10 Adventure Games for Lovers
10 Adventure Games for Lovers
I hear you out there snickering, “Randy’s really lost it this time, adventure games for lovers.” Think about it, though, what better way to spend an evening with a loved one than by sharing the intellectual stimulation of an adventure game? Somehow, the thought of playing Soldier of Fortune and relieving opponents of their limbs just isn’t the same.
Besides, and I’ll be the first to admit it, our 10 Best Adventure Games That (Almost) No One Has Ever Played is easily our most-read column ever, and similar articles–10 Scariest Games of All-Time, 10 Biggest Turkeys of All Time, 10 Games You Won’t Believe, and Son of 10 Games You Won’t Believe–have all left our readers clamoring for more, and who am I to say no?
Some of the following games are not the best you will ever play, but that is not the point. These are shared experiences that will bring you intellectually and, hopefully, physically closer to your loved one as you share the wonderment and sexuality of adventure gaming. So snuggle up to your wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, significant other, or, if you are a major computer geek, your favorite blow-up doll. Now dim the lights on that monitor and settle in for an evening of amour.
10. The Legend of Lotus Spring
Developer: Women Wise
Publisher: Dreamcatcher Interactive
Release Date: 2000
Just Adventure Grade: A-
The following is for our male readers only: okay guys, what better way to prove to your girlfriend/wife that you love her than to play this “girlie” game? You’ll score major sensitivity points, plus later in the evening when she has gone to bed and you’re playing Doom with the volume turned down, she’ll think you’re still exploring the world of Lotus Spring and love you all the more.
9. Leisure Suit Larry in Love for Sail
Developer/Publisher: Sierra
Release Date: 1997
Just Adventure Grade: Soon to be reviewed
Schwing! It’s that polyester master of double entendres aboard a boatload of babes on the PMS Bounty. Join Larry as he looks for love in all the wrong places. Increase the game’s “filth level” to enjoy the bawdiest jokes and be ready to use that scratch ‘n’ sniff card that comes with the game.
As if that’s not enough, condoms are hidden throughout the game for you to collect. Join in the fun and hide condoms filled with Hershey Kisses throughout your computer room. First one to find them all gets to be the Gangster of Love (Just hope the chocolate hasn’t melted). Unlike the rumors for other games, Love for Sail really does have “nude” codes (don’t you just love that Al Lowe?).
Larry’s dinghy is one you will want to sail on forever.
8. Timescape: Journey to Pompeii
Developer: Arxel Tribe
Publisher: Dreamcatcher Interactive
Release Date: 2000
Just Adventure Grade: A
From Tom Houston’s JA review:
“Your character for Pompei … is Adrian Blake, an explorer and well-respected cartographer who lives in England. While on an assignment in 1918 near the town of Erevan in the region that is now known as Armenia, Adrian becomes gravely ill. Stranded in a cave, Adrian is unable to move due to his illness, and his chances for survival grow dim. As his hopes fade, an apparition of the goddess Ishtar (Aphrodite) appears, offering to cure his malady if he professes his love for her. Adrian, despite the desperation of his situation, refuses Ishtar, because he loves Sophia, his bride-to-be, who is back in England awaiting his return. Ishtar becomes angry and vows to seek retribution.
“Somehow, Adrian survives, because now it is one year later, on the eve of his eagerly anticipated wedding to Sophia, when he discovers that Sophia is missing. The grief-stricken Adrian searches for an explanation in his manuscripts. Ultimately, his thoughts turn to Ishtar, and he discovers an ancient curse of Ishtar that just might explain Sophia’s disappearance. Further study in his manuscripts reveals that to save Sophia and bring her back, Adrian must save the ‘personification’ of Sophia three times in three different eras.”
The ultimate love story. Travel through time to save your loved one (or not!). Imagine the possibilities: lovers in different time eras or even different lovers in different eras. The potential for multiple mates without getting caught is mind-boggling. If movies like Time After Time make you sob uncontrollably, then this will be a three-handkerchief game.
7. Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror
Publisher: Revolution Software
Release Date: 1997
Just Adventure Grade: B-
American-born George and French-bred Nico are a hot item in the annals of adventure gaming. For years fans have been clamoring for a continuation or some sort of closure to this relationship. Their sarcastic, often-cutting dialogues reek of sexual frustration.
I just returned from Paris and those cosmopolitan, sophisticated Frenchwomen were falling all over me. Maybe it was my suave manner combined with my sexy English accent. Maybe it was the way I slung my coat over my shoulder. Personally, I think it was because I have “adventure gamer” written all over me.
6. Real Myst
Developer: Cyan
Publisher: Mattel
Release Date: November 2000
Just Adventure Grade: B
From Ray Ivey’s JA review:
“… the fact that you can now glide around these beautiful environments at will in gorgeous real-time 3D is truly a revelation. I think this is the game that should drive a stake in the heart of the notion that RTR games can’t look as good as prerendered. This game is drop-dead gorgeous eye candy from start to finish.
“To begin with, of course, there’s the sheer beauty of the game’s original environments. The lovely Myst island, the soggy wonder of the Channelwood Age, the creepy openness of the Selenitic Age, etc. But the designers weren’t satisfied with merely recreating those wonders in 3D. They added stunning weather, water, and animal effects that truly make the game pop visually. The Stoneship Age, for example, with its roiling water, thunderstorms, and sunsets, is hauntingly beautiful to behold. And the variety of fish visible from the underwater study are fascinating to watch.”
There’s just something about Myst that drives women into a sexual frenzy. Maybe it’s the solitude of exploring the 3D worlds. Maybe it’s the soothing sound of the water lapping onto the shore. Maybe it’s all the phallic imagery. Whatever the reason, this is one island you’ll want to visit with your loved one. Just be wary of those time-share salesmen unless you’re looking forward to spending your remaining days in the swampy bogs of Channelwood.
5. Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within
Developer/Publisher: Sierra
Release Date: 1998
Just Adventure Grade: A+
You could cut the sexual tension with a knife. Gabriel and Grace portrayed by flesh-and-blood actors. Furtive glances, secret touches; light nibbling on the neck … and that is just between Gabe and Von Glower! Hints of homosexuality run rampant, not to mention werewolf bestiality. The only ones who don’t get it on are Grace and Gabe. Be bold, one of you play as Grace and the other as Gabe. Invite a friend to wear a werewolf mask and play along–make it a threesome.
4. Titanic: Adventure Out of Time
Developer: Cyberflix
Publisher: GTE Entertainment
Release Date: 1996
Just Adventure Grade: Soon to be reviewed
So what if there’s no Leonardo DeCaprio or Kate Winslett on board? No problem! Put the movie soundtrack on your stereo and settle back to the familiar voice of Celine Dion.
Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is actually one of the best-selling adventure games of all time thanks to an opportune reissue of the game during the height of the movie’s popularity. In fact, last year alone, Titanic sold an additional several thousand copies, reaching a sales figure that many new games would love to claim.
This story begins in 1942 during the height of World War II. As the Blitzkrieg rages outside your room, a violent catalyst hurtles you back thirty years to a time when you were a Secret Service Agent aboard the RMS Titanic. Your success or failure to recover a stolen book could determine the future of the world. Over 25 interactive characters and a historically accurate digital reconstruction of the Titanic with photorealistic graphics immerse you in the story with an unprecedented realism.
Plus a guided tour option lets you learn about the famed ship from interactive tour guides. Maybe if you look hard enough, you’ll find a car with an empty back seat in the hold of the ship. Ship ahoy!
