The State of Adventure Gaming–July 1998

The State of Adventure Gaming

By Randy Sluganski
July 1998

The highs and lows of a month! Fresh from the euphoria that was E3, where every adventure masqueraded as an instant classic and all release dates were imminent, to the past few days, lazily playing The X-Files, knowing in the back of my mind that it may be the last new adventure game for a few months. For it seems that a recent spate of games have had their release dates “pushed back” and a few have even been canceled.

As any true adventure fan knows, Warcraft Adventures and Space Quest 7 have been scratched, also, rumors of an update of the Infocom classic Planetfall proved to be untrue. What really worries me though is what fellow columnist Andy Bellatti called a “summer slump” may actually last through the fall. According to recent revised release dates, Gabriel Knight 3 has been rescheduled for January of 1999, the new King’s Quest is now scheduled for November, Star Trek: Vulcan Fury has been transported to the first quarter of 1999, as has the new Indiana Jones. The adventure game pickings this fall will indeed be very slim! There is still hope, though, as Grim Fandango, Dark Side of the Moon, Morpheus, Redjack and the new Quest for Glory may keep us curled up in front of a warm monitor this fall and winter.

What truly perplexes me though is the apathetic attitude of some of these companies. I have sent e-mails, faxed and phoned requests for publicity material, demos, updates or evaluation copies to every company that has an adventure game scheduled for release in the imminent future. The majority of the marketing personnel have been wonderful. Sierra, Piranha, Fox Interactive and Southpeak have been very forthcoming in response to my requests for any information at all related to their products. Other companies such as Media X (Big Brother), Dreamcatcher (Cydonia, Jewels II) and Cryo (Egypt, Forbidden City) have totally disregarded all of my pleas. I find this incredulous. By ignoring us, they are biting the hand that feeds them. The readers of the Just Adventure webzine are the backbone of the adventure industry. Some of our readers/visitors have included Jane Jensen, Lori Coles, the staff at Southpeak (Temujin) and DreamForge (Sanitarium), just to name a few. From what I’ve seen from the message board, we range in age from 14 to 66 and are from all over the world. And we are certainly an opinionated group of people! The majority of us if presented with the decision of buying a new adventure game or skipping lunch for a week or two, would, I am positive, decide to go hungry.

What really piques me about the aforementioned companies, though, is that they will flood the offices of the major gaming magazines and the bigger webzines with publicity and review material that will be scoffed at by the recipients. These “big boys” will then slam the product, calling it just another Myst clone or just another slow-moving tedious game that requires you to solve puzzles. No blood, no guts, no good review.

On the bright side, we at Just Adventure are here for the adventure fan. We come from all over the world and represent all age groups. Craig is from Canada, Andy from Argentina, and I am in the United States. Our viewpoints may at times differ, but we all share a common interest in that our thirst for adventure gaming will never be quenched.

Craig and I will be trying what we think is an innovative approach to reviewing, as Craig will be reviewing new games from the viewpoint of Generation X and I from the Baby Boomer viewpoint. These two reviews of the same game may actually be divergent or, who knows, maybe our age differences will affect the way we view the product. Either way, they should be interesting and maybe even controversial. Before summer ends, I hope to have an exclusive interview and visit with the staff of Sanitarium. I have a new column starting next week called “The Adventurer’s Dungeon of Shame” that will highlight some of the worst adventure games ever released, a review of the X-Files, a column on adventure games you never knew existed and much more. Plus, with Craig back from his sojourn to the Yukon and our other excellent contributors back from hiatus, well, things are going to get real interesting around here! Come back often and let us know what you think!