[daniel_beck_90]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

The upcoming Heavy Rain proves that adventure games can go beyond the typical solve-puzzle-get-cutscene shtick.



I'm thinking your sentiments definitely applied several years ago. However, a lot has changed since then in other types of games in terms of how narrative is presented to the player. First person shooters, RPGs, and action adventures have since progressed a lot since 2000.

First let me clarify that I own both Xbox360 and PS3 and spend most of my free time playing with those consoles . So I am definitely aware of the top quality of many modern games such as Mass Effect and Metal Gear Solid 4 and so on and the changes that are made to improve those games and gaming in general .

What's interesting is that the adventure game type itself has fundamentally remained the same. It has not evolved like some other game types.

Unfortunately I can not totally agree with you because we have seen insignificant yet notable differences and improvements in some of the more recent adventure games .Tendency towards faster pace , new mini-games , better use of 3D models , hint systems and hotspot revealers are among those little differences that some may forget to mention .

One amusing definition I keep in mind is that adventure games are typical puzzle games using stories as an excuse. At least, that's my funny take on it from a superficial top down perspective. But of course it's more complex than that.

Your statement applies to some adventure games , mostly from the more traditional companies such as Kheops Studio , but not all adventure games are in this category . For the records , I hate such adventure games myself .

Could you please elaborate? What are those details? And how are they ultimately special compared to the details of other game types?

When you hear Guybrush's comment regarding something as simple as a bowl or interact with the dark environment looking for a clue in Still Life 1 or see Walker wandering in this wonderland of Syberia...... you know that adventure genre has something that no other genre can present .
Can you ever inspect a room looking for a trace of blood or talk to witnesses and interrogate them or make a game like Overclocked an action game ?

Please define "better".

Better here depicts , deeper , in more detail and from different and sometimes radical angles .

But haven't other game types like RPGs and first person shooters been featuring a high level interaction in their game worlds for years now? I remember in Deus Ex (Eidos, 2000) you could pick up most anything remotely useful to your character, if not the game world. In Half-Life 2 you were able to stack several objects to make your way safely through an environment using the physical properties of the objects (video; though the main challenges involved action skills). In Mass Effect you could avoid violence and talk your way out of touchy situations, all in real time.



In System Shock 2 (first person RPG, 1999) most of the story was revealed in logs by dead crew members, or in other ways. In Bioshock the story details were enriched by voice recordings of the once alive inhabitants of the vast undersea city, and it's up to you to piece them all together to get an understanding of the story in all its tragedy. Mass Effect offered all the above, including real time playable in-game cutscenes where you, the player, steered the dialog and whatever action followed.



Watch this seductive, lush opening cutscene of Bioshock to see how a non-adventure game tells a story.

Well, well . If you take a good look at my previous post you'll realize that I said WITH THE EXCEPTION OF RPGs and that is because RPGs like for example Fallout 3 (My favorite) manage to approach the situation a bit different than say Call of Duty 4 ! and force the player into engaging in dialogs and story elements .

You could say the same about many other non-adventure type games (that is, based on the accepted definition of adventures by sites like AG). All the elements are there.

Can you ever make a game like Darkness Within in any genre other than adventure ? While some of the famous elements such as dialog trees and puzzles could be found in other genres but the essence of an adventure game is the way it approaches each situation , is the type of stories it focuses on . You talk a lot about other genres , lets scrutinize them a bit shall we ?
First Person Shooters more often than not are about fighting terrorists or replica soldiers or deadly monsters . There are some amazing game like Bioshock that while look more like a FPS are truly an adventure game with a a focus on combat which I consider as rare exceptions .
Action games as the name suggests are all about moving and running and dodging and shooting and so on . Action-Adventure games like Resident Evil franchise try to combine the action with some puzzle solving and item usage but they are really nothing more than an action game . Role Playing which is the closest to adventure genre while employ dialog trees and item finding is mostly about saving the world or fulfilling something rather cliche towards the end . So I think what makes Adventure genre so special is its uniqueness when it comes to choosing which story to tell and how .

Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of this thread - stupidly designed puzzles that look and feel like they've been shoved in at the last minute by incredibly lazy or inept designers. It's as if they couldn't be bothered. How unfortunate.

God I loathe such puzzles .

Well, you could also write to the developers and publishers guilty of this. Tell them exactly what you stated here. If enough people do that they may finally listen. But if enough people stop buying their games precisely for stated reasons, then they have no choice BUT to listen.

I think they are already aware of this matter and that is why I find myself less frustrated while playing more recent adventure games .

I think part of this is that those companies are finally getting smart and trying, however half-arsed, to reach out and get new people interested in their products. Another is that they've finally gotten it into their thick skulls that many veteran gamers are sick of their crap. Let's hope it all signals towards a sustained effort to improve the games. Of course, it does largely depend on you and other gamers here to let these companies know their products are not acceptable and that you cannot give them your money til they improve it. The economy is too tough for gamers to part with their coin, and it's certainly too tough for game companies to just ignore that reality.

Like you said , let's hope that developers hit the message boards more often and improve their games based on opinions of their fans .