| 16 OCT 2002 at 12:29am |
LancelotIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 56
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | :'(
Hi, I dont share your optimism at all. I am an adventure game fan since 15 years, and also a computer game journalist but I think the genre was never in such a bad position. There are definietly some pormising titles, but I dont see in them the possibility to revilaize the genre. There should be a real REVOLUTION, not only some more adventure games with nice story and graphics! Well, for example The Real Neverending Story could have been such a project, but look what have become of it... Auryns Quest). I fear even Broken Sword 3 will not give the genre what it really needs.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:27am |
TeoSpace Cadet
Posts : 185
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Lancelot (16 OCT 2002 12:29am)
:'(
Hi, I dont share your optimism at all. I am an adventure game fan since 15 years, and also a computer game journalist but I think the genre was never in such a bad position. There are definietly some pormising titles, but I dont see in them the possibility to revilaize the genre. There should be a real REVOLUTION, not only some more adventure games with nice story and graphics! Well, for example The Real Neverending Story could have been such a project, but look what have become of it... (Auryns Quest). I fear even Broken Sword 3 will not give the genre what it really needs.
thats what I like about adventure games! they don`t need to implement new things in a adventure game.. if it has good story and the graphics to boot. I`m very happy.
The best adventure games are still the old 2d point & click games in my opinion..I really don`t want them turning into something else.
from what I`ve seen of Broken sword 3 (the ECTS trailer), it`s just a great series turning into a hybdrid action/adventure like tomb raider..doesn`t look promising at all.
hope I`m wrong though
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:50am |
mszvPrivate Detective
Posts : 751
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hi all,
I know it's not as good as "the old days", but I'm cautiously optimistic. The genre isn't dead yet. Of course, I'm a newer gamer, so there are many I have not played. I'm looking forward to Syberia 2, the upcoming release of Post Mortem, and right now, I'm working my way through an older game, Morpheus, which still has, to my eye, good visuals - how a game looks is very important to me.
I also hope for more independently produced games, like Dark Fall.
Regards, mszv
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 9:35am |
bleepnikPrivate Detective
Posts : 544
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | hey, aren't some of us still (or not yet, or again) in university/college? i know, let's all change our majors to something that would help in producing a game, band together, and revolutionize the genre. yeah!
.g, resident insomniac (and programming major)
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 10:04am |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Lancelot I really don't see what you are looking for in an adventure game. First of all I didn't include at all Broken Sword 3 in the titles that I consider as promising, and this is because in my eyes Charles Cecil is the biggest traitor of the adventure community.
There are many adventure followers hanging from his mouth to hear about one of the few adventure series that is going to be continued and he starts his interview by saying point and click adventures are dead. Well let me tell you mr. cecil, so are your chances of selling your game to me.
The best ever 4 adventure games in my opinion are GK2, The Longest Journey, GK3 and Syberia. The last 3 were made the last 3 years, the so called dark age of adventures. And they were all point and click. So in my opinion the adventure genre is not dead at all.
Personally I don't want to see any evolution in adventure games, except of course technological evolution (DVD, better graphics, better sound ...). I love the linear stories, I love the inventory based puzzles and I love the looong conversations.
All that adventure games need is some promotion. And for that the only ones who can help are the companies and us, the fans. I have a lot of plans for promoting adventure games in the area where I live, but I'll talk about that in another post.
I think all that is needed is to introduce more people to the adventure genre. Show them what is so special about adventures. Show that why they are better than books and movies (movies are too short, books are too long, and apart from that you become the hero, and the story development of some adventures surpass every imagination).
As I said there are 6-7 promising titles coming up. The last three years we were expecting 2-3 titles every year. I think that this fact is definitely looking promising to me.
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 4:13pm |
| Deleted User | dimidimidimi: How long does it take you to read a book, on average? I somehow doubt that you manage to spend more time on a book than on an adventure game (unless you're a walkthrough-in-hand player).
As for 'story development [that] surpass every imagination', well, obviously not the imagination of the person who wrote the script? Lame jokes aside, this is something you can find in abundance in both books and movies. (Exceptional stories, that is, not lame jokes. Well, lame jokes as well, but that's not the point.) Especially since you've stated your love for the linear plot, I fail to see how this 'story development' of adventure games is so much better than or, for that matter, at all different from what you find in books and movies.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 5:01pm |
bistroSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 240
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I'm cautiously optimistic.....maybe.
