The sleepy mountain village of Houndspoint is full of dog lovers, so when a streak of crimes starts killing off the townspeople and dogs look to be the culprit, it's almost too much for this canine-friendly town to take.
After playing through The Walking Dead: Episode 2 - Starved for Help I can confidently say this is Telltale's best effort to date in telling a story. There's a quality to the pacing of the adventure that makes it feel more like an interactive show or movie than a game. At one point while playing it last night my wife looked up from her book to ask me what show I was watching because it sounded good. Needless to say, she was impressed when I told her it was a game.
The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav is not a great adventure game. But it is a great adventure story, backed by gorgeous, hand-painted backdrops and dreamy music that all comes together to create a gripping, magical fantasy tale.
The Act for iOS is one of those games that just breaks your heart when you're forced to rate it as anything less than perfect—and it really shatters you when big problems with the mechanics keep you from even ranking it as "great." The Act is lovingly presented and is storyboarded well, and pays strong tribute to the Laserdisc games of olde, but despite some attempts at genre innovation, it's a frustrating game to muddle through.
What to make of Resonance? It's a competent old-school adventure that deserves credit for trying something different, but it stumbles over that boldness as much as it succeeds. The slow-boiling mystery ultimately makes it a worthwhile investment, but I can't help thinking that it's held back from true greatness by the very system that makes it so unique.
Tell me about a videogame character who's a thief with a smart mouth but a heart of gold, and my attention will wander almost immediately. Tell me that he's on the run from suicidal, chocolate-loving cyborgs and a vicious killer plant, and my attention will return almost as quickly. And that's what we seem to have with Hoodwink, an upcoming PC adventure that will hopefully have a lot more of the latter than the former.
Before the angry fans begin calling for my head, let me start with this: I love Adventure Time. I signed a petition for the show to be picked up by Nickelodeon back in 2008 when the pilot aired on Random! Cartoons. I took a picture next to a giant inflatable Jake at E3, and even got a brief conversation in with Pendleton Ward himself. It's a silly show, but its random and unorthodox presentation style is downright charming.
Everyone is familiar with the conventions of most role-playing games. They're handy to keep in mind when you first fire up the sci-fi RPG Dark Scavenger - but only if you forget about them right away, because they won't do you much good. Psydra Games has put together a point-and-click adventure that thumbs its nose at the status quo and stays true to its own offbeat narrative.