Quote:
Originally Posted by phankiejankie
Here's a little tip too, 2D or 2.5D games don't sell hardware... We are just entering the 3D realm whereas in the FPS camp the talk is all about DX10. We are way behind and sadly this is the plain truth. There is a lot of catching up to do but I can see no good budgets or innovative producers to do so. If the 3D thing is to be done, developers should it properly. A 3D game that looks like 3-5 years old visually is a dead goose. Sadly most, well ALL adventures games look like that. Before anyone starts flaming about 3D graphics and how graphics are not important and blah,blah,blah I am referring to mainstream market success not the adventure niche clique.
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This is why I think Phoenix Wright, Hotel Dusk and Sam & Max are the three recent adventure games that have been getting a decent amount of buzz in mainstream forums, while everything else doesn't get a peep. Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk are on hardware that doesn't carry a lot of expectations, so the lack of spectacular graphics doesn't kill them. Hotel Dusk goes one further by using incredibly stylized graphics to make up for technical shortcomings. Sam & Max also does this to an extent, not being the best looking game technically but conveying a ton of personality anyway. All three games also have great, compelling writing with puzzles that either meld perfectly into the story, or don't grind everything to a screeching halt.
Basically, the games are aware of the genre's benefits and limitations and are working with them in intelligent and creative ways.
I'd also argue that the same can be done with Myst-esque adventure games, to open them up to a wider audience (hell, check out the popularity of web games like Crimson Room and other flash micro-adventure games... people do enjoy solving puzzles in atmospheric situations, the question is why they haven't been willing to pay for them). The problem there, however, is that there's less room for distinction... most games in that subgenre don't try to go for anything beyond "pretty pictures with a bunch of puzzles," which is fine for some people and isn't a bad thing in and of itself, except the very series that spawned this subgenre actually had a great deal of interesting lore and culture behind it that sets it apart from the rest, even today. There's nothing wrong with the whole "lone guy in a mysterious and picturesque place has to solve a ton of puzzles" motif, but it's just as subject to laziness as any other type of game.
