I’ve had a hankering for a new game, but this is the time of year when it would be a bad idea to buy anything for myself for fear that it may be a potential Xmas gift. So I’ve had to dig into my library to try to make what’s old new again.

I needed something fun and challenging, but short since my gaming time is already so limited. So I decided to finally replay Full Throttle via ScummVM. It’s been over 10 years since I’d last played it, so I don’t remember much, except that it was funny. And since most sites that mention it remark that it only takes a few hours to complete, that fit my time restraint perfectly!

As I’m playing through it, though, I’m finding myself resorting to walkthroughs pretty frequently. I don’t remember the game being this hard! Maybe the past decade of games have spoiled me and twisted my video game “common sense” because some of these solutions have dumbfounded me.

I was at the part where Ben had to siphon the fuel from the cop car at the gas tower and it never occurred to me that I had to hide in the shadows in the background. Most games these days would have something highlighted to give some kind of visual clue that something in the background was not only significant, but accessible. Otherwise, I just take for granted that the scene is just a backdrop to the game’s main stage in the foreground. Am I just not as sharp as I was when I was younger? Were game puzzles back then just that heady that they required you to think outside of the box? Or am I just making excuses for poor game design?

In either case, if work my way through Full Throttle sooner than expected, I might blow some dust off of Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.