Point-and-click mania

I think I have a new addiction. It's called Jay is Games. The Myst/URU series of games is over (recent resurrection of URU Live excepted, but I don't think I'll be getting involved in that), leaving me without a reliable source of adventure games (adventure games being those that usually involve walking around solving puzzles--some of which subtle and some of which are overt--in order to advance a storyline). Frustratingly, my local EB seems to have decided to cater to the console gamers rather than the PC people nowadays. I used to be able to go in there and browse a whole wall of PC titles and see what adventure titles were in the mix, but now very few PC titles are there at all. The make-you-think games have always been less prolific than the shoot-em-ups and such, but now I am going to have to travel even further afield than I used to to find them. Oh well, there's a Best Buy near the same mall :)...it's just not the same as EB used to be, though.

Anyway, while I'm waiting for the day when I find it easier to justify upgrading my processor so it meets the basic requirements of Dreamfall (the long-anticipated sequel to The Longest Journey, a landmark in adventure game design according to just about any adventure gamer), I'm entertaining myself (or have been the past couple days, anyway) by playing various free online adventure games. I have found all of them so far in the past few days through Jay is Games. They have mostly been of the escape-the-room/escape-the-house variety, such as those by the "The Crimson Room" guy (I played The Crimson Room and The Viridian Room ages ago, but only played The White Chamber and The Blue Chamber in the past few days; they are all good except the Blue Chamber, which is too short in terms of steps to perform, though it could take forever to figure out what you have to do if you're not really good or willing to get some hints from other people), Dr. Metero (yeah, the text is in Japanese, but it's very doable by English speakers...you just have to tolerate not knowing what's said in the intro), Aquaria, Submachine, Submachine2: The Lighthouse (this one is really really good, if you like a challenge), and even Jinx: A Dark and Stormy Night (put out by YTV...who knew?). Others I played that I wouldn't classify as escape-the-room were Samorost and Jinx Episode 2: Miracle in the 34th Dimension. The Jinx games are really, really easy but I had fun...I'm just looking to amuse myself, here, after all. Anyway, next time I am looking to relax with some make-you-think gaming, I am more than likely going to hop on Jay is Games and search for "point-and-click" again (this seems to be what most of the online adventure games are classified as). Until I get me to Best Buy to attempt to find a Myst-worthy boxed adventure game, anyway.

Alright, g'night everyone...I gots to go to work tomorrow evening again (*looks at clock*...hmm, I guess that would be this evening...yeah, I gotta get to bed). Bye for now...