Articles

SHUT UP!       by Ray Ivey June 2003

A loving message to
our readers from Ray Ivey.

Okay,
folks, I’m usually pretty mild-mannered. I like being the nice guy. I celebrate
diversity. I love friendly debate. I respect everyone’s opinions (unless, of course,
you like white chocolate, Henry James or Eminem).

However,
there’s an issue that’s been getting me progressively more and more steamed in
the last few months. I’ve tried to ignore it, but just like those growing allegations
about the election fraud in Florida in 2000, it just won’t go away.

So,
fasten your seat belts, Dear Readers, and continue reading, if you dare, as we
post

RAY’S
FIRST RANT

I’d
like to introduce our Topic of Bile by quoting a sample letter JA+ received recently:

Why the hell
was Broken Game 3 awarded Best Adventure LetGame 2003 E3???

Aren’t
you the one who hates bastardized adventure games?? With all it’s action elements
and its pathetic disgusting looking 3d graphics Broken Game 3 doesn’t even
deserve to be covered on your website so why the damn award for a piece of shit
like that????

And with
keyboard controls???? Come on man! Since when are “real” adventure games controlled
by keyboard??? Broken Game 3 is nothing but a Tomb Raider ripoff with some
odd adventure elements thrown in to please adventure players.

Mr.
Cecil’s elegant response?? Give me a freaking break! That british faggot should
be dragged into the streets and shot.

Get
ready to jump and shoot in Broken Game 3. And be grateful to people like
charles motherfucking cecil that the adventure genre is taking a dive into total
destruction and 3d action mania.

I
of course respect our reader’s privacy, so I’ll keep the writer of this charming
missive anonymous, except to tell you that his email address is [email protected]
and he signed his name “Gaston.”

Let’s
begin by scolding me. How petty, you must be thinking, to actually quote such
a stupid letter. And you’re right! Petty, petty petty. And that’s the central
point of today’s rant. Pettiness.

ME
TALK PETTY ONE DAY

But
before I can even get to the pettiness, we have to deal with another thing that’s
been sticking in my otherwise kind and tolerant craw: IGNORANCE.

Aside
from displaying his lack of knowledge of basic grammar (“it’s” doesn’t take an
apostrophe unless you are meaning to make a contraction of “it is”), Mr. Gaston
displays a shocking lack of understanding of basic game genres. He accuses Broken
Sword 3 of being a Tomb Raider clone.

Uh,
WRONG. The Tomb Raider games are classic examples of a genre called “action-adventure.”
This is a completely separate genre from “adventure.” What makes the difference?
It’s actually quite easy to define. In an action-adventure, some form of combat
is as important to the gameplay as puzzle-solving and story. The Tomb Raider
games are a very satisfying combination (for many players, anyway) of these three
types of gameplay elements. Other great examples of action-adventures would be
the last two Indiana Jones games, Outcast, the Resident Evil
series (and all survival horror games, for that matter) and the Prince of Persia
games.

While there may
be some combat in the final build of BK: The Sleeping Dragon, I didn’t
see one shred of evidence of any in the playable portions of the game we were
shown at E3.

IN
DEFENSE OF THAT BRITISH F&%#(T

Okay, big flippin’ deal, you might be saying to yourself. Why go off on one letter from an ill-informed, ignorant, illiterate homophobe?

Because,
and it pains me to report this, Dear Readers, but Randy and I get letters like
this every week.

And every
day, I read opinions like this in fora across the internet.

And,
though I know it could put my very readership at risk for saying so, I’ve got
to say it. And I say the following with all the love in my heart:

HERE
GOES: We adventure gamers are the biggest bunch of hair-triggered,
provincial, neophobic, judgmental whiny babies since that huge group of southern
American women who, sixty-five years ago, threatened to boycott the film of “Gone
With the Wind” because David O. Selznick hired a Brit to play Scarlet O’Hara.

SO
JUST WHAT THE HELL IS AN ADVENTURE GAME, THEN?

Yep,
I’m feeling arrogant enough to venture an actual strict definition of what a Pure
Adventure Game is.

ADVENTURE
GAME: A computer/video game wherein the gameplay is a mixture of story, exploration
and puzzle solving (in almost ANY ratio of the three), WITHOUT containing SIGNIFICANT
combat elements.

