I played this on the real SNES console with a cart previously owned by Mr. Wuratti here on Backlogged. I also re-watched all the movies while playing this.

It's a game that strangely has packed the 3 original movies into one game. That is a lot. So you're playing thorugh the story of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Temple Of Doom and Last Crusade in order. It feels like they perhaps tried to chew too much at once here, but hey, damn ambitious. You kind of get 3 games in 1 here.

The controls are good and responsive, and it's mostly fun to play and use your whip to swing around and take out enemies. Music and graphics are also pretty top notch for the SNES era, I would say. No complaints here.

The difficulty level is a bit all over the place though. Some areas I would just breeze through, while others I could get stuck on for quite a while. You could flip a coin if the level was going to be easy or hard. The part where you have to drive the minecart and shoot other carts + to change the railing on tracks I remember as one I found as one of the most frustrating ones. Strangely the start level with the huge rolling boulder was also much tougher than most of the later game. So the difficulty seemed very unbalanced.

The game also has passwords, and gives new ones out pretty regularly. Almost too often. If it wasn't for that this game would be almost unbearable to play though.

Sometimes the bosses feels like pushovers and other times not. This made me feel like the game is possibly a bit unpolished, and that some corners had to be cut maybe. Which is a little unfortunate, as this could have been classic level otherwise.. Still, I definitely recommend it. Especially if you like Indiana Jones.

Played this with a friend for a whole evening on 2 player on my Sega Mini. I always heard it was extremely weird. I can see how it got that rumour, because it's true. I don't think I've played a game that I could compare it to.

It's about exploring a map with these islands. with a lot of quirky characters and bizarre situations scattered around. You find small gifts with strange abilities.

Without always knowing what you are trying to find you'll eventually find something that makes you progress. An elevator taking you to the next stage, even if you can fall back to the last level if you are unlucky.

It does feel like exploration is the main theme. With 2 player the screen splits, and it does have a unique feel to it. I quite liked it. Very novel and weird game.

I liked Gargoyle's Quest. It can be challenging sometimes, in the tradition of all the Ghost And Goblins games, which it's a spin off from, but it's not too bad if you give it a real go.

You play as Firebrand who needs to save the day. It's partially RPG, with a storyline, but the gameplay is as a platformer. I thought the controls were pretty impressive for it's time.

Some original designs and ideas here, and one of the level tracks (stage 3) is mad cool. I quite liked the game. I'm not sure if it felt a little short? Just 5 levels. But they were quite extensive and varied, and you can always up the difficulty level. Some of the jumping even at normal jumps was a bit clunky. Even at very normal places it was too easy to fall in. At least for me. Either way, if Contra/Probotector is your type of game this serve it's purpose.

I played the original many times in the past, but not the remastered version. I think I would recommend this version as it's just modest polishing up graphics just like Grim Fandango. Didn't mess with anything else. (With Monkey Island 1+2 I still prefer the original graphics)

Full Throttle is a great biker related point & clickgame with a great story and great voiceacting and great characters and great most things. It's a little short perhaps, and perhaps the action sequences isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I personally like them. Another classic from Tim Schafer and LucasArts.

Grim Fandango holds up! I played through it around 2006 the first time, so this is technically a replay, but I remembered very little. This was still quite challenging to get through.

If someone has issues with the controls the Remastered version fixes this and you can steer with the mouse. The graphics are also improved, so don't doubt if you're not sure if you're to play the Remastered version or the original.

I think the concept for Grim Fandango is very original. The film noir setting gives it a special feel and atmosphere, and the game plays with the tropes and stereotypes in a clever way. The characters are good, although I sometimes missed more depth in some of them as well as in "the lore", but it's still good enough. The puzzles are well made, like LucasArts games almost always are, but are quite hard at times, but if you're patient it's never impossible.

It's a pretty long game, especially compared to Full Throttle. I can recommend Grim Fandango for sure.

