Articles

John Florez began
his career as a record producer in Los Angeles, where his clients
included:
A&M, Arista, Capitol, CBS, Elektra,
RCA and Warner Brothers Records.

Later, his knowledge of software applications led to training contracts
with Intel Corporation and SkillPath Seminars, where he facilitated
2 day seminars across the U.S. and Canada for corporate and government
technicians.

He is currently a software entrepreneur and developer.

The Adventure Company’s much-heralded “Syberia” was
the straw that broke this veteran gamer’s back. Thus, I feel
the need to lament, and wax on somewhat non-eloquently, about the
current state of adventure gaming.

STATIC
In a race to employ more powerful engines with increasingly stunning
graphics, developers have taken the “adventure” out
of gaming altogether. Give me the old Tex Murphy “Pandora
Directive” and “Realms of the Haunting” engines
ANY DAY over what’s currently on the market. With the mouse
and/or keyboard we could navigate in “real time” … down
hallways, under bridges, around lasers, through mazes. This “real
time” navigation immersed the gamer in the environment. With
today’s engines, we’ve become spectators – gawking
at artistry we can only witness from afar. It’s no wonder
that action games continue to grow in popularity, because they
offer the very movement and motion the adventure genre abandoned
long ago.

MECHANICAL
Though they helped to launch the “salad days” of adventure
gaming, Myst and Riven must share the blame for what we’ve
become. They were beautiful, static, and their puzzles were largely
mechanical in nature … gears, cogs, hubs, ramps, bridges and
doors. In this mechanical evolution we lost: dexterity (avoidance)
puzzles (running, stooping, sneaking, hiding, etc.) and intellectual
puzzles: trivia – math, literature, music, news; misc – sliders,
crosswords, anagrams, musical notes, mazes, etc. Unlike several JA
reviewers, I NEVER grew tired of these challenges.

ANIMATED
When “Overseer” cost so damn much and earned so little,
our “bottom line” as adventure gamers became immediately
apparent. Animations took the place of video cut-aways, and resulted
in our trying desperately to relate to cartoon characters instead
of real people. Was it cost effective? Certainly. Was it de-humanizing?
Of course. I, for one, would rather communicate with Tex and Chelsea
(and several of the name actors that appeared as their co-stars)
than with any 3D, lip-synched drawing of a person or animal. Wouldn’t
you?

DIALOGUE-DRIVEN
Speaking of communicating … Am I the only one who tires of
endless REQUIRED dialogue? The great adventure games (Pandora, ROTH,
Slivers, Lighthouse, Amber, Are You
Afraid of the Dark?, The Cassandra
Galleries, Timelapse, Ripper, Cydonia, 9, more …) thrived on
the premise that “less was more.” And it was.

THIRD PERSON
Third person games are now commonplace. And are also dehumanizing.
At least with Gabriel Knight & The Beast Within, you moved a “real” Gabriel
across the screen (while, I might add, talking to “real” people).
In Syberia, I almost nodded off (after endless dialogues) waiting
for Kate Walker to arrive at her next pre-defined hot spot, which
was often only a few steps away. Is it too much to ask: Where did
our “zoom”, “map” and “turbo” modes
go? Are they no longer considered essential by this new breed of
developers?

Frankly, fellow adventure
gamers, I think we are just so desperate for ANYTHING DECENT within
our genre, that we’re willing to
accept beauty and technology over depth and content. Wow, did you
see those graphics … hear those voice-overs … listen
to that music? You see, because the marketplace no longer produces
human-based adventure games, we have ceased to demand of it just
one ounce of humanity, and have instead, become synthetic voyeurs.