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Best Adventures of All time by their Genres

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Dag - 01 November 2012 11:38 PM

Yes, I’m sorry, I was a little tired and didn’t read your post properly. I see now that there was enough info there to make my previous post silly and uneccessary. Makes you think though, I got the overall impression that Lucasarts adventures are in general higher regard by fans and critics than Sierras, yet Sierras adventures seems to be better known.

Example: Even my parents knows about the Kings, Space and Police Quest series, even Leisure Suit Larry, but they wouldn’t have a clue about Monkey Island or DOTT.

I apologize for this off-topic excursion, please ignore me from now on, if this is annoying. Smile

relax man:D
and Thanks for giving me a chance to explain that more clearly

     
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Hehe, ok, relaxing! Grin Though I’ve been an exceptionally enthusiastic adventure game player since 1989 (I’ve been completely hooked on the genre ever since playing KQ1 back then), I’m pretty new at this forum, and don’t wanna step on any toes, but I’ll try and loosen up a bit Smile

Kinda surprising to see that Phantasmagoria is Sierras biggest hit. It’s one of the very few, if not the only, Sierra title(s) I never played, mainly because I found it to be the most visually unappealing game (in close competition with KQ8) that Sierra ever made.

I spend a lot of time painting and drawing myself, and there are few things I appreciate more than beautiful handpainted backgrounds in adventure games (this is the reason why Curse of MI is one of my all time favourites). Pre-rendering, 3D, FMV, rotoscoping and whatever it’s all called, never sat well with me. I do realize however, that I may be missing out on some great games with this attitude, but then again, when playing a well-made game in 3D or other formats, I can’t stop myself from thinking how great the game could have been if presented in handpainted 2D.

     

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Don’t know if I’m a bit late for this thread, but here’s my list. Smile

Comedy: Monkey Island 2
Fantasy: The Longest Journey
Horror: Horror is a bit too scary for me Smile
Sci-fi: Beneath a steel sky and The Dig
Mystery: Gabriel Knight probably
Thriller: Don’t know
Drama: Don’t know either Smile
Investigation: Police Quest 1-3 (hard to choose)

Have yet to try Deponia, A New Beginning and some Wadjet games.

     

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Comedy: Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
Fantasy: King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
Horror: The Walking Dead
Science: Fiction: Beneath a Steel Sky
Mystery: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father
Thriller: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Drama: Planescape: Torment (Not sure what qualifies as a ‘drama’ in this case, but I wanted to mention PS:T somewhere)
Investigation: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

     

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Advie - 01 November 2012 10:19 PM
TimovieMan - 01 November 2012 05:14 PM
Dag - 01 November 2012 08:24 AM

Sad thing is, LucaArts themselves doesn’t seem to know, as they’re only into pod-racing and whatnot these days.

That’s because all those talented adventure game-making people left LucasArts over ten years ago, and formed their own companies (like Double Fine, Telltale and Autumn Moon)...

exactly Timothy but those people and LucasArts are the best example of how that Talent is never enough or at least anymore


if you please let me take a wild a drift here away from the thread subject, and shed some tears Embarassed / Cry  over Lucasarts and its crew dis-formation .

where did LucasArts fail ... go wrong? can i under any circumstances point my finger at those people of LucasArts and accuse them for any failure when i am sure they had done everything to save the company from giving up on Adventure Gaming (it was only the changes in the media and the market that was craving for new games that held new updated technologies at the 2nd half of the 90’s were not just booming but exploding for the upcoming millennium) as we were told that at the year 2000 everything wll be watched on hologram projectors Crazy

i always want to blame Lucas(Film/Arts) for giving up on adventure gaming Now especially where a company like ttg is Booming Because it used a couple of Lucas’s IPs!!!

maybe yea, i can understand how was it god DAMN frustrating to lose (not just financially )but to be always behind Sierra when it comes to the (commercial wise) number of Adventure’s copies were sold through the 10-11 years of the Lucas-Sierra on top of the Genre and the gaming industry and above all  the major part that many of the Adventure players grew up when LucasArts Adventures was History.

