Its not a pure adventure, not like Monkey island. Its more like a puzzle; good game but not for every classiical advenutre-fan to recommend...

Really? Well, ok. I don't know adventure games as well as I should.

Are you referring to the fact that there was no verbal dialogue? Even though there wasn't any actual dialogue, I still think the speech bubble animations were able to convey the game's story. If that's not what you're referring to, then I'm kind of stumped.

Anyway, standouts from this year:

The Walking Dead
Resonance
Primordia

yea try out cognition i am almost done and very much enjoying it, ne_zavarj gifted me too
also try primordia - a well done game

Yes thats one aspect. I think the story is a little bit thin...
I think of it more like an interactive movie...

I'm stuck on a puzzle somewhere in Episode 2, can't tell you that much yet, but I think it's quite good. Not spectacular, but the story and puzzles are entertaining enough. Not quite sure what else to say, but if you have any specific question, I'd try to answer them.

As for Machinarium, there are some obvious differences to classics like Monkey Island, but I don' think they are significant enough as to make Monkey Island a "pure" adventure and Machinarium something else. For one, AFAIK there are no dialogue puzzles and no wordy jokes, but as has been said already, it still tells a story and also with humor. Then you only click on hotspots with the left mouse button instead of choosing between various verbs like "Look at", "Use", "Get" etc., so it's a bit simplified, but that doesn't really make it easier, as you still have to solve puzzles just like in MI (besides, other modern adventures don't use more than two mouse buttons either). Some of the puzzles in Machinarium may be a little more abstract and technical, but that could also be excused by the robotic theme. ;)

What I personally don't like about Machinarium is that it's a flash game and doesn't allow right-mouse clicking or changing of resolution and that you often recognize the hotspots you can interact with only if you're standing right next to them. You can't tell the hero to interact with this thing on the other side of the screen, you have to tell him to walk there first to see if there's something to interact with in the first place. But that's just a minor quirk of the game and doesn't make it bad. I guess I just like Botanicula better because it's easier. ;)

Good news on Cognition. I sent them an email asking if it would ever be on GOG and this is their reply:

"We've tried, but GOG wants us to finish the full series before they start selling it. So look for it in there in the future!"

Awesome! If i like the first episode enough, i'll buy the entire series when/if it comes to GOG.

Do you think Primordia is worth buying? Is it any good?

Managed to grab this with blue coins. =D
No idea where you might have got this idea, definitely not freeware. It's not that old either, younger than Monkey Island 1 or 2 and Day of the Tentacle.

That means I'm waiting with my purchase : )

The new graphics are bad, the voice acting is good. Unfortunately you can't choose old graphics and voices. Also the music in Monkey Island 2 is broken and the intro is missing.
Not quite... even in original graphics mode MI2SE comes out worse than the original game. They broke the music and removed the intro.
Published by Telltale in English... Perhaps Daedalic took care of the German dub/release?

[/i][i] FT was released in 95, the year after I graduated high school. Reletive to Pong or NES it's not old, but reletive to most of the games talked about in here it definitely has a few years on it. As far as being freeware, I only said I thought it might be. The other day I thought I saw a bear in my back yard, turned out to be an overweight badger. I've gotten use to being wrong.

I just meant in the canon of LucasArts games it's a fairly late one and therefore much less likely to be freeware than the earlier ones I was comparing it to. As it is, none of them are freeware but some of them are not sold any more and are considered abandonware.

Yeah, I agree with that, absolutely.