[Valynis]

Ok, this is some sort of combination between criticism and survey. I mean it in the most respectful way to the people involved. Here we go.

Am I the only one who thinks the article on adventuregamers.com are awfully short? The recent Gabriel Knight intro article made me realize this but this "state of affairs" is generalized throughout the entire site. Every aspects are lightly touched upon. References are kept to a minimum (minimum including none sometimes). Basically, they read like the quick summary on the backside of a movie box.

Ok, that last one is unfair, but that's the way it feels to me. I like to read articles on things I'm interested so, the more details you put, the more thoroughly you cover the subject, the more completely you cover all the angles, the happier I am... and the bigger the text gets, of course!

So, here's my question to you guys: Do you guys prefer the current way of doing things? Do you prefer short articles? Are you more interested by a quicker read that will give you enough info on the subject to know a bit about it?

In some ways, I get the impression that this is this website's vocation: to give quicker snapshots to the readers, to tease them, in a way, like a publicity website. Maybe it is. After all, the adventure game genre is in need of exposure. AG.com tries to appeal to more people by keeping their articles short, because a lot of people are scared when they see a lot of text.

Far from me to tell AG.com what they should do. It's their site. I also understand that this site is FREE which means the staff is already underpaid enough without rising the word count. No matter what, I will continue to come here and read the features because, overall, I usually get to learn something new about the fascinating world of adventure video games. I just thought I'd ask if I was the only one yearning for more content.

[Moosferatu]

Hey, Valynis! The man has reappeared. Good to hear from you again.

[Marek]

Valynis, you raise an interesting point, and there's no need to excuse yourself. I'll be very interested in reading the responses.

Although I can't speak for the individual writers, in my mind there's constantly two theories competing for attention. One theory says that this is a genre site, so its readers are more committed by default, and so our articles should be longer, more exhaustive, etc. Where others might stop reading, adventure gamers would continue, because they're already so invested in the subject matter. On the other hand, reading from the screen is slow, and the prevailing usability guideline on the web is 'less is more'. So, perhaps AG should have shorter snack size articles that are somewhat interesting to the hardcore readers as well as the accidental gamer who surfed on in.

Should AG entrench itself further into the adventure game niche, doing lots of elaborate retrospective articles and such, or should we open ourselves up to gamers who aren't "in the know" enough to read really long articles?

On AG we've had many articles on both sides of the spectrum. You have the really short ones on one end, and the really long ones on the other (the Top 20 and the Future of Adventure Games article). I wonder who reads what. We're planning a survey that will hopefully help to answer that for us, but I will also look carefully at the replies in this topic. Let us know what you think...

[ragnar]

I don't wnat much longer articles when it comes to reviews. On the other hand I miss (regular) columns where different staff members (I would even allow BJ in there ) can vent their opinions about gaming in general and adventure gaming in particular. I would also like to see longer interviews or even articles by adventure game developers, both professional and amateur developers. I would also like to see post mortems from recent games, i.e. more articles and more varied articles (both long and short and on lots of different topics).

[DomStLeger]

I don't see why AGs can't do both, intoducing the occasional long piece. A long indepth article every now and then would be interesting, and they'd probably stimulate more good discussions in the forums than some of the shorter pieces are able too.

Basically I don't think short and long are mutually exclusive.

P.S. Even so, I think the ags are great as they are and enjoy visiting the site as a hardcore adventuregamer.

[Jackal]

In terms of overall site content, it's probably better to have a little of both short & sweet and in-depth features. Better that than try to find a happy medium (assuming you can do each of them well, of course).

I don't think your articles are the place to use the less-is-more approach, though. As far as those go, better to leave it up to content and ability. Entertaining and informative should be the goals, after all. If a writer's got more of interest to say, turn 'em loose. If they're still rambling after running out of things to say, shut 'em up.

[BacardiJim]

Thanks, ragnar.


I'm interested in the feedback on this too. Evan has commented to me on the length of my reviews, indicating that he would really prefer for most of them to be shorter. For me, it is harder to write a shorter review, as it means packing information in more tightly and concisely at the expense of illustrative examples. For instance, some people commented after Pt. One of the URU Diaries that they would have liked examples of the "dumbing down" of the game. Such examples were trimmed to shorten the article.

Don't take this as any kind of criticism of Evan, who is an excellent editor, nor as any kind of whining on my part about having to leave some of my words on the cutting room floor. In general, the process is probably making me a better writer (or at least a better journalist). But I am very interested to find out if a shorter, leaner content is really what the readers want.

[Marek]

Another thing I'm interested in hearing about is how you guys expect the story of a game to be discussed in a review. Some writers allocate three or four paragraphs to describing the story, which is usually very similar to the synopsis given by the publisher. You know, often very detached, like the writer's basic 1-page treatment of the story. I've always told writers that such long sidetracks need to be avoided. If someone can get the basic synopsis on the official game site, they don't want to read it again in a review.

