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Old 12-30-2011, 06:41 PM   #201
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Originally Posted by diego View Post
And the winner is...

GF might have got it, but the real winner is the team behind the list - it's a painstaking business where you must be prepared for heavy critics and various "pain in the #@$@%", like myself. But wait, not just yet. Seriously, great job to everyone involved, i think it's the first Top 100 of this sort.
Absolutely. I think this is the best top adventure games list I've seen.

Agreed on Hand of Fate, great game and it could have replaced one of the QFGs.
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Old 12-30-2011, 06:48 PM   #202
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it could have replaced one of the QFGs.
Heresy!
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Old 12-30-2011, 07:03 PM   #203
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Heresy!
I love QFG but two of them is just a little excessive, especially considering they are half RPGs and we only had one KQ, one SQ, and one LSL. Then again, three Monkey Islands and Gabriel Knights...

And also, QFG3 was my favorite, not 2 or 4
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Old 12-30-2011, 07:31 PM   #204
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I love QFG but two of them is just a little excessive
Heresy!

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And also, QFG3 was my favorite, not 2 or 4
Heresy!!!!

Also, King's Quest had two games on the list (1 and 6).
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Old 12-30-2011, 08:04 PM   #205
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Time for more stats!


Ooh, shiny!

We all know that the most important element in an adventure game is the graphics. So let's look at what the games in the top-100 had, starting with the technical side of the question:


I really would have thought that 2.5D would be much higher, but I guess all the Myst-clones, FMV games, and SVGA 3rd-person games ended up being the largest part of the list.

Note also that real-time 3D is at 19/100. It's still not the dominant tech, but it's being slowly assimilated by the genre. So you people who think the definition of "adventure game" is "a game that can run on my 10-year-old computer", know that you're missing some good games.


The other factor is the style of the graphics:


Note how you have far more games with FMV characters than FMV/photo environments. That's mostly all those ugly FMV games with live actors pasted over cheap 3D renders of the room. (Not that all those games were bad; the Tex Murphy games, for instance, were brilliant. But green screen on crude 3D is something that always takes me a bit of time to get used to.)

Unsurprisingly enough, the top-100 confirms the genre's love of hand-drawn graphics. I found it extremely weird that there were slightly more games with hand-drawn characters than environments. It would seem weird to stick hand-drawn characters in, say, 3D environments. And then I realised that there are actually two games that do just that: Hotel Dusk and its sequel Last Window.



The true Golden Age of adventures

When looking at the years at which the games were released, it's useful to have both the raw number of games (top) and the results weighted by rank (bottom):


I think those graphs are absolutely amazing: they give a perfect picture of the history of graphic adventures. We may have our gripes about some games on the list, but I think these graphs confirm that the top-100 is a very fair and accurate representation of the genre.

You can clearly distinguish several periods:
  • 1987–1993, the Sierra-LucasArts era: The classical era. The graph shows the companies perfecting their craft, releasing more and more great games. 1990 to 92 have the same number of games on the list, but the quality is steadily increasing, climaxing in . . .
  • 1993, the golden year, the turning point: 1993 is the year when the Sierra/LEC classical style reached its peak, with games such as GK1 and Sam & Max. But it's also the year when Myst and The 7th Guest shook everything up. Sierra and LEC had failed to see the potential of the CD-ROM, but these two games showed that the new technology could be used to create a completely new experience. 1994 was a slow year, when everyone was trying to build the infrastructure to catch up with Myst, but the best was to come . . .
  • 1995–1998, multimedia madness: The glorious era. After the success of Myst, people over-evaluated the potential of the genre for commercial success. And nobody really knew what might work. So for a few years, you had games that combined the inventiveness and risk-taking of independent productions with the budget of Hollywood movies. Those were crazy, nonsensical years. Those games that we got from this glorious period are to be treasured, because it will never happen again: those games were commercially disappointing (or outright failures) and the bubble burst, leading to . . .
  • 1999–2003, the death of a genre: After the end of the multimedia madness, the new hot technology was real-time 3D. And this time, the genre was utterly unable to embrace the new tech to renew itself. Those were the lean years, with just a few 2.5D gems to tide us over.
  • 2004– , recovery: Looking at the list and at the graphs, things have been going better and better. 2010-2011 were around the levels of 1990-1991. We'll never see another 1996, but maybe a new 1993 is around the corner, just in time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Golden Year of Adventure Gaming.



A last one for the road

Finally, a fun (or depressing, depending on your point of view) little stat. It is well established that adventure gaming has a larger-than-average proportion of female gamers. But you wouldn't know that from the gender of the player characters in the Top-100:


(For those wondering how many Myst-clones there are on the list, you have your answer here: 14.)