Game developers always knew that the shoot-em-ups were the way to go. Just look at films and which ones make the money.
Thank God for the dudes who did Myst, Tex Murphy and the like....that put Adventure up there so it didn't die early. But what we are fighting here is....money. The developers and retailers and all the middle-men look at the bottom line...how much revenue is this going to bring in? And the underwriters base it on numbers from the last game they put out. Unfortunately, some major game mags have been spouting over and over that Adventure is dead or dying, so the people with the bucks aren't supporting the genre like they used to. The people are demanding bigger and better weapons and explosions....the heck with beautiful backgrounds; just as long as the firepower is better with bigger flame details. (Now...I can't criticize FPS or other genres to much---I've played them and some of them are quite enjoyable and very well done).
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 5:49pm |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | "the story development of some adventures surpass every imagination"
When I said that I was reffering to the holy triad of recent adventure gaming. Gabriel Knight, Longest Journey and Syberia. I haven't seen such a mythology in a book or in a movie as in Longest Journey. Ragnar Tornqvist just build a new 'religion' and a new 'belief' from scratch about the whole world.
I haven't seen such a mix of real facts with the paranormal as in the GK series. Jane Jensen has taken King Ludwig's and Wagner's story, the story of the bible, the tower of Psion (the church in Renne Le Chetau, which is more important than most people think), religious cults and organizations (that really exist and unfortunately my a close relative of mine is a member of) and the myths of vampires and werewolves and has created an amazingly woven story all around these incidents. This I haven't seen in a movie or a book either (though GK was also made in a book, but it was intended to be an adventure first).
For Syberia I can't speak yet cause I haven't completed the game, but all this story about the automatons and how they were replaced by the electrical machines has many more symbolisms that most people think. Its imaginative story is also phenomenal (so far at least).
I'm not saying that books and movies don't have good stories and I don't want in a 'are books or adventures better?' kind of dispute. I am just saying that if I had to compare the best stories of all these mediums my first choices would be of adventure games.
And to bistro I want to say that I know how the situation has been so far and that is what you are describing. I am just saying that things look better and it seems like the guys with the bucks start to understand that there is a lot of money going on in adventures also. I don't think that the reason for low adventure sales was that the genre doesn't sell.
I think the reason was that there were so many bad adventure games coming out the last 4-5 years that people got dissapointed and stopped being interested. But this is what happened with RPGs also and after Bioware's attempts now RPG is back on track. I think Microids can be adventurer's Bioware.
We just have to wait and see. I hope I am right though
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 6:36pm |
bistroSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 240
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Agreed. I am playing Syberia right now (would love to get a copy of The Longest Journey or Amerizone). If Microids plays it right, they could very well be the one who brings Adventure back from the brink. And yes, I've seen too many Adventure games coming out in the past couple years that were obviously "cash flow" only. Pretty poor. Just makes it worse for the Adventure genre--burns too many people and they stay away.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 7:28pm |
MichalNGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7058
Joined: 14 SEP 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By dimidimidimi (16 OCT 2002 5:49pm)
"the story development of some adventures surpass every imagination"
I haven't seen such a mix of real facts with the paranormal as in the GK series. Jane Jensen has taken King Ludwig's and Wagner's story, the story of the bible, the tower of Psion (the church in Renne Le Chetau, which is more important than most people think), religious cults and organizations (that really exist and unfortunately my a close relative of mine is a member of) and the myths of vampires and werewolves and has created an amazingly woven story all around these incidents. This I haven't seen in a movie or a book either (though GK was also made in a book, but it was intended to be an adventure first).
You probably don't read the right books and watch the right movies
An example of a book that is actually quite similar to GK3 in many ways is "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. It too is a mix of historical facts and fiction, although nothing supernatural. Talks a lot about Knights Templar, Freemasons, alchemy etc.
There is a great number of books that "invented" their own worlds and religions. "Lord of the Rings" is the first that springs to mind. But many other books, especially sci-fi and fantasy, have done that.
Movies generally have it a lot tougher because the roughly two hours of a movie are far, far less space than several hundred pages of a book or even many adventure games (which can take several days to finish).
