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God Stemmle, when supervised by Grossman (and given a little advice from Gilbert) can actually redeem himself for Escape and direct the only good Monkey Island not by Gilbert.
Windows version via DREAMM emulator with "simulated CRT" scaling (copying save data back and forth with a native windows install to get around crashes on DREAMM)
I was excited for this one, looking forward to Stemmle & Clark's follow up to Sam & Max: Hit the Road... I didn't really like it. It's interpretation of the world is weirder than Curse's, but it's wholly built on that. It's biggest crime is that, much like Curse, it devolves into rehashing the first game over and over.
It also ruins the GrimE engine - visually they developed a style for Grim Fandango that perfectly adheres to the low poly models - here? They just tried to directly convert Curse's style in late '90s CG... and it doesn't work. I did set up the latest version of the DREAMM emulator for this, and I gotta say, their new CRT filter is the best I've ever seen and it makes this game look pretty damn good, but it's a huge step down from Grim. The other thing is the controls, Grim was designed to be incredibly cinematic with no hud, apparently people found this confusing so they just chuck a menu on the screen with same keyboard controls assigned to less intuitive buttons. Ech.
Oh and the retcons at the end are even worse than the last game's, completely contradicting Monkey 1 & 2.
I kind of liked the insane Stemmle twists, but eh, it's not really Monkey Island. Which it shouldn't be anyway - but it is, so...
I was excited for this one, looking forward to Stemmle & Clark's follow up to Sam & Max: Hit the Road... I didn't really like it. It's interpretation of the world is weirder than Curse's, but it's wholly built on that. It's biggest crime is that, much like Curse, it devolves into rehashing the first game over and over.
It also ruins the GrimE engine - visually they developed a style for Grim Fandango that perfectly adheres to the low poly models - here? They just tried to directly convert Curse's style in late '90s CG... and it doesn't work. I did set up the latest version of the DREAMM emulator for this, and I gotta say, their new CRT filter is the best I've ever seen and it makes this game look pretty damn good, but it's a huge step down from Grim. The other thing is the controls, Grim was designed to be incredibly cinematic with no hud, apparently people found this confusing so they just chuck a menu on the screen with same keyboard controls assigned to less intuitive buttons. Ech.
Oh and the retcons at the end are even worse than the last game's, completely contradicting Monkey 1 & 2.
I kind of liked the insane Stemmle twists, but eh, it's not really Monkey Island. Which it shouldn't be anyway - but it is, so...
This is not how you follow up the greatest game of all time. An incredibly poor attempt at recreating the first game through the 2nd act, and then going out of its way to explain away all of thematic depth of Monkey 2 with a meaningless narrative. This game looks absolutely beautiful though.
2013
The Walking Dead marked the beginning of the end for Telltale, but it was immediately followed up by this masterpiece, which I consider their swansong. It's a ten because Midtown Cowboys plays on the TV in the first episode (which kinda ruins the tone of the scene if you've played Sam & Max, but it still rules). Hoping the sequel (with returning designers & writers) turns out good.
Someone made the terrible decision of making Clementine the protagonist, so the writers were left in the unfortunate position of making it make sense for the player to make decisions in a group, and they couldn't do it, so the whole game is just grown adults looking to 11 year old for guidance.
2012
The beginning of the end for Telltale. My favourite dev before this as a kid, and while I didn't play Jurassic Park and Law and Order, which are apparently not very good, this was where they really changed stuff up, for the worse imo, and pretty much everything that came after (besides Wolf Among Us) sucks. This game is pretty good though, I have a lot of issues with it, mostly the inconsistent writing & design between episodes and how it puts so much focus on "choices" that don't change anything, but overall it's a great story that I've revisited many times.
2022
Not rating because I played less that an hour but it sucks, plays like crap and entirely uninteresting.
2009
To me, great in its level design philosophy of Famicom action-platformers, specifically Castlevania. It's about trial and error, every time you die you make it slightly further the next time.
Like, it's not hard, you've just got learn how to beat it by failing, which is great. Despite only dying to two or three of them, the bosses were all insanely interesting.
I don't mind the online elements, though with the servers shut down it makes it impossible to get the intended experience years later which is shit. Luckily, thanks to fans, I was able to play this online on an emulator with a DS3, so it's still doable, but games should be designed with the future in mind. (Is it playable? Sure, is one of its key features completely gone? Yes)
I've really gotta play Dark Souls at some point.
Like, it's not hard, you've just got learn how to beat it by failing, which is great. Despite only dying to two or three of them, the bosses were all insanely interesting.
I don't mind the online elements, though with the servers shut down it makes it impossible to get the intended experience years later which is shit. Luckily, thanks to fans, I was able to play this online on an emulator with a DS3, so it's still doable, but games should be designed with the future in mind. (Is it playable? Sure, is one of its key features completely gone? Yes)
I've really gotta play Dark Souls at some point.
I lied when I said the first game had the best title screen/menu of any game, this one has that.
Just the worst example of everything that was wrong with the 7th generation. No I will not play the sequels this sucks.
The single most powerful ending to a video game almost ruined by the timeline they throw up between the last cutscene and the credits lmao but it isn't.
The smartest game ever made
1998
This basically kicked of action games trying to be cinematic and literally nobody has done it this well. Also can we talk about this game's menu is literally the best ever made? The game doesn't start when you hit new game, the game starts when the Disk boots up, you hear the Policenauts jingle and the demo plays - continues through the menus, through various other options besides new game, and doesn't end even when the credits roll. Truly nobody understands this shit as well as Kojima.
Depressing how miniscule the amount of "AAA" action games that have come out since have been designed this well is. Also maybe the best written action game of the time?
1987
The greatest directorial debut in games history. The Citizen Kane of games if you think about it.