| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:07pm |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5586
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | Is that a picture of Chuck Osborn by any chance? Sure, looks like him.
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:11pm |
KsandraSchattenjger
Posts : 2459
Joined: 2 APR 2003
Status : Online | Frankly, I can quite understand why that letter made Ray explode. What a prat! I'd have been a lot ruder about him (the person who sent the letter, not Ray!!)
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:22pm |
PCG_ChuckIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 37
Joined: 19 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By InlandAZ (27 JUN 2003 6:07pm)
Is that a picture of Chuck Osborn by any chance? Sure, looks like him.
HuhWhoWha? Do you mean the big open mouth with the tongue, the soccer player shushing, or the guy screaming?
Whatever, it's not me.
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:24pm |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5586
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | The one near the bottom -
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:31pm |
Steve IncePrivate Detective
Posts : 571
Joined: 7 NOV 2002
Status : Offline | Ray:
I loved the article.
When I read letters like the one you quoted, I wonder what goes through their minds when they are proved wrong, for instance, when they finally see that George never weilds a gun in the whole game.
It's good to have people like you who can appreciate what we are trying to do. There's always the chance that we may fail, but we're trying our hardest to make sure we don't and to give something as original as possible.
Thanks,
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:38pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4939
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Randy:
Whenever someone tries to start another pointless discussion about Myst and the like NOT being adventure games because there's no plot to speak of, please just post the link to Ray Ivey's post above (with no comment being necessary!).
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 6:44pm |
szcaxJourneyman
Posts : 935
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I enjoyed the article
I'd be mighty ironic if someone disagreed with it.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 8:21pm |
lakerzPrivate Detective
Posts : 654
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By PCG_Chuck (27 JUN 2003 6:22pm)
HuhWhoWha? Do you mean the big open mouth with the tongue, the soccer player shushing, or the guy screaming?
Whatever, it's not me.
LOL, I would wager a guess he meant the guy screaming. It sorta resembles your pic in the PC Gamer bio.
I agree with the points Ray is trying to make. What's wrong with Cassandra Galleries though? Why are you hating on the classic adventure games so much, Ray? j/k of course.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 8:28pm |
GOne_NorcSpace Cadet
Posts : 112
Joined: 27 APR 2003
Status : Online | Great article! I must say I agree with it completly, it should be said/written a while ago.
How can people stomp down on games so hard when they haven't even been published let alone played. I mean it is one thing to express doubt but to spit it to the ground without any good arguments is a sure sign of lack of intellect.
I still firlmy stand in full support behind new 3d adventure games Broken sword 3, Full throttle 2 and Sam n Max 2 and others.
Omnes Conspecti, Omnes Auditi...
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 9:43pm |
adventuredogGuild Master
Posts : 3255
Joined: 14 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By SirDave (27 JUN 2003 6:37pm)
Randy:
Whenever someone tries to start another pointless discussion about Myst and the like NOT being adventure games because there's no plot to speak of, please just post the link to Ray Ivey's post above (with no comment being necessary!).
Still adventuring after all these years!
Patiently awaiting The Last Crown: Haunting of Hallowed Isle, and Bracken Tor...
... and Asylum if it's not tooooo scary...
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 9:49pm |
| Deleted User | Of course this Gaston is a crackpot, judging games which haven't been published yet. I'm no lover of jumping in adventure games and the end of GK3 was a let-down to me (and to a lesser extent GK 2)) but I think I can judge whether I want to play a game based on the reviews. If someone wants to put a bit of action in an adventure game, I say let them. Either I'll try it or I'll wait for something else.
Gaston is entirely free to write his own Broken Sword sequel.
On the other hand, I guess if you write for an adventure game site you're bound to get loads of these mails. They're probably love-letters compared with the messages Anthony Kennedy is receiving at the moment. I hope, now Ray wrote his mind, he'll be able to ignore them for a while.
