The State of Adventure Gaming–December 1998
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!
