New to adventure games, Help!

well I guess by very mature you don't mean Sam & Max but thats a very good one. The longest journey and its sequel dreamfall are also excelent and they are more mature and probably 10-20 hours a piece. I don't remeber exactly.

Also a very good deal is the "adventure collection: volume one" that is out now. It has 5 adventrue games that are pretty good, mature, and short. I got mine at best buy but you could probalby search the web too. It includes dead reefs, keepsake, return to mysterious island, nibiru, and tunguska secret files.

You pretty much depraved yourself of all the classics, which is a shame.

lets see, I think "Overclocked" is M rated. the game deal with some pretty heavy stuff...
The Leisure Suit Larry series is M rated for animated nudity and sex... but I dont know who easy is the get one (the 7th game, "love for sail", is awesome).
If you can find a copy - "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream". It's an oldie, and a bit difficult, but good.
"Evidence: The Last Ritual" is a sort of puzzle game, with very dark themes (kidnap and murder). you basiclly need to solve a lot of logic puzzles in order to crack a massege from a serial killer before he strikes again.

There are alot of games that are not M rated, but are still serious: Still Life, The Secret Files, The Experiment, the Broken sword series (the first two are a must play).

Some personal favorites: Grim Fandango, Sanitarium, The Longest Journey, Indigo Prophecy.

I didnt mention any funny or too cartoony games (well, apart from Larry...), but if you're looking for more games, check out my collection, I have tons of adventure games there.

Indigo Prophecy is a personal favorite game. It has a good story, and it breaks the mold of classic advenutre games.

The only problem with it is that it can get really frustrating, especially on older machines, since there are A LOT of quick-time events, and some very difficuly button-mashing.

I couldn't finish the game on my old PC, because it couldn't react fast enough for the game (the time in the game went faster than the animation). but if you have a decent PC from the last couple of years, the game will run smoothly, and you'll have a blast!.

Full Throttle has some pretty serious themes and situations but with some good dark comedy thrown in. I don't know if it still exists to purchase (legally, of course).

Dreamfall looks incredible. Any experience? And I have an Athlon 65 3500+ with a gig of DDR and a 7600GT DDR3 with 256MB. Will that be good enough for Indigo Prophecy?

Sure. I'm talking about a PC from 4 years ago, with 512 ram and Gforce 5200... The game will work perfect on your PC.

Dreamfall is a good game, but not as good as The Longest Joureny. Since you asked us about games that are not so long, I got to warn you,. both of them are lengthy. Even on the 10th playthrough, TLJ took me a few days.

I just watched the review of Dreamfall and he said 1) it took about 12 hours. Is that accurate? and 2) TLJ wasn't necessary for playing. Would it be okay it I played Dreamfall first and TLJ second?krazyorange

well thats the order I played them in. The backstory is nice but not neccessary. don't remeber on the time but that sounds right.