Weekender: Point and Click

Of all of the famous double acts in history, Sam and Max are my favourite. The dog/rabbit crime solving duo are an undeniably classy pair. Sam with his droll tones, smart mouth and sharp suit, and Max with his hyperactive love of all things obscene, absurd and obscenely absurd.

Sam & Max let a cockroach talk on the phone. Naturally.

It's parody in animal form, pure and simple. Whether they're poking gentle fun at great American institutions, or ridiculing desperate-to-please former child actors, Sam and Max generally have a pithy comment for every situation, and a hilarious putdown for every person they encounter.

Their adventures started way back in the last millennium. Lucasarts brought them clicking and screaming to PCs back in 1993 (Sam & Max Hit the Road); another title from what was an impressive conveyor belt of games that included Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and The Dig.

Full Throttle from Lucasarts. You played Ben, the leader of the Polecats, who has to take down Ripburger and save his gang.

Back in those days, point and click adventures ruled supreme - on the PC at least. They were contemplative titles, often hilarious, they required focus and rewarded imagination, and they prized narrative above all else.

There's also regular clicking on items as disparate as rubber chickens and bowling balls, in the vain hope of accidentally stumbling upon the solutions to cryptic puzzles. In fact, hopeful tinkering with seemingly unconnected items picked up from seemingly unconnected locations is a mainstay of the genre.

I've lost track of all the time I've spent in adventure games just combining all the objects in my inventory, just incase I'd missed something obvious, or possibly because the puzzles creator had a twisted, unfathomable mind and I'd been staring at the screen for hours, eyes near bleeding, praying for a solution to present itself.

In many ways the internet has ruined much of the charm of these games. Before we all had wireless broadband connections, and gaming was all local, if you got stuck, you got stuck. There was, if you got super desperate, often a premium phone line to call that could provide you with the clues needed to progress, but they cost a pretty penny, and for many gamers they just weren't an option.

The Dig, another point and click classic, again by Lucasarts (it's a recurring theme).

Now, if we get really stuck on a puzzle in a point and click game, we just head straight to the internet. Wiki's and forums often reveal the missing piece of the puzzle, and allow for quick advancement. But with a point and click, that's not really the point. In the past, when I would keep plugging away until the solution presented itself (or alternatively just abandoned the thing entirely), I have much fonder memories of adventure games.

It comes down to willpower, it would seem. And in that respect I could do more to help myself. But I don't think I'm alone in this bad habit, and I don't I'm alone in looking back to the old days with a touch of remorse for their passing.

The best games, I think it's fair to say, are games that don't require you to cheat. The logic is there to see, and careful consideration (and the occasional bit of good fortune) is all that should be needed. Conversely, the worst games are the polar opposite, riddled with puzzles that require luck as much as trial and error (and just the occasional bit of careful consideration).

There are still some studios out there making interesting point and click adventures, but for many the genre hasn't moved forward a great distance since it's heyday back in the 90s. That's not to say there aren't good games being made. Titles like Amanita's {Machinarium}, and Telltale's episodic series Sam & Max and {The Walking Dead} are leading a renaissance for the much-loved genre.

{The Walking Dead} by Telltale Games, a studio made up of many former Lucasarts employees. You can tell.

This bump in popularity led Lucasarts to start pushing their back catalogue once again. Thanks to renewed interest in the genre, classics like Loom, Monkey Island and Indiana Jones are now available on Steam.

The rise of tablet and mobile gaming has certainly helped things along too. The more sedate pacing of adventure titles is suited to the tap tap controls and crisp HD screens of a tablet, and the narrative-heavy stories make them ideal for gaming on the go. The Nintendo DS has also played its part, with the duel screen providing an ever present inventory. Several popular titles, including Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney, have been released on the handheld to date.

Beyond that renaissance, elements have been borrowed by other genres and are now commonplace in a variety of modern games. Atlus's {Catherine} borrows many elements from the point and click adventure, as does Quantic Dreams' {Heavy Rain}. {L.A. Noire} had multiple clue-finding sections, puzzles that were entirely reminiscent of point and click adventuring.

Monkey Island. Available on just about every device on the planet. And this is a good thing.

Throw into the mix other classics like the Discworld games (some of the voice overs are superb), Simon the Sorcerer, {Myst}, and Broken Sword, and there's loads of great titles to get stuck into, should you be so inclined. There's also plenty of worthwhile contemporary titles being made; Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw is a fairly influential within the genre, and Size Five Games have been making great games for a while now.

It's gaming at a different pace, and it prizes narrative, art and content above speed, thrills and spills. That doesn't make them less worthy of your consideration, but it certainly is worth bearing in mind, because at the end of the day, point and click adventure games aren't for everyone. We live in a world populated by high-octane shooters like Call of Duty, Halo and Mass Effect, and in the face of such thrills, for many old-school adventuring just doesn't hold appeal. Luckily there's enough of us out there to keep the genre ticking over, and long may that continue.