346th played so far
Genre: Adventure
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1987
Developer: Lucasfilm Games
Publisher: Lucasfilm Games
It’s no big secret on this blog that I enjoy the Lucasfilm adventures, especially the later ones – Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max hit the Road, Grim Fandango and so on, and I’m looking forward to playing many of the newer ones.
Maniac Mansion is the first, using the SCUMM engine that defined the later titles, and prequel to my beloved Day of the Tentacle. We have an interesting game ahead of us.
Our Thoughts
Sometimes a game shows its age. While undeniably a Lucusarts adventure, it doesn’t feel like it’s entirely there yet. Although not the death trap you find in its contemporary Sierra games, there are still many different ways to fail, not always clearly signposted, and it still requires you to save frequently, something later games don’t really have (barring stability issues).
Falling in that part of stupid camp, we played the first section of the game more often, something I’ve done before anyway.
The game has had several updates, with the graphics being one of the things improved throughout – we played one of the later, better-looking ones. As much as I try not to judge on these, the later Lucasarts games look better, in part thanks to them looking more cartoony, and the more realistic style here stands out negatively – as well as making it harder to spot some clues.
So yeah, on the whole the game was a bit of a disappointment. It’s a good adventure, sure, but the puzzles are a bit obscure and it misses the charm and humour we expect of later games. Yeah, the humour is there, but it’s just not as strong. A bit of a shame.
Final Thoughts
I think we’ll keep this brief because we know that this is in the book because it was where the Lucasart adventure games started to take form but it’s not quite there yet. Similar to how we have got Tekken in this book, it was the start of a successful franchise that does not stand up to close scrutiny based on recent advances in gameplay and technology.
It is going to take a lot to get a point-and-clicker that can beat Broken Sword or Time Gentlemen, Please in my eyes… maybe next time Lucasarts.
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