[PC] Return to Monkey Island (2022)

How:
Got it through GOG for my birthday!

Pros:
- Several genuinely funny moments
- Great music, colorful graphics, several cutscenes
- Great voice-overs in general, with some misplaced accents
- Solid puzzles, although a bit on the easy side

Cons:
- Inventory grows fast pretty soon, although it does not get too confusing
- Some very sad vibes
- Some graphics are a bit below the bar
- Could have been longer

A small cameo of the purple tentacle from Day of the Tentacle (on the table).

[PC] Atlantis II: Beyond Atlantis (1999)

How:
Got it on GOG after playing the first Atlantis game.

Pros:
- Gorgeous visuals, decent voice-overs
- Really gives a sense of adventure
- Lots of zany characters
- Great music

Cons:
- Tons of obscure puzzles
- Unclear and confusing exploration
- Lots of pixel hunting
- Frustrating action scenes
- Boring and confusing new age story

Quetzalcoatl was a joy to see.

Lo Pan with long nails and everything!

[FM-Towns] Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga times, got on a GOG summer sale.

Pros:
- Nice puzzles, some have multiple solutions
- Nice graphics
- Some ideas will later appear in Monkey Island (e.g. the cannibals in MI1, the mazes in MI2, the two-headed squirrel, the monkey wrench, ...)

Cons:
- Too many dead ends
- Too many mazes, which are also very difficult to map
- The need for money for traveling makes the game unnecessarily difficult

[Amiga] Curse of Enchantia (1992)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga times.

Pros:
- Nice graphics and smooth animations
- Silly humor

Cons:
- No dialogues
- Very illogical puzzles
- Cumbersome gameplay with unclear actions, mostly trial and error
- Too many red herrings
- No item descriptions, sometimes it's difficult to understand the graphics

Trapped in a coffin. Actually, asking for help doesn't help.

[Mac] Enchanted Scepters (1986)

How:
Found while browsing a book on adventure games.

Note:
Credited to be the first point-and-click adventure game. Actually, it seems like "La Souris Golotte" came first.

Pros:
- Nice challenge with some almost unfairly difficult puzzles

Cons:
- Too much randomness
- Fights require no skill
- Some very crude graphics
- Weird mixture of typing and mouse commands

This might also be the first appearance of a talking head in an adventure game.

I finished the game with experience 3950 and wealth 1356, no idea what that means.

[PS4] Journey (2012)

How:
Got for free on PSN.
Pros:
- Very relaxing, smooth, not punishing gameplay
- Rewards exploration
- Cool companion system, didn't realize the others were human until the end of the game
Cons:
- A little too much on the poetic side for my tastes

[PC] Amerzone (1999)

How:
Heard of it after playing Syberia, got on GOG during an Anuman Games sale.
Pros:
- Relaxing gameplay
- Nice environments and adventurous atmosphere
Cons:
- Motion sickness caused by the camera movement
- Very easy puzzles and little exploration

Somebody thought this is nice face modelling.

[PC] Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice (1995)

How:
Read about it on magazines, got on a Black Friday sale at GOG.
Pros:
- Nice tense atmosphere throughout the entire game
- Old school graphics, with pre-rendered 3D animations and drawn backgrounds
- Some nice cutscenes
Cons:
- I skipped a cutscene because I did actions in a different order
- The monsters are laughable
- Very easy puzzles
- Rushed-up unfolding of the story, weak characters

The Necronomicon!

I found the first part of the code via trial and error. This broke some parts of the game.

[PC] Anna's Quest (2015)

How:
Got it from a GOG winter sale.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics and smooth in-game animations
- Some nice cutscenes
- Quite lengthy with nice variations and quite adventurous feeling
- Overall good puzzles
Cons:
- Annoyingly naive main character
- Very bad and unfair ending towards Winfriede
- Several open threads are never explained (e.g. who's the fox?)

The chapter with Winfriede as a playing character is actually better than the rest of the game. Also, this explores the connection between magic and science!

