I would stress that in the Heavy Rain system the actions you perform mirrored the movements of the on screen character and had real consequences to the storyline. - i.e real innovation.

Jurassic park had the old dragons lair success or dead system where the on screen prompts were basic direction arrows and had absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever. - i.e a barely interactive QTE like we have seen in a million games before

Yeah now that I think of it you're right. There were a couple of moments where the actions reflect the controls, but it is nothing like the advanced use of six axis on the Dual Shock control to mimic movements and so on. I want to play heavy rain again come to think of it. lol

A lot of games let you look at objects and examine them. Phantasmagoria did so, the Phoenix Wright games, tons of others. Nothing new there. The only difference is that this time your character is actually running around, picking things up and the camera zooming in in one fluent motion. So graphics have improved. The rest is not new.

I haven't played a Tex Murphy game, but compared to what adventure games I do know, L.A. Noire's only innovation (apart from their achievements with graphics) is adding a certain Grand Theft Auto element to it by making you chase suspects on foot, by car, and have shootouts.
Makes it more of a hybrid than an innovated adventure game to me.

Don't agree. It didn't do that more than for instance the CSI-games. They nailed the atmosphere in L.A. Noire. But that means they did their job well, it doesn't mean they innovated anything.

I get why Heavy Rain is innovative. I just don't feel the same with L.A. Noire.

Yes, some of the games depend on the hardware, but most dont. Ghost Trick, Pheonix Wright or 999 could easily be played on the PC with mouse controls.

Most PC developers have an idea that "this is what an adventure game looks like" and aren't getting out of that box, whereas on other systems they dont seem to be tied down in the same way. At least thats the way it seems to me.

From what I understand (I haven't played the game) the interrogation system is supposed to be very good. It is not about simply wading through a whole dialog tree, selecting every single option, like most adventures. Based on how you do, there are multiple endings to a case.

And that's pretty much why I stopped playing another genres ages ago.

This looks like finally a good discussion on innovative games because it focuses on specific titles mentioned by the OP.

So let me ask you all a question - would you still consider them innovative, if they weren't mainstream hits and their popularity was limited only to the adventure games fans public?

yeah....anything that implements new ideas never before seen in the genre is considered an innovation*.innovation doesn't have anything to do with mainstream and popularity.maybe the innovation depending on what it is brings popularity or maybe it changes the genre to a hybrid or sth like that and as a result it becomes mainstream.but not the other way round

PS:*innovation to the genre not generally.since we are talking about innovations to adventure gaming.

PS2:maybe they aren't entirely new ideas but recycled ideas from other genres that give adventure games a whole new feeling or maybe they are similar to other ideas already seen on an adventure game but changed a little,presented a little differently or maybe from a different angle/perspective.

Generally speaking, since I've only played two of the games, I would say of course - I would say it's pretty much a fact that the term innovation (or innovative) has nothing to do with being either popular or niche, it's far more universal than that :)

What I meant is that some people might expect a game to be influential outside a particular niche and accessible to a larger number of gamers, if it is to be considered to be innovative. I'm curious if that could be someone's prerequisite, especially since all of the listed games seem to have been targeted at fans of storytelling in general rather than of particular genre and it seems have largely succeeded at reaching that audience.

In contrast to that Grim Fandango and Gabriel Knight games (just examples) could be considered too demanding in terms of puzzles and the genre's traditions for todays general public.

Like I said....if you are talking about innovation in a genre then you have your answer.
I think that calling a game innovative it has to be within a genre...if not then the whole game must be outside of genres.not just some innovation in a part of the game but the whole game(story mechanics etc)

L.A. Noire has a much too simplified interrogation system. You ask about a certain topic, and after hearing (and watching - there are tells if they lie) their answer, you have a whopping THREE choices: he's telling the truth, he's lying but you can't prove it and have to force him a little, or he's lying and you have the evidence to expose the lie.
Three options. That's it.
I prefer a whole dialog tree to that.

Innovation has nothing to do with popularity. Ghost Trick was innovative yet Ghost Trick tanked in sales. Maybe all the prizes it won on sites like Gamespot will eventually make it sell a bit better, but it wasn't all that successful.

Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy was innovative as well, and I've a feeling it's more popular now than when it was first released. In part because of the success of Heavy Rain.

Good and innovative games tend to sell bad upon release. Probably because they're innovative - people are afraid of change. But if the games are good, they'll stand the test of time...

Same goes for movies: Citizen Kane, a movie that was twenty years ahead of its time upon release, only got the recognition it deserved years and years later...