Of course, the GK games are still damn fine adventures
I forgot my sig.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 9:54pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By dimidimidimi (16 OCT 2002 10:04am)
Show them what is so special about adventures. Show that why they are better than books and movies
Originally Posted By dimidimidimi (16 OCT 2002 5:49pm)
I don't want in a 'are books or adventures better?' kind of dispute.
If you didn't want to start a "books vs. adventure games" dispute, maybe you shouldn't have stated that adventure games are better? MichalN, I was going to suggest the exact same books.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 10:15pm |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I really didn't plan a book-adventures fight when I started this thread. If I did I would have named it adventures vs books and instead of writing only 1 line in a 70-80 lines post about books I would have written much more.
But since you are looking for a dispute you are going to have one.
1)Why do I think adventures are better than books?
In a book when a character goes in a room you have to describe every little detail about the room. You have to say that the curtains are red, the carpet is blue, the table is made from wood and it looks brown...blablabla.... and it takes ages to describe a room, or a person or anything.
Things that are not so important for the story, and in adventures you just see them in front of you. You don't have to spend 5-10 minutes reading about the colours of the sky, you just see them.
'Yes, but in this way I am using my imagination and I can create the world as I like' a book fan would probably argue. In my humble opinion I prefer to use my imagination to think about the plot, the sub-plots or how to solve a puzzle that are things directly connected to the story, than the colours of the sky.
2)Why do I think adventure games are better than movies?
Movies are 2 hours long. That is way too short for a complex story with interesting characters to be unfold. I have seen a lot of movies with great plots and stories (usual suspects, sixth sense, arlington road...) but I have never seen the depth of Gabriel Knight for example.
3)Why do I think adventure games are better than both movies and books?
a) Because YOU are the main character and YOU have to solve the problems and the questions and YOU control the hero's fate.
b) People that prefer movies than books see the world from a 'mechanistics' perspective. People that prefer books than movies see the world from a 'romantic' perspective. I think adventure bring these two perspectives in the balance of 'dialectics' perspective. You take the best part of movies
*seeing the actual picture, saves time from long-winded descriptions about story unrelated issues
and the best part of books
*enough time and dialogues to unfold a deep and well developed storyline
and you also add an extra good feature...
*YOU take control of your character and YOU guide his/her fate
and there my friends you have it...the perfect blend of all mediums of story telling....ADVENTURE GAMES!!!!
I rest my case...
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 11:07pm |
| Deleted User | I wasn't looking for a dispute, I wanted you to justify your statement. You did. Good. However, I have a few comments...
There are plenty of talented authors that can convey the look and feel of a scene or a character with just one or two evocative sentences, without having to resort to long-winded, detailed descriptions of each irrelevant prop.
I associate myself just as much with the main character of a book as I do in a game. My favourite games seem to coincide with yours, and they are all games with a characterized, well-defined protagonist, just like in most books. If I can feel like a Schattenjäger, I can feel like a hobbit. Only games like Myst provide the 'blank' main character that draws some in and freak others, like me, out.
Considering you want the story of your adventure games to be linear, you have no more control over it in a game than in a book. In some games you can't even die or fail.
I have read books that are worse than most adventure games, and played adventure games that are better than most books. To me, it's all in the execution, and what medium suits the story best. For instance, 'The sixth sense' would probably be impossible to pull off as anything but a movie. As a game, the interactivity would have to be severely restricted to avoid revealing what was going on, and a book would have to be annoyingly obscure.
Movies, books and adventure games are all great ways of telling a story. You don't have to choose just one.
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 11:16pm |
collectimaniacIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 12
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | It seems that adventure games have been around since the 80's with the first home computers and game systems. My fondest memories of Adventure games was playing Zork and making that huge map! This means adventure games have been around for about 20 years and people are still making them and playing them.
There is no point getting into a comparison of games, movies and books. They're different media and have different ways of accomplishing their goals . . . . entertainment. And the really good ones not only entertain but make you think differently, see the world differently, and yourself in it differently. There are thousands of books coming out every year and hundreds of movies, most of which are not worth a look. People who produce books or movies solely for money usually aim for the mass market - people who produce quality books or movies aim for quality and hope that enough people will recognize it. This is why there are starving artists.