[PS4] Little Nightmares (2017)

How:
Found while browsing the PS Store.
Pros:
- Tense, creepy atmosphere
- Simple but functional gameplay
- Excellent graphics and well blended-in animations
- Does a great job at not being repetitive
Cons:
- Impossible to backtrack in most cases, discourages exploration
- Very simple puzzles

[PC] Gobliins 2 - The Prince Buffoon (1992)

How:
Heard of it since Amiga times, got on GOG with a Gobliiins pack.
Pros:
- No more energy bar
- Nice challenging puzzles, with some interplay between the two characters
- Nice graphics and silly humor
Cons:
- Some annoying, illogical puzzles
- Some very annoying control issues

[PC] Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender (1992)

How:
Got on GOG on a Black Friday sale.
Pros:
- Nice sci-fi setting
- Nice minimalistic background music
- Nice graphics and animations
Cons:
- Slow movement, not possible to skip
- Basic inventory-oriented puzzles
- Fonts are large and hard to read

Taking a leak - first time ever in a game?

Cosmic innuendos.

I thought the scribblings would be password or coordinates, but apparently they appear in other Microprose adventures (e.g. Dragonsphere). 

[PC] Ultima III: Exodus (2012 VGA upgrade) (1983)

How:
Got with a Ultima I+II+III sale at GOG.
Pros:
- Finally with music!
- The tactical turn-based combat adds a new dimension to the series
- More items and weapons than the predecessors
- Magic is an important and fun part
- Not a grindfest for the most part
- Dungeon crawling is actually fun and useful
Cons:
- Still no diagonal movement / attack (although the enemies can)
- Wind in the world map is super annoying and makes you waste frigate turns for no reason at all
- The 5s timer for turns is very stressful, especially during combat
- Monsters are not visible in the dungeons, they just attack out of nowhere
- Food is a real pain, and can be drained (unfairly) by invisible gremlins in the dungeons
- Boats spawn very infrequently
- Still a lot to grind

I managed to teleport without boat into the water.

The disappointing ending with my final party.

[PC] Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (CD-ROM version) (1992)

How:
Got with the Activision Quests sale at GOG.com.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics and animations, the best of the series so far (as much as I love EGA)
- Amusing idea of time-traveling across the previous and future episodes of the game
Cons:
- The high-pitched music can get quite annoying
- Cannot have voice and subtitles at the same time, had to play with no voiceover
- Two out of five possible actions have no use whatsoever
- Several frustrating trial-and-error arcade sequences
- Not many puzzles and not many locations to visit, the story just drives along on its own

You can visit SQIII if you input the correct code - which I did on my first random code trial!

My final score. This time I didn't play the Astro Chicken game in the arcade.

[PC] Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)

How:
Got with the Activion Quests sale at GOG.com.
Puzzles:
As in all Sierra games I played until now, I never cheated by setting game speed to "low" in any occasion.
Pros:
- Genuinely fun to play, with some funny scenes (hopping on the keyboard when miniaturized!) and funny commentary from the game itself
- Amusing ways to die
- Some quite challenging puzzles and red herrings
Cons:
- The parser does not improve much upon the previous episode
- Some illogical puzzles (give the Cubix Rube to the beast?)
- Not much of a plot
- Less climatic ending than in the previous episode (just push a button, enter a pod and sleep)

An amusing Alien reference - if you get kissed, a baby alien will eventually come out of your stomach!

Final score, and Alien ending!

[PC] Teenagent (1995)

How:
Got for free automatically in my GOG account when signing up.
Pros:
- Nice and moderately challenging puzzles
- Some good red herrings
- Very nice animations and pleasant graphics
- Very good sense of humor
- Fun setting and immediate gameplay
Cons:
- A couple of illogical puzzles (e.g. using a pinecone to create a dart, using a ribbon to straighten up fork prongs)
- The inventory tends to clutter up

[PC] Submerged - LaSol (2011)

Pros:
- A short and urgent escape-the-room game with enjoyable puzzles
- Some realistic red herrings
Cons:
- Items cannot be deselected quickly and it soon gets annoying since there is so little time
- The game flow is broken by unnerving item descriptions and slow text