Adventure Gamers - Forums

Fien - 09 October 2012 03:56 AM

I agree that there were many good adventures made in 1996, not just the classic ones in the Top Hundred. But Jackal is right too. Here are 11 lousy ones to counter the 11 classics: Mirror of Kofun, Devon: Adventures of the Smart Patrol, Chronicles of the Sword, Spud, Vampire Diaries, Treasure Quest, Gord@k, Voyeur 2, Crystal Skull, Down in the Dumps, Milo.

The only one I’ve heard of out of those is Voyeur 2. None of those games matter to me at all. Which is why I think that out of the two meanings you can give to “golden era” -

1. That there were lots of great games
2. That the games were of a higher average quality

...only the first one really makes sense to a gamer.

Fien - 09 October 2012 09:15 AM

What’s innovative about Frogware’s games, Culpa Innata and Resonance?

don’t know about the others but Resonance showed a small but very crucial innovation in my opinion - the short term memory inventar.

Fien - 09 October 2012 09:15 AM

What’s innovative about Frogware’s games, Culpa Innata and Resonance?

Resonance has a memory system that’s both innovative and intuitive, Culpa Innata is a non-linear adventure set in an open world with day/night cycle and different endings, Frogware’s Sherlock Holmes games are the first to successfully blend point-and-click adventure with realtime first person view.

Fien - 09 October 2012 10:24 AM

I haven’t played any Frogware games (I’ve seen enough of Sherlock Holmes and his Watson to last me a lifetime), so I may be wrong. But point-and-click combined with real-time 1st-person sounds suspiciously like The Last Express. Different endings and day/night cycles are innovative?? Please!

*Real time* first person, as in you can explore the areas freely without pixel hunting through pre-rendered screens. As for Culpa Innata you really need to try it out, it’s like no other adventure game in terms of non-linearity.

Adventure - 09 October 2012 10:19 AM

Frogware’s Sherlock Holmes games are the first to successfully blend point-and-click adventure with realtime first person view.

First? Under a Killing Moon did that, probably others too before that.

Though I do like that you can switch between different views and modes in the Frogwares games.

Fien - 09 October 2012 10:18 AM

its short or long term memory is no different than other inventory objects

well, it acts and looks like a normal inventar, but the fact that you can “carry” everything in your surroundings and talk about it makes it something totally different and really pushes your brain to actually think about your puzzle. 1 - the possible combinations are much more so try-everything-on-everything is no longer an option. 2 - the option to talk about a theme you’ve chosen is a great way for the player to actually participate in a dialogue and not just click all the possible options. Something I hadn’t seen well made since the era of text adventures.

Zifnab - 08 October 2012 09:42 PM

I am sure the ancient Greeks produced a lot of art and sculptures which were failures. Only the most excellent were retained and remembered. The same will happen with games - only the really good ones will be remembered whether it is 90s or 00s games. The age with the most excellent will reveal the “golden age”.

I disagree that excellence is the main criterion. I’d argue that most influential, most important are actually far more relevant measures. In this case, the adventure genre’s market dominance and technical superiority were the key characteristics of its “golden era”. Obviously there were a lot of good games in that time, but whereas good adventure games in other eras (like now) are completely overshadowed by other genres, in those days they ruled the roost.

If we’re to use 1996 as a yardstick, there were indeed lots of great games that year, but it’s no coincidence that many of them sold poorly and their developers never heard from again. The genre was already losing serious ground by that point, regardless of the games’ quality.

As for the Top 100 talk, it’s fun to debate, but bear in mind that it’s strictly opinion, and something of a compromised collective opinion at that (meaning, none of us on staff had this exact same list personally). But even if it were objective data, my point is simply that the games that make it are still the exceptions in their respective years. Even 1996. To fairly compare eras, you’d at least need to measure the best of each year against each other, not against all the other dreck.

Oscar - 09 October 2012 11:16 AM

First? Under a Killing Moon did that, probably others too before that.

Though I do like that you can switch between different views and modes in the Frogwares games.

You’re right, I’ve never played the Text Murphy games and from the screenshots I assumed they were just prerendered cgi.

Fien - 09 October 2012 11:37 AM

Adventure - 09 October 2012 11:01 AM

*Real time* first person, as in you can explore the areas freely without pixel hunting through pre-rendered screens.

I’m confused. You mean 3D, like the Tex Murphy games Oscar mentioned? Then it’s not point-and-click, is it.

I’m not going to get in a huge debate about this - especially since we’re arguing about exceptions to my main point - but 3d or no 3d it’s definitely a point and click, just with superficially different presentation. Click on items to pick up or interact with them, inventory puzzles, that sort of thing.