 'Collapse' game is really addictive, bit like tetris. If you go to that page, add it to you favourites and check the make available off-line box, you can play it anytime offline. You might like it.

And have you tried pinball games on your pc? They drive you nuts, but are pretty compulsive.

It's an old chestnut now, but have you played the Age of EmpiresII scenarios? I have lost track of time for whole nights whilst trying to beat some challenges!

I too prefer thinking rather than fighting games, so I'm just trying out the Nethack game recommended in the intro written by Orcus. (The link is on his My Space page.) It sounds interesting.

One more, *really* good mind-game is Aargon. The free download was so good I bought the whole game. It involves placing mirrors, lenses and prisms to direct beams of light around the screen until you achieve the necessary result. Its a real logic puzzle, and its brilliant. I can't remember the URL, but it comes from Twilight games. You'll find it from a search engine, I'm sure.

I'll watch this space myself for more ideas.
Happy gaming

roselin

If your looking for a good adventure game that isn't too taxing try and find a copy of Sam And Max Hit The Road. It may be old, but as the computer game industry is nothing what it was, its one of the best of the adventure genre.

Up until about 1996/97 adventure games were the biggest selling genre in computer games, and most of the genuinly best games of all time are adventure games.

Another classic adventure game is Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis. Both of these games were made by Lucasarts/Lucasfilm, and may be a little hard to track down now, but its well worth splashing out.

Both of these games are 2D point and click graphic adventures.

I'm one of those people with such refined motor skills, that I can't even walk on the pavement without falling over, so I don't fare very well at most role-playing games, and much prefer strategic and thinking-type games.

The Hoyle Board Games CD has games like Mancala, Chess, Pachesi, Dominoes, Checkers, etc., and I enjoy playing those quite a bit when I just need to kill some time. Shanghai and Mah Jongg are rather addicting, and Hasbro Interactive offers games like "Clue" and "Trivial Pursuit", if you like that sort of thing.

If you enjoy solving puzzles, I highly recommend Microsoft's "Pandora's Box", which I found to be quite challenging and enjoyable, or any of the "Puzz 3-D" CDs.

One adventure-type game which I've enjoyed (and found quite a bit easier to play) is LucasArts' "Grim Fandango", which has a friendly interface as well as being just plain cool. In this game, you get to be a "grim reaper" of sorts, and it's just heaps of fun!

I have played Grim Fandago, and have come to the opinion that Lucasarts was the best Adventure Game company. The good thing about adventure games is that you use your brain and not your motor skills, and the plot can sometimes be extremely good.

There are a lot of people who are simply waiting for graphic 2D adventure games like Grim Fandagon to come back into fashion.

Discworld Noir is also fabulous(you get to smell things as a werewolf) as are the Monkey Island games.The first two Simon the Sorceror games are good but avoid the recent Simon 3D as it is total c***.I also enjoyed the Feeble files by the same people.Then there are the Broken Sword games which are more like thrillers.As you can see I tend to the light hearted adventure games particularly if they are very funny.However there are adventure games about that are quite fiendish and dark the best being Black Dahlia(the puzzles are excellent but the ending sucked mightily)but this is getting hard to find.
If you care to go to http://www.vulcan-portal.co.uk you can find a way to play the old Amiga classic Valhalla games on the PC which were great fun plus a very addictive game called Timekeepers.

Incog.

When did Simon the Sorcerer 3D come out?

The first Simon The Sorcerer is the best. The graphics are absolutly beautiful, really reminisant of the Yorkshire Dales and Chris Barrie does a really good voiceover. I prefer beautiful graphics like that compared to new 3D style graphics. The old graphics had ever been hand painted first, or created pixel by pixel.

Simon 3D was published late spring of this year.It's an adventure game but has a LOT of action bits in that I've had to get my son to do.I still have yet to complete it as he has got bored with my asking for help..Also there are lots of bugs in it and you need a decent PC to play it on.If I hadn't upgraded this year I never would have been able to play it.Go to http://www.adventuresoft.com/main.htm for info.

Love Incog.

Teaswill, do you play Diablo on Battlenet? I haven't for awhile, but could be persuaded

I hate strategy games, although my sons love them, way too slow for me. I love the Baldur's Gate series, but these are slower than Diablo and character building is rather important.

