Adventure Gamers - Forums

@Vegetable Party
You change, hopefully evolve, as a person, the world around you changes, games are still in an early stage, compared to films, and concepts, tech etc. evolve. Why should you feel the same about a game years later.

The same adventures I named a couple of times already, games like The Dig, The Witness, Shadow Point, The Last Of Us, Memoria etc.

@Gabe
That’s true for a minority (you could add successors too), but not all gems get this treatment. Secondly, if a remaster or remake is truly better, replacing the original, how often is this gonna happen? A game can enlarge its timespan this way maybe once or twice but depending on how good it really is, it might fade away nonetheless. Then there is all the new good stuff.

I like GF for daring something new, the more grown up attitude, most of the story & the dialogues (at times it can get boring too), its music, most of the characters (there exist a few annoying experiences) but certainly not for the graphics and input controls, puzzles aren’t a highlight either. So, more like a uncut crystal. Some adventures mean more to me than GF.

@Vegetable Party
Fair enough. I would add Myst in a historic milestone like list (although it’s not my type of adventure, it had its influence) but not in an essential one, for me. I rather put there stuff like Tetris, Dragon’s Lair, Impossible Mission, Dead Space and tons of other stuff you guys don’t see as adventures.

It is not. I wrote ‘... rather ...’.

But apart from this there exist many Tetris games, also implemented in very different kind of ways.

Which one(s) do you like the most?

That reminds me that there hasn’t ever been an official English release of The Portopia Serial Murder Case, which probably fits every definition of “historically important/influential” you can throw at it.

Dear Esther and Gone Home absolutely count here.

e) Oh, and I think nearly every “choice-driven” WRPG in the last few decades has at least a little bit of Quest For Glory/So You Want To Be A Hero? in it’s DNA.

meteor - 28 June 2022 05:37 AM

You might have fond memories of such games, but who wants to play them today anymore. Take a look at Myst. The presentation, game-design and -play is outdated. It sold millions but it wasn’t even a good game when it was released, too static, focus on artificial mechanic puzzles etc. These games don’t breath. There is no life in them.

That’s not the point.
Obviously old stuff can’t be exactly like new stuff. Old movies look like old movies, but that doesn’t mean they are bad. I just yesterday (re)watched Dr. Strangelove, and it’s much better than most new movies.

And how good or bad some old stuff is really depends on the current context.
Some 10-15 years ago FMV games seemed like a short, strange period in gaming when CD-ROMs came to market. Something that was even laughable to a point.

But after the second generation FMV games have come to market, this gives a whole new context to the older games as well. They are no longer just a strange phase in the past, they are also forerunner for the current games now.

Gabe - 28 June 2022 06:55 AM

meteor - 28 June 2022 05:37 AM

Take a look at Myst. There is no life in them.

I doubt that,they getting remaster and remakes regularly.

Remasters and remakes shouldn’t really be discussed in this context, as most of the time those are only attempts to cash in with the least amount of creative work.
In most cases they even butcher the original experience.

But at least it means that those IPs are still active, and in some cases keeping them active might even be the reason for all those re-releases, not necessarily in the case of Myst though.

meteor - 28 June 2022 08:37 AM

I like GF for daring something new, the more grown up attitude, most of the story & the dialogues (at times it can get boring too), its music, most of the characters (there exist a few annoying experiences) but certainly not for the graphics and input controls, puzzles aren’t a highlight either. So, more like a uncut crystal. Some adventures mean more to me than GF.

Grim Fandango is overrated.
And if we talk about influence, it really didn’t have that much influence on the genre. At least positive influence, some people do regard it as the game that killed point-and-click adventures, which is obviously not true, but there are good reasons for that point of view. Starting from the actual gameplay mechanics of Grim Fandango, and considering LucasArts release history, among other things.

meteor - 28 June 2022 08:37 AM

Fair enough. I would add Myst in a historic milestone like list (although it’s not my type of adventure, it had its influence) but not in an essential one, for me. I rather put there stuff like Tetris, Dragon’s Lair, Impossible Mission, Dead Space and tons of other stuff you guys don’t see as adventures.

Couldn’t Impossible Mission be counted as platformer-adventure hybrid?

Vegetable Party - 28 June 2022 08:40 AM

I’ve been thinking about this game as essential to the professionalisation of AGS engine adventure games, made by a dedicated community of inspired hobbyists. I think there might have been one or two commercial titles made with in AGS, but Blackwell really set a standard regarding narrative quality, voice acting, pretty much a standard of indie adventure games for years to come.

That’s certainly an interesting point of view.
I’m not sure I agree with it though. Some of the worst adventure games ever have been made with AGS, so there’s a lot of difference in quality there.

Also it’s worth noting that Wadjet games, including Blackwell series, were not originally commercial games, so drawing any lines between hobbyist games and commercial games there is a bit random. Wadjet has surely been the most visible AGS user, a bit like Daedalic is with Visionaire.

Anyway, I don’t think Bestowers of Eternity was such a milestone, so again drawing the line here is a bit tricky.

meteor - 28 June 2022 09:16 AM

But apart from this there exist many Tetris games, also implemented in very different kind of ways.

Which one(s) do you like the most?

This is certainly getting off-topic, but I have played Coloris and Welltris a lot.

There still exist old movies which are great today but the amount is getting smaller the more you go into the past. They age and only a fraction is immune to this, good and timeless enough. You might have a preference for a certain decade though. More movies get produced and the film language changes, like the taste of music etc. The exception that proves the rule exists.

This doesn’t transform 100% to adventures due to the different evolution (golden era) but it’s valid as a general rule.

The only relevant context (for an essential list, not the historic one) is: How much do I like a certain game today, regardless of its age. For the historic one, add whatever makes sense in this respect.

Do good adventure remasters or remakes exist? I tried Schafer’s versions but ended up with the originals because they felt better and were less demanding.

The Last Of Us will get a remake too. Everything looks nice, except the faces of the main characters, the expression and the look in their eyes. Adding detail is one thing, changing the expression another. The remaster is pretty good in this respect already.

I guess PlanetX would say Impossible Mission is a platformer with a story. I can understand this point of view but somewhere the boundaries blur and a more complex game like The Last Of Us is an adventure experience for me, and a valid addition for people interested in adventure game values. But again, the line was written with a ‘rather’ before.

I don’t really think any single game “killed” point and clicks, certainly not Grim Fandango as opposed to like, Doom.

Adventures were once the genre people used to show off what their IBM PC could do (which is why Kings Quest was so important) and that role got taken over by FPS games.

And now history is repeating with FPSes being somewhat moribund except for retro-themed games, because the “cutting edge graphics” genre has shifted to big budget open-world ARPGs and third person cinematic games due to the influence of The Last of Us.