Legend Entertainment adventures

[Rakeesh]

Anyone being a fan of Legend? I just finished three of its totally immersing adventures (no walkthrough) and I am astonished

Mission Critical has been one of my favorites.

[cpages2]

Never heard of them. Can you share a link?

- Mike

[AndreaDraco]

I really loved Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, by Sierra's own Josh Mandel. It was brilliant, and very touching.

[Collector]

Callahan's may be one of the best known of the Legend games. Spider Robinson's stories are fun reads and as it turns out can make for a good game. For the anniversary of its release a while back I made an installer for it, though it may not be as up-to-date as the other SHP installers nor have as many features.

http://sierrahelp.com/download.php?file ... DOSBox.exe

[dotkel50]

Now where were you hiding that little gem?

[Collector]

I wrote it for Adventure Gamers. Josh Mandel is aware of it.

[Akril]

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon was the first Legend game I played, and I thought it was great. The dialogue and descriptions were some of the best I've heard/read in an adventure game, and the graphics were pretty good as well.

I've played some of Legend's other games, and so far, I haven't been disappointed. Eric the Unready is a fun fantasy game with a comic bent, while Death Gate immerses you in an incredibly rich world with a more serious edge (though not nearly as gloomy as the title might make you think). Incidentally, Death Gate also has some incredibly original puzzles, not to mention a fiendishly clever system of spell-casting that keeps throwing you curves just when you think you know everything there is to know about it.

Many of Legend's games (particularly the early ones) could be considered a hybrid between text and graphical adventures -- you don't type out commands, but choose words from a series of menus in order to tell the game what you want to do ("hit" + "dragon" + "with" + "stick", for instance). This isn't nearly as complicated as it sounds, and is certainly a lot easier than typing everything out. Also, even though the game has graphics and animations, a lot of the action in the game is described instead of shown. This leaves a lot of what happens in the games to your imagination (and when the games were in development, it meant a lot less pressure on the artists!).

[dotkel50]

In your spare time , maybe you could make a page for any non-Sierra games that you've made installers for. Re-playing Callahan's is now on my todo list.

[QuestCollector]

Only Legend game I've played is Companions of Xanth and loved it.

[Rakeesh]

I am happy that everyone shares a high opinion about those games.

I believe they were considered retro for their own time. The graphics were only supportive, while descriptions and texts were the main way of describing the world. Animation was scarce, and cutscenes almost non-existent.

Mission Critical for example, has rich graphics and cutscenes, but some climatic points of the storyline which pass by merely as narrations. I admit this absence of cutscenes in climaxes made me feel that something's missing.

Of course, as Linux users would say to GUI users, or as book-readers would say to movie-viewers, minimalism has potential not present in more opulent things. This is true in text and narration vs graphical adventures.

For example, you can use a magic wand on every item present. The narrator will describe the effect to you (eg. 'turned into stone') but that would be impossible to show in a game where the items are visualized as icons, unless you bloat the game files with all possible options the player would try

[DeadPoolX]

Huh. Never even heard of Legend Entertainment before this thread.

[Rakeesh]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_Entertainment

As I said, their games were quite 'retro' for their time, and perhaps not as commercial as others.

[DeadPoolX]

Okay, I recognize a lot of their games now. I guess I never paid attention to the company's name itself.

[Tawmis]

Heard of many of them - only one I played was Death Gate which I still have.

But no surprise, since Death Gate Cycle (the series of books) was the basis for my BBS back in the day... even used to use the handle of Hugh the Hand (from the first book).

[BBP]

In your spare time , maybe you could make a page for any non-Sierra games that you've made installers for. Re-playing Callahan's is now on my todo list.

Please! I lost my Voyeur II installer in my first laptop crash several months back and I still need to finish the Youtube walkthrough.