they had both played a Big part to make a market (not just) for Games but for all the Multimedia Projects from the Floppy Drivers to the DVD’s going through the Graphics Cards, the Colors from B&W to RGB until the VGA and monitor/Display’s evolution (everything that Microsoft gave would not happen without the collaboration between B.Gates and LucasArts and before that it was Ken Williams whom had made KQ1 with Microsoft Sponsoring (almost a million dollars, 700,000 to be exact) helping Microsoft with promoting the floppy Drives and 5.1/4 Diskettes…..... anyways enough with history and...  lets get back to the the subject Nerd

Lucasarts had almost always the better reception,ratings for all their Adventures but though they were always behind Sierra when it comes to ((SELLING)) the number of game copies sold .

at the late 80’s the Adventure Genre/Developers (financially) had the goal/achievement to sell around (maximum) 250.000 copies.
by November 9, 1990. King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder Sold 500,000 copies and it was the biggest number that Sierra achieved for/until the next 4-5 years/Phantasmagoria 1995 that sold 1,000,000 million copies !! .
on the main hand ;the same year 1995 LucasArts had their biggest Number of copies sold for The Dig release with 300,000 copies .

But somewhere between those 4-5 yearsMyst made a a shocking figure of4,000 000 copies to be sold , which was a hell of success even the Millers themselves did not dream of , and of course unseeingly had put a new standard for the Industry and turned the market of the genre upside-down if not destroyed it.

both companies had to move on make better Games with better technologies with more and more with Great and Big Budgets ,
by the time 1997 LucasArts decided to give the greatest Adventure ever and they put all their efforts into making Grim Fanadango and there was the greatest disappointment EVER in the history of Adventure Gaming, Grim Fanadango had sold less than 100,000 Copies only!!
and that was the Drop down for the Genre with Lucas and Sierra out of the Scene
.
.
.

anyways sorry if their are any uncertain/wrong figures and numbers i wrote above but i did my best with researching, but i will be glad if anyone would correct me…right away!.

P.S: all the numbers are about the time of these titles releases, surely MI,or MysT had made more than those numbers 10 times by now or some certain time like:-
EX.1 Myst with the Pad releases had exceeded 12 Millions Copies ..
EX.2 MI1 HAS SOLD OVER A MILLION COPY BY 2004 and with the S.E release MI1&2 SOLD MORE THAN 2 MILLIONS COPIES 2009-2010

Where did you get all these sales figures? Do you know the numbers for other Lucasarts games on their initial release?

Dag - 01 November 2012 10:24 PM

@Advie: are u sure about Lucasarts allways being behind Sierra as far as number of copies being sold? I’m not denying it, I just remember Al Lowe saying something about Sierra Games never actually selling many copies, but mainly selling game manuals.

He was probably making a joke about hint books selling so well, supposedly sometimes outselling the actual copies of the game (implying rampant piracy). Sierra was top dog.

     
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I researched to get those figures but am not aware of a site or a source for to provide me of each and every game for LucasArt’ selling’s nor the number of copies sold on their releases .

     
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It’s hard to classify some games.  I’ll do my best.

Comedy - Sam & Max Hit the Road
Fantasy - The Longest Journey
Horror - tie between Maniac Mansion and The Walking Dead
Science Fiction - Blade Runner
Mystery - the Gabriel Knight series
Thriller - Full Throttle
Drama - Grim Fandango
Investigation - the Phoenix Wright series
Action - tie between the Quest for Glory series and the Police Quest series

     
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Advie - 01 November 2012 10:19 PM

by the time 1997 LucasArts decided to give the greatest Adventure ever and they put all their efforts into making Grim Fanadango and there was the greatest disappointment EVER in the history of Adventure Gaming, Grim Fanadango had sold less than 100,000 Copies only!!

