Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and today I will be discussing retro adventure games
that were not developed by Sierra or LucasArts because sometimes really good titles get overshadowed
by continual nostalgia and popularity of those companies.
Now, there's a reason Sierra and LucasArts are more well known than others; they have
stand out, memorable games.
And this is not up for debate.
They do.
In fact the reason I was inspired to create this video is because I was originally composing
one on my all time favorite adventure games, and the majority of them were by these companies,
and I thought, you know what?
There are so many adventure games out there, let's make it non Sierra and LucasArts this
time.
I chose interesting titles.
So when I recommend games I don't always do it based on how "good" they are, but
rather how appealing I found them, or if they had elements that stuck with me for a long
time like outstanding graphics or a memorable narrative.
Take that as you will, because I am sure some people out there will be saying "Eww that
isn't even a good game why did you put this on here?"
Because it's my goddamn list, that's why.
I think we all have an idea on what the creme de la creme titles in the adventure game community
are, so I feel like I don't need to bring up every popular non sierra and lucasarts
game; you can assume that I enjoy things like Broken Sword and The Kyrandia series.
They aren't ranked in any particular order.
...I mean they ARE listed from my least favorite to most favorite, but yanno other than that.
Number eleven, Black Dahlia
When I was young, I wanted to be a detective, so it should not come as a surprise to anyone
who has followed me even for a little while that I have quite the appetite for murder
mystery games.
The Black Dahlia, developed by Take-Two Interactive, is very very very loosely based on the unsolved
murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as The Black Dahlia.
This is one of my favorite live acted FMV games because the performances are actually
good, and it doesn't have that cheese factor you so commonly get when live actors are involved.
Why yes, that IS Dennis Hopper you see on your screen.
I've come to like a lot of live acted games, but commonly in a "so bad it's good"
kind of way.
I wanted to find a more serious FMV game with a better story and acting that wasn't as
cringe worthy, and I think I found it with this game.
It's suspenseful and thrilling, and there aren't many things played up for laughs,
and even the pre-rendered backgrounds don't look as fake as ones from other FMV games.
*Coughphasntamsogoriacough.* Set in the 1940s, you play as rookie Agent Jim Pearson, whose
first case is to look into some fascist propaganda.
As you go around finding Clues, this game goes from pretty basic detective stuff to
really bizarre supernatural stuff.
You uncover evidence that suggests that Nazis are involved with the occult, and might be
connected to ritualistic killings.
Elizabeth Short IS a character in this game, but the Black Dahlia refers to a gem that
is sought after by Hitler because it possesses incredible power.
When the stone goes missing sometime later, Jim finds himself immersed in this world of
cover ups, murder, and some fucked up shit.
Out of all the live acted games I've played, this one successfully expresses drama and
scenery in an artsy, more serious way, and some of it legitimately came across as dark
and tense.
It's a dark story, and the game manages to be pretty consistent in terms of tone;
no tonal whiplash to be had.
Even the story, which obviously takes a very fictional twist, doesn't jar you too much;
it's a nice build.
I think the only downfall lies in the puzzle design; I am not sure why so many adventure
games leaned on annoying logic puzzles and random ones where you're just...putting
shapes together.
FMV games are especially guilty of this, and The Black Dahlia is chalk full of puzzles
akin to those.
They vary in difficulty, but I could do without.
Regardless, I did like the investigation process in this game, I liked uncovering all of this
creepy evidence, and I love the more fantastical scenes.
People always ask me to recommend a live acted that game that is quote "actually good",
and I always go back to this one.
I don't want to say it's completely without trite elements, but it's not as much trite
or cheesy as it is honoring old noir stories, with the dramatic PI monologuing to himself
dramatically as he reflects on the case.
It vaguely resembles Gabriel Knight II: The Beast Within, which is also live acted and
has an emphasis on mystery, investigation, and the supernatural, but that game had its
corny moments and inconsistent acting.
They also have questionable puzzle design in common, but The Black Dahlia manages to
have a more pressing plot and I think the acting is worthier of praise.
If you liked The Beast Within, you would also enjoy this game.
Even though I found certain parts frustrating or slow, it's worth playing.
It's not as well known, and that is probably because it's really not available anywhere,
so it doesn't get much advertisement as other FMV games put on GOG or Steam, but I
hope it does become more accessible soon because I think this is one of the best live acted
games ever made, and just in general, a high quality adventure game.
Number ten, Toonstruck
This game is just...weird.
Think Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixed with the crassness and similar plot of Cool World and
you have Toonstruck.