I'm with dimidimidimi on the promotion of adventure games. This is truly the problem. The 'market' of people interested in them may be shrinking because no new hobbyists are coming in because they (kids, mainly?) aren't interested in taking their time, problem solving, and getting into a story. It seems that they are mainly into Violence. Violence. Violence. But what about people who already like similar themes - people who read mysteries people who like puzzles. Many such people have never played a computer game because they think they're all shoot-em up types because that's what is marketed. And more than ever before people have home computers and internet access. People are still looking to be entertained.
It's all about marketing. I can't say how many great games I had never even heard of except on JA because of lack of original marketing. I'm not a 'computer geek.' I'm a part owner of a cleaning business. I don't read too many computer and/or gaming magazines. I rely on this type of web site and forum for my hobby. This is where I find out about new games.
Kim
Kimmie
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 1:10am |
MichalNGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7058
Joined: 14 SEP 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By dimidimidimi (16 OCT 2002 10:14pm)
I really didn't plan a book-adventures fight when I started this thread.
I don't think there's any "fight" but it is an interesting topic. Like others, I don't think books are better than adventures or that adventures are better than books. They're different and in some ways complementary. Neither is better than other and the same goes for movies. It's basically comparing apples to oranges. You can like one better than the other, but that doesn't make it better.
1)Why do I think adventures are better than books?
In a book when a character goes in a room you have to describe every little detail about the room.
Actually, you don't. In 99.9% cases these details are entirely irrelevant to the story, hence the author won't waste any time on them (this is a problem especially with movies - you have to expend a lot of attention on details that have nothing to do with the story).
The major advantage that books have is that they can get "inside characters' heads" - very difficult to do in movies, to some extent possible in adventures.
2)Why do I think adventure games are better than movies?
Movies are 2 hours long. That is way too short for a complex story with interesting characters to be unfold. I have seen a lot of movies with great plots and stories (usual suspects, sixth sense, arlington road...) but I have never seen the depth of Gabriel Knight for example.
That is a good point. I do think this is a problem. But movies have some things going for them. #1 is probably the fact that movies are the most widely accessible medium. You don't have to be able to read, you don't have to be able to operate a computer (you don't even have to own one). This has obvious commercial implications. As a result, the studios have lots and lots of money to spend on movies. They can make technically excellent movies even if the story wasn't worth filming to begin with. Also the fact that movies are short can be considered an advantage by some viewers.
Funny of you to mention "The Usual Suspects" movie. It was a disappointment to me because I figured it out too early and was not at all surprised by the final "revelation". But then the awful predictability is a problem I have with most Hollywood movies.
Speaking of movies, I quite like animated movies and especially Japanese anime movies. They have certain advantages over "real" movies: by renouncing realism, they can concentrate much more on the story. By not using live actors, they can have unique characters that do not overlap with the actors behind them. I wish there were more animated adventures like Broken Sword I.
3)Why do I think adventure games are better than both movies and books?
a) Because YOU are the main character and YOU have to solve the problems and the questions and YOU control the hero's fate.
Good point. The interactivity is what draws you "inside" the story. But it is not a requirement for a good rendering of a story and can exist in books and movies as well (perhaps to a lesser extent).
*YOU take control of your character and YOU guide his/her fate
If you think about this some more, it is actually not true in most adventures. Many of the best adventures are actually extremely linear as far as the core story is concerned and there is only one possible outcome (GK or TLJ is a case in point), so there is not much of guiding at all. RPGs often give the player far more latitude; as examples I'd name Fallout or Arcanum. In those games, most problems have multiple solutions and there are in part completely different game paths you can take.
Of course linear adventures are (IMO) a requirement for a coherent and tight story. I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the adventures regarded as the best are very linear.
I forgot my sig.
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 1:31am |
LancelotIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 56
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | :-/
I think this argument about book-film-game is a totallly useless and stupid thing, its like to compare painting to sculpture, or ask who is the best director Fellini or Geroge Lucas.
So Lets speak about the games!
???
So I dont agree that the genre doesnt need any revitalisation. The games progressed in the last 10 years only in the term of visual level, but lost one of their most important component: the interactivity. In the old interactive fiction games, in Sierra an Lucasarts adventures programmers gave much more freedom to your imagination, so the game was played not so much on the screen but much more behind it. (I mean between the environment and your mind). Today the adventure games give almost everything to your eyes and ears, but take away almost everything from your hands and mind and it means you become some kind of a passive spectator of an amazing story. This whole trouble started with interactive film genre, and with Myst, but this is another story.