Wow.  It’s surprising it was that low.  I was one of those that bought it soon after it came out.

As much as I love Grim Fandango, I think part of the problem is it wasn’t as marketable as some other games.  With a game like Full Throttle, just looking at the box art makes it look like it’s going to be a ton of fun.  Whereas even as a big adventure game fan, the concept of Grim Fandango wasn’t something that made me want to run out and get it.  And the art style and controls were very different, and probably didn’t have as much mass appeal.

Those things didn’t make it any less great once you get into playing it, but I can see why it sold worse than many of their other games.  It probably wasn’t as appealing as some other games were to people that weren’t big adventure game fans.  It’s a shame they didn’t try to release another game or two and see how they sold before shutting down making adventure games all together.

     
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Wow! looking/reading my post above almost a year ago made me think how adventure games had taught English at the 1st place and now adventuregamers forums have taught me even better English.

     
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Detective Mosely - 10 January 2014 08:38 PM

Whereas even as a big adventure game fan, the concept of Grim Fandango wasn’t something that made me want to run out and get it.  And the art style and controls were very different, and probably didn’t have as much mass appeal.

I never had access to game-related magazines, so I never knew anything about controls, gameplay and even graphics in advance.
The only thing I knew about Grim Fandango was “adventure game”, the release date, and “LucasArts” and that was enough to make it a release day purchase for me. After Fate of Atlantis, The Dig, DotT, Full Throttle, Monkey Island etc., the LucasArts logo was a seal of quality assurance.

When I found out how little copies they sold of their games (and none of their games sold a massive amount), I was really surprised. These games were very popular here (I don’t think I knew a single adventure gamer who didn’t prefer LucasArts over anything else back then)...

     

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TimovieMan - 11 January 2014 03:45 AM

The only thing I knew about Grim Fandango was “adventure game”, the release date, and “LucasArts” and that was enough to make it a release day purchase for me. After Fate of Atlantis, The Dig, DotT, Full Throttle, Monkey Island etc., the LucasArts logo was a seal of quality assurance.

Yeah, but that’s because you’re an adventure gamer.  I think the concept and art style had less appeal to the people that just randomly saw the box sitting there in a store than most of the other LucasArt titles, which I think contributed significantly to the disappointing sales.

     
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I think there is one more thing that helped cause the low sales of Grim Fandango, atleast this was the reason why I couldn’t get it myself on the day of release: Games in 3D was a completely new thing that required a 3D Acceleration Card to run, something I could not afford myself as an unemployed student at the time, and something my parents considered a waste of money and as such, would not buy it for me, or even lend me the money. I had to play it at a friends house. I had several other friends who wanted to play the game, but couldn’t for the very same reason. I find it strange that nobody seems to have thought of the hardware requirements as a possible reason for the decline of sales.

     

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Detective Mosely - 10 January 2014 08:38 PM

As much as I love Grim Fandango, I think part of the problem is it wasn’t as marketable as some other games.  With a game like Full Throttle, just looking at the box art makes it look like it’s going to be a ton of fun.  Whereas even as a big adventure game fan, the concept of Grim Fandango wasn’t something that made me want to run out and get it.  And the art style and controls were very different, and probably didn’t have as much mass appeal.

Those things didn’t make it any less great once you get into playing it, but I can see why it sold worse than many of their other games.  It probably wasn’t as appealing as some other games were to people that weren’t big adventure game fans.  It’s a shame they didn’t try to release another game or two and see how they sold before shutting down making adventure games all together.

Funny, but that’s exactly the thing I’m trying to say in the Broken Age thread Smile If the game lacks this polished appeal, it will be hard to make it a hit, even if it happens to be one of the best adventure games ever, like Grim Fandango was.

