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Lucasarts vs SIERRA: Who made the best Adventures?
Hey all. I saw that there was a post on this about 8 years ago but it’s archived so I figured I’d reinvent the wheel.
I made a couple videos about the subject. We judge LucasArts vs SIERRA based on 3 criterias. Well, it’s really 2.5.
Part 1 (6.5 minutes) covers innovation.
Part 2 (11.5 minutes) covers games and memorable characters.
The games are ranked based off Adventure Gamers top 100 list, my list, and general consensus. The characters are lightly covered and discussed based off of my own opinion.
I hope you guys like them and I encourage everyone to discuss their thoughts on who is the best out of the two here.
No cop out answers like they both are the best. To quote Highlander - “There can be only one”.
YouTube: Weird Gaming Adventure
IG: weird_gaming_adventure
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 2.5D game as it uses only 3D characters inserted in pre. rendered static backgrounds. Trust me, it is a huge difference.
Mystery House also allows you to drop any item on any screen and those items stay visible there.
King’s Quest 1 was the first adventure that allowed direct control of the character on screen as well as allowed the character to move around the objects on the screen.
Siera also championed for the adaptation of new technology as they heavily pushed the use of actual soundcards. They worked a lot with hardware manufacturers to make sure that they’d have the best possible compatibility. In fact, King’s Quest 4 is the first game to use a soundcard.
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 3.5D game
Don’t you mean 2.5D? A 3.5D game would probably look something like this:
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 3.5D game
Don’t you mean 2.5D? A 3.5D game would probably look something like this:
Pitch that idea to Disney right now!
Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 3.5D game
Don’t you mean 2.5D? A 3.5D game would probably look something like this:
¨
Whoops, yes obviously 2.5D. And to further that though, Grim wasn’t the first to do that in the adventure genre either. That would be Alone in the Dark.
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 2.5D game as it uses only 3D characters inserted in pre. rendered static backgrounds. Trust me, it is a huge difference.
Mystery House also allows you to drop any item on any screen and those items stay visible there.
King’s Quest 1 was the first adventure that allowed direct control of the character on screen as well as allowed the character to move around the objects on the screen.
Siera also championed for the adaptation of new technology as they heavily pushed the use of actual soundcards. They worked a lot with hardware manufacturers to make sure that they’d have the best possible compatibility. In fact, King’s Quest 4 is the first game to use a soundcard.
This post reminded me of the sound blaster card craze. Oh sweet nostalgia.
Pardon my ignorance on the matter but isn’t the unreal engine a 3d engine or are all of those 3d games 2.5? Thanks in advance.
YouTube: Weird Gaming Adventure
IG: weird_gaming_adventure
Pardon my ignorance on the matter but isn’t the unreal engine a 3d engine or are all of those 3d games 2.5? Thanks in advance.
Unreal engine is true 3D, and it’s one of the best 3D engines ever.
Unreal was a very good FPS game as a game too, even though some people criticise it for having too much open areas and too little action.
This post reminded me of the sound blaster card craze. Oh sweet nostalgia.
Pardon my ignorance on the matter but isn’t the unreal engine a 3d engine or are all of those 3d games 2.5? Thanks in advance.
It is a 3D engine. In a strict sense, Grim engine is probably a 3D engine as well, considering it handles 3D geometry data of the characters, but what makes it different from a 3D game like Unreal or Quake, is, that the backgrounds objects don’t have real depth information, so you can present them only from the perspective they were originally rendered from. They are just flat planes set to a 3D axis.
So, if you want to present a scene from a different angle, you have to re-render the scene again and layer it up so that the game engine knows how it should function and which are the objects the characters can walk behind of and so on. If you’d be using realtime 3D models, you could just switch to a new camera each time you want a new angle with no additional hassle to it.
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 3.5D game
Don’t you mean 2.5D? A 3.5D game would probably look something like this:
Pitch that idea to Disney right now!
While we are at it let’s petition the release of prisoners. Guybrush, Ben, Manny and Zach. We need some new games.
😀
YouTube: Weird Gaming Adventure
IG: weird_gaming_adventure
This post reminded me of the sound blaster card craze. Oh sweet nostalgia.
Pardon my ignorance on the matter but isn’t the unreal engine a 3d engine or are all of those 3d games 2.5? Thanks in advance.
It is a 3D engine. In a strict sense, Grim engine is probably a 3D engine as well, considering it handles 3D geometry data of the characters, but what makes it different from a 3D game like Unreal or Quake, is, that the backgrounds objects don’t have real depth information, so you can present them only from the perspective they were originally rendered from. They are just flat planes set to a 3D axis.
So, if you want to present a scene from a different angle, you have to re-render the scene again and layer it up so that the game engine knows how it should function and which are the objects the characters can walk behind of and so on. If you’d be using realtime 3D models, you could just switch to a new camera each time you want a new angle with no additional hassle to it.
I see. Sounds like they chose the best option for a beautiful Adventure game. Can you imagine the chalky backgrounds like in Jedi Knight?
