E3 Adventure Report A DARK YEAR AHEAD – Welcome to Just Adventure + – Articles

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by Ray Ivey May 27, 2003

E3 Adventure Report A DARK YEAR AHEAD

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As a game journalist, it’s my job to tell you, Dear Reader, the truth. Sometimes that’s an easy gig, and sometimes it’s hard. After this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, I’m afraid I have a dark tale to tell. It isn’t pretty. But if I pull any punches I’m not doing my job, am I? And I care about you far too much to sugar-coat anything as ugly as the following tale of woe.

So let me just come right out and say it. The game companies don’t care about you. They don’t care about your families. In their heartless pursuit of cash, they are unleashing upon the innocent adventure gaming crowd a torrent of games so intriguing, so exciting, so lovely to look at, so dog-gone fun that the non-game playing aspects of your lives are bound to suffer terribly. What makes this tide of evil even more insidious is that it is being done with the full participation of some of the most notable adventure game designers – the ones who got us hooked in the first place. Yep, the creators of Jewels of the Oracle, Myst, Gabriel Knight, Broken Sword, The Longest Journey, Syberia, Traitors Gate and several others are part of this ugly conspiracy to suck the time out of your personal life.

So give your spouse a backrub. Tell your kids that they’re smart and good-looking. Clean out that old closet you’ve been putting off. Because pretty soon you aren’t going to have time to do anything but play dandy new adventure games.

MERCILESS MICROIDS

The first perpetrator in this ghastly onslaught of good games is from the talented folks at Microids, who aren’t letting a tiny bit of financial trouble stop them from continuing work on the sequel to last year’s spectacular Syberia. This time around, American Kate Walker has joined forces with the mysterious Hans to search for the lost island of Syberia.

THE RETURN OF RAND MILLER

Need to help your kids with their homework? Better get it done before the launch of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. You think UbiSoft cares whether your child makes it into the gifted and talented program or not? Not a chance.

Visionary mad genius Rand Miller, who created Myst with his brother over a decade ago, has been working on this project for years. And it’s finally upon us!

Uru is several things, all intriguing. First, it’s a full-fledged single player game that takes you through new and beautiful, puzzle-filled worlds in the Myst universe. Next, it’s a three-tiered online game with private, semi-private, and public areas to explore, meet people, and engage in tag-team puzzle solving. and several others are part of this ugly conspiracy to suck the time out of your personal life. You’ll get to customize your own online avatar, and create clubs that only your best puzzle-solving friends can join. With new downloadable content every month, it’s truly an online pure adventure game.

HELL AT FULL THROTTLE

Does LucasArts care if you get that gardening project finished? Not at all. They’re releasing sequels to not one, but TWO of their most famous adventure games: Sam and Max Hit the Road and Full Throttle. The Sam and Max sequel is only in the early stages, but Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels is well on it’s rowdy way. Now of course, some shrill adventure purists will complain that they’ve heard that the Full Throttle sequel isn’t pure adventure; it’s got – shudder – action sequences. Well, these complainers don’t have a very good memory: SO DID THE FIRST GAME. Trust me, it’s still an adventure.

NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER!!!

My tale gets even worse. The fiendish team at HerInteractive, drunk with the amazing commercial success they’ve been having with their sturdy Nancy Drew franchise, want your daughters. Their eighth Nancy Drew mystery, The Haunted Carousel, will have all of the features that have made the series so popular: crisp pre-rendered graphics, fun storylines, entertaining puzzles and honest-to-Nancy atmosphere. How will little Tiffany finish her algebra homework when she’s playing Nancy Drew instead?

RAGNAR ROCKS

Ragnar Tørnquist, whose spectacular point-and-click epic The Longest Journey gave the beleaguered adventure genre a huge shot in the arm, is hard at work on the sequel to that beloved game. This time around it’ll be in full-3D, which DOESN’T mean it’s going to be an action game, trust your Uncle Ray (see my upcoming rant article, “Shut Up!” in a few days). Ragnar is very excited about the possibilities 3D will provide. He sees it as a way to open the adventure up. The new title, The Longest Journey: Static is still in the early stages, and we’ll follow its development with great interest.

