Adventure Gamers - Forums

I am curious as to why L.A. noire is considered adventure since I have played this game and yes there is the discovery of the murders and the talking to characters aspect but I consider this game closer to a shooter than a true adventure game as there aren’t as many puzzles. I would consider the Uncharted series to be more adventure than this game as their are puzzles and character interaction, yes shooting and action parts, but Dreamfall had action and stealth parts and Broken Sword 3 had stealth parts. The Walking Dead series contains action and shooting. Just wondering why L.A. noire is considered adventure, when it is more shooting and action and Uncharted series is considered action-adventure when there are a lot of puzzles and climbing walls such as was in the early 2000’s 3d adventure games.

I am a huge adventure game too and typically don’t like action games except for RPG’s but loved the Uncharted series. Found it similar to the Broken Sword series, which I love.

It’s probably because of the dialogue and interrogation systems that more closely mirror adventure game mechanics. And the ratio of shooting to investigation isn’t like your average open world action game.

Also saying The Walking Dead “has shooting” is like saying Full Throttle “has car combat.” It’s a mini-game, a little variety, clearly not part of the core mechanics. Gemini Rue is more of a shooter than The Walking Dead (and Gemini Rue isn’t a shooter). What the primary game-play loop consists of is taken into account when discussing genre.

To answer your question directly L.A Noire isn’t considered an adventure game by everyone. It’s always been a contested claim and it’s probably not thought of that way by most people. I’d consider it an open world action adventure game.

IMO if action and reflex challenge is core to the experience than it’s not an adventure game.

I honestly never understood this.  I play plenty of genres of games besides adventure, so the distinction doesn’t really matter to me, but to me L.A. Noire was just flat out not an adventure game.

What’s even weirder to me though is how AG isn’t classifying games like Orwell or later Telltale games as adventure games.  What on earth is the genre for these games if it’s not adventure?

Back when L.A. Noire was released there was a big excitement in the AG community that adventure games were “moving forward” with big budget releases from well known companies, graphical upgrades, and so forth. I suspect that the site jumped on that kind of hype, and then later realised that the fruit of these endeavours was the “interactive novel” kind of game like Telltale brought out after they saw traditional adventure games as too unprofitable to pursue.

I personally think there is too much emphasis on puzzles from the more shall we say traditional sector of the AG market. Some people think that if a game doesn’t make you rack your brains and bang your head on the desk half a dozen times in its duration, then it’s not a true adventure game. And yet some (most?) of the best adventure games of the last decade or so have been those with minimal challenge. Time for a change in policy perhaps?

Did no one else skip the action sequences? I know I did.

Can you skip the action sequences in Uncharted?

Oscar - 23 July 2018 10:56 AM

Can you skip the action sequences in Uncharted?

It would end in 30min

We treated LA Noire as an adventure precisely because the huge majority of its action is skippable if so desired.

What’s even weirder to me though is how AG isn’t classifying games like Orwell or later Telltale games as adventure games.  What on earth is the genre for these games if it’s not adventure?

Telltale games have become nothing more than cinematic Choose-Your-Own-Adventures with some QTEs tacked on. If people want to consider that an adventure, it’s perfectly understandable, but then the same would need to apply to pretty much all CYOAs and visual novels. There are so many of those that even if we wanted to, expanding AG’s scope to include basically every interactive story would be a practical impossibility.

Orwell is an entirely different beast, and we debated this a lot when both games came out. With this series, the lack of puzzles or any real challenge make it play more like a story-driven sim than adventure. The game’s own developers don’t call it an adventure game, so who are we to argue? Really, though, games are always changing and innovating and diversifying so they don’t fit neatly into the boxes we keep trying to pack them into. 

And yet some (most?) of the best adventure games of the last decade or so have been those with minimal challenge. Time for a change in policy perhaps?