It's possibly a bit of a Mario Kart clone, but it's well-made. For a pick-up-and-play type of game, it's easy and a bit addictive to get into. I have never played Mario Kart for more than a brief period, so I wouldn't be able to compare them.

Possibly a bit shorter than expected because, when I thought I was heading into the last phase of the game, the end screen credits were, to my surprise, rolling. Konami Krazy Racers is still a quite nice little game!

F*** this is terrifying. Help Wantes is a good choice if you’re looking for a good horror game on VR. I’ve seen my share of horror movies, but can’t remember feeling this anxious and scared about playing a game in ages. I don't have that much experience with the PC games before playing this. I was just originally just looking for some horror experiences when I got an Oculus Quest 2, and stumbled over the world of FNAF, which I was just barely familiar with from before.

The only catch with FNAF is what’s also could be considered one of it’s strengths. The jumpscares. It’s sort of built on it. Someone has critiqued FNAF for being a «jumpscare simulator». I don’t know if that is fair. The big question is if the jumpscares in FNAF are cheap or if they're a stroke of genius. I tend to lean towards the latter (to my own surprise, actually). In movies I tend to generally consider jumpscares a cheap tactic to scare a viewer, but in FNAF it’s usually not just random non-sensical jumpscares coming out of nowhere. They’re more like ‘elecrical shocks’ when you’re failing the task, which keeps you on your toes, and you can see coming, so it’s different than just cheap jumpscares. However, if you’re someone who can’t deal with jumpscares, then there’s more suitable choices in horror for VR.

FNAF are not just about jumpscares luckily. There's also something genuinely creepy with the universe, the music and sounds, and the characters, the secrets and the story aka «the lore». It’s just extremely well made. The games are also fun when you get into them of course.

My goal is to complete this game with all the minigames and secrets one day, maybe even the DLC, but I’m not sure if I can, but hey, I will keep trying.

Zak McKracken is a funny and quite wacky game with a lot of charm. I think it still holds up very well, although it does have it's share of flaws holding it back.

Zak is probably one of the hardest games from LucasArts catalog of point & click adventure games. Most games after Zak & Maniac Mansion the company (for the most part) removed the possibility of dying or ending up in an unwinnable situation. Which was a change for the better. Zak happened just before this change, unfortunately.

That you can die is not a big problem though. Zak's biggest weakness is that you have limited money, and for quite a while no way of getting more money, but you need to travel by plane around the world to visit various obligatory places. You run empty pretty quickly as planes are expensive.

You also have to mid-land in some countries to get to others.
So it's easy to just run out of money and end up stuck in a country. You have to restart, or load a game.

So you have to note down routes to not go broke, and probably save/load to explore places one by one so you can LATER do them over again in an order your budget allows. It's a strange hassle, and one I think I heard David Fox said in an interview he regretted.

There's also quite a few large labyrinths, where you are pretty much forced to draw down on paper. That is okay, but I wouldn't hold it against anyone if they found a map online.

Beyond some of these drawback I think the game is a classic. The universe, the characters, the humor, and many of the puzzles are fun and inventive. I especially liked the 2001-themed section on the moon.

I never got very far when I played this when I was younger, and this was quite hard, but I'm happy to say I eventually got through it.

I've played Maniac Mansion several times in the past, and probably gotten to around 50% of it, but only recently did I put in the effort to actually play through the whole game, and with all the different endings.

Maniac Mansion is a game of its time that you have to see for what it was when it came out (1987), but was something truly unique and that would have enormous influence on later games. It feels more like a type of game that tries to find its form, and stumbles a bit, but in the end gets there - but still it's important to remember what a stepping stone it was for what to come later. I personally consider the first Monkey Island to be the first game LucasArts really mastered the format, but Maniac Mansion undeniable paved the way to get there and is a good game on its own.

Compared to it's excellent sequel Day Of The Tentacle, that still holds up perfectly today, Maniac Mansion shows it's age at times and seems quite rough around the edges. I miss verbal commands like "talk to" or "look at". Other verbal commands seems superfluous. Certain puzzles also seems odd and clumsy, but most of it is still good and fun to figure out.