Mus
p.s. I like 'Turn of the Screw', but I'm not enough of a necrophyl (sp. ?, the Oxford paperback dictionary doesn't mention it in their 'New [s]Expurgated[/s] Expanded Edition), to like Henry James himself.
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 10:51pm |
borgolIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 13
Joined: 11 MAY 2003
Status : Online | Hi.
I guess I represnt then those that refuse to open a window. Why? Because I know what I like. Simple as that. It's not because I don't look forward. Quite the opposite actually. While I do fear the 3D TLJ2, I'm just as excited about it. I do not object 3D games because I don't want to look forward. I dislike 3D games because up to this day I haven't seen a good made 3D game. I'm skeptical. In my opinion, there were many good games that were ruined due to bad 3D. These games make me sad (GK3 comes to my own mind. Couldn't get pass that horrible controls)
True though. Other communities might have accepted 3D and changes more, but then again, i suspect that adventure games are just harder to do.. You don't need to consider as many elements in other genres, as you do in adventures. Plus, I suspect that a community that consists mainly of intellgent human beings demands more than other communities (Call me whatever you'd like, but I still believe shooting whatever crosses yer screen just dosen't take as much intellgence as solving any kind of a puzzle)
While I don't agree with 'Gaston' behaviour, I can understand his motives. And while I agree with the new definition of "pure adventure" I don't like it. I don't want to have to depend on my skills on the keyboard to get me through the game. Thats the reason I liked adventure games from the begining - it didn't require nothing but pure thinking. Thats the reason I'm here.
And I'd hate to see that go away.
[Writing the same post twice, after shutting yer computer by mistake, with your foot is annoying. I probably lost a few points when I re wrote, too. Sorry about that.]
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| 27 JUN 2003 at 11:49pm |
scoutPrivate Detective
Posts : 736
Joined: 2 NOV 2002
Status : Online | You know...GK3 actually had one of the most intellectually stimulating puzzles I've ever run across in an adventure game. Has anything ever really topped Le Serpent Rouge? And still ppl only go on about the interface. :-[
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 3:25am |
jujigatameSchattenjger
Posts : 1976
Joined: 14 FEB 2003
Status : Online | And still ppl only go on about the interface.
And the dialogue, and the voice acting, and the graphics, and many of the puzzles (such as the syrup moustache).
Let's tell it like it is here. Interface was not the only complaint with the game. Hell, I don't even think it was the primary one.
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 4:15am |
Jenny100Guild Master
Posts : 3510
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By borgol (27 JUN 2003 10:51pm)
And while I agree with the new definition of "pure adventure" I don't like it.
I don't agree with it. It's too broad to be useful.
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 4:33am |
nytimesguyPrivate Detective
Posts : 684
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Bless you Ray. I am so tired of seeing people screeching about games that haven't even come out yet, basing their horror on a couple of screenshots and a brief description. It's like years ago when there was a TV movie about Jesus Christ and the director said, "I want to show the human side of Christ" and religious people went ballistic and demanded it not be shown and said it was an outrage, and then when they showed it it was very reverent and about the only human thing Jesus did in the whole thing was scream when they drove nails through his hands and all the people who had condemned it said, "hey, that was actually really good." Wait and see if something works before you condemn it. There are way too many adventure game fundamentalists out there. I think it's because there are so few adventure games that people are afraid the market will be flooded with ones they're uncomfortable with and they'll lose something. But if no one innovates in adventure games, they will never again be anything more than a niche market.
While I don't agree with 'Gaston' behaviour, I can understand his motives. And while I agree with the new definition of "pure adventure" I don't like it. I don't want to have to depend on my skills on the keyboard to get me through the game. Thats the reason I liked adventure games from the begining - it didn't require nothing but pure thinking. Thats the reason I'm here.
I don't see that the new definition of adventure game means you need any more skill with a keyboard than you do to type an email. Yes, a 3D game could require eye-hand coordination skills, but so have many 2D adventure games. Once again, there's this groundless fear that graphical innovation is going to take away from the cerebral nature of the games, but I think after the dust has settled from the flurry of current activity (say in three years) people will look back and see their fears were groundless.
