[Jackal]

Originally Posted by mrk

The problem I have with Portal being covered on Adventuregamers is that Portal is more like action-adventures and 1st person shooters than it is like 1st person adventures like Myst or Lighthouse.

It controls more like one, sure. Its puzzle-solving raison d'être is entirely more like Myst than any action game in existence. But Myst is just one limited style of adventure game anyway, so that isn't really a definitive comparison one way or the other.

The action elements should then be considered the deciding factor. In general, if this last element is highly debatable I do not think it should be considered for Adventuregamers.

And they often are. But in Portal's case, the reliance on "action" is very small, unless you consider any kind of physical in-game movement to be action. As for your conclusion, I couldn't disagree more. Just to satisfy some arbitrarily rigid standard, we should deny all the people who would otherwise benefit from our coverage of a borderline game? I don't see where that makes any sense at all. I'd rather "err" on the side of being helpful to people.

I'm sure there are a few jumps in Portal that some people simply won't be able to make. But you know what? I've seen hint forums littered with requests for Nancy Drew save games because some minigame or another is too hard. If we start eliminating games just because there are some difficult sections, there are a whoooooole lot of adventures that are going to fall in that purge.

Even some Tetris-like puzzle games have puzzle solving within a narrative framework.

If a Tetris-like puzzle game ramped up the narrative to the kind of all-encompassing level of Portal, we'd probably review that, too. You speak as if adventure elements are allowed to be tacked-on afterthoughts just to qualify, but they need to be integral, irreplaceable components. In Portal, they are. It isn't Portal anymore if you take out the story. And if you take out the puzzles... well, there just isn't any game left.

I do not think there are many people who would consider Loderunner an adventure game, but why is Portal considered to be one on Adventuregamers?

Beats me, I haven't played Loderunner. If it meets our definition of adventure, we would review it.

If quality was the main reason to review games, any type of game could be reviewed on Adventuregamers, however quality of games is not what the main discussion should be about.

Uhh, I didn't say it was the main reason to review games, I said it was the reason for giving a high score. You're arguing that a game shouldn't get five stars because some people wouldn't even want to play it.

I am not running the website nor one of the reviewers so I don't know all about these new review choice standards, possibly introduced to keep the website online.

They aren't "new" standards. They are the same standards as always, applied to new and different games. But this questioning of what qualifies as an adventure game has ALWAYS existed. Some people still squawk about Myst being called one. And even if most agree on the main ones, pick any single year of AG's existence, and I can find some borderline games that defy traditional genre standards. (Hypothetically speaking; I don't really have time for such an exercise.)

I do not think review choices should be made based on the fact some adventure gamers might have interest in those other type of genres (or blended genres) or to tap new audiences via the more "popular mainstream" games which have some adventure elements but are far away from most other games reviewed on the website.

They aren't. We review games that fit our definition of adventure and don't review (or at least grade) those that don't. Believe what you want, but that's the reality.