3. Dracula Resurrection
Developer: France Telecom Multimedia/Canal+ Multimedia
Publisher: Dreamcatcher Interactive
Release Date: 2000
Just Adventure Grade: B+
From the Just Adventure review:
“Dracula Resurrection is actually presented as a sequel to Bram Stoker’s novel. The opening movie reenacts the climatic events of the 1897 novel as we watch Jonathan Harker attempt to destroy his arch-nemesis. His weapons prove futile, though, and only the rising sun saves Jonathan and Mina, his fiancee, from a life of eternal darkness. Seven years pass, and we watch as Jonathan reads an unbelievable letter from Mina, now his wife. She has been overcome by an irresistible urge, a yearning for the sexual bloodlust of the vampire, and has returned to Transylvania. Jonathan, as we learn through a letter he composes to his friend Seward, journeys to save his beloved, and thus our game begins. This is not a Hammer film, though. There are no subplots, no vampire hunters, no Christopher Lees. It is simply you, playing in a first-person perspective as Jonathan Harker, attempting to reach Dracula’s castle and rescue Mina. Much as the novel dripped of atmosphere over a hundred years ago, so also does the computer game. A feeling of loneliness prevails as you wend your way through catacombs and hidden passages. The fear of the townspeople is reflected in their eyes and etched in their faces.”
Can you think of a better way to spend a romantic evening than protecting your loved one from the bloodsucking advances of a vampire? How about your loved one protecting herself from your advances as you play this game with the lights out? It won’t take long until the howling and moaning you hear are coming from places other than your computer speakers.
2. Tender Loving Care
Developer/Publisher: Aftermath Media
Release Date: 1998
Just Adventure Grade: B+
From Craig White’s JA review: “Tender Loving Care is not a typical adventure game; in fact, Aftermath Media is not even categorizing it as a graphic adventure. Instead, it is considered an ‘interactive movie’ similar to Phantasmagoria but with a design twist. It is definitely original, and we felt it deserved a fair review on our site. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and an added bonus, and a credit to the designers, is that it is replayable–there are many paths to the end and a few different endings … A twisted story of sex, lies and sanity awaits. At times it seems the subject of sex and nudity is pushed too far. Some players may not want to see a naked woman throwing herself against a window for everyone outside to see her. On the other hand, maybe some of you may get kick out of that kind of stuff.”
Sex and nudity pushed too far?! Some players may not want to see a naked woman?! I say bring it on! After innumerable, mind-numbing adventure games starring bumbling detectives, sci-fi aliens, futuristic landscapes, and cutesy dwarves and elves, I’m ready for some mature entertainment. Just to make matters more interesting is an extremely personal psychological quiz that you must participate in to advance the game. So what does that ink blot look like to you?
1. Rocky Interactive Horror Show
Developer/Publisher: On-Line
Release Date: 1999
Just Adventure Grade: Soon to be reviewed
It’s just a simple, everyday rock-and-roll story of boy meets girl meets alien transvestite from another world. Play as either Brad or Janet and release your partner before the house turns into a spaceship and blasts off for the planet of Transsexual Transylvania.
Stock up on hot dogs and toilet paper, then crank up your computer speakers: it’s just a jump to the left and a step to the right as you and your loved one do the Time Warp again. Be prepared to strip to your undies, for if you bump into Riff-Raff, he will steal your clothes–and what could be more fun, and romantic, than to strip along with your monitor persona?
Starring Richard O’Brien, the creator of the original Rocky Horror Picture Show, as the Game Devil and classic horror actor Christopher Lee as the Narrator, Rocky Interactive Horror Show contains over 80 puzzles to solve and features rotoscoped characters from the movie along with video clips and original music by O’Brien interspersed with such toe-tapping classics like Time Warp, There’s a Light and Sweet Transvestite.
What makes this the perfect adventure game for lovers, though, is that Rocky Interactive Horror Show is a timed game. You have thirty minutes in which to save your partner. For you purists who would rather just play the game, there are many ways to extend the thirty-minute time limit. For the rest of us, after playing in our skivvies for thirty minutes. it might be time to move on to other games.
Rocky Interactive Horror Show is currently available for the first time in North America at many Electronic Boutiques and Babbages for the low price of $19.99.