There
you have it. I stand by this definition. By this definition even story-free games
like Jewels of the Oracle and Safecracker are “pure” adventure games.
So are Azrael’s Tear and In Cold Blood, because even though both
have combat, in neither game is the combat a significant element of the gameplay.

Adventure purists, who’ve
been hyperventilating ever since adventure games began inching toward 3D, don’t
understand the difference between “action” and “combat.”

In a 3D environment, the game designer is freed to expand puzzle solving into the physical world. In a game like Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, this means that there can be a puzzle like this: How can Nico get from this hotel room, through the balcony, and into the other hotel room without falling or being detected? I submit that this sort of puzzle has absolutely as much right to be in an adventure game as the “How to make Rube Goldberg tea” in Temujin or “How to make a monkey wrench” in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. It’s just a different kind of puzzle.

Just
because some of the new wave of adventure games having characters that can move
through realistic environments doesn’t make these games “action” games. In most
cases, it doesn’t even make them “action-adventure” games.

I
find it incredibly short-sighted and, frankly, ungrateful when I see the sort
of petty sniping that ensues on our beloved message boards. The things that have
been written about Charles Cecil literally make me sick. This is one of the most
creative, dynamic and proven designers in the history of the adventure game genre.

If you adopted this short-sighted
criteria, here’s a classic “adventure” game that wouldn’t make the cut: Bad
Mojo. Essentially that game is ALL “action.” Or how about Phantasmagoria
and Are You Afraid of the Dark? Both games end with frantic, life or death chase
scenes involving the player. Sounds suspiciously action-y to me!

Are
you folks forgetting all of the fist fighting in Indiana Jones and the Fate of
Atlantis? How about the game of darts in The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes:
The Rose Tattoo? Ooh, let’s not forget the battle in the pumpkin patch in
Sanitarium. Or the final showdown battles in Ripper and Gabriel
Knight 3. Or the various deadly amusement park gauntlets in Part 2 of The
Quivering. Or the gunfight in Dust: A Tale of the Wired West. Or evading
the robots in Alcatraz in Tex Murphy: Overseer? These are all considered
to be completely respectable, if not classic, “pure adventure” games.

And
guess what much-beloved, endlessly-discussed game on boards like this ISN’T an
adventure game at all? That’s right, Realms of the Haunting. By any reasonable
definition, that’s an action adventure: the combat never stops in it.

I’ve
said it a million times and I’ll say it once again. Anytime you are dealing with
an endeavor that has anything to do with computers, you don’t get to wish things
wouldn’t progress forward. The world of computers will ALWAYS move quickly. And
of all genres, only adventure players constantly whine about game technology advancing.
Without exception, players of every other genre welcome new technologies with
wide open eyes. If you want your games to stay frozen in time, I suggest you develop
a newfound appreciation for board games or jigsaw puzzles.

CONCLUSION:
OPEN A NEW WINDOW

Anyone
a musical comedy fan? (Anyone still reading?!) Remember these lyrics from Jerry
Herman’s Mame?:

Open
a new window
Open a new door
Travel a new highway
That’s never been tried
before
Before you find you’re a dull fellow
Punching the same clock
Walking
the same tightrope
As everyone on the block . . .

We are living in the most exciting times to EVER play computer and video games, my friends. This is really true. What overwhelmed me the most at E3 this year was the sheer width of the umbrella of today’s game world. There is truly something for everyone out there. New technologies are expanding what’s possible in gaming faster than designers can even figure out how to exploit them.

Therefore,
with the best will in the world, I entreat my adventure-loving friends to take
a moment, take a deep breath, and go the dictionary. That book has a much broader
definition of “adventure” than the one I used for “adventure game.”

TOUGH
LOVE

I’m awfully
sorry for the edge in my voice, Dear Readers, but as always I have to tell it
to you as I see it. You, of course, are free to snort at me and go back to playing
The Cassandra Galleries.

But
I beg you to open a new window. There’s a staggering world of adventure out there
in the world of computer and video games. Instead of whining that games aren’t
the same as they were in 1992, why not open your eyes and see all the wonderful
things that are headed your way?