Adventure Game Scene of the Day - Thursday
 

Why are todays 3rd person adventures so non-interactive (Syberia, Still Life). I like to *look* at *object* and get a description from the character of what it is he/she observes. :frown:

Because the writing (especially intelligent writing), voice acting and possibly animation this requires is expensive, what do you think? :P

If that's what you want, and if you haven't played Death Gate, Cahallan's Crosstime's Saloon nad (to a lesser extent) Shannara, then do. In these games, almost every action has a different answer, and you can look at pretty much everything in the screens. Sweet.

What he said. At one point in Shannara when you have to use a bow, trying to "shoot at windows" generates the response beginning with "While we understand general frustration with Microsoft..." or something to that effect. :D

Which reminds me: any chance of a neither-Sierra-nor-LucasArts game screenshot soon? :)

Sometimes you try random stuff that doesn't make sense, and you've got an answer, that's what's great.
In any case, there's absolutely no instance of this "that doesn't work" bullshit.
Which, by the way, is at its worst in Discworld. :frusty:

The man with the hat in his greatest computer game adventure! :)

Two words about this game: Doug Lee.

I think its because recent adventures have great pre-rendered graphics and we dont need a description of everything on screen, we can understand what it is by ourselves. So, unless its a funny or interesting remark about something, I think we can live without the tons of lines to read.

Actually, no.

The Legend games I was talking about have very detailed graphics, but the descriptions add a lot to the game. First of all, they're funny. Second, they help figuring out what to do.
And for example, if I try cutting somthing with scissors, a "that doesn't work" is not enough. I want something along the lines of "this scissors are not sharp enough".

Even with the graphics I like the feeling of involvement a game gets when you can fiddle with your surrounding. Syberia as an example wasn't more that a pretty story to me while Monkey Island 2 or Gabriel Knight became a puzzle adventures. I can understand it costing money to implement such features though. Still I prefer it the old school way.

Yes, I agree. That's what I was saying, if the interaction adds anything to the game then I have no problem with it. But if there are tons of hot spots so that the player can get a description of everything and every action, I think its quite useless.

By the way, the Legend games are great! I was not trying to make a point against them, I just have this dirty habit of defending Syberia against the "good old days" point of view...

Well, ok. In fact, I don't mind the lack of hotspots in Syberia.
In some games it doesn't matter, because these games are focusing on something else, but in other games, that's just frustrating.

You see, I think those descriptions are the most important part of character development in an adventure game.
Take GK3, almost everything in the world could be examined, and you got different desciptions depending on whether it was Gabe or Grace who did the looking. I mean, just from examining all the paintings in your hotel room, you got a lot of insight into your protagonists.
On the other hand, I never got any read into Kate's personality in Syberia.

Martin Mystere is the only recent game with that kind of interaction. You can look at tons of stuff that has nothing to do with the game.

Most modern games are about as interactive as a movie.

Syberia etc being the worst.

Hopefully Steve Ince's idea of High interaction density is a step in teh right direction.

I think we can get a pretty good picture of Kate's personality in Syberia by the dialogues and the choices she makes along the game, I mean, we can see how the events presented changed her personality.

But, what is interaction, anyway? Is a character being able to click and get a description of everything? For example Fahrenheit, we dont get anything except the dialogues in terms of text, but it's cleary one of the most immersive adventure games, no? It had character development, strong personalities.

Sure (about Fahrenheit), but it's not very interactive. In fact, in the end, I felt kinda like the story had unfolded itself without my help (other than playing Simon).

that was one of the big bad points of that game, they just went over the top and the descriptions wernt exactly funny or interesting either.

It just made finding what you needed allot harder :shifty:

"Ankh" has that interaction, though you should be careful not to click the first comment away when Assil (or Thara) says it, beccause after that initial comment, they will only say a shortened version.


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