Spent hours on games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest etc. as a kid. Any good modern ones, or should I just replay the old?
EDIT: And preferably with OS X support, as it seems the TellTale games only run on windows! What a bummer, was actually at the point of buying a game for the first time in years.
There were a few franchises that survived, like the Broken Sword and Runaway sagas, and a few more games by other studios. Then Telltale, founded by a few LucasArts drop-outs, started to bring some new life to the scene.
If you like the adventure games of the 90's, you can play some of them in ScummVM, or DOSBox.
Most of these adventure games were programed using custom languages and VMs. ScummVM reimplements a dozen of such engines, for more than 60 games supported. It can also run some windows games like MI 3, or the first two Broken Sword games. Furthermore, they have been able to get some of the supported games to be released as freeware.
DOSBox, being an X86 emulator can run most if not all of the DOS games of the era. With some work, it is possible to get it to run Win95.
Both of these projects are FOSS and have (among others), a Mac OS X port.
You can buy some more ScummVM or DOSBox games at Good Old Games (GOG).
I've heard that some of the TellTale games are supported by WINE (hence Darwine and Crossover Mac), but I don't know which ones.
That said, I've heard Psychonauts is good, though I haven't played it. My understanding is it's free on Gametap.
One that I missed when I was growing up was Touche: The Adventures of the 5th Musketeer - it's just about as good as the Lucasarts games - Note: there is a version with full voice acting, and this is the only place I know where you can actually get it: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3557929/Touche_-_The_adventu...
I haven't played this, but it's supposed to be very good as well (made from ex Lucasarts members): http://www.vampyrestory-game.com/
I found the Sam and Max series from Telltale very underwhelming and disapointing, so I never played past episode 4 in the first season.
On a somewhat related genre note, I've also found the game Beyond Good and Evil to be as immersive and entertaining as the MI series.
I thought that perhaps it's the difference between a 15-year-old and a 30-year-old but then I decided to try out some old games I used to play in the early 90's. I set up F1GP, EOB, EOB2, Syndicate, Monkey Island, Super Frog, Civilization, UFO, etc. and I was hooked! They were just fantastic and FUN! Some even more so than back in the early 90's! I would definitely buy games like those if I knew which of the new ones were good.
Of course, not having Windows is a huge restriction with regard to gaming but a one that has suited me fine all these years. If there turns out to be a killer game somewhere I might just set up a virtual machine for XP and try it out.
First, the transformation of the game business to the game industry. Unlike the previous generation of game producers/studios today's dominant publishers are thinking strictly with economic terms. It used to be that someone would have a cool idea and he went ahead and make it reality. Just because he enjoyed it and thought it would be fun. The profit incentive probably was there, but it wasn't his main motivation. Today this is the main reason behind making a game. Take for example the number of mmo's, which are a very lucrative game type, that come out. They are a textbook example of a system designed specifically to hook the players into constantly spending money for their leisure. The same case is with sequels. Take the same proved recipe for success, rearrange/change a few elements in it and relaunch it as a (seemingly) new concept.
The second reason is that the gamers community and culture has changed. It went mainstream a few years ago and that changed it forever. When I first noticed that I felt sorry for the majority of new players who, influenced by the gaming related media, started focusing more on graphics, short term and easy satisfaction that on the game as a whole (storyline and gameplay included). Today's gamers don't like to think that hard and even if they do, virtually they have no choice. It's all about getting a quick fix of adrenaline/enjoyment, Hollywood action film-like, compared to having that feeling of satisfaction when you finish a good book. The fist is simple, short term, and essentially you gain nothing from it. The second one, although it requires more dedication, engages your mind and makes you actually investigate/ponder it's arguments, ideas etc. If you can't relate to that think of the quality of posts included here compared to those on reddit. (Although i am a relatively new member here i am able to make the comparison).
Just my two cents on the matter. (Sorry if some of my points aren't clear enough, English is not my primary language)
I'm not saying that era was the end-all-be-all of gaming, just when the "magic" was lost for me.
If you can try the W&G demo under VMware, it might work for you, depending on your setup.
[Edit: Monkey Island 1 and 2 run under DOS, but 3 requires Win95]