Maniac Mansion is clearly inspired by campy horror b-films, but like most LucasArts games, its really more of a comedy game. At times it is very funny, and there's a sense of childlike creativity and silliness that serves the game, since the story isn't exactly very deep (nor does it try to be). Even if I have to say that the concept of an evil living purple meteor is quite bizarre.

The idea of being able to choose from different characters to solve parts of the game differently is unique, and I don't think even many games since has done this. It's clever, and gives you a reason to beat the game several times with the different characters to see all the different endings.

That said it seems they could have done more with this unique concept too, and some of it seems half-baked. For example Razor and Syd are both musicians and do the exact same thing, (they even play the exact same song, which I at least expected they could switch out!), and as for Jeff (the surfer dude), it seems they didn't get to give him any unique abilities or an ending at all (his only ability is fixing a phone, which Bernard also does). Since the characters never talks to people (no conversations), or is able to look at objects, it loses the possibility of character development, which the game would have benefitted from.

I think Maniac Mansion strength probably is in it's innovation which was very ambitious and influencial for it's time, but compared to today's standards it seems imperfect and a bit flawed, but charmingly so, perhaps.

In my quest to complete the LucasFilm/LucasArts adventure games Labyrinth : The Computer Game (1986) was my very last stop before completion. I have been curious about this one for years.

If Maniac Mansion and ZakMackracken are the grandfathers of point and click adventure games, then this is more like like a pre-historic species of the genre. While one could perhaps argue its no more primitive than the oldest Sierra games (Kings Quest, Space Quest, Larry, etc), that is true, but those games really are similar the later ones in those respected series with its cursor and typing based interface.

Labyrinth neither looks or feels like later games by LucasArts, but it's interesting to see what they had before the SCUMM system. They refused to use typing, so you have a scrolling wheel instead.

It certainly feels like a relic from the past, but its surprsingly alright and I guess you have to take it for what it is.

The first part of the game is more like a text adventure, but when you enter the fantasy world (the Labyrinth) it becomes a graphical adventyre, and you can control your customized character around with a joystick. There's characters to interact with, some stuff to pick up and some puzzles, and plenty of places to explore.

If you have watched the movie it helps with the puzzles.

The thing that's perhaps most similar to LucasArts games is the humor, because it does have some funny humor and situations, which would be a staple in most LucasArts games later.

Beyond that its very quirky, feels a little bit dated, controls a bit wonky, and you walk a little bit slow - but still is undeniably charming if you get into it, and if you are into the history of the adeventure game genre it's a must to experience Labyrinth. If not, any other LucasArts adventure game is recommended before this one.

2020

Despite being a point & click adventure game player all my life Myst was the one "huge classic" of the genre I always wanted to to get into, but couldn't. The game was just so very hard, and the lack of characters and any easy-to-understand story was always putting me in my place. I just didn't quite understand what to do, or (barely) how to play it.

The meme about being stuck in a place forever and not knowing what a lever does is probably how many experienced it. I could never be sure if the game wasn't for me, or if it was my fault. I always suspected the latter.

So, I actually bought Oculus Quest 2 just to play Myst, and try to get into it, and I'm very happy to report it worked. I'm finally one of the Myst fans, which strangely feels like an exclusive club.

VR is an amazing way to experience Myst. It feels like you are there. The universe is immersive. It's like Myst was always meant to be played like this. It's been said before by many people, but yes, the game and the puzzles is usually pretty hard or even very hard (depending on your skills in puzzles), but it's always so incredibly rewarding when you get something to work.

There's also a quite rich plot when you get into the game. The story with the two brothers, who both want you to help just them, while telling you to NOT trust the other one, is classical, and keeps the tension going to the end.

Myst does need patience though. However, if you stay with a problem long enough, you'll eventually figure things out. You have to imagine being stuck on an island where there is nothing else to do than to figure out a mechanism or a puzzle of some sort. It's also very peaceful and meditative to play.

