[Bastich]

Vote for the worst adventure game cliches!

Cliche Monsters: Vampires, Mummies, Zombies & more. Oh my!

Ancient Civilizations: Egypt, Atlantis, the Aztecs, the Druids, and more. Apparently the Discovery Channel isn't enough! Why create your own setting, when there are plenty to find at the library?

Knights Templar: Do I actually have to say anything? This gets a category of its own.

Literary Adaptations: Pohl, Pratchett, Poe, Wells, King, Verne, Doyle, Gibson, Tolkien, Dumas, Adams, Wyss, Clarke, Stevenson, Crichton, Bradbury, Stoker, Shelley, et al. Why write your own story or characters, when you can use someone else's? Not to mention you can at least cash in on the name if it sucks...

Movie/TV Adaptations: Creativity is such a bore! Keep pushing that brand name out the door!

Curses: I would comment, but I would fall victim to the Bastich family curse...

Saving the World: Will this ever stop being abused? Let me destroy it next time, or at least make the denizens wish I had...

Serial Killers: Oh let me count the ways to slice them and dice them...

Amnesia: What was I saying?

Other: There are many more. List them here. Fire away at such creative decay!!!


In case it isn't obvious, this post is meant mostly as humor, despite the truth of some of it...

[Skinny Minnie]

You should put up a similar poll concerning puzzle cliches, too. How about those mazes, sliding tile puzzles, key-collecting missions, and timed sequences?

[tabacco]

"Let me get this straight... does anyone here NOT have Amnesia?"

"For when I tell you these three simple words, you could very well have an explosive bout of amnesia!"

Ahhh, Futurama

[Kurdt]

I think the poll should moreso be "What's the most OVERUSED plot device?" I chose TV adaptations. I'm still a sucker for the rest. Maybe I'm just too desperate for adventure that I'll take it in any half-decent package around.

[D.C.]

I don't think any of them are bad. It's just a matter of how they're implemented. Games can be made by a company that utilize these themes and they can still be creative.

[remixor]

SerialFreak took the words right out of my mouth.

[nordic_guy]

Serial Killers: Oh let me count the ways to slice them and dice them...
Movie/TV Adaptations: Creativity is such a bore! Keep pushing that brand name out the door!

I don't think I have ever played an adventure game with any of those two topics/elements. Any game you would recommend?
My vote, anyway, goes to the saving of the world, of course. It seems like the world is in need of serious help in the game world. All the time.

[Kurdt]

Well, if you want recent examples, The Black Mirror is essentially a serial killer and Law & Order and CSI are both TV shows that got games for them. You could make a case for the GK games to be serial killers.

[Bastich]

Originally Posted by Kurdt

I think the poll should moreso be "What's the most OVERUSED plot device?"

That is actually what I meant. But I screwed up the question on the poll and as far as I know, I can't edit it. I did say in the first post that it was about cliches to try to steer people back on course.

And SerialFreak and Remixor. You are taking it WAY too seriously. Some of my favorite adventure games fit squarely in some of those categories. This is mostly a humorous dig at the topical repetitiveness found in the adventure genre.

[Bastich]

Originally Posted by nordic_guy

Serial Killers: Oh let me count the ways to slice them and dice them...
Movie/TV Adaptations: Creativity is such a bore! Keep pushing that brand name out the door!

I don't think I have ever played an adventure game with any of those two topics/elements. Any game you would recommend?
My vote, anyway, goes to the saving of the world, of course. It seems like the world is in need of serious help in the game world. All the time.

Serial Killers: Black Mirror, Black Dahlia, Ripper, Post Mortem, Police Quest 3 (I'm fairly certain), Jack the Ripper (coming soon), In Memoriam, Mystery of the Druids, Gabriel Knight, and probably many, many more.

Movie/TV: The X Files Game, Beavis & Butthead, Duckman, various Star Trek games, Daria, Ace Ventura, An American Tail, Plan 9 from Outer Space, It Came from the Desert, Law & Order, and CSI, to name a few.

I am sure if I really set my mind to it and did a little internet surfing, I could come up with dozens more for each of those.

[remixor]

Originally Posted by Bastich

And SerialFreak and Remixor. You are taking it WAY too seriously.

Well, considering Serial's post had a smiley face attached, and I echoed his post, I think you're taking our responses WAY too seriously.

[mycroft]

I chose other.
Basically, I want to pigeon-hole two plot devices that I'm sick and tired of.

The Supernatural and Sci-Fi crap.

[atrius]

Cyberpunk. You couldln't avoid cliches in this type of plot, no matter what.
The robot in BASS was there just to break this law (successfully fortunately)

[syntheticgerbil]

Well I'm sure if you combine all of those elements at one time into a cliche supersaga, you are bound to get something good or at least hilarious.

