[magiuspaulus]

Hey all,

1st post and starting with a poll right away. Which game did you liked best and why?
My ideas are as follows (i played all games in the order they were released):

5 days a stranger:
Very good game. This was my 1st 'new' adventure game i played since a long time, but i still had the idea i was playing some old-school game. Very good combination with music and there was a kind of a dark atmosphere from the beginning (especially the changing painting in the dinner hall caught my attention). After completing it, i played again from scratch which i almost never do with any game.

7 days a sceptic:
When i saw there actually was a sequel to 5das i was very much exited. I saw this at 00:30 am and played it whole night. There were some very scary scenes, but i was especially scared when i walked through the game while the welder was rampaging through the spaceship. When i read the note Trilby had added to the coffin i was hoping for another sequel already. In the end i liked this game a bit, but it didn't came near the same atmosphere i liked to much about 5 days.

Trilby's Notes
Talking about atmosphere! This game had as much dark atmosphere as i ever wanted and then some more. I almost got a heartattack the 1st time i was talking to Siobhan and all of a sudden i see blood everywhere. For the duration of the whole game, whenever i was in the shifted hotel i was scared while i was walking through because i just might confront the tall man...
Also, being a huge sierra game fan i liked the text parser very much. Brought some more challenge to it. Controlling the slave and coming upstairs on the ship to see the whole shipcrew being slaughtered (and the slave too) was the most confronting and scary scene ever.

6 days a sacrifice:
Downloaded it this morning and started playing right away. I was really exitited as know all questions i had would be answered. I was a bit disappointed that i would not be playing Trilby or Somerset (although later i would indeed play Somerset a bit) but soon enough i didn't worry about it anymore. It was a very good idea to keep a journal, as i tried to reconstruct the whole story (but didn't succeed that much). I won't tell anymore as there probably are a lot of people still playing this game. However, although there was nothing wrong with the graphics or music (they were quite good actually), i just can't shake the feeling of a bit of disappointment with how the plot went.
It's just like when i saw the movie the Matrix: It tells the story and when the movie was finished i had an idea how it could continue and i was content with that. Then the sequels came out and they ruined my ideas about it and i hated them. Maybe that's a bit harsh though, and i'm just not the sequel kind of guy...

Anyway, i liked Trilby's Notes best, although 5 Days is very close to it.

[CoolBoy]

The best overall game in the series I feel is 5 Days a Stranger. It has the simplest plot (easiest to follow from beginning to end) and has a beginning and ending in and of itself. So I suppose for me, 5 Days a Stranger is the game that had the best overall story to it. However, Trilby's Notes was definately the most atmospheric of the four and I really loved the text based interface which was implimented very well. I had a very hard time following the story from Trilby's Notes onward but in terms of gameplay, TN was the best. 7 Days a Skeptic felt more like the movie Jason X, it had elements of the first game and was almost as fun if it hadn't been for that annoying birthday based puzzle. To wrap it all up, the latest game just didn't do it for me. I mean, sure it was a fun game. But it didn't offer anything "new" in terms of scares. I was also hoping it would make the overall story clearer and not muddled with billions of possible interpretations. Although, I did like the music in the latest game. Well, that's my opinion. Take it or leave it.

This post has been edited by CoolBoy: 25 January 2007 - 08:58 PM

[Sata]

I voted for trilby's notes cause it's, simply put, pure awesomeness made into a game.

[MikeS619]

I'm nostalgic so 5DAS.

[arien]

I picked Trilby's Notes for several reasons. Mostly, because it was the only one of the four games to actually scare me enough to give me nightmares. I also thought the music was amazing, and I really loved the text parser. The character development for Trilby was great too.

And, of course, none of my reasons are that Trilby wrote up his notes on my birthday. None at all.

This post has been edited by arien: 25 January 2007 - 09:35 PM

[Remnant]

Am I the only one to vote for 7DAS?

I just thought it had a better claustrophobic feel. The whole "this house doesn't want us to leave" thing was weird, but it just wasn't as feasible as the feeling of being on a ship that, hell, there is no way out.

Plus it really schlapped on the gore. Yummyyy =D

[delurk]

Seriously delurking just to answer: Trilby's Notes, partly for reasons already mentioned: clever usage of the parser, the world-switching and visions -- that, along with (iirc) the first appearances of the Tall Man and the creepy manuscripts, equals atmosphere atmosphere atmosphere.

But my big reason (heavily tied into the above) is this: TN managed to hit that tiny, twitching nerve cluster in my brain that turns me back into a six-year-old typing and clicking and screaming away at a computer game in fear and confusion and with a skosh of frustration but also loving every giddy G-ddamn moment in jjjjust that way.

That's a compliment, really.

This post has been edited by delurk: 26 January 2007 - 04:11 AM

[Don Andy]

5Days was a nice game for itself, but that's into. I miss all the Cult and Chzo stuff in that game, but since it all didn't exist back then...

7Days was also pretty nice, and since I always loved sci-fi. I like this even better than 5Days.

Now Trilby's Notes was the game where the story really started to pick up. It was scary, it was atmospheric, it had an awesome story, that kind of explained the plotholes in the other games and well, it's what made the series so awesome.