What policy? Puzzles have always been an integral element of our genre definition, but never have we insisted they be difficult puzzles. But there does need to more player engagement than effectively clicking through stories or wandering through scenery to qualify. And besides, we still cover the best of those kinds of games, only without a review score. So what are people really missing out on?

Generally speaking—and I’ve said all this a million times before when people want to argue genre definitions—is that everything comes down to a matter of degree. Yes, a bunch of games have action elements in them, but eventually there needs to be a line drawn on when there’s too much action (or too hard). No, there doesn’t need to be a LOT of puzzles in a game, but there needs to be a line drawn when there’s too little challenge to even register as such.

If we keep giving in to the slippery slope “if you covered X than you should cover Y” argument, you could pretty much rationalize anything. So lines need to be drawn. We’re not going to start covering Skyrim just because we covered Hero-U.

The only reason I like the distinction is that I’m usually playing the Adventure genre to relax and to suddenly be set upon by some dastardly action sequence rattles my damned nerves!

If I know it’s got survival or action elements that’s fine as I can make the decision that it looks good enough anyway and play it when I’m in the mood for something a little more exciting.

Jackal - 23 July 2018 12:29 PM

No, there doesn’t need to be a LOT of puzzles in a game, but there needs to be a line drawn when there’s too little challenge to even register as such.

There isn’t practically speaking any puzzles nor any story in The Manhole, but it’s generally considered an adventure game… 

Anyway, I think anyone can define genres as he/she likes. Why bother with someone else’s definition, if someone wants to call Half-Life an adventure game, then that’s how it is - for that person. Of course, it would generally be a good idea to be able to tell how you define the genre, in case someone ever asks. Not that all the other people are ever going to agree with that.

The same problem is of course with any other genre too. Are Carmageddon games racing games? You drive cars around, but rather than racing, the main focus and key to success is destruction.

In the case of adventure genre, even the genre naming is somewhat difficult. What is an “adventure” anyway? Do all adventure games offer something adventurous?

GateKeeper - 01 August 2018 02:52 AM

In the case of adventure genre, even the genre naming is somewhat difficult. What is an “adventure” anyway? Do all adventure games offer something adventurous?

Certainly not, nor would they need to for the name to be appropriate. The “Adventure” genre represents the descendants of the game “Adventure”, aka “Colossal Cave Adventure”, aka “ADVENT”. Adventure begat Dungeon aka Zork begat Infocom and so on - from text adventures/IF to 3rd person point&click; games to mystlikes and beyond!

GateKeeper - 01 August 2018 02:52 AM

There isn’t practically speaking any puzzles nor any story in The Manhole, but it’s generally considered an adventure game… 

We don’t. Never have.

I also don’t understand the endless fuss over the grey areas between genre labels. For obvious reasons we HAVE to make distinctions, but even then we still try to cover stuff outside of that scope that are adventure-like enough to be of interest.

Really, genre labels are useful only for the most basic initial groupings between games with blatantly different characteristics. But a ton of games fall somewhere in between, and for those you have to dig deeper to find out exactly what kind of game it really is, no matter what you end up calling it.

A lot of games just end up being lumped into one genre or another simply because it’s the closest thing to fitting. But even that is fluid. Years ago the “survival horror” genre basically grew out of an adventure game (Alone in the Dark). No one ever heard of the “puzzle-platformer” until they became so popular that they needed a label of their own. Ditto the “walking simulator”, though that expression is horrible and does far more harm than good. So genre labels aren’t just flexible, they’re evolving too.

Jackal - 01 August 2018 12:26 PM

No one ever heard of the “puzzle-platformer” until they became so popular that they needed a label of their own.

Impossible Mission was a very successful game almost 25 years ago though. Although I don’t know how its genre was defined back then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Mission

http://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Impossible_Mission

http://www.mobygames.com/game/impossible-mission

Interestingly enough, Mobygames lists Garfield: Big, Fat, Hairy Deal as a platformer with puzzle elements. Personally I would think it’s almost pure adventure game, it has inventory and everything.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/garfield-big-fat-hairy-deal