Okay, idea:
We take the book Frankenstein, which firstly takes care of literary adaptations and monsters. We also combine the campy hilarity of something like Bride of Frankenstein for movie adaptations. So as Victor Frankenstein is digging up the grave for his parts, he finds clues for the Knights Templar in some of the graves, leading him to believe that his monster will be half Templar. The monster is created and hits Victor in the face. Frankenstein wakes up with AMNESIA, and wonders where he is. The monster meanwhile is resurrecting his dead Templar friends with the means of Victor's research.

So while Victor is stumbling around forgetful, he encounters an ancient band of Druid descendents who want to keep the dream alive. He is taken under their wing and learns to kill and sacrifice for the well-being of the people. Suddenly the undead Knights Templar rise up over the hill and the druids declare war over their lost treasure, which might be the secret to the holy grail. Frankenstein runs off and decides he covets the grail. He creates a wife for the monster and has her coax the monster from the battle field with her sexiness.

Frankenstein makes her manipulate the monster into telling the secret of the grail with his manly charm. The Grail happens to be located in Egypt. So off they go. Stupid egyptian traps and puzzles pass and Victor is found drinking from the grail. But actually the Grail just gives him amnesia again and he no longer finds himself a druid. He wakes up alone and sees pictures of Cleopatra on the wall with her stunning black hair and slim figure and decides that she alone is the maker of his acursed forgetfulness.

So as he stumbles around North Africa, he kills a bunch of women with black hair. The monster gets married and the druids are impaled by the Templars. The Templars take over the world with their secrets and magic and two men on the horse and soon kill Frankenstein, mostly out of spite rather than his tendency to kill slendar women with black hair. This of course means the world is saved from poverty and pollution. End.

[Ninja Dodo]

I voted Movie/TV because they tend to be used as an excuse to create a crap game and still make money and Monsters plus Saving the World because they're the most generally overused in gaming. Forget believable antagonists. It's big and horrendous and wants to kill you. Blast it back to where it came from... or whatever.

I actually wish there were more literary adaptations. There are exceptions, but usually writing in games needs any help it can get. I sometimes get the impression that most of all the really good films are literary adaptations anyway so perhaps games should follow suit.

Why create your own setting, when there are plenty to find at the library?

I know you're not being fully serious but I'm going to comment on this anyway, so bear with me...

The reason is simple; because these are very interesting settings. These old civilizations are fascinating. I'd love to see more games set in ancient Egypt. There aren't nearly enough games set in ancient Rome and Greece and the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas really don't appear all that much. I'd take an ancient civilization over sci-fi any day. The main thing about this as well, is that these settings have a reality to them that's very hard to match with something that is not real. Sci-fi seems totally fake to me 90% of the time. It just doesn't grab me at all. Designers try to make it all unique and new but what they're missing is that it needs a grounding in reality for people to relate to it. I find The Dig a bit uninteresting simply because apart from the astronauts there is nothing to relate to. It was enjoyable enough to play but when I got stuck I didn't feel especially compelled to keep trying.

[mag]

Isn't "Saving the World" kind of a broad category? I mean, there are lots of ways to save the world, and most of them aren't anything like each other. That one might be a bit unfair. Just a thought.

mag

[Skinny Minnie]

Originally Posted by Bastich

Serial Killers: Black Mirror, Black Dahlia, Ripper, Post Mortem, Police Quest 3 (I'm fairly certain), Jack the Ripper (coming soon), In Memoriam, Mystery of the Druids, Gabriel Knight, and probably many, many more.

Movie/TV: The X Files Game, Beavis & Butthead, Duckman, various Star Trek games, Daria, Ace Ventura, An American Tail, Plan 9 from Outer Space, It Came from the Desert, Law & Order, and CSI, to name a few.

Go Bastich!

[DaveGilbert]

Originally Posted by Ninja Dodo

The reason is simple; because these are very interesting settings. These old civilizations are fascinating. I'd love to see more games set in ancient Egypt.

I agree with you, but I'd asy that I'd like to see *GOOD* games set in ancient Egypt. I'm sick of hearing how mysterious the sphinx and the pyramids are. There's so much more to the country. Egypt has a fascinating mythology, with an up-and-down history of wars, defeats and triumphs that would make an excellent RPG if done right. I've been reading a book series called "Queen of Freedom" by Christian Jacq. It's about the Hyskos invasion of Egypt and it seems very RPGesque. At least in the sense that the rebel queen has to go to the different areas of the empire and convince other leaders to join her (i.e., adding warriors to her party) before taking on the main baddie.

Hm. An egyptian RPG about the Hyskos invasion. I might have something there...

[Ninja Dodo]

Actually on that note (of grounding in reality)... the best sci fi image I ever saw was a spaceship cockpit with a used coffee cup and one of those scent-trees dangling from the top.

[Erwin_Br]

Originally Posted by Ninja Dodo

Actually on that note (of grounding in reality)... the best sci fi image I ever saw was a spaceship cockpit with a used coffee cup and one of those scent-trees dangling from the top.

Was that in the parody movie Spaceballs, maybe?

--Erwin