ECTS 2002 – Welcome to Just Adventure + – Articles

Articles

Judging by the number of people attending this year’s ects at Earls Court, London, the computer gaming industry is thriving. With an anticipated attendance of 23,000 trade and press visitors the event was described by the ects 2002 Preview literature as “the biggest European promotional platform [for the] industry this year”.

Unfortunately this encouraging trend does not appear to include traditional ‘adventure’ gaming and finding anything connected to the pure adventure genre at this year’s event was a bit like searching for the Holy Grail.

Action, shooter, strategy, RPG and simulator games were to be seen in abundance. Brilliant, neon-coloured posters with names like Splinter Cell, Ravenshield, Bandits and Devastation splashed across every surface. The sound of laser guns, explosions, animal snarls, shrieks and groans provided a constant background reminder of the more commercially successful genres.

However, despite the poor representation from the ‘adventure’ gaming industry, I was delighted to have an opportunity to talk to Stephen Carrière, Arxel Tribe’s Creative Director, about their new release Ring II and also to be able to attend the preview of Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon.

Stephen was predictably enthusiastic about Arxel Tribe’s new release, and I have to admit his enthusiasm was contagious. This is not the place to give a full preview of the game, but I would like to make a couple of comments: The team have put a great deal of thought into the playability of the game and moved away from the traditional puzzle/inventory based adventure, in favour of a situation-solution-driven story. In order to progress through the game a challenging set of circumstances is created in which the player will have to ‘think’ his way out of the situation by using problem-solving skills rather than mathematical principle, feats of memory or simple trial and error. Stephen anticipates that this new formula will capture the essence of exploratory adventure without the over subscribed puzzle formats and repetitive searching for inventory items of traditional adventure games. The news release advertising the game describes it as “The art of Philippe Druillet combined to Wagner’s music. An astonishing heroic-fantasy graphic universe.” In my view this perfectly describes the look and feel of the game and requires no further elaboration for this report. After just a short preview of the game I was hooked and will be eagerly awaiting its release – scheduled for October in the UK and December in the US.

Despite the stark statement by Charles Cecil, managing director of Revolution Software, that “the point and click adventure game is dead” Revolution’s preview of Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon was so well attended that it was standing-room-only soon after the doors were opened. Broken Sword 3 which is in development for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC is the game Charles Cecil has “always wanted to write” and claims that it “visually breaks new barriers”. This game has metamorphosised from the original 2d cartoon-style point & click of Broken Sword 1 & 2 into a direct control 3d adventure with action captured by cinematic camera angles. George and Nico return with a whole new set of abilities – some of which are rather Tomb-Raider-like e.g. climbing, jumping and shimmying. The basic adventure theme survives, although once again the developers are aiming to attract a new audience by creating a hybrid requiring a mix of skills in order to succeed – including stealth, combat and puzzle solving. The game has been purposefully designed to be less challenging and will probably only take approximately 16 hours of game-play. More details and screenshots can be viewed at www.brokensword3.net.

Sony and Screen Digest held a Keynote Press Conference at which Ben Keen of Screen Digest gave a detailed presentation on the commercial state of the industry and predictions for the next few years. There was great enthusiasm over the developing ‘wireless’ game market, with the introduction of downloadable games written with Java support animation and colour. These games will probably incur a one-off fee per download. The console gaming arena will inevitably receive a boost from on-line connection, and Playstation 2, Xbox and GameCube are already broadband-enabled. PC online gaming will also be invigorated by the advent of broadband but this represents a very small slice of the predicted overall growth and the statistics presented predicted that the market in PC game sales will just about hold its own over the coming year whereas Playstation 2 game sales will outstrip all others. Further information is available at www.screendigest.com.

Despite evidently structured movement away from the traditional adventure game by several developers and the apparent lack of interest from the industry in this genre, this year has seen the tremendously successful launch of Syberia and The Watchmaker both of which represent adventure gaming in its purest form.

Perhaps the demise of true adventure is Loom-ing but it’s not quite come to the Final Scene yet. Those of us that still yearn for the Little, Big Adventure can take comfort from the fact that games like Riddle of the Sphinx II and Pharaoh’s Curse are both well into development and scheduled for upcoming release.

Maggie Holt
31/08/02