[aBoyinPERIL]

Hi guys,

This is something I have thought a lot about over the past couple of years and finally have found the words to express what I have been thinking all along. Let me know what you think.

For a long time recently I have actually shunned the Adventure Genre, I locked my old games away, petered off playing Strategy games which I even eventually stopped after a while too. My PC became my office again and was wholly used for administrating my Drama Company .

Why did this happen? Well in truth I felt challenged by the shift from quality stories and in-depth and immersive game play to 3D graphics and complicated control systems. In my opinion the curse of modernisation was killing the adventure game. I was also caught in a time where games such as Broken Sword, TLJ, Monkey Island 1,2,3 kept close to my heart and were a constant reminder as to why I fell in love with the adventure game in the first place. Even this website became frustrating (sorry guys) but it seemed to become like an old gents club with every new topic brought up being directed to someone who had already had posted a thread similar 3-4 months ago! No room for new and fresh opinions. (I see this happening with this thread, ha ha). Anyway, I suppose I felt increasingly intimidated by those who have played every Adventure game out there and now were becoming slightly bitter and I joined the bandwagon. Controversial eh, lol? But hey that was my problem - not anyone else's.

All this combined with my increasing disappointment of games being released and I guess just trying too hard to break new ground and failing to live up to their hype made me come to the conclusion that yes the Adventure Game was dying. And it made me really sad so I walked away.

Then three things hit home that took all of that negativity and gave it a right royal boot up the backside.

1) Underground adventure games began to emerge - but emerge with glorious attention to detail and with a love for what graphic/story/sound level that ticks all the right boxes. These are made with love and a specific tuning in to the genre that can sometime be missed by the major corporations where ideas and focus can be watered down. Paradise is an example of this - I truly believe Benoit Sokal is a genius storyteller but you are only as good as your team huh?

2) Someone made a post on the forum recently about the adventure game genre dying and a single post among the hysteria that followed pointed out one simple fact - look at the games planned for the future... Now we all know that hype has hurt a few highly anticipated games in the past year - mention no names...ahem. But there are still developers out there with a love of the genre that are creating more adventure games.

3) And last, but more importantly. We have legacies. Some of the finest and best loved adventure games each and every one of us hold dear have been in some sort of series. And where this can be the ruin of, say a film, it is nearly always to the betterment of an adventure game. Adventure games actually suit sequels and prequels! And where these exist and we still have time to develop games on this planet - then the Adventure Game will not die.

I look with real affection at those who long so much for a sequel to games such as Still Life and Syberia that they hunt the web for a glimmer of hope, and when that glimmer is found - my dismay is at those who quash that glimmer with their own petulant frustration. Okay so Benoit may have proclaimed there will be no more sequels, production companies have collapsed and folded, and okay maybe Website Under Construction doesn't necessarily mean that a sequel is being worked on. But the game will always prevail so long as their is a love and passion for it. Broken Sword is a classic example - fans longed for a sequel, we got two - like them or loathe them. Fan games emerge, licences get picked up, new companies are formed with staff who worked on previous games - nothing is for certain.

What started as a negative journey I have now been encouraged to one of hope. Yeah, okay we are in changing times, but I now truly feel that some of the best games are yet to come and now look forward to the future of Adventure Games.

[Terramax]

I heartly agree. My problem is that I'm incredibly impatient. I buy a lot of games. As soon as I finish one, usually even before I finish one, I get another. A game has to be very engrossing for me to not at any point think about what the next game is. The only one recently is Psychonauts.

However, I think your opinion is wider to the whole gaming industry. As a gamer who loves innovative gameplay and stories, I barely even look at sequels. However, most of the games seen on the market today are either sequels, yearly updates or pseudo-sequel cash-ins of a franchise.

Most games that are new and innovative are ignored to the extent that further games in the series, or the developers themselves don't bother to release in the UK.

However, there are people out there that do enjoy the same games as me and, like me, live in hope that the next year will bring a surprise or two.

Just this year there was Murder on the Orient Express. Whilst no stunner, I thoroughly enjoyed what it had to offer, and shows promise that, with a game or two later, AWE could be onto a classic. Or at least an AG classic.

I've yet to play Paradise, but I'm sure I'll be getting it as soon as it's released in the UK now that the bugs should all be filtered out. Same goes for Runaway 2.

Hell, Tony Tough 2 and Whispered World might make an appearance. It's not much to look forward to, but it's something.

