What Adventure Games (and Gamers) Need

Live from the 1999 E3
By Randy Sluganski

Being amidst the wonderful insanity that is E3 has convinced me of one thing--BIG sells. Big guns, big biceps, big breasts—and not necessarily in that order. Everything here is BIGGER and LOUDER and more COLORFUL than anything in my mundane real life. This is gaming paradise. Yet for every twenty action/shooter/sports games, there is but one new adventure release. The answer to this problem is so obvious that I find it unfathomable that nary one publisher has not seen the solution, even though it is bouncing and flexing right in front of their unsuspecting faces. Enough of this bemoaning the death of adventure games in general; all of a sudden the future looks BRIGHTER and BIGGER.

Let's look at the adventure releases of the past few years. What do they all have in common? That's right—a wimpy protagonist. Gabriel Knight—wimp with nice hair. Guybrush Threepwood—skinny wimp. Leisure Suit Larry, Roger Wilco and Simon the Sorcerer—wimp, wimp, wimp. These guys could not fight their way out of an empty game box. With them it is always think, think, think. Now this disturbing trend has even spread to the action/adventure genre. The protagonist of Half-Life is a pencil-necked, four-eyed, egghead scientist. Egads! Enough already. The truth is out there, but for whatever reason no one has, until this very moment, been able to look beyond Lara Croft's ample polygonal cleavage to spot the obvious.

Now let's take a look at the best-selling games of the past few years. They all have one thing in common—bigness. Duke Nukem—big mouth, big biceps. Doom—big marines, big monsters. Tomb Raider—big guns, big ... well you get the point. The point I am trying to make here is that, forgetting last summer's lizard-dud Godzilla and what my wife whispers to me, size does matter. Big is in! When I play an adventure game I don't want to control someone who physically resembles me. I spend all day with myself, I don't want to play with myself all night. Give me some steroids, shoot me full of silicon—let's pump up these adventure games!

A lot of gamers consider Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within to be the perfect adventure game (it even has the omnipresent Sierra bug). There is one puzzle that is considered to be a measure of your mental toughness. It is the type of cognitive enigma that separates the pure adventure gamers from the wannabes. This is, of course, the cuckoo clock problem. Xavier, a prissy little clerk at the private hunting club, has a key in his podium that you need to open a locked door. Your problem is to find a way to distract him long enough so that he leaves his post and you can search through his belongings. (This type of dishonesty and rummaging through another's possessions is all too common to the adventurer. It really makes one question the adventure gamer's morals.) Forget that! In the perfect game, and let's not forget that games are supposed to be fantasies and not extensions of our real world—a pumped-up Gabriel Knight (who would resemble Hulk Hogan, but with hair) would not go through all of that unrealistic stupidity using the cuckoo clock and the plant to simulate a knock at the door. This new-age Gabriel would slowly pull a Magnum .45 from his waistband and shoot that prissy son-of-a-bitch Xavier right between the eyes. Problem solved, simple solution, and may I say one that appeals more readily to today's gaming public. But why stop there? What is the deal with Grace? Demure, devoted and flat-chested. Let's put some cleavage on that woman. Why are the characters in adventure games always so retro? Squeeze her into a low-cut, tight-fitting tank top with some bright red short shorts. A small tattoo on her ankle and a navel ring to complete the ensemble and she wont' have to sneak around in the shadows cleaning up Gabriel's loose ends: men will fall over each other to provide her with clues and information. Plus, it might help merchandising. Give us adventure gamers that option. I want to be able to make Grace shake her booty to solve a puzzle. Sometimes the best solution is the quick solution.

The possibilities are mind-boggling. Imagine some of the titles we could have with this new breed of adventure games: Broken Sword and Crushed Skull, Zork Red Light District, Tex Murphy: Pimp Detective. The potential cross-over is enormous! The trick is to attract as many action players as possible to the genre. Then as action/adventure sales increase, slowly revert back to the geeky, gimpy heroes of days gone by. By then the action players will have become hooked on the slow, thoughtful pace of adventuring and they will be trapped like bugs in a Venus flytrap.

I could go on endlessly as concerns this ingenious revitalization of the adventure genre, but I think it is time to get out of this heat and away from the noise and bright lights before I start thinking weird thoughts. Besides, I think I just saw Pamela Anderson Lee wave at me from across the room.