Tag Archives: adventure game

Introduction:

Until now, you might have started to get the impression that I’ve never met a game I didn’t like. Every one of my ten game articles thus far (considering everything from the low-rated, humble Wizorb to the universally praised, grandiose Dead Space) have been positive reviews. You’ve learned a lot about what I like—innovative gameplay decisions that guide design, satisfyingly high difficulty, and aesthetics that meld with gameplay to produce a compelling atmosphere.

Now I would like to talk about a game which I would not recommend—to anyone: the original Costume Quest, a game made by Double Fine Productions and released five years ago. In another version of reality, I could have spent this week’s article talking about Double Fine’s wonderful game Psychonauts, a masterful 3-D platformer which would comfortably find a home in a list of my 30 or so favorite games of all time (perhaps I will one day write about Psychonauts). But it’s high-time I talked about a game that goes wrong, and there’s really no better place to start than with Costume Quest, which I maintain to be the shallowest RPG I have ever encountered.

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