Articles
THE STATE
OF ADVENTURE GAMING – March 2002
ADVENTURE GAMES – THE
GENRE THAT DOES SELL!
This month we have the
cumulative sales figures for any adventure game that sold at least
1,000 copies in 2001. As always, these figures were compiled by PC
Data and do not include online sales or any sales outside of North
America. To see them just click here.
Probably the biggest surprise
were the outstanding sales figures for King’s
Quest Mask of Eternity, a 4-year old game that sold more units
than many of the newer releases. Tierra’s King’s
Quest 1 remake
(hosted by Just Adventure) would seem to be a driving force behind
the renewed interest in this game. There were also some huge disappointments,
most notably the low sales figures for Stupid
Invaders a game that deserved a better fate. Funnier than
all of the Monkey Island games combined, it just never caught
on with the public. Microids Road
to India and Druuna
suffered from poor distribution which is reflected in their low sales
figures. Children’s adventures are the biggest overall sellers as
the Humongous/Infogrames library of Putt Putt, Pajama Sam
and Freddie Fish games still sell in the hundreds of thousands.
I LOVE THE SMELL OF
CHEETOS IN THE MORNING
According to an article
in the January 3rd New York Times, a group of young programmers have
created an online game called Day of Defeat; a modification
of the popular game Half-Life. Day of Defeat is being touted
as the first video game that lets you choose whether to be an Allied
soldier or a Nazi protagonist and has become very popular since the
release of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. When asked by Jonathan
Kay, the author of the piece, why anyone would want to create a game
that would allow the player to express socially unacceptable sentiments
such as racism and anti-Semitism, 17-year-old Matthew Lane, a Day
of Defeat web designer said:
“There’s nothing like
traveling back more than half a century to put yourself in the boots
of a World War II soldier storming the beaches at Normandy. As kids,
many of us have dreamt what our grandfathers and fathers suffered
through, and fought for, more than 50 years ago. Day of Defeat
just brings these things to reality.”
Right. I can’t think of
anything that more approximates the realism of freezing in a foxhole
while surrounded by the corpses of your fallen comrades than sitting
on your Twinkie-molded ass in front of a monitor munching Cheetos
and swigging a cola.
TAKE OUT THE PAPER AND
THE TRASH….
My wife grumbles that I’m
a packrat. I, on the other hand, think of myself as an adventure historian
preserving minutiae for future generations of gamers. Still, in an
attempt to appease my non-adventuring spouse (aka the heathen), it
was time to sort through the accumulation that had overrun the Just
Adventure office.
So
what lay hidden beneath the layers of dust? How about a cornucopia
of adventure trinkets unequaled in the history of mankind. So many
goodies, in fact, that a ’10 Best’ article spotlighting the best and
most curious adventure game oddities is currently being written. In
the meantime, here is a small sampling of what to expect:
In 1997, Dreamcatcher released
Cydonia. Due to some legalities associated with the name Cydonia,
the game was re-released as Lightbringer. At the E3 that year,
Marshall Zwicker, the man responsible for developing Dreamcatcher’s
box art, gifted me with a prototype box for the DVD version of Lightbringer.
As luck would have it, different art was used for the eventual release,
so the box pictured here has never before been seen by the public.
HE DOESN’T LIKE ANY
BALLS NEAR HIS FACE
The March 2002 issue of
PC Gamer features their 8th Annual PC Gamer Awards. Awards are bestowed
for best action game, best sports game, best simulation, best game
that recreates a decapitation as performed by a scantily clad, huge-breasted
woman and so on. As usual, there is no award for best adventure game.
But wait, what is this
I see on the last page of the magazine in an article that proposes
to present some of the year’s less-than-special moments in PC gaming
titled ‘Games that made us go hmmmm….”, but a special adventure
award:
The Schizm Beyond
Dracula’s Mysterious Sanctuary award for the most forgettable adventure
game. Uh…we don’t know – any Dreamcatcher game.
Stellar praise indeed!
Especially from a magazine that allows its sport’s editor to review
the adventure games.