Either way, I can finally understand the hype. Better late then never. If you have a similar experience with Myst. Keep at it, it's worth staying with to the end.

Not Another Weekend is a good choice if you’re into the old point & click games from the 80s and 90s. I wasn’t 100% convinced at first, but it really grew on me. There’s just so many newer point & click games that tries to capture the feel of the old ones that it has become a bit difficult for all of them to stand out, but it slowly convinced me more and more that this is a very solid and unique game.

The game is set in a cheap hotel in 80s, and you play as Mike, the bellboy who hates his job and is whipped around by his awful boss. For some bizarre reason he keeps the brain of his uncle in a jar, down in the basement, who he believes is telling him to get all the guests at the hotel to leave, as well as all the employees who works there to quit. All within the weekend. Quite a task, and it might take some quite extreme measures in some cases.

It feels a bit like Maniac Mansion as you’re basically inside one building with lots of rooms. There’s a very unique gallery of characters, and the humor is very funny and things easily get a bit out there. A lot of cheesy 80’s pop cultural references to action characters like The Terminator, Steven Seagall and Jean Claud Van Damme. Oh, and Hulk Hogan. Maybe Turtles too. Kind of. A lot of quirky characters.

In the later stage of the game things get more eerie and mysterious and you get to reveal what’s going on in the hotel, but i won't spoil it.

I also notice it’s marked as a bit "lewd" on Steam, but it’s nothing worse than a South Park or Family Guy episode, and it’s all pretty silly.

The game is probably closer to LucasArts in spirit than Sierra. You can never die, and its built around comedy. If you like Day Of The Tentacle, ZakMacKracken, Maniac Mansion, and want a modern alternative, this one you should try.

As for cons I kind of missed voiceacting when the game started, but I quickly got used to it. The overall reveal when it’s said and done is also little bit odd, but everything else is so fun in this game it doesn’t matter. Check it out!

Played over a period of 20 days. I'm not an experienced Pokemon player, having only played through Blue/Red in the past previously, but damn, while the game was pretty easy for a while it got harder in the last third. The last Elite Four + Champion match was surprisingly tough. Victory Road was also a bit tricky finding your way through.

I played the final battle with a team of Milotic, Groudon, Salamence, Breloom, Gardevoir and Manectric, and with Max Potions and Revives in the bag. Especially Milotic and Salamence takes quite some effort getting. Which I researched my way to recognize would be a pretty damn OP team. I thought I would sweep through it all.

Not completely. In my first couple of attempts I failed. Only in my third attempt I managed to do it successfully. Milotic's Ice Beam and Hydro Pump, and Manectric's Thunderbolt would be deal breakers, but, wow, it was quite challenging. I'm impressed if people beat it with weaker and more random Pokemons.

Anyway! If you like Pokemon it's a pretty good game. It's quite like Red and Blue but with more additional features, basically. Most notably (except colors) berries, Pokemon items, "nature" elements like weather, the Pokeblock contest (which was a bit odd), and 2 vs 2 matches, and a couple of other things. Also, a bunch of new Pokemons, even if there was quite a few of the original generation here too.

My only problem with games like these is they can get a bit too addicting, and depending a little too much on grinding. Which can be timeconsuming, and tiring, yet weirdly addicting at the same time. However, it's pretty good escapism if that's what you're after. I quite understand the success of this franchise.

I loaded up my Amiga and discovered this shooter for the system. This is a fun and challenging shoot'em up, and it's very unusual too, since you play as an insect (and not a spaceship). You play as a wasp, and all the enemies are snails, beatles and so on. Later on you shoot fishes. It also has some huge and pretty cool large bosses. It's supposed to be within a story where some kind of wizard has enchanted you or whatever. The music is also very catchy. I didn't intend to beat it, but since it was nail hards I used some of the custumized codes that were modded into the game. It was still very hard. The last boss took forever to beat. I would recommend Apidya, if you like a unique and well made "shmup". It does not exist on any other system which makes it an Amiga novelty.