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES

By far the most heartless of the game publishers, however, is DreamCatcher’s The Adventure Company. I don’t know, I thought I knew these people, and they always seemed so nice. But clearly they don’t care a whit about all of the day jobs that will be put into peril by their staggering raft of upcoming adventure titles.

The biggest news, I suppose, is that they are working with Jane Jensen on a brand new game! No, it’s not Gabriel Knight, but it’s adventure, and, well, heck, it’s Jane Jensen. What more do we need to know? The game is in its very early stages.

Charles Cecil is also hard at work on the third Broken Sword game, subtitled The Sleeping Dragon. It seems that our hero from the first two, the American lawyer George, has buffed up and butched up a bit since The Smoking Mirror. This makes sense, actually, because just think of all he’s been through! He’s back at work with his trusty partner Nico, and they’ve got to solve another dastardly, world-threatening plot. The game uses a beautiful 3D engine and allows for the puzzles to expand into environmental challenges – getting off of a ledge, getting out of a falling airplane, etc. And honest-to-goodness adventure game, despite the ravings that appeared on a certain forum not too long ago, it looks like The Sleeping Dragon will bring back the venerable series in high style.

Then there’s the lovely Crystal Key II: The Far Realm, the sequel to Dreamcatcher’s big adventure hit, The Crystal Key. It seems that, even though we did push him into the middle of the sun at the end of the first game, naughty boy Ozgar is back to wreak havoc with the universe, and it’s our job to stop him! A kidnapping sends the player on an odyssey through beautiful worlds of mystery.

And for those adventure game players who like to invite over their Mensa friends to solve puzzles in graphically stunning environments, there’s Mysterious Journey: Chameleon, the drop-dead gorgeous sequel to Mysterious Journey (Schizm). This time the fantastical environments are in real-time 3D, and let me tell you, the screenshots do NOT give the visuals in this game justice. As in the previous game, the gorgeous environments will help sooth your aching head as you solve the very challenging puzzles that abound. The themes are connectivity and unity as you attempt to save an ancient colony from destruction.

And for those of you who enjoyed the insanely fun Traitors Gate (and Safecracker before that), there’s Cypher: The Sequel to Traitors Gate. This time Raven (the agile and brainy hero of the last game) is having to make his way through a series of ancient tombs that are designed as deathtrap puzzles. Only his wits (and yours) will keep him alive!

Also in the works is the story-rich Egyptian Prophecy: The Fate of Rameses. It’s a follow-up to Egypt: 1156 BC and Egypt II: The Heliopolios Prophecy (but a completely stand-alone story). The game centers around Maia, a young priestess who must solve a series of mysteries plaguing the Pharaoh.

And don’t forget Atlantis: Evolution. In this graphic adventure you follow the story of Curtis Quick, a photographer who after a shipwreck is transported by a mysterious vortex into the heart of Atlantis.

In the mood for something darker? How about Jack the Ripper? It seems you can’t keep a good prostitute-filleting killer down, and Wanadoo Studios has transported the elusive fellow to New York’s Lower East Side. In 1901, a young newspaper reporter investigating a series of murders in Manhattan’s infamous slum begins having the terrible realization of just who the killer is. Eek!

I CAN’T GO ON, I CAN’T GO ON, I’LL GO ON

I wish I had some insightful, helpful advice on how do deal with this hideous avalanche of good gaming that’s coming your way. Like you, I’ll just have to grin and bear it. Our jobs and families aren’t that important, anyway, are they?

PS Sorry for not providing specific release dates for each game. Not all of them have fixed dates. They will be released over the next twelve months.

Coming Shortly Ray’s E3 Report Part Deux: Beyond Adventure!