The State of Adventure Gaming
By Randy
Sluganski
December 1998
A few months ago, I made a prediction
that the end of this year would see a turning point, be it good or bad, for adventure
games and gamers. Now that time has come–for adventure gamers are fighting back.
They are fighting back on the newsgroups that for much too long have been ruled
by the negative nabobs who dislike every new game they have played in the last
five years. For them the glory days of gaming ended with the Infocom text adventures
or the early LucasArts games. It is a shame that these gloom-meisters preach that
every game must be of the quality of a Curse of Monkey Island or Grim
Fandango and thus their elitism and myopic viewpoints are depriving them the
immense joy of tasting and savoring this new age of action/adventure/3D gaming.
Adventure gamers are fighting back by demanding that web gaming sites cease and
desist with their negative descriptions of adventure gamers; the best way to do
this is to just not frequent these sites. They are fighting back as is evidenced
by the increased sales figures of adventure games this holiday season (this despite
the best attempts of misinformed marketing departments to bury these new titles
in obscurity). It appears that the lethargic adventurer has been awoken from his
(and her) deep slumber, and I hope the upheaval is just beginning!
What
truly baffles me is that the same purveyors of doom who bemoan the decline of
creativity in the adventure game will then complain if a review is not written
to conform to what have become pre-established standards. These are people whose
opinions have been formed by years of digesting standardized template reviews
on other gaming sites and in computer magazines. I for one, and this is just my
opinion, couldn’t care less what the system requirements for a game are or how
much space it will monopolize on my hard drive. In this day of high-end systems
and 17 Gig hard drives is that really important? This information can be found
on the game’s box or even in some advertisements. Nor do I want to a blow-by-blow
description of plot nuances. I do want to know how the reviewer “felt”
while playing the game–were they bored, frustrated, rapturous? Did the game inspire
the reviewer to new heights of inspiration; where there ethical or moral issues
raised within the game that made the reviewer uneasy? Questions such as these
are much more important to me when I want to play a game than the usual drivel
you can find in almost any review. I would guess that the majority of people reading
the review already know what the game is about yet they become irate if we don’t
reiterate the plot. Why don’t we all just for once discard our preconceptions
of what and how a review should be written? Throw away your blinders and open
your senses to everything that a game has to offer. We at Just Adventure will
continuously attempt to deviate from the norm. If we write a few reviews that
rankle our readers, well, then, we have done our job. If we write a few articles
that please our readers, then we have also done our job. I am not insinuating
that everything we do is successful, but we are striving to be interesting and
we do listen, so don’t write just when you have a complaint, but write and let
us also know what you like about JA. (See also Game
Reviewing 101.)
We are an adventure gaming site and as such we love
adventure games. Maybe sometimes a little too much according to some of our readers.
But honestly, what would you rather read: a review that is a little too positive
or reviews that are consistently negative? As evidenced by the phenomenal increase
in our readership over the past three months, adventure gamers are sick of the
lack of the adventure coverage on other sites. We do our best to be fair, but
we are still experiencing growing pains. One reader remarked that other sites
are under no obligation to review or preview adventure games. If that were true,
then why don’t some of these other sites just change their names to “We review
every genre except adventure games.com”? Doesn’t the very use of the word
“game” in your URL strongly suggest a responsibility to cover all genres?
A young lady who goes by the name of Catty on the newsgroups blamed the decline
in the amount of adventure games on a lack of coverage (except for the major releases)
by the magazines and newsgroups. I agree with her 100 percent. This lack
of respect by misguided web editors and their action-addled reviewers who get
migraines from solving puzzles is what led to the creation of Just Adventure.
I
have only been the co-editor of Just Adventure for six months now, but they have
been the most exciting six months of my gaming life. I have met, spoken with and
exchanged e-mails with people from all over the world. I have seen the site grow
from a small fan site to a webzine that is now internationally recognized. I would
like to take this moment to publicly thank the founder of Just Adventure, Craig
White, for this opportunity and to wish him and the rest of the JA staff a very
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. To our thousands of readers, I extend the
same greeting and I hope you stay with and guide us as we continue to grow. We
are constantly striving to improve, and with your input we will be at the forefront
of the coming adventure game resurgence. Have a great holiday, and I hope you
get that game you want under the tree.
PS–See that link for Talkspot
at the top of the main page? Well, make sure you click on it on December 11th.
This is your chance to talk with one of the legends of gaming: Roberta Williams!
The broadcast will be moderated by Johnny Wilson, the editor of Computer Gaming
World. Love MOE, hate MOE, now is your chance to let her know!
Make your voice as an adventure gamer heard!