It stars Christopher Lloyd as a down on his luck animator named Drew Blanc.
That pun name never fails to make me mentally groan.
He created this wildly successful children's show called The Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show,
and has been growing tired of the syrupy sweet nature of his star character.
Late one night after failing to design even more saccharine bunnies, he falls asleep,
and wakes up the next morning to see his show playing on the TV.
He is inexplicably sucked into the screen and into the fictional world of Cutopia, then
learns from his own characters that a new, evil cartoon named Count Nefarious, voiced
by tim curry, is trying to turn all everything cute and pleasant into something evil and
macabre.
I'm not sure I see the problem here, but Cutopia's bubbly inhabitants don't care
for it, so Drew and his sidekick, Flux Wildly go on an adventure to save Cutopia.
It sounds like a tired premise; in fact there are some parts that seem identical to Cool
World, but it does have its own thing going on.
Honestly, this is what Cool World SHOULD have been, and I'm applying this statement to
both the game and the movie.
Lloyd's acting is great, though a little over-the-top and I love how his live action
sequences are set against this 2D world.
It works surprisingly well, Lloyd seems to fit right in with the artwork and animations.
I wouldn't call it completely seamless but it did exceed my expectations, especially
after playing more lackluster titles like Harvester.
The voice acting is also great since the cast consists of mostly professional voice actors,
including Tim Curry as the game's villain.
The humor is on the adult side, complete with the cartoon characters swearing and making
sex jokes.
So this is not something I'd recommend you play with your kids, even though Cutopia is
in fact, adorable.
This is literally the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.
It makes me feel fucking sick just looking at it.
The world is stunning, the characters all have great dialogue, and their movements and
animations are top tier.
I feel like I am just in some kind of interactive cartoon; in fact I always feel a little disconnected
when the art style is 2D like this, and it's also pretty heavy on the cutscenes so it feels
more like an animated feature than a game, but it definitely is, complete with inventory
object puzzle design.
That aspect could honestly use some help, but this is a unique title and I don't really
mind grabbing hints for it because the prominent part of this game is not actually the gameplay,
it's the story, the characters, and the visual design.
I found Toonstruck so fascinating that I choose it to be the very first adventure game I reviewed
for YouTube after I had come back from a hiatus.
If you want something just a little bit different from the norm, something a little off-kilter
and you also happen to like slapstick cartoons, then give this one a shot.
I really don't think you'll be disappointed.
Number nine, Eric the Unready
This game, developed by Legend Ent, is an amusing hybrid of text and graphical adventure,
and is loved by seasoned adventure gamers (and I am using the word seasoned because
they are all very salty).
I think the games of Legend Entertainment sometimes get overlooked; but they shouldn't
be.
They had a really interesting approach to design and narrative.
Their first games were called Spellcasting, and...well.
Let's just say I didn't warm up to these games or their humor style.
Felt like a pornographic Harry Potter.
More like Harry HOTTER amrite?
This game uses an interactive fiction interface; you can type in commands, or you can use some
premade ones on the side.
the settings, from the perspective of the player, are in a window in the top right.
When you talk to a character, a new dialogue screen pops up, and in between we have little
cut scenes that tell the story.
The story itself is rather weak, at least the main idea is: it's your very basic fantasy
damsel in distress fairy tale, with you, Eric, having to save a princess despite being bumbling
and incompetent.
Even though it uses cliched tropes, I think it does it in a comedic, satirical way that
pokes fun at itself, and the themes it presents as you progress.
It's a parody game that knows it's a parody.
I think comedy games are hard to write, but parody games even more so, because not only
do they need to need to be good parodies, but they ALSO need to be good games, with
working mechanics and character development.
It's obviously taking a lot from other fantasy stories past, and the pop culture references
are a-plenty, but even though Eric the Unready is littered with homages, it holds on to its
own story and manages to have a personality.
Remember Fable?
I discussed that game a few months back.
It's supposed to be a parody game.
Heh, supposedly, but it just feels bland and mean spirited, and it's not its OWN game.
There's more to comedy than just simple ridicule, believe it or not.
I think Space Quest does parody pretty well, as you can tell which sources its taken from,
it's never malicious, and it has its own character and settings that make the game
different.
I think Eric the Unready is like that; it's one of those elusive successful parodies.
It's a lot of reading, as you can see, but I personally found the writing to be so entertaining
that I didn't get tired of it.
It reminded me of other things that conflate comedy and fantasy, like Monty Python and
the Holy Grail, or a Terry Pratchett novel, while the gameplay itself reminded me of an
older Zork title.
