Quote Originally Posted by Lewton View Post
Hi DD (say if that's not okay ........ easier to type though ),

Everyone I've 'spoken' to says that Mean Streets is the best of the two earliest ones, but does that mean that Martian Memorandum is poor, or just not quite as good? Out of the last three, most people seem to say that The Pandora Directive is the best. I'll definitely start with the earliest though. Old graphics don't affect my enjoyment one jot. It's the story, atmosphere, puzzles and music that draw me in. In fact, many modern graphic adventures are heavy on awesome graphics, but hollow on atmosphere and story. There are exceptions though. Thanks for the tip concerning Mean Streets.

Playing text adventures doesn't date you at all. I haven't played many earlier 'classics', including most of the Infocoms, but I enjoy, these days, digging through the Interactive Fiction Competition entries of the last 15 years. Do you know of them? All are free.

My number one favourite has to be one called Anchorhead, by a chap called Michael Gentry. To play the games it's necessary to download Interpreters, as their called. Some of these IF adventures are really, really good.
DD is fine (actually there could have been some type of Freudian meaning behind my name and initials...but I'm not saying for sure...)

Again alot of it is nostalgia and the fact that when I originally played it, it featured the most advanced graphics and sound of its time, but Mean Streets overall seemed to have a better story and plotline. I also remember Martian Memorandum being much easier (finished it and pretty quickly) versus Mean Streets where I somehow could not locate one of the passcards.

Funny to see many have finished this in the 10-15 hour range. Seems to have taken me about 30-40 hours. Maybe due to my inexperience and it being one of my first. Martian Memorandum I believe was much more linear and did not require much backtracking like Mean Streets and the immersion with the other chracters was not as great. Was not as much fun to experiment with different responses, reactions or interactions by clicking on everything. I call this the Zelda technique (burning every tree down just to see if something is there). Some games immerse you enough to stick around and experiment, where others you just plod your way through with tunnel vision. Again this may have been just due to the unique and groundbreaking experience of the original.

Martian Memorandum was good, but like many sequels missed slightly to recapture or re-invent the charm of the original.

I equally enjoyed all of the later games in the series and could not say one versus the other was my favorite...although Overseer has the best production and story but the puzzles just seemed to get recycled from one game to the next.

For some reason other games randomly popped into my head while reminiscing...Amazon: Guardians of Eden, Rex Nebular, Orion Conspiracy (not so great), Mission Critical (excellent), and all the Legend Spellcasting and Timequest games...oh, the memories. Gotta go back and see which ones I finished...

Thanks for the tip on IFC (doesn't ring a bell) and Anchorhead (I think I've heard of this one). I played many of the Infocom ones. I think the independent and vintage text ones will be my next area of focus.