And still ppl only go on about the interface.
And the dialogue, and the voice acting, and the graphics, and many of the puzzles (such as the syrup moustache).
Let's tell it like it is here. Interface was not the only complaint with the game. Hell, I don't even think it was the primary one.
GK3 was the best of the GK games, it was brilliant, the dialogue was great, the puzzles were terrific, and personally I liked the voice acting (I think people got used to the easy charm of GK2's actor and were just thrown by Curry's very different, snider approach to the character, but I thought he was a hoot). The interface wasn't inherently bad, it was just poorly coded (a bad start and time constraints, from what I've read), but I think if they'd had more time and better resources the interface would have worked quite well.
Charles - Game Theorist
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 5:00am |
STooGE4444, EastCoastDoom...Schattenjger
Posts : 2099
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Ma ch u Pi cc hu...
~rbeeler SVT &&Name's STooGE$$$$ Valpurgius TNT; it's not PLURAL&&[img]http://www.riseaboverecords.com/sleep/image/sleepfront.gif[/img]&&151.Generally speaking Sludge Doomsters are Angry, Gothic doomsters are sad, funeral doomsters are barely breathing, death doomsters are dirty, drunk and dribbling, Stoner Doomsters don't care, drone doomsters are out of it and traditional Doomsters are permanently pissed off, mainly with other doomsters
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 6:34am |
jujigatameSchattenjger
Posts : 1976
Joined: 14 FEB 2003
Status : Online | GK3 was the best of the GK games, it was brilliant, the dialogue was great, the puzzles were terrific, and personally I liked the voice acting (I think people got used to the easy charm of GK2's actor and were just thrown by Curry's very different, snider approach to the character, but I thought he was a hoot). The interface wasn't inherently bad, it was just poorly coded (a bad start and time constraints, from what I've read), but I think if they'd had more time and better resources the interface would have worked quite well.
I'd say you are blazingly wrong, but to each his own. Gabriel responding to the most dire of circumstances with snide sarcasm got really old after the 4000th time, and it wasn't just in comparison to GK2. Curry did a much more serious, compelling job in GK1. In GK3 he played the character as glib and obnoxious, with heavy doses of accentus-fakus and overactus-majorus interspersed throughout. It wasn't just a voice acting problem, it was a script problem. Most of Gabe's clever one-liners were mildly funny at best.
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 6:35am |
jujigatameSchattenjger
Posts : 1976
Joined: 14 FEB 2003
Status : Online | P.S. I'm not saying GK3 was a "bad" game, persay, but it tweaks me when people say it's the best of the series, when I'd say it stands out as clearly the worst. I'd say GK3 is a good game with a few serious problems, whereas GK1 and GK2 are pretty much the pinnacle of adventure gaming. Big difference there, needless to say.
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 8:18am |
| Deleted User | My own definition of a non-adventure element (arcarde, action, combat, whatever) is that hints and a walkthrough are not enough, you also need fast reflexes, good eye-hand coordination etcetera. It's all very well to define an adventure game as a mixture of story, puzzles and exploration without SIGNIFICANT combat elements, but if I cannot finish the game, that element is very SIGNIFICANT!!
Thank you Ray for reminding me of a few games that I could not finish: Phantasmagoria, GK3, The Lost Files and I'd forgoten all about Sanitarium, I must have been too traumatised. The fist fights in Indiana Jones were skippable, and what's all this about Bad Mojo being all action?? Just because you can die, have no inventory and use the keyboard? One nasty spider and one timed sequence at the end, and Bad Mojo is one adventure with mild non-adventure elements that I managed to finish.
I agree that many, many adventures have non-adventure elements. That doesn't make it allright. I love the Tex Murphy games and I don't mind the action stuff so much because they have CHEAT CODES for the Betjes of this world.
If all the hints, walkthroughs and help from fellow gamers are not enough to get me past the damned chimney in Alice's museum, then give me an INSIGNIFICANT LITTLE CHEAT CODE in the manual.