>
I really loved Longest Journey and Syberia but exept their audiovisual quality and amazing story they are far beyond the quality of old adventures.
When I say revoultion, I mean revoulution in environment and interface. Almost all the genres learnt a lot from adventure games: for example even the most stupid shooters have an elaborated storyline now. So why doesnt learn the adventure genre something from other game-styles?
For example there could be an adventure with dinamic environment just as the Ultima RPG games: the weather system, the day-night circles would change. The caracters wouldnt be stuck to a certain place repeating themselves al the time but they would live their own life. The puzzles could have multiple soultions. I know it is a hard job, but thats what the genre needs!
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 5:06am |
Mike_KellyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 3
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | True, with Syberia and TLJ massive sales, there SEEMS to be a rebirth of sorts going on.
The truth is, women LOVE adventure games alot and most women just aren't into killing off hoards of monsters ala DOOM 3.
I'm a guy and have over 400 adventure games and have never had a problem finding a 1st class adventure game to play in my 25 years of playing them.
However, if there was a bottom it was 2001 with Myst 3 with a score of 8.7 (gamespot) taking the coveted "adventure game of the year award" because there just wasn't a better game around.
Everyone knows that "Syberia" is this years adventure game of the year and it has a stellar score of 9.3
Next year, (2003) we have some pretty heavy competion with Broken Sword 3, Syberia 2 and Full Throttle 2 coming out.
Dreamcatcher is now the main publisher, following in the shoes of Sierra and Infocom.
They have over 50 adventure games in there library, I've played several of theirs and the quality is excellent. Needless to say, Syberia is my fave from them.
Feel free to join my Syberia fan club:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheAdventurersHome/
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 5:30pm |
JonasKyratzesSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 280
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | <PROPAGANDA>
Indie games will save the world!
</PROPAGANDA>
[i]
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 5:43pm |
jamarchandSchattenjger
Posts : 1665
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Seems to me, that the greatest promise in adventure games is The Moment Of Silence.
The german studio annouced it for 2003, and still working in this game for 2 years.
The plot is absolutelly original, and the grafics.....SUPERB.
Visit the game site.
My dream is a game in blu-ray-disk......it means - A game equivalent to 40 cds.
Blue ray disk is the newest advance in information storage.....Using the blue spectre, the informations can be armazanated much more compactaly in the disk.
Imagine a game with 40 cd's lenght!!!!
 &&&&[move]Actually playing SHIVERS and Rhem 2[/move]&&
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 6:41pm |
JonasKyratzesSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 280
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Somebody let me design that game! I would make the complete chronicles of a fantasy world, from the first days to the last, it would be grand...
[i]
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 8:16pm |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I saw the moment of silence site for the first time yesterday and that's why I didn't write it with all the other adventures when I started the thread. But the more, the merrier (I hope I spelled it right) So add this one and take the ring 2 out instead because I played the demo and it was crap!
Moment of silence looks really good on the other hand and the descriptions kept me drooling . The only thing that worries me is the fact that House of Tales is the creator of Mystery of the druids, and it looked promising also but it was a big failure in the end. I think if they do better with puzzles, voice-overs and story they definitely have a winner in their hands.
And going back to what I was saying about the adventure reinnescance, Al Lowe, Roberta Williams, and Ragnar Tornqvist were on this forum and the first two posted also! I hope they are all planning something because if they do....then we are talking about reinnescance BIG TIME!!!
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 8:31pm |
jamarchandSchattenjger
Posts : 1665
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Really, I was read several negatives reveiws about Mystery of the Druids........so, I hope that House of Tales avoid the mystakes of the past.
&&&&[move]Actually playing SHIVERS and Rhem 2[/move]&&
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 9:24pm |
GrammarTrollIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 62
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Renaissance.
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 11:40pm |
dimidimidimiSchattenjger
Posts : 1784
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Sorry about the spelling mistake. I thought I did something wrong. :-/
PDF adventure magazine - The Inventory&&http://www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm&&&&What would you give to know the truth?&&http://www.brokensaints.com
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