Originally Posted By Anastasia_Romanov (6 JUL 2003 6:44pm)


It's got nothing to do with action. "

ying" in an adventure game doesn't mean necessarily dying in an action sequence. In many old games, especially Sierra's, death comes as a result of doing something wrong, like going out of the spaceship not wearing the spacesuit.
This is just a small example. I, frankly, can't see the problem here (Many hates death in adventure games... Go figure!). Same thing with dead-ends:
Sure, sometimes I have problem with those, but I actually tend to like them (KQ5 was absurd with its dead ends!!!).

I'll take it your'e not familiar with classic adventures, right?

You don't understand. You, the player, know when you will die. It's not like death will come suddenly.  you see a monster, for example. The first thing you'll do is to save. Next you will think how to get rid of it (If you need, that is) according to information you got earlier in the game (Usually from NPCs).  
Sure, a sudden death is a bad thing, since there is nothing you could have done to prevent it, but there are very few games with that kind of thing (KQ1 and KQ2), but they are one of the first adventures and there minor sudden deaths.

I'd like to point out that I find it ironic that Ray Ivey, of all people, gives lectures of what an adventure game really is. Judging by his reviews, he is hardly an expert.
I've always found his reviews uneven, uninspired, and empty; they fail miserably at describing a game and at letting the potential buyers know whether they should spend their money on the product he's presenting.

Originally Posted By nytimesguy (8 JUL 2003 8:17pm)


I have always considered Ray's reviews to be the most consistently engaging and entertaining of all the reviews on JA.

Originally Posted By Mus (8 JUL 2003 9:59pm)



I always find that Ray speaks his mind, and, as long as you know what he likes or dislikes, that's informative enough to me. At least he tells why he does or doesn't like a game, and when his arguments don't convince me, I'll try the game, and know the next time I like/dislike an aspect of the game he might have liked/disliked.

Mus

Originally Posted By alkis21 (8 JUL 2003 11:58pm)
The reason adventure games are still popular in Greece is that we have a real AG Guru, who has been writing about them for 20 years. This man's problem is that he adores the genre so much, he almost never gives a game a bad grade; he rates most of the games he reviews 90-99%! However, his descriptions are always so perfect and complete, that after reading the review I always know whether I should buy the game or not. This, my friends, is good reviewing.

Originally Posted By adventuredog (9 JUL 2003 1:06am)

Sounds really great Alkis!  Are any of these translated in English?  Sounds like an interesting fellow.  I would really like to be able to read his reviews.  Would you be willing to translate any (if they aren't already) so that they could be posted here?

Originally Posted By alkis21 (9 JUL 2003 12:02pm)
I'm afraid they're not in English, but I don't see why I shouldn't translate one.. it should be interesting.  I'll get one review translated soon.
As for the Ray issue, I suppose that if most people find his reviews satisfactory, he must be doing a good job and I must be the weird one...

Originally Posted By alkis21 (9 JUL 2003 12:02pm)

As for the Ray issue, I suppose that if most people find his reviews satisfactory, he must be doing a good job and I must be the weird one...

As a newcomer, I am curious :Why is it even necessary to try to define a "pure adventure game"?  It seems ironic that Mr. Ivey chastises certain people for having, what he deems to be, unduly narrow views of what an adventure game is and then proposes his own definition which also narrows the genre--i.e., by excluding games with "significant " combat or action elements.  Why go through this classificiation task?

Originally Posted By mszv (10 JUL 2003 9:40pm)
The end game for Obsidian almost did me in too, and I had a walkthrough.  I could not remember what you had to remember - it's a memory puzzle, and it changes, so they can't tell you exactly how to solve it, in a walkthrough.  I finally took a screen shot of what you had to remember, saved the game, restored the game from the save game, and referring to my screenshot (I printed it), I solved the puzzle.  Pretty clever, don't you think?  That's another example of almost being undone by a puzzle.  In spite of my objection to the last puzzle, Obsidian was a truely great game.

Originally Posted By BacardiJim (26 JUL 2003 1:17am)
I know this is belated...but may God rain flaming  fecus down on anyone who would hold that final weird memory/reaction puzzle against Obsidian.  Up to the final moment is was an incredible game.  Unfortunately the final puzzle flew in the face of everything we had been given, and both final cutscenes were kinda weak.  But don't toss away the great 30 hours we all enjoyed before that point!

Originally Posted By BacardiJim (26 JUL 2003 1:17am)
I know this is belated...but may God rain flaming  fecus down on anyone who would hold that final weird memory/reaction puzzle against Obsidian.  Up to the final moment is was an incredible game.  Unfortunately the final puzzle flew in the face of everything we had been given, and both final cutscenes were kinda weak.  But don't toss away the great 30 hours we all enjoyed before that point!