Adventure Gamers - Forums

So how do you feel about puzzles that you solve by shooting things with a big gun?

I have once again cheated a little bit, and chosen a scene from a game that is in no way an Adventure Game (Mass Effect 3) - but it is nevertheless a puzzle!

The object here is pretty straightforward, you have been downloaded into a data centre (the Geth consensus), and you objective is to clean different data clusters from foreign code (Reaper code), and you do so by shooting it with your gun! Simple enough, right?

Well there is a little caveat, and it is this caveat that makes it an actual puzzle. You can’t just shoot the code as it will just instantaneously repair itself, instead you have to find the weak spots and take them out first, kind of unravelling a sweater by pulling the right thread.

This might neither be the most difficult nor the best puzzle ever made, but it is nevertheless a perfect example of how elements from AG, and not just the story telling but also the puzzles, tend to find their ways into other genres without deluding or diminishing what makes those genres unique. Now if we also had more AG’s that weren’t afraid to do the same, and incorporate more elements from other genres, while still keeping what makes AG special, then it would be a perfect world. Well perhaps not a perfect world, but .. you know what I mean


P.S. Sorry I’m a bit late with this weeks Midweek Puzzle, but better late than never, right?

Iznogood - 22 January 2016 05:28 AM

P.S. Sorry I’m a bit late with this weeks Midweek Puzzle, but better late than never, right?

You really let yourself go… I would never do something like this.

Actually, last week was Diskworld Noir which is a 100% adventure game, and the only other none AG I have featured was The Secret World, which has also been featured right here on the main site.

Anyway the point with today’s feature is not to show an “action puzzle”, as there is absolutely zero action in this puzzle, it is just a puzzle that happens to be in an action game instead of in an AG, and uses a gun as the interface instead of point & click. It might strictly speaking not be an adventure game scene, but the scene could just as well had been from an AG, and that is the reason I selected it and the point I was trying to make.

So no, I don’t really see any problems with straying a bit from the path now and again, as long as it is of course still related to adventure games.


Edit: Oh .. and I just remembered that ME3 actually has a Story Mode that allows you to (almost) completely skip all the action, and (almost) play it like it was a visual novel or Telltale game focusing (almost) 100% on the story and your choices. So with a bit of goodwill you could actually call it an Adventure Game

My reasons for doing these Midweek Puzzles in the AGSotD frame, has never really been to promote individual games, but rather to promote an element of AG that I feel has been somewhat neglected in the recent years. But also simply to post about something that I care about, and hopefully to provide the members here with something interesting to read or look at.

If it also happens to spark an interesting discussion once in a blue moon, then all the better, but to promote individual games or make recommendations has always been very low on my list of reason for doing this.

giom - 22 January 2016 07:24 PM

PS: Plus, honestly, Iznogood is right, in story mode, it becomes even harder not classify ME3 as an adventure game if we consider games like Beyond Two Souls to be one.

Have you actually played “story mode”? I have. It just makes the action a LOT easier, but it still remains an action game, and there are still a couple of sequences that are going to be really hard to pull off for some of the more dexterously challenged.

Having said that, discussing this particular puzzle is very much like discussing a puzzle from Portal or The Talos Principle, so it’s fair game. It’s an AG puzzle that just happens to be in a non-AG game…

TimovieMan - 22 January 2016 08:01 PM

Having said that, discussing this particular puzzle is very much like discussing a puzzle from Portal or The Talos Principle, so it’s fair game. It’s an AG puzzle that just happens to be in a non-AG game…

But then, dialog from The Witcher is also an AG puzzle that is in a RPG? Or using a key in Tomb Raider? I mean, more and more non-adventure games are adopting puzzles that are most commonly associated with adventures, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. I myself included Wing Commander 4, so I’m not completely against “intruders” here and then like what Izno is doing, but I also understand chrissie’s concern.

giom - 22 January 2016 07:24 PM

So the ethos of this forum is to talk about games and aspect of games that would be of interest to adventure gamers and I believe that the puzzles of Mass Effect 3 are definitely interesting to people here. This puzzle could be found in a more classic adventure game and I find that it’s interesting to discuss about this.  Having games from different genres including traditional adventure game elements is something to celebrate and it’s fun that there’s such a diversity between games that lines between genres are blurred.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

giom - 22 January 2016 07:24 PM

I find the discussion of the puzzles from Izongood interesting (loved the Dragon puzzle discussion from Samaritan Paradox, it was fun speculating with everybody :-). And I look forward to reading more from Iznogood, regardless of which game it comes from.