[Beacon]

The Adventure game will never die if it fully embraces the 3D era. Why are FPS's so popular? For some it is because of the action and the shooting, but for many more, myself included, I imagine it is because you can experience the game in full control of your character and environment. I firmly believe that if Adventure game makers fully embraces the idea of 3D and brings their superior story telling ideas and premises to the table, great adventure games would be possible and draw in more people who are turned off by the now antiquated point-n-click interface. I have been craving for a detective game where the entire city is in 3D and you have to walk around or get a car to do your detecting. You have to figure out where you have to go. You have to figure out who you have to talk to. This kind of game can be easily serialized as you already have the city in 3D, a new game just adds new sections to the city and new characters that are needed for it's story.

[Dasilva]

Adventure games arent dead, their just extinct. Their to be shown in glass displays at museums to whoever gives a shit these days.

[Jatsie]

No silly, they're in a persistent vegetative state!

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by Dasilva

Adventure games arent dead, their just extinct. Their to be shown in glass displays at museums to whoever gives a shit these days.

Originally Posted by Jat316sob

No silly, they're in a persistent vegetative state!

Plenty of people here do 'give a shit' (me included), otherwise why would they be here. If you don't, perhaps this isn't the thread for you to be posting in.

[tsa]

They're just joking Melanie! Everybody who gives a s*** knows that adventure games are waking up from their vegetative state and breaking the windows of their display cases as I type this!

[Zanthia]

Very soon they will be marching the streets and noone wil get away.

[linus81]

Well, I honestly believe there has never been a better time for adventure games and adventure gaming than now.

Regarding the games themselves, there has never been as much diversity. There are charming and sometimes even brilliant amateur adventures, some of them containing all new ideas or erhancing concepts of the classics we learned to know and love. At the same time there's a broad array of commercial adventures - 2D/2.5D/3D, 1st/3rd person, accent on story-telling/puzzles, in all kinds of settings and with all kinds of themes.

Then there are wonderful communities which have emerged, consisting of people who have played past and present games, people with different minds and tastes who all have in common their affection for adventure gaming. Veterans can tell newbies about the classics of yesterday and so the heritage is passed on.

Current adventure game companies know well that adventure games are a niche genre, but they have adapted to this niche and they are doing fine. And this time there won't be anyone stating that AGs aren't financially viable any more.

AGs aren't selling like World of Warcraft. Maybe they never will be. Ok, so be it. I can live with that. I regard them as a well-thriving niche genre.

[Erwin_Br]

It's a good time for the adventure genre, but saying there hasn't been a better time is pushing it. There were times the genre wasn't a niche market, and the games were, in fact, selling like World of Warcraft. I'm not complaining at all, though. We're getting enough adventure games, and some of them are even good!

--Erwin

[Gonchi]

I honestly feel the genre is doing much better than it was 7 to 8 years ago.

And I swear I'll start burning people with torches if I read another "P&C is antiquated" post.

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by tsa

They're just joking Melanie! Everybody who gives a s*** knows that adventure games are waking up from their vegetative state and breaking the windows of their display cases as I type this!

It just gets tiring reading such negativity even if it is just joking... that's all.

[Jatsie]

I wasn't trying to be negative, I was just messing with Dasilvsie.

How about I amend my description: "Adventure Games are like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for Prince Charming to come and breathe new life into them."
See, they're still comatose, but it's more poetic.

[Melanie68]

It is more poetic. I like it!!

[Mikekelly]

In 1999 they said that the Adventure genre was dead. Well, for a dead genre it sure gets lots of releases!

Now it's 2007 and I have a full backlog of adventure games to buy this year!

[tsa]

... I wonder how many threads like this you can find on this forum if you start looking for them. Everything has been said over and over again. Why don't we stop talking about this and play all these new games?

[Crapstorm]

Because the new games really suck!

[Ksandra]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

There were times the genre wasn't a niche market, and the games were, in fact, selling like World of Warcraft.

You know, I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Every time I read an interview with developers who made AGs in the early 90s, they say that AGs are selling in pretty much the same numbers now as they were then - it's the market share of AGs that have fallen, not absolute sales. It's not that adventures stopped selling, it's simply that other types of game were introduced and those games sold better. Unfortunately, I don't think 3D is likely to make a difference - 3D adventure games have been around for at least a decade, and I've yet to see a shred of evidence that they actually sell any better than 2D or 2.5D games. The sooner we come to accept that AGs are a healthy niche genre rather than a dead/dying mainstream genre, the better.

[Orange Brat]

That's not true at all. Adventures used to the dominant PC genre in the late 80s and early to mid-90s. I remember a time when shelves were overrun with them, and PC magazines from the time featured the games prominently.

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by Orange Brat

That's not true at all. Adventures used to the dominant PC genre in the late 80s and early to mid-90s. I remember a time when shelves were overrun with them, and PC magazines from the time featured the games prominently.

Which does not contradict in any way what Ksandra said.