Innovation helps change the course of the future. But the innovator is rarely the one that gets the big bucks...

Maybe it is like you said about the interrogation system of LA Noire but you can't deny that it feels a little more real.When you talk to someone you have certain choises and from what you judge to be the truth you get certain repercussions.And you only have one chance.And it also blends the visual part to the whole discussion.What the other party is feeling,giving you a feel/sense as to where this discussion's going.Of cource,without the graphics upgrade it wouldn't be considered as something notable.

And this is exactly why I don't consider L.A. Noire to be innovative.

Graphically it's a stunning achievement (the amount of facial motion capturing they did is insane). But I think it's little more than a graphical update of elements that were found in the genre for years, albeit a rather GOOD update.
I'm definitely not saying L.A. Noire is a bad game, I just don't feel it's innovative...

my point though was that the graphics upgrade wasn't just better graphics.By using it in an interrogation system it became more real,immersing.I haven't played every ag game out there so there might be other games that have used this but from those i've played it's definitely sth unique.

The only other one I can think of is Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney, where finding the specific tell in a sentence was a puzzle of its own.
But I'm sure there's a FMV game that'll have used this before. Heck, with all the motion capturing, L.A. Noire practically IS an FMV...

maybe you're right even if it still doesn't sit well with me:P(sth feels different about FMV and LA Noire).anyways in terms of pure graphics it is new.and even if it doesn't revolutionise the ag genre i'm happy if it revolutionises the rest.

I still feel like there's no appreciation for the mainstream gamer accessibility that is helping these games get noticed outside the genre and (in effect) also helping them to be considered innovative (I'm not talking about personal evaluations, but about the public image of these games).

Sorry, but that's only our wishful thinking. Usually to be considered as an innovator in the public eye you need to have either big bucks or already established popularity behind you. Especially in an industry that's been going for so many years, and in todays oversaturated market.

You're oversimplifying. CK was an expensive Hollywood studio production and a huge controversy upon release. It has quickly become, if not famous, then infamous, and Welles remained one of the major celebrities of those times - one of the enfant terribles. A good measure of how popular he was is that after a few years his (then) controversial films and actions led RKO to cut their ties from him and coin the slogan "Showmanship instead of genius" as a PR move. That seems pretty influential to me.

If Citizen Kane was actually ignored and of no interest to the public at the time of release, it would probably never be re-evaluated later on.

So were the sales horrible or just below expectations? It was a new IP experiment from the designer of a hit series and making it probably didn't come cheap. I'd say it had to sell a lot of copies to make even, but regardless it's definitely far more popular than Grey Matter or any of the less mainstream adventure games of recent years.

Well, I don't know exactly where to jump in here but I'll address the OP.

The controls of console and handheld gaming forced adventure to innovate. If you've ever played one of the Discworld games on a Playstation you'll see how cumbersome using the directional pad to move the cursor is. The development team at Capcom had to be more conscientious of how the gamer is going to interact with the DS when they worked on Ghost Trick. You can tell the designer of that game liked the idea of possessing objects and put a lot of thought into how to execute that function with the DS controls. There's a reason why you draaaag the stylus across the screen to possess different objects rather than just click on two different objects on the screen.

In another thread I'm arguing for a new paradigm in game development where the narrative dictates the game's mechanics rather than trying to stuff the narrative into conventional game mechanics (like Uncharted 3) and the team behind Ghost Trick really exemplify what I want to see more of. But so far it's only scratching the surface.

Ghost Trick has sold over 280,000 copies worldwide. It actually sold quite well in the states although sales did drop off after week three in Japan.

There are many adventure games with sales well below 280,000 copies that are considered to be a major success. There is talk of a 2nd game on the 3DS.

999 For example had 220,000 units sold worldwide and a second game is being developed. Ace Attorney has had 3.6 million sales total spread across six games.

There was an adventure game on the WII that was a major disappointment in sales - that game sold only 21,000 copies. The game was not ported to any other systems and never saw a release in the United States.

Should Ghost Trick have had Prof Layton or Ace Attorney level of sales? Obviously Gamespot thought so - giving the game the "Best Game Nobody Ever Played" award.

Now that the game has won so many major awards like "Best Handheld Game of the Year" - I'm certain that "Ghost Trick" will have a very long shelf life and copies will continue to sell.

Ghost Trick still sells for full retail price - most games that have been out for as long as Ghost Trick see a major price drop by now.

When I played "Ghost Trick" I thought it was very innovative - even for a DS game. I do hope we see more games like this one produced and released.

:D