Bearing in mind that Kate Walker and Chell are counted twice, that makes a grand total of eight women who had the honour of having a game of their own in the Top-100... Then again, I'd be hard pressed to name 8 female adventure game designers, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Discuss.
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Old 12-30-2011, 08:21 PM   #206
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@K - Nice charts! I mean it. That took some work. But do have one issue with one of your comments: "Sierra and LEC had failed to see the potential of the CD-ROM"

One of the complaints about Sierra, in the day, was that they were the ones that continually pushed the envelope requiring better machines to play thier games. They were the first to push games from 2088 to 386 to 486 to 586 and beyond. Several Sierra games in the compendium were the "last of their kind" for a given platform. Example, Freddy Pharkus Frontier Pharmacist was the last Sierra game to play on a 486 platform. You wanted to play newer games, it required a system upgrade. I'll say the same about CD-based games. I don't recall what the last disc-based game was, but once Phantasmagoria was released you never saw another disc-based game from Sierra.

They may not have exploited the medium, but they certainly were among the first in line to adopt it.
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Old 12-30-2011, 08:39 PM   #207
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@Subbi: I don't think it's the part about the Templars per se that I thought was clichéd. It's the somewhat bland "evil conspiracy" plot in which the BS1's Templars play a role that I found overly familiar and predictable. And again, for me, that doesn't mean it's a bad game at all.
I don't think its cliche at all. I played it for the first time this year (Directors cut) and enjoyed it a lot. There are many interesting twists in the plot, eg:
Spoiler:
the bad guy for most of the game turns out to be the good guy in the end.
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Old 12-30-2011, 08:48 PM   #208
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One of the complaints about Sierra, in the day, was that they were the ones that continually pushed the envelope requiring better machines to play thier games.
Agreed. When I bought KQ5, I unknowingly got the CD version. I had to wait 3 years before I could play it
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Old 12-30-2011, 09:20 PM   #209
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They may not have exploited the medium, but they certainly were among the first in line to adopt it.
That's definitely what I was trying to say. Sierra (and to a lesser extent LEC) used the CD-ROM fairly early on, but at first it was just to add voices to games developed with floppy discs in mind, not to create a completely new experience, as Myst and The 7th Guest did. In terms of technology and gameplay style, KQ6 was KQ5.1 — more of the same, except perfected in every respect (except the background art, which was inferior).

The first Sierra game that tried to do that was (I think) King's Quest VII (of course, it had to be a King's Quest!), trying to bring the game closer to a Disney movie with a cuter, more whimsical style. But even that was not fully realised, with the gameplay design never managing to decide whether it wanted to be a fun, story-driven, easy-to-play adventure or a battle of wits between the player and the designer. Phantasmagoria and GK2 were the first Sierra games to successfully embrace the CD-ROM, but that was 2 years after Myst.
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Old 12-30-2011, 09:33 PM   #210
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Hello, new here. I've been lurking here for many years, but this list made me register and share my opinions here.

The major shock for me was seeing Gabriel Knight 1 on such a "low" place as #16. I fully expected it to be in the top 5, over Broken Sword 1 which is similar but just not as good. It was nice to see GK2 on 3rd place, though I'd switch their places - for me, the first installment had more memorable music, art direction, tense moments and just a plain incredibly strong atmosphere and style. GK2's story was interesting, yes, but the first one was more fun.

Fate of Atlantis is a game that I find somewhat overrated. It has great music and the branching gameplay is a good idea, yes, but I found the story very weak. The relationship between Indy and Sophia was clichéd and predictable, and most of the story consists of solving machine puzzles in various Atlantean ruins. The voice acting in the CD version (what I've seen of it, I played the floppy version) is pretty bad, too; Indy and Sophia sound quite monotonous and many other characters cartoony - Ubermann sounds like a parrot!

I was disappointed to see The Dig as low as #92 - a game that I find is MUCH better than Fate of Atlantis. Even though it has also loads of machine puzzles, it has a much more interesting story and absolutely gorgeous music, even better than FoA's.
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Old 12-30-2011, 09:50 PM   #211
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Hey everyone,

I organized the Top 100 list into an Excel spreadsheet with the "You might also like" suggestions for each ranking. It's like a one-stop resource for tracking games you've played or want to play. If you're like me you do this already, but this Top 100 list adds a great, clear, concise summary of the big picture.

Download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ru6c7k492khwu6a
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Old 12-31-2011, 12:05 AM   #212
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I personally know that i will post something angry, if neither Grim Fandango nor The Longest Journey is at number 1
They made it to no. 1 and 2, so i can't really complain

Damm i was really looking forward to writing something really angry, but funny at the same time. Perhaps they changed the list at the last minute out of fear of what i would write

Or perhaps its just that their qualities are so obvious, that no one in their right mind would not rank them right at the top.

