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Who was the third greatest old school graphic adventure company in your opinion?
| Poll: 3rd greatest Total Votes: 31 |
|
|---|---|
| Revolution | 13  |
| Infogrames | 2 |
| Westwood | 2 |
| Microprose | 1 |
| Psygnosis | 1 |
| Access Software | 1 |
| Other | 11 |
Seems like “old school” is a useless description unless you have more qualifiers.
Any description that is overly broad is useless.
Is Infocom’s Shogun (1988-1989) considered a “graphic adventure” or a “text adventure”?
http://www.mobygames.com/game/james-clavells-shogun/screenshots
It has graphics, but it’s more like a text adventure with pictures.
You could probably play without the pictures, but you couldn’t play without the text.
So is Shogun (along with Journey and Arthur) considered a text adventure or a graphic adventure?
If you’re saying the term “graphic adventure” in the title of this thread is a meaningless label, I have to disagree. Infocom only produced text adventures, even though graphics were added to two of them.
I was speaking generally about what constitutes old school, not about this thread topic specifically. Graphics or no, obviously Infocom is even MORE old school than just about anyone else. The point is, even with a term like that, there are varying degrees of applicability. And to some people, I can understand why a 24-year old game would belong on that same spectrum (albeit the opposite end from Infocom).
I’ll rest my case on the classic rock debate! 
I was speaking generally about what constitutes old school, not about this thread topic specifically. Graphics or no, obviously Infocom is even MORE old school than just about anyone else.
I’m sure if you ask someone who is even remotely acknowledged with adventure video games what is “old school” you’ll get Monkey Island, King’s Quest, Larry… and not “Infocom” as an answer. 
Nothing is written in stone, and with all respect to Infocom who paved the way for graphic adventures, there were also pop (yes, music analogy again I fear) bands before The Beatles, and there were hard-rock bands before Led Zeppelin, but those two will emerge as an “old school”. I guess “old school” term is more about something that was big at a time (mainstream if you will), and fairly new, but not necessarily groundbreaking-new - just popular. Infocom games can only constitute as an “old school text adventure”, but old school adventure game (graphics or not, 3rd-person or not, adventures in general) are 3rd-person point & clicks from Sierra, LucasArts… in 9 out of 10 answers I’ll wager.
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Infocom games can only constitute as an “old school text adventure”, but old school adventure game (graphics or not, 3rd-person or not, adventures in general) are 3rd-person point & clicks from Sierra, LucasArts… in 9 out of 10 answers I’ll wager.
So you wouldn’t count King’s Quest I-IV then? 
I don’t see why we need such distinctions. Infocom games are adventure games. So are Sierra games. This thread is about graphic adventure games, but if it weren’t then Infocom would definitely be discussed.
Saying that MYST was a demarcation point was about as far as I got into the debate part of the poll. I also noted that MYST came out in 1993, and that posed a problem for me because CCS game out in 1997, because I don’t consider the former “old school” and I do consider the latter “old school.”
The one thing that is missing in this conversation is the age of the participant. An 18-year-old likely looks at everything that happened before he/she was born as “old school.” Whereas someone in his 60s, as I am, might feel I am better able to separate the various levels of “oldness” as it applies to games.
I would say the same holds true for the music/rock metaphor. An 18-year-old, unless he/she is a popular music scholar, probably doesn’t differentiate Buddy Holly from the Beatles from Led Zepplin from Pink Floyd. Perhaps not even the Eagles, who disbanded and reunited in 1994…five years before he/she was born. Whereas those of us of a certain age can easily process the stages of rock evolution over the decades.
As an afterthought: My parent’s music was that of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, with maybe a bit of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby thrown in for good measure. They had no concept of the relevance of Elvis, Chuck Berry or Little Richard. I may be as blind, musically, looking forward as the 18-year-old is blind looking backward. The Sirius-XM channels on my car radio are pretty much zeroed in on music that was popular during my generation. I play it, but I don’t understand about 50% of today’s music. And the 18-year-old hears a song titled “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and says, “WTF?.”
And it’s the same for games.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
I’m sure if you ask someone who is even remotely acknowledged with adventure video games what is “old school” you’ll get Monkey Island, King’s Quest, Larry… and not “Infocom” as an answer.
Because far more people started playing graphic adventures than text. I suspect that those who actually played text adventures in their heyday (or at all) would answer quite differently.
Rtrooney is correct. Since there IS no actual definition of “old school” (like “adventure game”, it’s simply a made-up term for a vague concept we all apply a little differently), each person uses individual filters to define it. Those who grew up with Infocom would logically consider them part of the old school (they certainly are not new school). Those who started after that maybe wouldn’t, but only because they don’t think of them at all. And those who started playing adventures in the last two decades could very well consider the flood of slideshow Myst clones to be old school—certainly they too are anything but new anymore.
As always, the arguments come about because people insist that their filter must be “right” and everyone else’s wrong. Silly.
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