Adventure Gamers - Forums

There are many types of adventure games that doesn’t appeal to me at all, but still gets rave reviews here and other places. Though disagreeing with a reviewers opninions is fine, getting (seemingly) angry and subtly accusing the whole site of being incompetent, is not. I didn’t like the latest Sherlock game, but it got great reviews. Should I get frustrated with the reviewers who enjoyed it? No, I’ll just play something else.

From what I can tell, the majority of the active members of this community (which consists of extremely passionate adventuregame enthusiasts) had a captivating experience with TWD, and I think Jackal has a very valid point asking what serious headschratchers would do to the flow of the storytelling. Personally part of what made the experience so great was the feeling of intensity, how you could never rest, with danger lurking around every corner. This feeling would not have been the same if I’d kept getting stuck or searching for hotspots. I love challenging puzzles, but this wasn’t the right game for it. As Lucien pointed out, the challenge here was about moral and ethics.

The reviews at Adventuregamers are so thorough and far from biased that even if the reviewer likes or dislikes a game, there’s allways enough info there to help you decide for yourself whether or not it’s something that’s likely to appeal to you. Unless you’re only looking at the score, that is.

If I was being pedantic I would point out that / is the mathematical symbol for Divide by, therfore 5/5 = 1

Anywhoo the Site has a scoring policy (see bottom of page)which clearly states that 5 does not mean perfection.

thinker - 06 December 2012 03:17 PM

Dag - 06 December 2012 03:11 PM

subtly accusing the whole site of being incompetent, is not.

I wonder who did that because I didn’t.

I don’t know, I may be reading your posts wrong, but they do seem like a bash at the site rather than trying to have a constructive discussion about your opinion of the game. Aren’t sentences like “this is the biggest they should respect” and “this is supposed to be adventuregamers.com” etc. implying that they’re not doing a good job and that the site isn’t worthy of its name?

Anyway, there have been many valid arguments so far that explains how 5/5 does not equal 100% in this case. If this thread is all about how the score doesn’t fit any mathematical formula, would you have been happy if the score said: Score approximately equal to 5/5?

I once knew a guy who NEVER gave 5/5 to anything (whether that was a film or a game or a book or whatever). He said that’s because 5/5 should only be reserved for things that are “perfect”.
I asked him why he even *had* a 5/5 grade then. Why not just give points out of 4.5 instead (since 5 would never happen in his view).
He promptly changed his rating system…

What’s your favourite game/book/film of all time? Did you give it 5/5? Is it “perfect” or can you tell me even one small defect?

5/5 does not mean perfection, it just means that it’s one of the best games of all time in the eyes of the reviewer.
You shouldn’t focus solely on the rating of a game. Read the review so you can see WHY the reviewer thought it deserved a 5/5 instead. THAT’s what a review is all about, not the score…

I have problems with this game even being called a game. It’s a choose your own adventure type of software like an interactive storybook and i CRIIIINGE whenever I hear mainstream websites say that this game is in the same vein as classic Lucasarts adventure games.

The writing isn’t even that good - Spec Ops: The Line had the best writing of the year. Walking Dead descends into maudlin soap opera. I bet you any money The Walking Dead ends up looking camp and ridiculous in a few years time like the cut scenes in Final Fantasy VII (edit: or like Heavy Rain right now) whereas true adventure games like Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward will remain timeless.

thejobloshow - 06 December 2012 05:10 PM

I have problems with this game even being called a game. It’s a choose your own adventure type of software like an interactive storybook and i CRIIIINGE whenever I hear mainstream websites say that this game is in the same vein as classic Lucasarts adventure games.

The writing isn’t even that good - Spec Ops: The Line had the best writing of the year. Walking Dead descends into maudlin soap opera. I bet you any money The Walking Dead ends up looking camp and ridiculous in a few years time like the cut scenes in Final Fantasy VII (edit: or like Heavy Rain right now) whereas true adventure games like Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward will remain timeless.

That bit is surely you being sarcastic. You are slagging off TWD as being an interactive storyboard and then bringing up that series.

VLR is a visual novel like it’s predecessor. And if it is anything like 999 then it is probably hours on end of painfully slow dialogue where your only action is to push the A button. In fact i’ve read that in VLR you can actually turn off the A button bit and have it scroll automatically, making it less interactive.

Now I’m not saying VLR is a bad game, because I havn’t played it, but it seems a bit odd to suggest that TWD is barely a game and then tout a visual novel as the paragon of adventureness.

I’ve been impressed with the way the visual novel genre has evolved over the past few years. The visual novel aspects of Zero Escape feel like a framing device for the puzzles. The puzzles are the centerpiece.

The Walking Dead wants to take away what it means to be an adventure game. It’s almost like it’s ashamed of being one. Zero Escape embraces it.

Oh sweet jebus. I’m going to draw comparisons on three subjective reviews, written by different people, for three completely different games and draw some conclusions by looking at the end score.

P.S Those two games are No 2 and No 1 on the official top 100 adventure games, but you seem to be struggling with the fact that people can like games in ways you don’t.