I probably didn´t even though that was before the strictly enforced news on tv prohibition I got that was mostly due the Gulf War (as I know today).
You don’t have to be an expert, you just need the curiosity about how crappy these old games actually were. 
(And don’t forget: If you don’t like a/the game, you just have to turn off your computer. )
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Eh, I played most of 'em well over a decade ago, but still easily over a decade past their prime. I haven’t played the 3D Sam & Max games. I have a bit of a Telltale burnout these days. But I meant you seem to know a lot about those arcade/Atari type games, not adventure games per se.
Oh wow! How young were you when you first started learning German in school? When you said you heard Schnappi in high school the second year of learning German I pegged you at ~28 at the youngest. I was probably 18 when I spammed my Dutch contacts with this new meme I’d gleaned from my German contacts. 
I don’t know if I saw it on TV, but I had to stay inside the first spring (and summer?) of my life 'cause of the fallout. I still have bad memories of that! 
I’m still suspicious of Russian radioactive honey. 
Huh, my earliest TV news memories pretty much are the Gulf War. Like when I played Dune in the early 2000s and you reach the later battles — I was like “holy @#$ this looks exactly like my memories of TV around '91.”
I could never understand that attitude. I’ve always been into “old” books and movies, but I’ve always thought of post-WW2 as essentially recent and not old at all. I had a friend who said he didn’t like watching movies from before 2000 or so because of the image quality.
(No idea what he was talking about either. Ben Hur and the like were filmed in “8k” to put it in today’s techno-babble.)
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Actually, I was impressed by Sam & Max Hit The Road. The thing that got on my nerves the most is how slow Sam would walk, and how he wouldn’t always go quite where you wanted him to. Also a lack of a tutorial at the start, so I had to check the manual to find out how to switch between the actions
and go to sleep
I’m not sure how they compare to other Telltale games. But between Series 1, 2 and 3, I saw clear improvements in the game controls and mechanics, so it was very satisfying to play them in order.
Comparing the “use object with object” mechanics to the verb system in TWP, I don’t know how interesting you would find the gameplay. But I instantly fell in love with the game world, the characters and the music.
A few years ago, me and my friend went to a “retro gaming” convention in Newcastle, which I really enjoyed. It was the first time I got to play a lot of arcade machine games. My favourite was Dig Dug!
Ah, not far off then! 
I was 11. But for those five years of secondary school, the stuff you learn is incredibly basic. Way behind what Germans of the same age would be learning in English. It’s really only at sixth form (two years) and uni (four years) when I learned the language properly, along with French.
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I’m suspicious of all radioactive things. I remember that we aren’t allowed to eat the vegetables from our garden…
You can’t compare these things: Due to the technical limitations of the computers and consoles old games “age” much faster than books. If you read a book, you imagine the scene in your head. These graphics are “timeless”. If you play a computer game, you see those big pixels that should be a racing car. Let’s say it as it is: These graphics were ugly and are still ugly. Beside that the older games have a lot of limitations. For example in the first racing games you could just steer right and left. Same with Zak: The graphics are limited, the story is weird, etc.
But that doesn’t stop me to play these old games. From the perspective of history and nostalgia, Zak is a great game.
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“Grandma, will you tell us about Pompeii?”
Yes, dear. But afterwards you must go straight to bed. Gather round, children. Someone, stop chewing on your shoelaces. Hurry, Tasse-tee. Milan, close that door there. Frenzie and Sushi, stop bickering, there’s enough blanket for everyone.
Pompeii was amazing. We didn’t end up going up Vesuvius because we wanted to stay longer in the grounds. It’s such a big place, with lots of really interesting different bits. Highlights included the brothel (what?), sacrificial altars (pictured), public baths and ancient ‘snack bars’.
My favourite sections were the beautiful gardens and vineyards, where to my surprise there were hardly any other people.
This included the famous ‘preserved bodies’ - plaster casts of people trying to escape, which was quite moving.
The whole place was amazing and we were so lucky with the weather. It all worked out well after the rubbish day before.
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I’ve played plenty of Telltale games. From the entertaining various seasons of the Walking Dead to one of the most excellent games of the early 2010s, The Wolf Among Us.
I’m currently “stuck” in Guardians, Batman and Back to the Future. Indeed, after TWP they are sort of extra lame but it’s also partially the fact that controller controls are half broken in the older games yet they’re not really mouse & keyboard games at all! It’s kind of odd.
We first started learning some English around 10 or 11. I took a dictionary to school to show my teacher that yes, belly is another word for tummy. (And imo a much better general word.) It’s a pleasant surprise that you start that early; I’d assumed you wouldn’t until 12 or possibly even as late as 14/15.
But neither can you compare an old racing game (except maybe some top-down racers) to something like Maniac Mansion or Zak. Maniac Mansion is uglier than Oxenfree, there’s no dialog trees, etc. but it already features the basic mold that was probably perfected in Monkey Island.
It’s very different from how I consider '96 Tomb Raider borderline unplayable these days. And uglier, too!
Also I bought Devil May Cry 4 after I enjoyed DmC, but even that didn’t seem as fluid. At the same time, Bayonetta does.
Doom/Quake feels much smoother than Call of OMG Why Are They Still Making These.
Anyway, graphics these days can just as easily look uninspired and bland. It’s mostly the controls that can sometimes age badly.
Incidentally, I recently played the first couple of levels Rayman 2. It looks amazingly good in UHD and works well with my Xbox One controller. It’s not quite as smooth as Psychonauts.
PS My opinion on Psychonauts goes against the grain. Many people say they think it’s a mediocre platformer with a great story. I think it’s a fantastic platformer, possibly the best, with a mediocre story (for Tim Schafer).
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But, muuuuuuuum…!
Have you tried the wine from there?
btw: Thanks for sharing this pictures. Very beautiful there!
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Wonderful Pompei.
The bodies were covered with ashes during the eruption. Still scary…
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And the first racing games had already the basic game play of Need for Speed.
I thought you didn’t like that attitude? 
It’s very interesting (and fun!) to play old games. But if you do this, you have to know (and keep in mind) that they are limited and maybe look much more uglier than the games today.
I would assume that they are much more scarier in reality than on a photo… (Have you seen them already, @ZakPhoenixMcKracken?)
It’s not an issue in Terminal Velocity or Duke Nukem. It’s very specifically the Tomb Raider/Resident Evil control scheme that I already thought was somewhat awkward back in the '90s, but for whatever reason I had a higher tolerance for it then. Probably mainly that I didn’t really experience anything better until Tony Hawk.
Watch your spoilers! Discovering the locations is a big part of the wonder of Zak.
Yeah, but then again we also all knew all the locations of Thimbleweed Park if we followed the development.
Not from that vineyard, but we had some very nice sweet wine from Sorrento with dinner.
Yeah. It must’ve been horrible. Two metres of ash, apparently.
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No, strange though it may seem, I never went to Pompei. Sooner or later I must go there.
Here are some more things I liked in Sorrento.
(I love that they give you a glass of water with espresso. Is that a general Italian thing?)
(I love trees. Sorrento had some of the best.)
(T-bone steak. I couldn’t find Emilio’s @Gffp, but I tried!)
I also was quite mesmerised by Fireflies, but much too difficult to get a photo!
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No… it’s not common. I think it was a nice touch of that bar.
I baiocchi del Mulino Bianco!
It’s one of the tasteful snacks in Italy! 
Not sure about italy but it´s very typical for france.