Heard through the grapevine (Game | Life via NeoGAF via Al Lowe's CyberJoke 3000) that today's the 20th anniversary of the first Leisure Suit Larry game. Oh, Larry-- the profound weirdness of having discovered you as a wee seven-year-old lass.My Dad before me was a tech writer, actually, and we had, in our finished basement that housed all our computers, a closet full of games, still shrink-wrapped, sent unsolicited to my father by hopeful PR folks. That closet was the goldmine of my childhood; climbing the shelves, grabbing a mysterious box, and hoping it might hold the key to another protracted, engaging gaming experience. I doubt my parents would have let me play the adventures of Larry, a lounge lizard looking to get laid, if they'd known it was there, but play it I did-- the essential objective escaping me, I think that I expected that I'd eventually arrive at an actual, sentient lizard with whom I could have some hip bar cocktails. Like Shirley Temples. Sigh-- it was not to be.
Boy, was I disappointed when all I saw was naked ladies. I did grow up to write about pantyshots, witch-touchers and H-games, so one might argue that my discovery helped shape me into the sophisticated young journalist I am today.Got me thinking about old PC adventures, though. Via GameSetWatch today, here's an interview with adventure game developer Scott Nixon about the recent Agatha Christie games, And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express (am I crazy, or was there a PC game called "Orient Express" some years ago?) Nixon also wrote a feature on Gamasutra titled 'Bring Out Your Dead! Can Nintendo Breathe New Life into Adventure Games?' In it, he posits that in order to return to relevance, adventure games need to make the migration to consoles. I'm not so sure that's true-- the reason I do so little PC gaming is that I find it's just like the console experience these days, only more cumbersome. I've been playing a lot of simple interface indie stuff (like Within a Deep Forest), and I'd love to add some point-and-click adventures to my rotation-- the same brain-warping, plot-driven stuff I used to love.
Speaking of which, I realized (likeawholemonth) late that I did this post about upcoming freeware point-and-click adventures for this year without providing the link. It's been fixed. Maybe it's just me, but I'd love an old-school text parser interface, too-- takes me right back to those mystery game closet days.
