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Top Ten Dying Game Genres
Ant sent us a fun link to an article running over at GameSpy discussing the Top 10 Dying Game Genres. Although I don't think Puzzle games have died - I think they've transformed: Pikmin is just a fancy puzzle game, after all ;) But I still want Dr Mario for my GBA.
Sam & Max 2 is on the horizon too.
-Jeff
I like to play with Shiny Objects and Yarn.
Graphic Adventures dying? I think not.
How can they say this when Lucas Arts has announced two new games in this "dying" genre?
Full Throttle 2
and
Sam and Max 2
hmmmmm. I think Im going to whip out monkey island and play through that series again...
--Nycto
I don't think so. Monkey Island 4 came out about a year ago, and there will probably be a MI:5. I hope so, for Threepwood's sake. Lucasarts is working on Full Throttle 2, which was, at last count, a graphic adventure. Sam and Max 2 is also in development, which will probably be a graphic adventure. They are partially right, though. I miss the days of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
"Dr Uberman?"
1) Super Monkey Ball (NGC)
2) Super Bust-a-Move (PS2)
3) Fantavision (PS2) (come on, it was the first friggin game even released on the PS2)
It might not be a prominent genre on consoles these days, but you can't say it's been dead for two years...
P.S. If you want a good puzzler, check out Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo . The name might put you off, but it is probably the best two-player puzzle game I have ever played. It takes a bit from Columns but adds a "fighting game" twist on it with attacking, defending, counter-blocks, and, of course, super combos.
Aside from that, all the great games died with the Commodore 64.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
They are also bringing the sequels apparently in 3D of Full Throttle and Sam 'n Max. As someone mentioned Monkey Island 4 was 3D. Grim Fandango was 3D and simply an amazing game.
There's lots of educational games around...EB has an entire wall dedicated to them here..
Most of the are based on a cartoon / kids show franchise, but they're still pretty good.
The Blues Clues ones are in particular excellent. My daughter loves them, and I can see how well they've been structured to help the child learn, whilst still being a lot of fun.
There's lots of others to choose from too, and more all the time...
Advanced users are users too!
Don't lament just yet. LucasArts recently announced the production of both a Full Throttle and a Sam and Max sequel. The time for rejoicing will soon be at hand...
No comment.
While not a 3D remake, some people are remaking classics using the freeware Adventure Game Studio (AGS). King's Quest I and II have been redone (very well I might add) by Tierra Entertainment (and they're working on Quest for Glory II), and there's a fan-made Space Quest 7 in the works as well as a fan-made Quest for Glory 6.
The Adventure Genre LIVES!
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
Sierra is publishing now, not developing, although supposedly their development division was sold and is still in operation by Codemasters. They pretty much got kicked out of their old office in the Sierra foothills... lots of stuff was left behind, including, most likely, source to a lot of their old games, which sucks since many of them run too fast on modern processors. Of course, there are some developing utilities to play them at 'normal' speed, and in some cases with improved graphics.
DOSBox, your general purpose DOS game machine.
Sarien, for Sierra games using the AGI interpreter, and
FreeSCI, for Sierra games using the SCI interpreter.
Needless to say, all of these utilities are far from complete.
Anyway, there you go.
[insert witty comment here]
CRTs work by sweeping a beam of electrons across the face of the screen which cause the screen to glow. The beam moves so rapidly that you can't see it. But the photocell in the light gun can.
Because the console knows precisely where on the screen the beam is at any particular time, it can determine where on the screen the gun is pointed at because it only sees the beam at certain times; times that correspond to a particular location on screen.
Screens that don't have an electron beam won't work with the light guns. We'll wind up having to put little cameras or something inside of them so that they can recognize what part of the screen they're seeing.
The basic technology here is very, very old. IIRC light pens were in use by the military back in the 50's.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That article seems to contain a number of inaccuracies. Puzzle games certainly aren't a dead genre, they've just been taken over by the shareware market (Bejeweled or Crack Attack are amazingly popular games for how boring they are). Gun controllers hardly have disappeared; PlayStation has the GunCon, and PlayStation 2 has the GunCon2. Someone's missing Point Blank or Time Crisis (or their sequels) from their libraries.
That's odd, but I've been playing a bit of Resident Evil Zero and Eternal Darkness recently, and I was just thinking how much they remind me of old graphical adventures. And even, to a lesser extent, the Infocom text adventures.
...
Eternal Darkness, frankly, makes these old graphical adventures look like "Run, Spot, Run" in terms of depth of plot and overall literacy. It really is awfully close to an Infocom game. Not there, yet, but hopefully Eternal Darkness has been succesful enough to convince publishers that people with an IQ *above* 20 like games, too, and are awfully tired of boring first person shooters.
And as for puzzle games, what about Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2? These people ought to put down Counter-Strike for five minutes I think, and play some *other* games
Note that Namco recently released Namco Museum for Game Boy Advance. Includes Ms. Pac Man, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Galaga, and Galaxian. I picked it up for $15 at a local Best Buy. Sadly, the buttons of the GBA, while pretty good for a handheld system, don't quite have the same "ergonomics" as a standup cabinet (my thumb got quite sore just after playing through the first couple of levels of Galaga). I badly needed a "pickup" game for my GBA though (one I could pick up for 5-15 minutes to blow off steam without worrying about saves or levels) and any of the games on here fit that bill nicely. Especially Galaga :)
I mean you don't see any text based adventures anymore except with MUDs.
I respectfully beg to differ.
Fun quote extracted from the article: "There was really nothing like Grand Theft Auto a few years ago." -- um, actually there was something very much like Grand Theft Auto a few years ago. It was called...... GRAND THEFT AUTO. The game came out in, like, 1996 or something like that. Or does "a few years ago" translate to "more than 7 years ago"?
I definitely wouldn't say the Puzzle genre is dying. It's just moved to a new medium. Sure, few are interested in spending $40+ on a Puzzle game for their XBox or PS2, but many people waste many hours playing online Puzzle games. I think what it comes down to is not that these genres area all necessarily dead or dying, but they're not good candidates for console games.
I guess the folks at GameSpy think "Game Industry" = "Console Industry".
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
There's also the iFiction site, too, to play his and other text adventure games online.
Enjoy!
Is this thing on? Hello?
CmdrTaco wants Dr. Mario for GBA.
CmdrTaco gets open-source Dr. Mario for GBA.
Will I retire or break 10K?