[SakSquash]

Older Adventure games lack the immersion that newer ones have because of their lack of realistic sounds and graphics.

[Jake]

I think you've got that backwards... something more like "Newer Adventure games lack the immersion that older ones had because of their lack of a real sense of style, exploration, detail, and character-driven writing."

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Originally Posted by Jake

I think you've got that backwards... something more like "Newer Adventure games lack the immersion that older ones had because of their lack of a real sense of style, exploration, detail, and character-driven writing."

True...today's games are arguably prettier to look at, but the big, empty environments and lack of nuanced plots and well-developed characters make today's games seem devoid of life. Also, too often, playing recent adventures feels like I'm more of an observer, rather than participating in what's going on.

[Guyper]

I hope you wanted to say the other way.

The new school ones don't have the same magic like the old school ones

[Simo Sakari Aaltonen]

Most new games lack the immersiveness of many classic titles because of the modern insistence on emphasizing bells and whistles over actively involving the player in the gaming world. Rather than pull the gamer in by engaging their fullest attention, most adventure games nowadays push them away with their reliance on cinematics - things that make you sit back in appreciation - and dearth of gameplay.

Games are not supposed to make you sit back in appreciation, they are supposed to make you lean forward in immersion.

A simple equation, though none the less difficult (apparently) for designers to grasp: heightened interactivity means heightened immersion.

What most designers do is fear the player will give up and drown if there is too much depth to their game, too much interactivity. So they rev down on their imagination and they leave out all the things that would really bring the game world alive - until what remains is a film where all you need do is connect the dots.

[The Seed]

Ah, the old 'realistic sounds and graphics', the all important factor that separates the shity old SCUMM style adventures from the shining classics we see everywhere today.

[SakSquash]

I disagree! I just can't get into games that have boops and squeeks as the main game and soundtrack. And I reallllllly hate old games that don't have actual voices. Maybe that's blasphamy to you "purists," but I don't care! I want glossy graphics and professional voice acting! There, I said it!

[Simo Sakari Aaltonen]

I doubt many would argue against featuring professional voice actors, or glossy graphics for that matter. As long as the latter does not come at the cost of reduced involvement.

Example: In The Secret of Monkey Island it would take one or two clicks and about a second for your character to go from a stand-still to being fully involved in conversation with a Non-Player Character. In Escape from Monkey Island, you not only had to walk your character right next to the character you wanted to talk to, it would also take considerably more time (to go from a stand-still to the actual conversation).

Any time the player has to expend on menial tasks or simply waiting for the program to work its way through an animation cycle works against immersion. Ken Williams had a rule about this. (Was it the seven-second or eight-second rule?)

I am necessarily simplifying the question in order to make my point. Other considerations always apply. For example, if the simple act of moving the player character around is made fun and enjoyable, the immersion will not suffer from the gameplay requiring lots of spatial positioning.

The Grim Fandango system, however, is not my idea of fun character navigation. *bears chest for the forthcoming bullets from the GF admirers* This is one thing Mask of Eternity had over GF.

Nor do I mean to imply that game designers nowadays make games less immersive just for the hell of it. More time-consuming movement, for example, is the direct result of increased graphical sophistication.

Any game released nowadays that did not feature all the stages of a character's animation in any given situation would get criticized for that, whereas in the day of TSoMI many animations could consist of just two frames. That was perfectly sufficient for that resolution and colour depth. Times have changed. (April Ryan would be laughed off the screen if she zoomed around it at the speed Indy does in The Fate of Atlantis. The more abstracted world of the latter made it perfectly OK for that title.)

It is a real problem how to reconcile the aesthetic scope offered by today's technology with the all-important gameplaying issues.

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

I disagree! I just can't get into games that have boops and squeeks as the main game and soundtrack. And I reallllllly hate old games that don't have actual voices. Maybe that's blasphamy to you "purists," but I don't care! I want glossy graphics and professional voice acting! There, I said it!

Yeah, because if there's one thing current adventure games do right, it's professional voice acting.

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by Duncan

Yeah, because if there's one thing current adventure games do right, it's professional voice acting.

You're being too general. I'm most of the cases i've seen, it's been pretty good. Beats just having text or having the schmucks who made the game doing the voices.

[ATMachine]

Originally Posted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen

(April Ryan would be laughed off the screen if she zoomed around it at the speed Indy does in The Fate of Atlantis. The more abstracted world of the latter made it perfectly OK for that title.)

Actually, Indy's speed in Fate of Atlantis may be more to do with old games on modern processors than anything else. I vividly recall that it took forever for his sprite to walk around the Tikal temple ruins on my old Macintosh computer.

Maybe my compy was the exception, but I don't think there was much more speed to older games' animations at the time. It's just that we've gotten faster computers, so we can put more frames in the same timespan.

But I still agree with your general point about the shiny new technology displacing many good old gameplay elements. Your example of Escape from Monkey Island shows that excellently.

Originally Posted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen

What most designers do is fear the player will give up and drown if there is too much depth to their game, too much interactivity. So they rev down on their imagination and they leave out all the things that would really bring the game world alive - until what remains is a film where all you need do is connect the dots.

