RetrogamerIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 84
Joined: 29 JAN 2008
Status : Online | I'm a little surprised that anyone would say that the DS is not a console. Yes, it's a handheld, but for many people, it's their only "console". It consistently outsells every other console on the market, and it is capable of some pretty amazing feats from a handheld. Though the PSP is admittedly more technologically advanced, what, with its 300mhz processor and greater storage space as afforded by the UMDs it uses, it has sold only a fraction of the units that the DS has sold. Quite a few adventure games have been developed for the DS, including, yes, the Phoenix Wright series, but also games like Trace Memory, Hotel Dusk, and a few more young teen oriented games like the Touch Detective series.
A game like Phoenix Wright COULD work on a console other than the DS, but it would have to be either a budget title or a more fully fleshed out game. I'll pay $35 for a game on the DS because I can play it when I'm sitting in a lonely motel after a long day on the road. If I bought it for the 360, I'd expect more.
The point and click interface actually DID work on consoles. The Broken Sword games were released on the original Playstation and were met with positive reviews. The control scheme was pretty straightforward: The left analog stick moved the cursor quickly, while the d-pad could make finer, more intricate movements. They were both fully adjustable, and never really pissed me off as much as one would think. The first Broken Sword game was also made for the GBA. The controls ditched the point-and-click and went for direct character control, which didn't work too poorly, but it just wasn't as nice as the PS version.
The Alone in the Dark series has shown up on consoles since the first one was released for the 3DO. In addition to the 3DO release, Alone in the Dark 2 was made for the Playstation and Saturn under the title "Alone in the Dark: Jack is Back." Alone in the Dark 2 moved away from the strict "Adventure" feel of the first game, so some of us might not be the biggest fans of the series, since the rest of the games pretty much keep that combative, frantic feel. Even so, it's worth noting that Alone in the Dark 4 was released on numerous consoles, and Alone in the Dark 5 will be released on PC, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PSP.
The various Myst games (1-4) have been released on the consoles of their time with various amounts of success. There were a few other first-person adventures released on consoles, such as the vampire-related game D, the two Echo Night games, Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster, Creature Shock (well, half of it), The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime, and even Uninvited, Deja Vu, and Shadowgate were released back on the NES. There's a really interesting first person adventure made only for the Playstation that was released only for the Japanese market called LSD. The 7th Guest and Deja Vu II were released for the Phillips CDi, but I guess that hardly counts as a console.
All of the new CSI games can be considered first person adventures. Some of the games have been released on PS2, XBOX, 360, and Wii. I'm a big fan of CSI, so I look forward to playing Dark Motives on my DS and Hard Evidence (developed by Telltale, no less!) on my 360.
Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy was released for the PS2 and XBOX and received very good reviews. It did have some fairly annoying action sequences, but I still really enjoyed it. In fact, after playing it on my PC, I realized that the console control scheme was much better, but that might be a sign that the game was developed with consoles at the forefront of the development process and the PC as an afterthought.
The main downfall of Syberia on the Xbox was the control scheme. You pushed up to walk forward, down to walk backwards, left to rotate her to the left, and right to rotate her to the right. Everything was moved from Kate's perspective. Syberia 2 had a much more camera-centric control scheme, in which pushing left made Kate run to the left of the screen. Brilliant.
Course, I played both games on the PC as well and really, nothing beats a cursor for Syberia.
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