Am I just looking at the past through rose-coloured glasses or have they stopped making games like these?
Spent hours on games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest etc. as a kid. Any good modern ones, or should I just replay the old?
EDIT: And preferably with OS X support, as it seems the TellTale games only run on windows! What a bummer, was actually at the point of buying a game for the first time in years.
The genre almost died at the end of the 90's, in part due to the lack of commercial success for Grim Fandango.
There were a few franchises that survived, like the Broken Sword and Runaway sagas, and a few more games by other studios. Then Telltale, founded by a few LucasArts drop-outs, started to bring some new life to the scene.
If you like the adventure games of the 90's, you can play some of them in ScummVM, or DOSBox.
Most of these adventure games were programed using custom languages and VMs. ScummVM reimplements a dozen of such engines, for more than 60 games supported. It can also run some windows games like MI 3, or the first two Broken Sword games. Furthermore, they have been able to get some of the supported games to be released as freeware.
DOSBox, being an X86 emulator can run most if not all of the DOS games of the era. With some work, it is possible to get it to run Win95.
Both of these projects are FOSS and have (among others), a Mac OS X port.
You can buy some more ScummVM or DOSBox games at Good Old Games (GOG).
I've heard that some of the TellTale games are supported by WINE (hence Darwine and Crossover Mac), but I don't know which ones.
I have some hope for the adventure genre yet, even after being seriously let down by Monkey Island 4 (make sure you've played Monkey Island 3 and Grim Fandango though; they're both excellent!)
That said, I've heard Psychonauts is good, though I haven't played it. My understanding is it's free on Gametap.
One that I missed when I was growing up was Touche: The Adventures of the 5th Musketeer - it's just about as good as the Lucasarts games - Note: there is a version with full voice acting, and this is the only place I know where you can actually get it: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3557929/Touche_-_The_adventu...
I haven't played this, but it's supposed to be very good as well (made from ex Lucasarts members): http://www.vampyrestory-game.com/
I found the Sam and Max series from Telltale very underwhelming and disapointing, so I never played past episode 4 in the first season.
On a somewhat related genre note, I've also found the game Beyond Good and Evil to be as immersive and entertaining as the MI series.
Eventually the Telltale catalog will go Mac OS X native, but we haven't had the internal resources to do it yet, and our one attempt at doing the ports through an outside house went south in a fairly frustrating way. Hopefully sometime in the reasonable future, though.
I'd like to know, too. I haven't bought a new game since 1995 or 1996. I've seen some games at my friends' and I tried out some technological milestones such as Quake 3 when it was released on Linux but didn't really catch up on playing anymore. The only thing I've been repeatedly played is Doom -- I use it for processing ideas in the subconscious while keeping my conscious thinking in the gameplay.
I thought that perhaps it's the difference between a 15-year-old and a 30-year-old but then I decided to try out some old games I used to play in the early 90's. I set up F1GP, EOB, EOB2, Syndicate, Monkey Island, Super Frog, Civilization, UFO, etc. and I was hooked! They were just fantastic and FUN! Some even more so than back in the early 90's! I would definitely buy games like those if I knew which of the new ones were good.
Of course, not having Windows is a huge restriction with regard to gaming but a one that has suited me fine all these years. If there turns out to be a killer game somewhere I might just set up a virtual machine for XP and try it out.
In my opinion they have stopped making games like these and the only ones that escape are the exception to the rule. It's not like i am a hardcore oldies fanatic, i still play games, although less frequently compared to 10 years ago.
I can find two reasons that led to this situation.
First, the transformation of the game business to the game industry. Unlike the previous generation of game producers/studios today's dominant publishers are thinking strictly with economic terms. It used to be that someone would have a cool idea and he went ahead and make it reality. Just because he enjoyed it and thought it would be fun. The profit incentive probably was there, but it wasn't his main motivation. Today this is the main reason behind making a game. Take for example the number of mmo's, which are a very lucrative game type, that come out. They are a textbook example of a system designed specifically to hook the players into constantly spending money for their leisure. The same case is with sequels. Take the same proved recipe for success, rearrange/change a few elements in it and relaunch it as a (seemingly) new concept.
The second reason is that the gamers community and culture has changed. It went mainstream a few years ago and that changed it forever. When I first noticed that I felt sorry for the majority of new players who, influenced by the gaming related media, started focusing more on graphics, short term and easy satisfaction that on the game as a whole (storyline and gameplay included). Today's gamers don't like to think that hard and even if they do, virtually they have no choice. It's all about getting a quick fix of adrenaline/enjoyment, Hollywood action film-like, compared to having that feeling of satisfaction when you finish a good book. The fist is simple, short term, and essentially you gain nothing from it. The second one, although it requires more dedication, engages your mind and makes you actually investigate/ponder it's arguments, ideas etc. If you can't relate to that think of the quality of posts included here compared to those on reddit. (Although i am a relatively new member here i am able to make the comparison).
Just my two cents on the matter.
(Sorry if some of my points aren't clear enough, English is not my primary language)
I agree, but maybe it was just the sudden gameplay paradigm shift. I remember when Wolfenstein3D came out and I thought it looked cool enough, then Doom, then the rest... all first person shooters. It was enough of a jolt that I lost my kid fascination with games as story-telling and started just seeing them just as toys to pick up every once and awhile.
I'm not saying that era was the end-all-be-all of gaming, just when the "magic" was lost for me.
I went and picked up a $200 PC this week, primarily to run the TellTale games. The engine is wonderful- It's precisely what a modern Adventure game should be.
If you can try the W&G demo under VMware, it might work for you, depending on your setup.
DOSBox works well on the Mac, is free and plays those game that ran on DOS very well. I'm pretty sure at least some of these games only require DOS, not Windows
[Edit: Monkey Island 1 and 2 run under DOS, but 3 requires Win95]
Spent hours on games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest etc. as a kid. Any good modern ones, or should I just replay the old?
EDIT: And preferably with OS X support, as it seems the TellTale games only run on windows! What a bummer, was actually at the point of buying a game for the first time in years.