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Tell us what you think! You can read and leave comments about this [a href="../featuredetail.php?action=view&featureid=31&showpage=1"]feature[/a] below:

[deadworm222]

Amateur games are notorious for using the old fashioned techniques. Funnily enough, they exploit them better than many of the commercial developers of today.

[Trumgottist]

Defining the term "adventure game" does not mean that games that fall outside my definition are bad games, or even that I don't like them. (I like other games, too.) If we start calling every game with adventure-game-elements an adventure game then almost all games can be called adventures and the term becomes useless. So let's keep the term action-adventure and reserve the label "adventure game" for games with no (or almost no) action. There are very good action-adventures. That makes me want to say "that's a very good game, and I liked the plot and characters in it". It does not make me want to call it an adventure game. Not all good games are adventure games, nor should they be. (But adventure games doesn't need to be anything else, either.)



I agree that 2d or 3d doesn't matter, but that has nothing to do with definition.

[deadworm222]

So the Last Express, Gabriel Knight 1, Gabriel Knight 2, Gabriel Knight 3, Full Throttle, Broken Sword 1, Broken Sword 2 and Broken Sword 3 are action/adventure games?

[deadworm222]

Also, I don't think Beiddie's idea was that action absolutely SHOULD be put into adventure games. I think the idea is more like "this is what other genres are doing, this is how they are doing it - why aren't things like this in adventure games?"



EDIT: "wasn't" to "was"

[Trumgottist]

No, that was not what I meant, and I haven't seen anyone describe them as such (except maybe FT). What I meant was that I don't think there's any need to expand (or remove) the definition of an adventure game in order to make good (or inventive) games.



(I also belong to the group of people that think action sequences in adventure games generally is a bad idea, but that's another discussion.)

[deadworm222]

In the past we have had games that were innovative. They had new features. Nowadays all games look, feel and sound like Syberia. If you really like Syberia, that's cool, but not everybody does. The goal of adventure game developers is to create a game as stereotypical as possible, and that's something I've grown to hate. Nobody talks about new features, developers go to great lengths to stress that their game, indeed, will not do anything new, but be a Yet Another Myst Clone or Yet Another Monkey Island Clone or Yet Another Syberia Clone.



And they aren't even good clones! The classics are far ahead most modern games in terms of things like the execution of story and dialogue. Puzzles feel artificial, people irritating and out-of-place. Since pre-rendered 3D became a norm, art styles have been replaced with for photorealism. (This is the problem of bad art direction, I feel.)



...What was my point...

[deadworm222]

...ah, yes: the fact that there are action adventures is the LEAST of our worries.

[Trumgottist]

I don't worry about the existance of action adventures. I like them. (I even like the actiony parts of BS3, which I wouldn't call an action-adventure.)

[deadworm222]

My post originated more from the discussions at Adventure Gamers, not your comments.

[uk_john]

As long as games predominantly have action and that action normally means killing something gaming will not be mainstream. On TV what is watched by most people most of the time in most of the world - soap operas; and generally thats about characters and story with just the odd explosion or mass murder or alien invasion.



Until all publishers are publishing adventure games; (interactive stories with no twitch action, no mass killing and no gratuitous violence in general), the games market will always be teetering on the edge of dissapearance.



We all think the gaming market is strong because  Half Life 2 sold a million copies in America. But there are 20 million PC's in American homes, so you could say the best the industry does, the very  best is 5% penetration. (I know, console is different.) Do not think PC gaming could not go the way of baseball card collecting or etch- a-sketch and slinkey.  After all, in ANY other industry, only achieving 5% market penetration with your No.1 product is seen as a huge failure - not a success.



PC Gaming could and will dispapear unless we get MORE adventures 2D, 3D, whatever. So it's not about a restrained uptight customer base its about an industry that doesn't understand the marketplace. That includes most magazine editors and staff (web or print).

[DCW]

I doubt these 20 million PC's are able to run games like Half-Life 2, so I wonder if you can use that number to measure market penetration. I mean, a lot of people use a PC for office stuff and wouldn't even play a free game. I also think the issue is a whole lot simpler. The PC gaming market will continue to exist for as long as it's profitable.

[Erwin_Br]

I think one of the main problems is lack of originality. Developers and publishers want to keep walking on the paved roads, repeating things that have been, in their eyes, successful. Sometimes they try to add certain 'original elements', but somehow it doesn't work out. Maybe because it clashes with the established concept.



In the meanwhile, developers seem to have lost the touch as well. They try to copy the old concept, but somehow they don't succeed. I still wonder why, but I suspect they focus too much on technology issues nowadays. Trying to copy the adventure game of the better days, using popular 3D technologies and stuff. They seem to forget it takes a whole lot more than shiny 3D graphics and fancy camera angles to make a good adventure game.



I wish developers start focusing on the content of the game before making decisions about the form in which it is being presented. 2D and 3D doesn't matter if you've designed a shitty game.

[insane_cobra]

I'm sorry, uk_john, but that is without a doubt one of the most absurd things I've ever read. So I guess film industry is also going to crash and burn unless moviemakers promptly change their focus from action blockbusters to soapy dramas? Or, to paraphrase what you said, to "stories with no action, no mass killing and no gratuitous violence in general"? Please... PC gaming industry does not revolve around action-filled games just for the heck of it, it's what the market wants. There is room for the industry to grow, both commercially and artistically, but let's face it, broad masses are always going to prefer something that does not require too much (abstract) thinking so that's where the money is. Adventure games are not going to save the industry, but i hope they will evolve beyond their archaic roots and thus grab hold of the bigger share of the market (which, btw, does not look like it needs saving at all).

[Steve Ince]

An excellent article, Beiddie.