While this problem is also much more prevalent nowadays, it's not new either in my view. And it's not just confined to designers, it's also shown in pressures by management.

To give one example, in one early version of The Dig players had to find and eat food and water to stay alive. Arguably this extra problem could well have brought a greater degree of realism and suspense to the game (or, it might not have - depending on its implementation). But the idea didn't sit well with the testers, or the bosses. Although interesting and quite well-suited to the game plot, it basically killed the early design.

But of course this is far more common in recent years. Even in little things - like Bill Tiller's picture of a mermaid for the CMI opening credits which higher-ups had excised on the grounds that it was not part of the MI "world."

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

You're being too general. I'm most of the cases i've seen, it's been pretty good. Beats just having text or having the schmucks who made the game doing the voices.

Like... what new games are you talking about? Also, I'm kind of confused as to how you define professional. Anyone who just lists 'actor' on their resume? I mean, the Syberia cast aren't going to be on Broadway any time soon. And in a lot of cases the 'professional' cast are not necessarily going to be better actors than the 'schmucks who made the game'. I don't see Rand Miller as being any worse than... hell, I don't know, Christine Flowers. (yay, obscurity.)

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by Duncan

Like... what new games are you talking about? Also, I'm kind of confused as to how you define professional. Anyone who just lists 'actor' on their resume? I mean, the Syberia cast aren't going to be on Broadway any time soon. And in a lot of cases the 'professional' cast are not necessarily going to be better actors than the 'schmucks who made the game'. I don't see Rand Miller as being any worse than... hell, I don't know, Christine Flowers. (yay, obscurity.)

By professional I mean having taken at least 1 or 2 acting lessons. They're at least more qualified than deep dish pizza devouring jolt cola drinking game designers. Oh by the way, by old games, I mean OLD games. Like..pre 1995. Maybe I should have cleared that up? Ho hum.

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

By professional I mean having taken at least 1 or 2 acting lessons. They're at least more qualified than deep dish pizza devouring jolt cola drinking game designers.

I really disagree. One or two acting classes doesn't create talent if there was none there before. More qualified, maybe, but again, not necessarily BETTER.

Also, what's with all the fat, greasy game developer imagery?

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by Duncan

I really disagree. One or two acting classes doesn't create talent if there was none there before. More qualified, maybe, but again, not necessarily BETTER.

Also, what's with all the fat, greasy game developer imagery?

Maybe it wont be Broadway quality, but the point i'm trying to make here is that it's better when the voice acting is better! Are you trying to say that crappy voice work makes the game better? I mean, did you play the 7th guest?

Just playing into a stereotype really.

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

Maybe it wont be Broadway quality, but the point i'm trying to make here is that it's better when the voice acting is better! Are you trying to say that crappy voice work makes the game better? I mean, did you play the 7th guest?

...Huh? I'm not too sure how you got that I think crappy voice work makes games better. I'm saying that I think today's adventure games generally HAVE mediocre voice work, likely because developers will just hire anyone who calls themselves an actor.

[Wormsie]

The voice of Nico in Broken Sword 3 was by the studio secretary or some similar person. I read it in the Charles Cecil diary.

Also, I hate the word "glossy".

Also, games in pre-1995 were cutting edge in pre-1995. People did think those graphics were very good, even in purely technical terms. I know I did.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

I disagree! I just can't get into games that have boops and squeeks as the main game and soundtrack. And I reallllllly hate old games that don't have actual voices. Maybe that's blasphamy to you "purists," but I don't care! I want glossy graphics and professional voice acting!

So do I, but the old games will not get any better than that. Also, we are not purists. Jake is not a purist, nor am I, nor is Duncan.

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by Duncan

...Huh? I'm not too sure how you got that I think crappy voice work makes games better. I'm saying that I think today's adventure games generally HAVE mediocre voice work, likely because developers will just hire anyone who calls themselves an actor.

It just seems like you don't think that at least decent voice acting makes a game more immersive. Take the voice acting in Beneath a Steel Sky. It was horrible. The game was still good because of it's story, but for me, since this is opinion, it took away from the overall game. Wouldn't you agree that on top of a good story etc etc, that great visuals and voice acting as well as sound effects pull you into the game more, rather than just having a good story and crappy everything else?

From thus on, "Glossy" shall not be used.

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

It just seems like you don't think that at least decent voice acting makes a game more immersive. Take the voice acting in Beneath a Steel Sky. It was horrible. The game was still good because of it's story, but for me, since this is opinion, it took away from the overall game. Wouldn't you agree that on top of a good story etc etc, that great visuals and voice acting as well as sound effects pull you into the game more, rather than just having a good story and crappy everything else?

I do agree with that last part, I just don't think voice acting automatically makes a game more immersive. Loom, for instance, I first played the disk version and I liked it. Then, years later, I played the voice version and completely hated it. To be honest I'm not sure how this argument ended up where it is because all I was trying to say was that adventure games now are not rolling in quality voice acting.

Oh, and I liked the Beneath a Steel Sky voice acting. So... yeah.