However, I've recently begun to believe that reviews are too dull if they're too much like a point-by-point verdict (sort of the GameSpot/GameSpy model). Do you think reviews should describe the atmosphere of the game more? And I don't mean a line like "Syberia has a very melancholic atmosphere". I'm talking about a sort of story or metaphor or anecdote that really make you feel what this game is about.

This is not the best example I can find (since I think the complete review stinks), but check out these snippets from InsertCredit's GTA review:

This mix of escapist videogamey goodness and die-hard realism hits me like that pleasant feeling when you stand in the doorway of an air-conditioned grocery store on a hot summer day: hot and cold, mingling, and you can't tell which way you feel most. Grand Theft Auto III was heavy on videogamey. Vice mixes reality in beautifully. One minute you're piloting bomb-equipped remote-controlled helicopters into a construction site in need of deconstructing. The next, you're picking up a sniper rifle at a "multi-story car park" (We call it a "parking garage" over here, Rockstar), and then driving down to an alleyway where a coke deal is going to take place.

<snip>

The addition of real music, in a way, completely refreshes the experience of joyriding. I must have taken forty laps of the stadium parking lot in my motorcycle, just so I could hear the entire playlist of the pirate radio station, Wildstyle FM. I could see the harbor, and palm trees, and the rain hitting the pavement and blowing and whipping around. I felt like I was living an eighties I hadn't had the chance to live.

It's hard for me to explain, but these paragraphs are a little different from the usual product reviews and are closer to what you find in most movie reviews. There's some examples of this on AG too, though most of our reviews are more point-by-point rather than 'telling a story about this game'. What do you prefer? "Just the facts, please" or a little more descriptive language, at the risk of making the article more lengthy?

[ragnar]

I definitely prefer more descriptive reviews, and I don't mind if they get longer (not too long though). A pooint-by-point fact list get rather boring to read and is rather uninteresting in my opinion.

[Erkki]

I also think there should be both shorter and longer articles. I don't know about the reviews as I don't read most of them.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I think this one's a very good example of a creatively and technically detailed review, because it gets you both intrigued and informed on the mechanics of the gameplay.

Review of Thief: The Dark Project by Wagner James Au (one of my favourite reviewers) -

In most 3-D worlds, your sole orientation is visual -- almost always, space is described strictly in terms of perspective. In Thief, the dimensions are also aural and tactile. Sound can travel from anyplace in the environment and reach your ears. You can actually hear noises resonating off several surfaces, allowing you to guess their direction, distance and character. Material objects convey their quality with sound: metallic surfaces clang, wood thuds, stone cracks. Even light has perceivable gradations: A jewel icon at the base of your screen changes hue according to your relative illumination. In a sunlit courtyard, it gleams white; when you move into deep shadow, it becomes obsidian.

But these features aren't mere "special effects," cool fillips irrelevant to gameplay. When you're a thief, short of armor and weaponry, such cues are essential. You must maintain constant awareness of the environment, its shapes and textures, as if, literally, your life depended on them. Stumble onto noisy metal grates, forget to listen for approaching footsteps, ignore the proximity of shadow (once in darkness, Garrett is virtually invisible) and guards will quickly spot you, pounce and kill.

Thief makes good on the promise of the old virtual-reality tradition in the same way that genre movies often prove more meaningful than filmmakers' more self-consciously artistic efforts. Where, for instance, Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris" is a flat-footed meditation on the unknowability of an alien intelligence, Ridley Scott's "Alien" plays on a similar theme, but with spoogey, Hollywood gore -- and gives it the power of nightmare. Much the same way, Thief manages to play out the creative possibilities of virtual reality, not through artistic ambition but from the simpler desire to create a great 3-D action game.

Until now, architects of virtual worlds have largely assumed that better object rendering and motion fluidity guarantee a greater sense of verisimilitude. Thief's creators have employed such technologies, too -- and then found a way to imbue them with real urgency. Investing its empirical grid with direct consequence, they raise the emotional stakes of being inside the game.

With perception shaped by meaning, your persona is shaped, too. You learn to see, hear and think like a thief. It's hard to say the same about other 3-D games and VR applications -- unless being a hair-trigger sociopath or a roving pixie qualify as having a personality. But if there is any final criteria for successful virtual reality, it must be that, just like real life, its environment molds the kind of person you must be within its confines.

Poised in the upper recess of a vaulted chamber, where a decadent aristocrat's prize sword hangs in mid-air, surrounded on all sides by surly guards, you have no option but ruthless cunning and insanely bold stealth. As you leap out to a blackened cable and rappel toward your prize, you must become Garrett -- or die.

full review, Salon.com