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I have been to six E3’s
and never have I seen fewer pure adventure games either in production
or even the talking stage than at this year’s convention.

On the other hand, there
were also more adventure games announced than ever, but they were
almost all of the bastardized variety – guns, fighting, violence –
it seems that action/adventure has morphed into a catchall genre.  
With very few exceptions, point-and-click is clearly dead and action/adventure
is about to go mainstream in a big way.

We promised you some exclusives
and as usual we came through.  So hold on to your hats for some big
announcements and E3 scuttlebutt:

• The Collector,
  a sequel to the 7^th Guest/11^th Hour
  is to soon be announced!!  We will have an exclusive trailer
  later this week.  I met with producer David Wheeler (his partner
  Rob Landeros could not make the E3) in private and viewed simply
  amazing video from the game.  The Collector takes place in
  a museum and Stauf is once again your nemesis.  While The Collector
  will employ many of the strategic puzzles familiar to fans of the
  first two games, it will also incorporate other genres into its
  gameplay.  For example, a sequence involving a Minotaur must be
  played in a first-person-shooter mode.  Currently scheduled for
  a Thanksgiving release on the X-Box, we will have much more exclusive
  information on The Collector in the upcoming months.

• As many of you know
  by now, the long-awaited Syberia has been purchased by Dreamcatcher. 
  The North American release date has been pushed back from June to
  September.  Syberia will though still be released in Europe
  and possibly Canada in June.  Now for the big news – Cedric Orvoine
  of Microids laid this bombshell on Ray Ivey and myself during our
  visit to Microids  – a sequel, Syberia 2, is currently in
  production!  By the way, I have personally assured both Microids
  and Dreamcatcher that Syberia will easily sell at least 200,000
  copies in North America alone, so get those credit cards out adventure
  fans.

• I found a nifty new
  adventure game hidden in the Wanadoo booth.  Only 20% complete
  but already looking like a must-have game was Jack the Ripper! 
  Set in the early 1900s, the Ripper has relocated to New York City
  where he has resumed his murderous ways.  You play as a member of
  Scotland Yard, sent to New York to capture and return the Ripper
  to London.  Be forewarned, there is gunplay in the game.  We will
  soon have screen shots and an interview with the developer.

• Noticeably absent
  from the E3 this year was the one-time kings of adventure – Cryo. 
  Rumor has it that this once proud company is either about to file
  for bankruptcy or will reorganize as a smaller, leaner organization. 
  It would be a great loss to the adventure community to lose this
  French corporation.

• I personally spoke
  with the man responsible for bringing The Longest Journey
  to life – Ragnar Tornquist – and he assured me that a sequel to
  The Longest Journey is now on the front-burner at Funcom. 
  While it may be a few years until we see a finished product, at
  least Funcom is finally considering a sequel.  We will soon have
  an interview with April’s creator on Just Adventure.

• After Full Throttle
  2 was announced by Lucas Arts, Tom Sarris, the head of public
  relations, informed me that there would be no further information
  released on this action/adventure game for at least 9 months! 
  Look for this game to headline the Lucas Arts releases at next year’s
  E3.

• Charles Cecil of
  Revolution was busy talking-up Broken Sword 3.  While
  I did not have time to meet with him in person this year, he did
  have a long discussion with the charming Cindy Yans of Computer
  Games Magazine.  Maybe we’ll see some welcome magazine coverage
  of this game in the near future?

• Jeff Tobler and his
  lovely wife Karen were hanging out in the Dreamcatcher area promoting
  their newest game – The Omega Stone, Riddle of the Sphinx 2. 
  You know I convinced Jeff to provide some exclusive screen shots
  for the readers of Just Adventure!  Look for them later this week.

• The best-looking
  and most promising adventure games at the E3 were easily Microids’s
  Syberia and Post-Mortem.  We’ll have more on both
  of these games in the coming weeks. 

• Probably the most
  disappointing game, in my opinion, was Arxel Tribe’s Hannibal. 
  What I mistakenly believed to be an adventure game is actually a
  first-person-shooter.  What is Arxel Tribe thinking?  If there is
  any one character who better lends himself to a game based on deduction
  and reasoning, it is the villainous Hannibal.  Why not just turn
  the game into a musical?

• Myst Online
  – why not?  I honestly would not be surprised if an online Myst
  game proved to be more popular than Everquest.  Give
  UbiSoft credit for attempting to venture into unknown territory
  for an adventure product.

• In what is surely
  a case for Nancy Drew to solve, Her Interactive did not have a booth
  at the show, but instead were conducting meetings in the food court. 
  As I was not hungry at the time, I passed on a meeting, but Ray
  Ivey spoke with Her Interactive about their newest release, The
  Scarlet Hand and will fill us in later this week.

• On the console side,
  X-Box has some great action/adventure games in the pipeline including
  Project Ego and Shenmue II.  Both games are sure
  to please adventure fans and we will have more information on them
  in the near future.

• It’s a sad day for
  the adventure community when one of my E3 lowlights was witnessing
  the editor of another adventure webzine verbally accosting a Dreamcatcher
  staff member.  Maybe the entry age needs to be raised from eighteen
  to twenty-one?

Later this week . . . we’ll
bring you all the dirt on the adventure and action/adventure games
of the E3.  Plus lots of pictures to boot!