Apparently it was the awful awful gameplay that made people hate it. The bad graphics are just the icing on the cow pat.

Last time I asked about Simon 3D I was told to "avoid it like the plague", I was also told that Simon 1 and 2 were both worth it.

Yeah, the first two are good. There are 4th and 5th games as well apparently although I've no idea if they're good or not. They're made by a German developer rather than the original UK developer. I wonder how the writing is in the English versions of them? I've not had good experiences with the English localisations of German adventure games in the past. Awkward sentences and bad voice acting abound...

Well, I just got a few extra dollars from a sale at a forum, so it's Simon The Sorcerer time for me! Even the 3D one just so I can sell my sealed copy at Amazon or eBay instead. :P

Still considering The Feeble Files, and possibly the Horrorsoft games. I'm not sure about the Divine Divinity games yet.

For my money, and it's not a lot of money, the Divine Divinity games are the best of the bunch. Get them.

I'm sorely tempted to up rep you for that. So I think I will.

Ok so I receive this email from gog that reads like "Gems of Gaming Promo at GOG!" and of course I run to see the games, then I read "Simon the Sorcerer 3D" and I start to laugh my ass off almost falling out the chair.
Ha Ha, good one Mr GOG! you're a funny guy.

That said, if you like rpgs you should get both Divine Divinity games! Easily the best of the bunch :)

Beyond Divinity bought! ...im looking forward to the game ...ive heard it is worse than Divine Divinity, but i hope i will like it

Simon the Sorcerer 3D came at a time when games were going to 3D for the sake of it and the technology wasn't up to it almost killing the entire series. If you think I'm exaggerating then consider this: the sequels are in 2D and made by a different (German) company.

The problem is the story of 3 follows on from a pretty abrupt ending in 2 and has an abrupt ending itself. So the story only makes sense if you play 3. Be prepared to use other people's save games though as it now has piss-poor minigames. One of which I couldn't complete because the game isn't responsive enough. I had to shoot targets but the cursor doesn't move precisely enough to complete it. Moving from one target to the next overshoots it. Actually it's the minigames themselves that ruined the experience for me. There are good and funny parts to it and fugly graphics can be forgiven but not such frustrating gameplay.

The story has some good parts but also has a gaping hole in it that I emailed the developers about thinking I'd missed something. It turns out they just didn't include _____ after some point thus rendering __________ senseless (just in case anyone still wants to play it). If it was a standalone game I'd say stay away but if you love 1 and 2 maybe struggle through it or download some saves just to experience the story before 4 and 5.

Edit: I should mention I bought this at retail yonks ago and completed every frustrating minigame except the one I mentioned and finished the entire game so I speak from more experience than just trying the game and throwing up. It does have its moments but I don't know if modern gamers will ever get to them because when I played it Steam and GoG didn't exist. Nowadays there are too many alternatives.

Indeed. Care to add yours?

To further elaborate on my own post, the problem with Personal Nightmare and Waxworks is that they're adventure games that get a little bit right and practically everything else wrong, and are probably the most insidious things I've played in the entire genre.

Personal Nightmare is creepy and a straight-up adventure game without the stupid combat system of Waxworks, but it runs on a time limit with certain key events and items being missable, along with tons of really obtuse puzzles (the reason one of the screenshots is "HIT DOG WITH STAKE" is probably cause GOG realized nobody in their right mind would guess that solution on their own) and hideously screechy DOS soundblaster noises. There are also a ton of really worthless items to fill your very limited inventory, so good luck figuring out which mundane object you need to pass so-and-so puzzle.

Waxworks is about as bad, if not moreso because while it still screws you over with puzzles and hangups (all but like one scenario has moments where you can explicitly reach a dead end without any warning), and it adds a clunky combat engine which basically amounts to "click, click, click on enemy and hope for the best; reload previous save if you take too much damage." Yeah, it's pretty spooky, but so what if the gameplay itself isn't any fun?

You know what's more fun than playing either of these games yourself? Watching someone else play them. In fact, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzSZC3bbbNY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxM_KJFPKVg

There, I just saved you all seven dollars.

Much better than just calling them stupid and terrible. ;)

Simon 1&2 purchased. Hey.. I just realized that it's a year since I joined and you know waht - that was a good year.

Oops, accidentally purchased StS 3D when I just wanted 1 & 2 :(

My fault for not paying attention, but still....

Fired off a support request, hope I can at least exchange it for The Feeble Files or something.


Edit: They got it done! Now I have The Feeble Files instead of StS 3D! GOG rocks!