As for the thread,
Comedy: Monkey Island 1-2, Zork: Grand Inquisitor
Fantasy: Loom, Grim Fandango, Death Gate
Horror: Quest for Glory 4, Shadow of the Comet, Pathologic
Science Fiction: Omikron, Voyage, Primordia
Mystery: Gabriel Knight 1 and 3, Broken Sword
Not sure about others)

     

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Dag - 11 January 2014 09:50 AM

I think there is one more thing that helped cause the low sales of Grim Fandango, atleast this was the reason why I couldn’t get it myself on the day of release: Games in 3D was a completely new thing that required a 3D Acceleration Card to run, something I could not afford myself as an unemployed student at the time, and something my parents considered a waste of money and as such, would not buy it for me, or even lend me the money. I had to play it at a friends house. I had several other friends who wanted to play the game, but couldn’t for the very same reason. I find it strange that nobody seems to have thought of the hardware requirements as a possible reason for the decline of sales.

It had a “software mode” available.
You were able to select it from the game menu.
Here’s the relevant page from the manual:

Larger screenshot here
A 2MB video card minimum was listed on the bottom of the box, along with
3D Acceleration: Optional 3D graphics support requires a 4MB PCI or AGP 3D accelerator.

So it looks like you denied yourself for nothing—unless you only had a 1MB video card.
I’ve done similar things, but that wasn’t my problem with Grim.

As Detective Mosely said:

Detective Mosely - 11 January 2014 05:18 AM

Yeah, but that’s because you’re an adventure gamer.  I think the concept and art style had less appeal to the people that just randomly saw the box sitting there in a store than most of the other LucasArt titles, which I think contributed significantly to the disappointing sales.

I was an adventure gamer (at least I’d played a few). I saw the box sitting there with these rolled-paper-cut-out-looking characters. They had neither the charm of 2D animation nor the more realistic look of other adventure games on the shelf. And the game was $30 or $40, when what I was used to paying was $20 or less (except for special cases like Riven where I felt assured of quality). I knew Monkey Island, but I didn’t know LucasArts all that well. Eventually I paid the $30, but only after someone had lent me their game—2 years after its release and past the time when they started tabulating how much money it made.

     
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crabapple - 11 January 2014 02:27 PM

It had a “software mode” available.

If that was a mode in the game menu, I never get far enough to select it. I could not even install the game on that computer, and unless my memories are playing tricks on me, I remember getting a message that the computer couldn’t install it because I had no 3D acceleration. It’s quite possible that there were more more things than the graphics card that needed an upgrade. I had the same problem with Escape from MI. When I think about it, this probably helped fuel my dislike towards adventure games transitioning to 3D Tongue

crabapple - 11 January 2014 02:27 PM
Detective Mosely - 11 January 2014 05:18 AM

I think the concept and art style had less appeal to the people that just randomly saw the box sitting there in a store than most of the other LucasArt titles, which I think contributed significantly to the disappointing sales.

I saw the box sitting there with these rolled-paper-cut-out-looking characters. They had neither the charm of 2D animation nor the more realistic look of other adventure games on the shelf.

I agree with the both of you on this. Before I began reading this forum, I allways thought the move away from 2D and traditional animation was what caused the decline. For me, they lost most of their charm and beauty (and even playability in the case of games with a direct control scheme) and I, along with all of my friends, began losing interest with the genre.

In fact, when I joined this forum, it was my first experience with people who didn’t seem to have any issues with 3D adventure games. I’ve grown a bit since then and I no longer automatically dismiss an adventure just because it’s presented in 3D, but in spite of how far 3D technology has come, I still believe handpainted art has the potential to look better than anything I’ve seen so far in playable 3D. Even in AAA games there’s still many rough polygon edges and corners on objects that are supposed to be soft and round, and that’s today. 17 years ago 3D looked absolutely horrible to my eyes and I questioned the developers sense of aestethics. How could they sacrifice charm and beauty for techological showing off? I could not understand it. The way I see it MI3’s graphics will hold up well for eternity. Anything early 3D allready looks terribly outdated and will continue to do so increasingly as the technology curve rises.

     

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