But seriously - Gabrial Knight 2 at 3. place, whats that about?
I understand many love this one, and I actually like the whole GK series myself, but I have always thought that "the beast within" was the weakest in the series, and i never really felt that FMV in AG worked very well.
(I wont mention Riven at 5. since i know there are many Myst lovers out there, though I'm not amoung them)

More importantly - It seem like TellTale has been grossly overlooked in this list. Is there really no one in the AG Staff that likes TellTale as much as i do?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TimovieMan View Post
A bit disappointed that the amazing Curse of Monkey Island is ranked so low. And I'm not just saying that because it's my own personal number one...
Murray the demonic skull deserves a lot more!
Agree - Murray is one of the reason Curse of Monkey Island is also one of my personale favorites.

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I'm looking forward to the moment when Murray strides through the gates of hell carrying the top-100 list makers' heads on a pike.
That might be overdoing it a bit - Especially since my 2 favorites made no. 1 & 2 on the list.

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Originally Posted by inm8#2 View Post
When this is all over it would be great to have a poll in which we can all rank our top 20 or so games from the Top 100 list and get a readers' version.
Totally agree - Lets have a readers choice of this.
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Old 12-31-2011, 12:18 AM   #213
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btw: Thanks to the AG Staff for making this list. (Even though i was a bit sceptical)

And thanks to Kurufinwe for the statistics.
(Not really a big surprice that Sierra & LucasArts is behind most of the top 100 games)
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Old 12-31-2011, 01:01 AM   #214
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers on 16th place - thats a sin of the AG staff writers
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Old 12-31-2011, 01:16 AM   #215
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Originally Posted by Kurufinwe View Post
Finally, a fun (or depressing, depending on your point of view) little stat. It is well established that adventure gaming has a larger-than-average proportion of female gamers. But you wouldn't know that from the gender of the player characters in the Top-100:

(For those wondering how many Myst-clones there are on the list, you have your answer here: 14.)

Bearing in mind that Kate Walker and Chell are counted twice, that makes a grand total of eight women who had the honour of having a game of their own in the Top-100... Then again, I'd be hard pressed to name 8 female adventure game designers, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
I'm pressed for time, so for now I'll confine myself to the women. I count one more than you. Cell (2x), Kate (2x), Pepper, Nancy, Laura, Victoria, April, Zoe, Mina.

EDIT: Oh wait... Victoria must be in the "both" section. Stupid Fien.
EDIT2: But April must be counted twice then. Two female protagonists in Dreamfall.
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Old 12-31-2011, 03:08 AM   #216
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@Kurufinwe,

Super graphs, very interesting.
The tech/graphics overview is interesting, but especially for this one I would also make one that includes the weight factor of the ranking.
It should become even more interesting given the fact that both nr 1 and 2 are in fact 3D model with preredendered background games.
In fact, quite a few if those are ranked high, eg Syberia etc...
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Old 12-31-2011, 03:38 AM   #217
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Originally Posted by inm8#2 View Post
Hey everyone,

I organized the Top 100 list into an Excel spreadsheet with the "You might also like" suggestions for each ranking. It's like a one-stop resource for tracking games you've played or want to play. If you're like me you do this already, but this Top 100 list adds a great, clear, concise summary of the big picture.

Download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ru6c7k492khwu6a
Thanks for the effort !!

I just glanced over the list for the first time and if I didn´t make a mistake I counted 36 games I finished or rather played almost all the way through.

Another 18 games are on my have to check it out list.
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Old 12-31-2011, 04:28 AM   #218
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I am outraged at the conclusion of this list.

Never visiting this site again.
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Old 12-31-2011, 05:11 AM   #219
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Originally Posted by Kurufinwe View Post
Unsurprisingly enough, the top-100 confirms the genre's love of hand-drawn graphics. I found it extremely weird that there were slightly more games with hand-drawn characters than environments. It would seem weird to stick hand-drawn characters in, say, 3D environments. And then I realised that there are actually two games that do just that: Hotel Dusk and its sequel Last Window.
Discuss.
Thanks for your work, Kurufinwe, I like these things
I would only add, that characters in Hotel Dusk and Last Window were rotoscoped - as well as characters in The Last Express, who were put to 3D computer rendered background. In adventure games genre, that is pretty much everything that has been done by this animation technique (at least to my knowledge). Of course, plenty of older arcade games (most notably Prince of Persia 1 and 2), but also Another World, used this technique.
In these 3 adventure games, I think it really works fine. Btw I love how rotoscoped games, movies (check out Ralph Bakshi's films, from contemporary: Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, or Renaissance, Chico and Rita, Alois Nebel), series, music videos and commercials look all so different in result.

http://lastexpress.markmoran.net/production.html

big-sized pics, click if you want to see them.

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/7447/alexei.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/8509/71779644.jpg

Last edited by veruncheek; 12-31-2011 at 05:23 AM.
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Old 12-31-2011, 06:56 AM   #220
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Originally Posted by Toefur View Post
I am outraged at the conclusion of this list.

Never visiting this site again.
ROFL!


@ The AG staff: congrats on a great list!

@ Kurufinwe: they should add your stat-posts to the article. Essential adventure game knowledge, imo...
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