I don't think it's as unmerciful as some of those classic infocom games.The puzzles
are tricky, but the game is broken up into these contained sections where you have to
complete certain quests before moving on.
This at least prevents the player from having to backtrack too and cuts down on any confusion
from too many active puzzles.
This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it's easy to play on modern machines since
it was recently added to GOG, so why not.
Why not go down an outhouse toilet save an adorable pig from an evil spell.
That's what I always say.
Live your life.
Number eight, The Last Express
Full Disclosure: I played this game because I enjoy murder mystery, and have a fondness
for Murder on the Orient express.
My opinion on this game may be biased because of how much I dig the premise.
The Last Express was designed by Jordan Mechner, who previously designed the Prince of Persia
games.
There are a lot of neat aspects to this game; most notably is the art design which was meant
to mimic the art nouveau style that was popular at the time the game's story was set in,
1914 before the outbreak of World War I. Live actors were rotoscoped and the result looks...weeeeeird.
I'm not even sure it works, quite frankly, but it's very interesting to look at and
process visually.
You know something ain't quite right with this character, it's cartoony, yet walking
naturally, like a real person.
It's eerie.
It's not always smooth, either; a lot of the animations are faded cuts, but you do
warm to it as you unravel the story.
You play as a fugitive named Robert Cath, who is suspected in the murder of an authority
figure.
Your friend, Tyler Whitney, sent a telegram asking you to meet him on the Orient Express.
All right, I've illegally hopped this train so let's go into Whitney's room and what
the FUCK Tyler???
There aren't many puzzles, but the puzzles that do exist in this game involve dumping
a dead body out of the train's window and watching bounce along the ground.
This reminds me of an episode of Murder, She Wrote, where there is a slightly dramatic
murder scene that establishes the rest of the episode and everyone's like..
A LITTLE sad, but seconds later no one gives a shit and it's like "All right time to
find the murderer."
The animations remind me of those bizarre wikihow illustrations.
Step 1.
Discover the corpse of your dead friend.
Step 2.
Have a moment of mild grief.
Step 3.
Pick up corpse.
Step 4: Throw that shit out the window.
This isn't your problem, you didn't ask for this.
You take Tyler's vest and pretend to be him the rest of the journey and end up getting
tangled in a web of politics, lies, and romance.
The game is non-linear and has real time events; and this is crucial to how you play the because
you can easily miss important interactions and conversations.
It's similar to The Colonel's Bequest in the way that there aren't many inventory
object puzzles; the idea of the game is to listen to conversations and figure out everyone's
motives.
It's not completely devoid of puzzles, you do have to find certain objects to push things
along, but the emphasis is on eavesdropping.
There are also some action sequences.
Well.
...I...I guess you could call it action.
This game didn't do too well when it was released, and I can kind of see why; people
didn't quite warm up to the non linear game mechanic and real time events, I admit that
even I felt slightly overwhelmed and concerned about missing information or having to go
through tedious stints of trial and error, but it does get very fun and I think this
game is essential for any murder mystery lover.
There is also a rewind mechanic if you do feel like you missed something, which is so
very Jordan Mechner.
I really couldn't put this down when I covered it for a review years ago; I was impressed
by how elegant the train setting looked, and how closely it resembled the original Orient
Express.
This makes sense because the designers based it on an old wooden car they had found abandoned
in a trainyard in Athens.
I wouldn't put this up there with the classics, but it's a noteworthy game that did a lot
of cool things, and I think the amount of work and creativity that went into this project
should be commended.
Number seven, Return of the Phantom
Did you know Microprose had an adventure game division for a short period of time?
Well, now you do.
Return of the Phantom is a point-n-click based on The Phantom of The Opera.
I'm pretty sure I didn't have to explain that seeing as though Phantom stuff is extremely
popular, but you never know.
And now, another childhood memory with pushinguproses!
When I was young, the hip place to be was at my Aunt's house, playing her awesome
computer.
We went over there for Easter Sunday, and having no interest in Easter, I went to the
basement to use the computer.
I discovered the CD for Return of the Phantom on her desk, and was intrigued by the fact
that it was an adventure game, I booted it up and started playing it.
Unfortunately, I was scared of everything as a kid.
I got to this part of the game where you see a shadowy figure following us, and turned
it off immediately.
I then ran upstairs and stuffed my face with chocolate marshmallow eggs to quell the trauma.
This has been another childhood story with PushingUpRoses!
Eventually I got past my fear of shadowy figures and picked the game back up.