YouTube: Weird Gaming Adventure
IG: weird_gaming_adventure
If we’re talking first 3D game shouldn’t Under A Killing Moon claim that title?
If we’re talking first 3D game shouldn’t Under A Killing Moon claim that title?
Under a Killing Moon is FMV.
YouTube: Weird Gaming Adventure
IG: weird_gaming_adventure
If we’re talking first 3D game shouldn’t Under A Killing Moon claim that title?
Under a Killing Moon is FMV.
It is also 3D. Under a Killing Moon utilizes realtime 3D engine in the game locations and FMV on the narrative.
Alright. Grim Fandango isn’t a 3D game, it is a 2.5D game as it uses only 3D characters inserted in pre. rendered static backgrounds. Trust me, it is a huge difference.
To nitpick the video a little more (and it should be mentioned that I appreciate people reviewing games from different perspectives so I’m not trying to slant the video):
I don’t think Leisure Suit Larry was the first game to introduce adult comedy in adventure gaming, as it itself was the third version of the same story! The previous ones being Softporn Adventure and Las Vegas. Especially Las Vegas had so graphic content, that at least the first three Larry games weren’t on that level yet!
Also, I find it a little strange that Quest for Glory I is presented as the first game to combine point-and-click and RPG. While that may be true, at least if we only compare games from those two developers, the game in the video was the remake of the original Hero’s Quest/Quest for Glory. And the original was an adventure, yes, but not point-and-click. So I am confused here, are we talking about adventures, or just point-and-click games all of a sudden?
This is a fundamental issue with that second video actually. Almost the very first words said in the video are “point and click”, which also appear in the video title, but then when the speedrun through the top list begins, already the third game in the list is The Colonel’s Bequest, which obviously shouldn’t be mentioned at all, if we are talking about point-and-click adventures. And of course, without that ResidualVM fan patch, Grim Fandango isn’t point-and-click either.
So nice videos, but I think it should be more clearly defined, are we talking about adventures, point-and-clicks, going through some top list or what.
I also don’t quite get how LucasArts experimented with new things, but apparently Sierra did not? It was Sierra who actually had the most variation in their games!
Just look at the King’s Quest series, the graphics went from pixels to cartoons to 3D, the protagonist was sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, the user interface went from parsers to pointing and clicking and all that, they even added some RPG (Quest for Glory) and action (Mask of Eternity) to their games.
Sierra also had one-off games which weren’t part of any series almost as much as LucasArts had games altogether! Obviously those were the least popular of their catalogue, but still, they had them. LucasArts had a higher percentage of non-series games, but even so, most of their games were part of some series! All Indy games, all Monkey Island games, both Maniac Mansion games, and it should be noted that they tried to create sequels for Sam & Max and Full Throttle, but those got cancelled in the middle of production, but you could consider those as series as well.
The problem with making these types of videos is that the time frames that we have to keep the audience attention doesn’t allow for context. Studies show that if we stay on a bullet point for longer than 14 seconds inside a list format video we will lose our viewer. This is something that I’m having a hard time with when covering this genre.
I’m a fantasy sports host by trade and it’s much easier to give a stat or statement and move on. Covering genres with sub genres and having them fit the narrative I’m trying to convey is something i’m coming around to. It involves weaving my note and then letting the reference be the cipher. Something that ive not mastered.
In this case there are a few things that I probably should have emphasized a bit more such as LSL and how they found a way to commercialize the raunchiness. That is the innovation (if any of those games could be considered an innovation at all). Also, I should have drawn more attention that we were playing by the adventuregamers .com lists rules for the top 100. My list was strictly point and click and I used my list as a way to differentiate two’s videos title (and to capitalize on a more specific keyword term).
In regards to the one off games, I was building off of the % of games to top 100 ratio theme that I had built. All but one of Sierra’s games in the top 100 were part of an established series. Trying to emphasize the quantity versus quality aspect 15 games lucas- 90 games Sierra). Once Sierra really hit, the majority of their budget went to churning out series games as opposed to going out and trying new characters.
In all I attempt to talk as a passionate fan for passionate fans. I’m not attempting to teach anyone something. I’m just musing with piers. That’s what I’m shooting for. It makes for a comfortable setting. However, if I end up making a video where I’m stating facts instead of objective opinion I will certainly need to hone in on some things and use notes as opposed to bullet points.
Is there anything else that you noticed that i can clean up? As a diagnosed OCD guy I always want to know the ins and outs of hing and these conversations are absolutely appreciated. Thanks for watching the videos.
Big salutations my adventure game friends.
YouTube: Weird Gaming Adventure
IG: weird_gaming_adventure
Seeing as Softporn Adventure wasn’t made by Sierra, there is a strong argument to be made that the first LSL game, being little more than a graphical update to someone else’s work, shouldn’t count as a Sierra game in regards to assessing them as a company. As such, the first “Sierra” erotic comedy would be LSL2 in 1988 when the character was finally taken in its own original direction and the gameplay was independently developed.
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