Adventure games

I just felt like writing about adventure games, so hear me out.
Adventure games are one of my favorite genres, right up there with platformers. I love them, and there are a couple reasons I can think of why, but first, a little background.
My first adventure game was probably the Spongebob Squarepants Movie game (I have a little brother). I know it sounds stupid, and it is, and I honestly thought it was overtly meh. Wouldn't replay it, that's for sure. The first adventure game that I played and really enjoyed was Hotel Dusk for the DS. After reading a bit about it, I decided to give it a try, because it was largely described as a film-noir style detective novel, and I love a good plot-heavy game so I gave it a try. Excellent game, the writing was great and the plot was interesting. In fact, my biggest complaint about it is just that there were several occasions when you had to do these completely non-intuitive things to advance the plot. I'm talking about the moments when the game left you without direction, and a sense of "What the hell do I do next?" That was kind of a let down.
Then came Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney- Justice For All. I loved that game, and I still do. The plot was sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted, always interesting. The characters were well-developed, too. The real clincher for me, though, was something completely different. It was the mystery. The overall "I don't know what's going on." But it wasn't not knowing, it was the moment when it all comes together and you feel "Yes! I know what's going on! I see what I have to do, and dammit, I will!" That breakthrough moment when you finally understand it is what keeps me coming back to the Ace Attorney games.
The real final straw that broke the camel's back, the one that cemented me as a huge fan of point- and- click adventures, was Telltale Games' Sam & Max Season 1. The comedy, the plot, the puzzle-solving, it's all there. I absolutely love them, and the Sam & Max series in general (comics, Saturday morning cartoon, the original LucasArts adventure). Absolutely amazing.
I am a sucker for a good plot. Character development, interesting twists and turns, the whole works. This is what leads me to enjoy games like Pheonix Wright and 5 Days a Stranger (Warning: This game is a definitely belongs in the horror genre. If you're going to be traumatized by large amounts of pixelated blood, give this one a miss(The plot, however, is excellent, if a tad cliche, and I now understand what the whole point to the horror genre is), although I do recommend the rest of Yahtzee's stuff that's not in this series, because just about everything else is either fun or funny.). Another thing that I love that many adventure games have is comedy. The aforementioned Sam & Max is a stellar example of this, as are most of the old LucasArts adventures that they seem, for some reason, to be trying to distance themselves from. Come on, I know it's easy to slap the Star Wars name on something and sell a billion and two copies, but you used to be an awesome company. Of course, there's no point now, seeing as most of the people that made them great (Like Schafer, a number of people on the Telltale team, and Steve Purcell (Well, fine, he was only an artist, but he did create the Sam & Max series. And that awesome Escape from Monkey Island box art.)). Then there's the puzzles. I don't always want to just jump over things or fight things. I want to use my brain. I want to figure out how to progress, and I want puzzles that aren't the action-adventure or RPG style "Use power on obstacle." I want puzzles that are logical and solvable enough to not make me want to resort to a walkthrough, but hard enough to make me feel good about solving them.
Well, that's my... well, it's not a rant. It's more like an essay. Yeah, that's it. It's an essay on why I love adventure games, and it's over now.

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