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Watch The Last Express Like a Cartoon

The cult-classic rotoscoped The Last Express has been uploaded to Vimeo, and now you can watch all the cutscenes in the form of several video clips, the collection of which runs about 75 minutes.

The Last Express was one of the most expensive games of its day. It's a classic murder mystery set in the golden age of rail travel on the inimitable Orient Express. With 44,000 hand-drawn frames of animation, and countless hours required to play out each scene with real actors, it is worth watching a few clips just to see what kind of effort was poured into this game. Tragically, The Last Express is one of gaming history's greatest flops. Due to corporate restructuring, the developer's marketing department was unable to promote the game, and it was only on retail shelves for a few weeks. Sadly, the was out of print within a year.

Here's Part 1:

Posted Mar 10 2009, 10:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments

Filed under: kotaku, adventure games, cole stryker, cartoons, the last express, vimeo

Finally, Some Info On Dreamfall Chapters

Ragnar Tornquist’s ethereal adventure games are one of the medium’s greatest joys: The Longest Journey is an established genre classic, and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey was a genuinely affecting piece of work with an unforgettable (in either a good or bad way, depending on who you ask) ending.

They were brilliant, and those among us who are priveleged and wise cannot stop thinking about them, demand more of them. But the Dreamfall team has spend the intervening years on NCSoft’s next big MMO project. Now The Secret World is fascinating in its own right, but it’s not more Longest Journey. Tornquist knows what we crave, so today he pushed aside the typically opaque curtain of publisher secrecy to explain as much as he could about the upcoming Dreamfall Chapters. It’s all unofficial, but to see more of Dreamfall at all is a delight.

Posted Feb 27 2009, 04:30 PM by Joe Keiser with | with no comments

Filed under: adventure games, joe keiser, the longest journey 2, ragnar tornquist, dreamfall, dreamfall chapters, the longest journey

Overworld: Syberia

There are moments, peppered throughout Syberia, where your character’s cell phone rings and you have to talk to a person from “home” in New York City. It’s an unwelcome chore, and you’ll dislike it when it happens. But that’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel.

Syberia doesn’t have much to work with. It’s a seven year-old adventure game (its sequel is a slightly spryer five), so even though it could well be the most recent great adventure game both history and age weigh upon it. Its story, though charming and folksy, is bare: there is a master toymaker of dubious mental faculties, and he needs to be found. It never gets more complicated than that.

But Syberia raises itself to genre classic on the believability of its curious world. The toymaker, Hans, has touched every step of your journey with his masterful automatons—a completely believable premise since you are riding a mechanical train of his invention, stopping only at the points he has coursed. Of course, the places that accepted this man’s strange gifts are themselves strange, from the gear-powered town of his birth to the grand Russian experiment that was built around his ideas. Every place in the game basked in Han’s genius and withered when he moved on. Following this same sad path gives the game a complete internal consistency that stretches from its art design to its puzzle logic. It’s a tightly composed game that takes very little and composes from it a fully wrought world of rusty gears and broken men.

Posted Feb 03 2009, 03:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with no comments

Filed under: overworld, adventure games, joe keiser, gametap, syberia

Whatcha Playing: Myst III: Exile

So, I'm still home for the holidays and I found this 4-disc baby lying around. Since I never actually played it after picking it up for $3 at a used bookstore, and since it's the only thing around that will run on my mom's Compaq Presario, I've "linked" back into the world of D'ni.

Posted Jan 06 2009, 08:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: whatcha playing, adventure games, cole stryker, point and click adventure games, myst iii

Duckman's Lost Adventure Game

In case you didn't know, this week marks the release of the first few seasons of Duckman on DVD; and if you wish to plead further ignorance, Duckman was a brilliantly cynical cartoon that had a surprisingly long run (70 episodes) on the USA network in the mid-90s. So what does this have to do with video games? Aside from giving me a chance to promote one of my favorite TV shows, this week's monumental media event is also the perfect time to talk about the series' PC adventure game, Duckman: The Legend of the Fall.

Along with Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity, Legend of the Fall was one of the few non-LucasArts adventure games to nearly capture that same LucasArts magic. Unfortunately, Duckman was not nearly as popular of a franchise; also, Legend of the Fall's 1997 release date missed the genre's height of popularity by nearly 3-4 years, and came at the tail-end of the show's run. Hence the game's "lost" status; for being as uniquely American in its own "hell in a handbasket" take on the modern world, Duckman: Legend of the Fall was released everywhere but America.

Posted Sep 16 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments

Filed under: adventure games, lucasarts, bob mackey, pc games, duckman, beavis and butt-head

Underpowered Cave Story "Ports"

I've already done some mouthing off about how much I love Cave Story, the one-man miracle game that looks great, sounds great and plays better.

Not surprisingly, Cave Story has a significant fandom. In fact, a member at the Way of the Pixel forums recently posted a relevant challenge: whip up "screenshots" of what Cave Story might look like if it were ported to less-powerful systems.

The results are amusing, especially the Spectrum ZX mock-up. I'd like to see something done in the style of the Apple ][ or better yet, the Commodore 64.

Posted Jul 11 2008, 09:21 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: fan project, nes, commodore 64, adventure games, cave story, master system, fans, mock-up, spectrum zx

Kojima's In Another World

Depending on what side of the world you live on, you might even say Metal Gear Solid's daddy is Out Of This World.

I already know I'm a hopeless nerd, so I have no problem confessing that I love to find out about what inspires creative types. I get to say "Oh hey! Me too!" and for a precious second, I feel validated. Then the shadows gather again.

Kotaku published an article about the five games that matter to Hideo Kojima. Super Mario Bros is a given, but I was happy to see that Eric Chahi's brooding alien adventure Another World was on the list as well.

Another World, cleverly renamed Out Of This World in North America, comes from a rare point in history when computer gamers had every right to laugh at console gamers. While young scientist Lester Knight Chaykin picked his way through a grim and hostile alien world with seemingly no hope of getting home, he took hundreds of enthralled Amiga, Apple II and DOS owners along with him. Every move he made counted, because one wrong turn or one bad step was all it took to die a hauntingly animated death. Every victory in Another World was bitterly earned, every discovery mattered.

Meanwhile, console gamers said "Ook Ook", threw their NES controllers at the screen and picked each other for lice.

Posted Jul 10 2008, 08:50 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: kotaku, hideo kojima, adventure games, alien, out of this world, another world, buddy, lester knight chaykin, interplay, inspirations, eric chahi

LucasArts Classics On Nintendo DS?

As many have remarked, the DS seems perfect for a revival of classic adventures — it's got more than enough processing power to handle early-'90s PC software, and the stylus is a fine match for the traditional point-and-click interface. (Diehards, myself included, who prefer the still-more-traditional parser interface, will have to wait for the inevitable PowerGlove II to simulate an old-fashioned keyboard.) Beloved games like Monkey Island and Sam & Max Hit the Road would be natural archive releases for legendary adventure producers LucasArts. But today...

Posted Jun 02 2008, 03:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo ds, joystiq, quest for glory, adventure games, lucasarts, monkey island, fracture, jeffrey gullett, sam & max hit the road, eurogamer

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.