In this loosely adapted Phantom story, you play a detective named Raoul, and your job
is to investigate an incident at the Paris Opera house: The chandelier fell during one
of the shows, somehow not killing anyone.
But it almost did, so we're here to figure out if this was an accident.
After doing some brief looking around and interrogation, we decide that it was indeed,
a ghost.
When a murder happens, we try to find this so called opera ghost, but instead he finds
us and tackles us off a catwalk.
We are then sent back in time, when the opera ghost previously terrorized the opera house,
and it's our job to change things in the past to fix things in the future.
So the premise is not canon, but it IS full of familiar characters like Christine and
Madame Giry.
This is a very short point and click, and it's a little hokey, but I think it's
great fun, and on top of that the game looks stunning; everything from the animations which
are smooth and expressive, to the different settings.
Now, the voice acting?
It's...not...good.
It sounds like everyone recorded their lines in a tin can, and Christine's voice is particularly
grating, but this is a fun game.
I really love replaying this one from time to time.
It is far from perfect, but I think the story they created oddly fits the original Phantom
story.
Obviously you're not going to find time travel anywhere, but somehow, the original
story combined with this weird as shit time travel narrative worked well for me.
I think this game is especially fun if you're a Phantom fan.
It doesn't make such egregious mistakes that dedicated fans would dismiss it, and
it plays well and looks amazing, so I it would also work for non fans who just want a fun
adventure game.
Remember when I discussed cheesiness just a couple minutes ago in The Black Dahlia?
Cheesy may not have been the right one for that one, but it IS the right word for Return
of the Phantom.
It's the kind of cheese you want, though.
It's not the crappy off-brand american cheese slices, like the ones that aren't even Kraft,
the ones that are just grocery store brand, it's not that.
It's more like a nice provolone.
I really cannot get enough of that line, who says that?
Number six, Titanic: Adventure out of Time
Have you ever wanted to feel like you were on the Titanic, just...living out the experience
of being on a sinking ship?
Well now you can with Titanic: Adventure out of Time!
Imagine having the constant threat of death on your mind as you travel through this massive
ship solving mysteries and finding ancient books for people.
I found this game on a school computer; I was having a rough patch in high school and
was kicked out for...well, for not going, basically, and sent to an alternative school,
and the workload was fairly easy for me so when I finished, my teacher allowed me to
use the classroom's computer.
I was shocked to see an adventure game on the desktop, I had never heard of it, and
I was baffled that anyone would want to make a game about being on the Titanic.
Spoilers: The ship sinks.
This is not a game where you are saving the Titanic or changing the events of what led
up to that point; the use of the Titanic is mostly for having an amazing setting that
very closely resembles the original ship, and then later on for setting a time limit
when the ship starts to go down.
What you're actually doing in the game is figuring out mysteries, mingling with dangerous
criminal types, and occasionally helping people.
You play as a former Secret Service Agent Frank Carlson, he is currently living in a
dilapidated flat in London after he failed to carry out missions he was given while on
the Titanic.
During a raid, his flat is bombed, and he is sent back in time to then carry out those
previously failed missions; so there IS time travel, it just has nothing to do with saving
the Titanic, and more to do with politically motivated crimes.
One of the missions is to find a stolen copy of the Rubaiyat, which was actually on the
Titanic in real life; unfortunately that copy was not recovered and remains somewhere at
the bottom of the ocean.
I think the most memorable thing about this game, beyond the RIDICULOUSLY huge ship you
have to navigate, are the facial expressions.
This was done by taking still shots of the actors and just overlaying them on the characters
faces - this is NOT an FMV game, even though I am sure some screen caps of the game might
be deceiving, there wasn't any video taken as the developers had to design MANY characters,
and video would take up too much space.
It may look silly at first, but I am rather fond of it and think it's a great alternative;
some of these characters get quite boisterous, and that's when this method really works.
The production for this game was long, with two years of research alone; a lot of thought
went into the recreation of the ship and making the game as historically accurate as possible,
and I think the final product really shows that.
It's actually very similar to The Last Express, in terms of both having very intricate plots
and utilizing that timed element.
I like Titanic Adventure Out of Time just a smidge more, because I have memories attached
to it, and I just can't get over smethell's eyebrow.
That is a strong brow.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching part one of this Top list of non Sierra and LucasArts
adventure games.
Please stay tuned for part two, and in the meantime if you want to watch my other videos,
I have a few linked on the screen.
These videos are possible because of generous donations, so if you'd like to support the
channel, consider checking out my Patreon campaign.
You can find more details on that in the description.
As always, see you guys in the next one.
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