You might enjoy Dungeon Siege, which is more slash and hack, like Diablo and the graphics are quite pretty.

My sons are also keen fans of Homeworld which is galaxy based strategy.

I have yet to try the Simon series of games. But I really mustn't buy anymore as I have got to complet Neverwinter Nights before Icewind Dale II is released

Have you played Baldurs Gate? I have problems with that, due to my fascination with wizards. However, you only get one spell and I tend to get killed by a wolf or something pathetic.

If you can type reasonably quickly (or are patient ), try a MUD...

http://www.mudconnector.com

A favourite of mine:

http://www.cardea-rpg.com

More roleplaying than adventure, admittedly... but involving real people!... can be lots of fun.

You want Adventure games?
Monkey Island series.

Otherwise go buy Deus Ex - Its only a tenner, and it will make you think about yourself and the world a lot.

Another good adventure game is "Blade Runner". There are some action sequences where you have to be quite quick with your mouse, but nothing compared to a lot of other games. Another good one is "Day of the tentacle" which I found unbelievably funny.. All the Monkey Island games (though I haven't tried the last one). And again: "Sam n' Max hit the road" - a fantastic adventure game!!

Blade Runner is an excellent game. It was released in the mid 90s by Westwood, but it's barely aged a day. It's a point and click with some shooting. The plot is parallel to the film, and there are many varying factors (characters have different AI, different items appear) with each new game that give it great replay value. Also it has that great 1980s synth music and gloomy atmosphere direct from the film. The backgrounds are photo-realistic, although the characters can get a bit pixellated sometimes.
Sorry for the rave, but I've been playing it a lot these past few days and it's totally taken over my mind. Bleh.

Baldur's gate works quite well if you start as a Bard or Thief and become a wizard when you get the option to go multi.

Warcraft is a good stratagy game 3 is just out, which my daughters had better take the hint and buy Daddy for Christmas. -

Oh yes Blade Runner. A totally fantastic game

Well if you do like the 'heroic' sort of Roleplay (ie Diablo and Diablo II which I play and are great )then check out Morrowind. I think it's great and due to it's flexibility, size and open endedness you can have as much or as little hack'n'slash as you like. You can create your own custom class, eg a merchant and you gain levels and experience by plying your trade. Wizards are not ineffectual all though low level ones in combat will use weapons more often than not.

'Fraid i can't praise it enough except that I am at a point where you need to sneak and thieve a bit and my big clunky heroic Knight is perhaps not best suited to that so am having to find some alternative methods.

Shame there is no demo (they couldn;t find a way to make one! The game is too open ended and vast to do it justice).

Oh yes, it's first person as well so you really get to identify with the character (although it can be played 3rd person too).

The game is by bethsoft so stick a com on the end and a wibbly wobbly web on the start to go have a look see.

baldurs gate and its sequels. enveloping. 500 hours of your life swept away. paradise.

Thanks for all the responses - lots of the suggestions sound great, I'll give them a try, or put them on my Christams list!

roselin, yes I'd already found Collapse via msn games - quite a lot of good short play puzzle games there. Well, when I say short - to fill in the odd five minutes which turns into 'I'll just have one more go' and an hour has gone by...Age of Empires, that's great - but in general game play the computer seems able to advance much faster than human players & doesn't play fair!
The others sound well worth investigating.

Caerwyn, I've only played Diablo on LAN at home. As it's really my son's game & he plays Battlenet games, I could only use his identity. I've tended to avoid online multiplayer games because of being so useless at them!

Baldur's gate has certainly occupied many hours, but I get into trouble too easily - like trying to pickpocket & next thing I know, I'm under attack from guards. At best only got as far as the Nashkell mines & can't find the baddie I need to kill. Have to start again now because of hard disc failure. Is it crucial to have the certain attributes & companions?

Any more suggestions out there? Or what are your favourite games?

If you like Civilization, just keep buying the sequels, e.g. Call to Power. They are real life-eaters, and never get tiring because the scenario is different every time.
'Cossacks' is a 'Real-Time Strategy' game along the lines of 'Age of Empires'. My brother swears by it.
If you like football, get a newish (but not too new, as price falls off nice and quick) version of 'Championship Manager'. Again, differewnt scenario every time.

Adventure games? Who needs 'em?