6Days on the other hand was good but I have mixed feelings about it. If the XDays-Series was a book, then you would be in the middle when you play Trilby's Notes and then quickly jump to the last page in 6Days, just to see how it ends. It all seemed so rushed suddenly.

So, Trilby's Notes all the way.

[Blueskirt]

It depends on what aspect I rate them because each games stand in front of the others in at least 1 particuliar aspect.

5DAS had this mystery feel that wasn't seen again until TN. You simply had no idea what the hell was going on until the very last day where the mystery was explained "Don't touch the idol", at this point the creepiness of the game was ruined, and the last day of the game wasn't scary anymore.

On the other side, 7DAS, while not having the same mystery feel as the first game, was scary from the very begining until the very end. And musically it's still the best in my book. Sure there is only 3 musics and I have no idea if they came from RPG maker or something, but they great and fitted incredibly well to the mood of the scene. It's just too bad there were none and couldn't have any variations of those musics in the following games because it would have been completly incredible. 7DAS also score high in my book for having the best ending in any of the XDAS series.

With TN, during the first hours I found back this whole mystery feel that was present in 5DAS and missing in 7DAS. The story was awesome. Trilby suddently got a second dimension. The addition of the Tall Man, Chzo and the Cult breath fresh new air in a series that could have quickly turned stale without it. The game was graphically the best and musically it came close second to 7DAS, which helped to make it easily the most scary game of the series.

6DAS was very good but also very different from the previous games. It was no longer scary, it was also so strange and incomprehensible that it was not mysterious but completly confusing. The game, unlike all the previous games, isn't well rounded, I was left with the impression that I did the things because they had to happen chronologically speaking, kinda like Terminator 3. I expected a real closure to the series and the game did not close anything. Sure the evil will no longer happen but most of the important questions, motivations, goals and reasons are not only left unexplained but unanswerable, pretty much as if 1213 ended just you left the complex. Sure it is over, but the ending would have been very boring and have a feel of "What happen next? You decide!". However the game presented more thought provoking, sad and mature aspects than not only its predecessors but also most of the games I played up to this day, and the ending was rather cool, close behind 7DAS.

So if I had to rate them overall, TN would be the best, followed by 7DAS, 6DAS and 5DAS. But still, none of these beat AiaGoFW.

[Gobbler]

Am I the only one to vote for 7DAS?

Not anymore. Though I'd really have preferred to vote for "7 Days a Skeptic", but don't mind me, I'm just deliberately being an arse right now.

The best overall game in the series I feel is 5 Days a Stranger. It has the simplest plot (easiest to follow from beginning to end) and has a beginning and ending in and of itself.

I really thought of 5DaS and 7DaS as a whole, it made sense, it had atmosphere, it was about John DeFoe and the abuse of welding utilities. Trilby's Notes was definitely a great and scary game, but it was almost too much, too complex. I guess I'm a simple mind after all, but I always had some kind of feeling of "Huh, alright, if you say so... Chzo FTW it is now, I guess" running along. The last one was pretty darn good, too, but I still couldn't help but thinking that all that Chzo stuff was merely invented after 7 Days a Skeptic, kind of like what George Lucas did with Star Wars. It didn't really seem to belong there anymore. Something placed on top of the original, I dunno.

Well, anyways, they're still all so goddamn good that I can hardly complain.

[Egfu]

5DAS. Because I prefer the whole English murder mystery feel to spaceships, insane cults and demonic pain elementals. Also, it had the best puzzles in the series. They were both challenging and logical.

But it's not easy to pick a favorite. 7DAS handled all the sci-fi stuff really well, TN scared the hell out of me and 6DAS was just generally messed up.

[Girdag Fireskull]

Notes. It was the scariest, had the best plot, and had that awesome music in the 'dark' realm. 7DAS would be second for me, then either 5 or 6, not sure which.

[Dan_N_GameZ]

I must admit that 6DAS is my favorite. It is a magestical ending to a great series. Then, 5DAS, after which 7DAS follows. Must admit I didn't fancy Notes as much, but it's still a great game.

[grim_bug]

It's say trilby's notes... except for the end part where it started to get loaded down with complicated backstory.

6das was basically ... dunno... a sequel-style game with a crapload of backstory. my eyes blurred everytime i saw the word 'chzo' and i just kept clicking until it went away. those goddamn papers you pick up with bible verses... ugh. sorry i'll pass. somehow i made it through the game anyways.

Janine? There was a sortof passionate moment there but it made no sense. it was just convenient. it'd been cooler if during their moment of passion he dislocated his neck and couldn't move on the bed and then had to sit there while janine got hacked up by the tall man. slowly of course. janine was annoying. i liked the other girl better but she had no interesting part and didn't really develop. nobody developed. pop pop.

so anyways not into all that backstory. less backstory, less people. it's a tiny short story of a game and there's all this junk. it's ok if nobody is expected to know what is going on, but if they are, and you think it might be required to memorize some kindof mythology to win the game, ugh.

luckily click click click wins all adventure games!!

[leperking]

magestical

that's so not a word at all, even slightly. Majestic, sure. Magestical or majestical? Hell no, man. arr.

5 days was my favorite, and will probably continue to be for a long time.