THIS AIN’T BRAIN SURGERY
In the past, we have usually
agreed with Dreamcatcher’s policy of changing the name of an historically
titled game that has been previously released in Europe. Thus Jerusalem
becomes Timescape and Faust is changed to Seven Games
of the Soul and so on. American gamers are more apt to buy a game
that does not sound educational.
But
we also think that a major marketing blunder occurred when it was
decided to change the title The Secret of Loch Ness to The
Cameron Files: Secret at Loch Ness. Loch Ness has now been reduced
to a subtitle and is not even readily apparent on the box. Why would
you push one of the world’s most well-known myths in folklore to the
background in favor of the name of an unknown detective? To compound
this comedy of errors, why would you then disguise the box to look
as though it is wrapped in a brown paper bag? What would have been
the problem with putting a picture of the Loch Ness Monster on the
cover and calling the game The Secret of Loch Ness – The Cameron
Files? Dreamcatcher has failed to take advantage of thousands
of already existing websites, books, magazines and videos that have
focused on the Loch Ness Monster. Instead they have doomed the game
to anonymity. I have already watched as potential purchasers at Electronic
Boutique have bypassed the box without a second glance. Do you think
they would have done the same if the Loch Ness Monster were on the
cover?
From what we understand,
The Cameron Files was planned to be a continuing series involving
different cases and that probably played a big part in Dreamcatcher’s
decision to name the game The Cameron Files. But sometimes
the answers are so obvious and the solutions so simple that even a
team of experts can be fooled.
DAGNABIT – WHY I REMEMBER
WHEN WE HAD TO PLAY GAMES IN BLACK AND WHITE!
You may not remember a
wonderful adventure game named Realms of the Haunting that
was way ahead of its time. ROTH successfully combined elements
of a First Person Shooter and an adventure games puzzles and, in my
opinion, has yet to be equaled.
Well, it seems some blokes
from merry, olde England have, in the tradition of Tierra and King’s
Quest 1, decided to remake ROTH using the Undying graphics
engine and are calling their effort Undying
Realms.
Keep in mind that progress
is slow as they are doing it in their spare time for free, but what
I have seen so far is very impressive. Now before some of you starting
getting all grumpy on me and complaining that the remake has dropped
some of its adventure aspects, keep in mind that the ability to modify
many of today’s action and strategy games is exactly what has strengthened
those genres. Who knows, what’s good for the goose may also be good
for the gander in the world of pc gaming.
HAIL, HAIL THE GANG’S
ALL HERE
As you have probably noticed
we have scads of excellent new staff members at JA. In our newly formed
console section reviewing action/adventure games are Scott Jelinek,
Dawn Johnson and Joe Waddington – all three of whom also pull double-duty
at Intel Gamer.
Soon to commander our screenshot
section is James Korwek, long-time JA fan and an expert at digging-up
box shots of new releases. From Spain, Mark Ross, besides contributing
an occasional column is also working on reviews of Runaway
and Hollywood Monsters. You can also now read bios of all of
your favorite JA writers in our JA
Staff section.
Plus, we are also in the
process of offering the largest collection of downloadable adventure
games and demos available on the internet and an entire section devoted
to fan fiction based on adventure game characters.
Need more? We’ll soon have
an exclusive interview with Benoit Sokal, creator of Amerzone
and Cyberia. Fresh reviews of many old games, a Titanic giveaway
and, because you demanded it, new Top 10 Lists!
RED HERRINGS
The
Watchmaker is currently scheduled to be released on May 15th at
a retail price of $39.99. We will soon have information on how this
long-awaited game can be purchased.
Meanwhile, it looks as
though it will be a few more weeks before we have a release date for
Simon 3D. The distributor has promised to notify us the moment
he has a retail price and release date.
It seems as though Sierra
is getting back into the business of making adventure games! Rumors
are afoot that the Space Quest series may be rejuvenated and
there is even a whispering of a King’s Quest revival. While
Sierra will not confirm any information regarding games that are not
yet official, Just Adventure has been promised some exclusive information
if and when these games are announced.