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 12:51pm |
ConMolSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 396
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | The Broken Sword 3 bashing really got to me as well, Steve Ince has been on this board numerous times telling us that there is no gun-toting action.
I liked the article
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 1:16pm |
ElfstoneGuild Master
Posts : 5892
Joined: 4 NOV 2002
Status : Online | The article was quite enjoyable.
Personally, I am not fond of jumping, shooting and the like in an adventure game. A pure one I mean. I'm not at all an enemy of action/adventures. I played Tomb Raider 1-3 and Outcast and many on console.
But I have a slightly different definition of "adventure" than Ray has. If there's much jumping, climbing and shooting I consider this not a pure adventure even if 90% is puzzling. Sorry, I'm that stubborn.
But I'm not afraid to open a new window.
I'm one of possibly just a handful of people here who liked Escape from Monkey Island. Grim Fandango - fine. I have nothing against keyboard controls if the game which calls itself a pure adventure is about puzzling. Arcade and action sequences have been there all the time. I don't like many of them cause they often feel artificial, but I accept them.
If BS3 manages a good blend of action and adventure I will be one of the first to call it an adventure at heart.
I once said that the screenshots of Full Throttle 2 don't prove that it's not really an adventure. I guess we can now all be fairly certain about that. Not an adventure. I can't say the same about BS3. I like what I have seen so far...although there was this pic with plateaus which looked very much like platform jumping...but let's leave that for now.
Once again concerning GK3:
Many complain about the voice acting and mark the game as bad because of that. But they forget that voice acting is the only part of a game that can differ between the countries the game is released. And I have to say once again that the German version of GK3 had mostly good voice acting with no accents or overplay. Some comments were stupid, ok. And the mood changed to a more funny tone compared to GK2. It was a return to the humor of the first GK game, but it didn't quite get there. In any case you should be careful about judging the voice acting. And I'm not saying this only because I happen to like GK3 very much.
[b]playing[/b]: Destination Treasure Island (done in two sittings, but it's nice), Syberia (ho-hum), Dracula: Last Sanctuary (on hold)&&[b]reading[/b]: even more study papers&&[b]listening to[/b]: [url=http://www.last.fm/user/Brax82/]this and that[/url], plus [url=http://www.musicovery.com/]Musicovery[/url]&&[b]TV favorites[/b]: (currently) Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Journeyman (cancelled! grrr...), Heroes&& all-time) 24, Stargate SG1, X-Files, Lost, House
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 1:18pm |
judyannSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 319
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I don't really object to bashing a game before it is published. on't understand it, but it's a person's perogative to do so.
The manner in which it is bashed - especially the personal remarks about the developer - is quite another story. It is, indeed, a sad commentary that letters like this are not unusual.
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| 28 JUN 2003 at 3:28pm |
RobDSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 382
Joined: 30 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Betje (28 JUN 2003 8:18am)
My own definition of a non-adventure element (arcarde, action, combat, whatever) is that hints and a walkthrough are not enough, you also need fast reflexes, good eye-hand coordination etcetera. It's all very well to define an adventure game as a mixture of story, puzzles and exploration without SIGNIFICANT combat elements, but if I cannot finish the game, that element is very SIGNIFICANT!!
Exactly! Thank you, Betje. I don't think adventure
developers realize that even ONE combat element can
render a game unplayable for some people if there is
no way around it (cheat, bypass option). For instance,
I'm playing Sanitarium right now. I have never came so
close to chucking a game out the window then in the
pumpkin patch sequence that Ray mentioned. (A close
second would be the sword fight on top of the train in
The Last Express). I finally got thru the sequence, BUT,
if I hadn't, I can imagine the bad taste I would have
about this game months, even YEARS down the line.
I don't judge ANY game before I read as many reviews
as I can get my hands on. And I do look forward to
new developments. But, I'm sorry to say, I have a low
tolerance towards action and combat. And I HOPE the
genre is NOT heading there.
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