Thank you.

diego - 23 January 2016 11:25 AM

But then, dialog from The Witcher is also an AG puzzle that is in a RPG? Or using a key in Tomb Raider?

Using a key to open a door doesn’t in itself constitute a puzzle!
But sure, there are many other examples of puzzles in non-AG, and who knows, sometime in the future I might feature another example of one of those

Oscar - 23 January 2016 11:28 AM

Except that Portal and The Talos Principle are adventure games. That makes all the difference.

Plenty of games that also aren’t AG has been featured in these AGSotD in the past, and there is even an 18 page discussion about a game that is not considered an AG by the main site, right here in the Adventure part of the forum! These other games might be slightly closer related to AG than ME3, but not really by that much (imo).

As Giom phrased it: “So the ethos of this forum is to talk about games and aspect of games that would be of interest to adventure gamers”

Oscar - 23 January 2016 11:28 AM

I personally don’t really want to see RPGs discussed on the adventure forum. I’d go to an RPG site for that.

But this is not a discussion or a feature about a RPG!
If you read my post again, then you might notice that I say absolutely nothing about the game in general, hell I don’t even mention that it is a RPS. Instead I focus 100% on the puzzle itself, and the fact that a non-AG has a puzzle that could just as well have been in an AG.

Had I chosen some random screenshot from the game and written a lot about in the game in general, then I agree, then it would have been something that belonged in the general section of this forum - But I didn’t! 

Oscar - 23 January 2016 11:28 AM

And as has been mentioned, there are PLENTY of adventures to discuss. It’s not like we’re short in that area.

But it is far from all of them that has any puzzles worth a mention, and even less worthy being featured here in my Midweek Puzzle special. If I just wanted to post a random screenshot from some AG then it might be a different matter, but that is not why I’m doing this. Personally I find the fact that other games also contain puzzles, and some of those even manages to create better and more interesting puzzles, than what you find in most AG, to be far more interesting than just posting some random puzzle.

Let me just remind everybody of what my stated purpose is with these Midweek Puzzles:

Iznogood - 03 June 2015 09:33 AM

In these specials I will be focusing on what is one of the most important parts of adventure games imo - The Puzzles. Either in the form of a specific puzzle, a certain type of puzzle or puzzle mechanics, or simply a game that excels in the puzzle department.

This weeks feature is 100% in compliance with that purpose!

It might not be to everybody’s taste, or what all of you are interested in, but that is fine, there are also plenty of other things going on in this forum, that I personally have absolutely zero interest in.

And lets not forget that we are talking about 2 out of 30+ Midweek Puzzles that has featured a puzzle or puzzle elements from a game that isn’t AG.

And to go a bit off topic:

TimovieMan - 22 January 2016 08:01 PM

Have you actually played “story mode”? I have. It just makes the action a LOT easier, but it still remains an action game, and there are still a couple of sequences that are going to be really hard to pull off for some of the more dexterously challenged.

Just out of curiosity, can you remember which sequences?
Killing the Reaper on Rannoch, and others that don’t use the standard combat, perhaps?

Iznogood - 24 January 2016 09:12 AM

Just out of curiosity, can you remember which sequences?
Killing the Reaper on Rannoch, and others that don’t use the standard combat, perhaps?

Killing the Reaper on Rannoch is the main one I’m thinking about, but really all battles where you have two or more Brutes to beat at the same time (and there’s at least two or three such sequences) can count, as well as most battles with Ardat-Yakshi. The main battle right before the end sequence will count as well (where you’re pushing forward to launch those rockets).
It’s still an action game, despite being made very easy.