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The Return of Storied Adventures?
Next Generation has a talk with Telltale, the maker of interactive stories such as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. In their opinion, story adventure titles are on their way back. From the article: "We're not trying recapture the LucasArts [adventure game] glory as much as trying to build off of it. We're trying to do something different with episodic content and smaller games ... The big reason most of us went to Lucas in the first place is that we loved games based on story with interesting characters that are presented in artistically interesting ways. So when LucasArts stopped doing that and we'd done our share of Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, we wanted to get back to that. There's only so many Star Wars games you can make."
From TFA:
now we can touch those people 3 or 4 times a year.
Hey, stay away from me!
If your game's selling point is the story rather than the engine, you don't have to make a new game engine each time you want to make a release.
Just hopefully a good plot.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Was "Bone: Out of Boneville", based on the Bone series of graphic novels/comics. I didn't buy the full $20 game, but I played the demo and I'm sorry but these guys have experience in making games like this and that demo is not a good example of an adventure title. I don't mind 3D, I don't mind action sequences. I do mind terrible voice-acting and bad graphics. They may have been going for a simplistic look, but....see for yourselfs at http://www.telltalegames.com/products?pc=bn0102&CI D=0&dlact=1
I'm a little worried about these guys having the Sam 'n' Max license to be honest, I hope their later attempts are better than the first Bone game. Or that the later demo versions better show what good games they are, if that's the case.
I don't know what a Grim Fandago or Monkey Island is, but if they're anything like a Cleveland Steamer or a Hot Carl, I don't think I want these people touching me.
Day of the Tentacle did an amazing job at this, as did some other LA titles, but I do remember wondering about Sierra adventures ... non-sequitors, die-before-you-try puzzles, bleeecch. I count Ms. Williams' adventures as some of my most frustrating experiences in gaming.
Anyway, go to it guys. Do something great. I'll buy it.
I bought the first "chapter" of the Bone game and wasn't impressed. For only $20 I wasn't expecting it to be very long, but I finished it in about an hour, and out of that there's hardly any gameplay at all, it's mostly branching conversations with a few very basic adventure game type puzzles and two dull action sequences. The best thing I can say about the game is that the story was kept very faithful to the comic. I hope they have better things in store for their Sam & Max game.
Next Generation has a talk with Telltale, the maker of interactive stories such as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango.
Telltale didn't make Grim Fandango or Monkey Island. Thoese were made by LucasArts, and even then, they were designed by Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. The people at TaleTell just worked on them.
If you look around the adventure genre is far less dead than many people claim, with AnotherCode/TraceMemory and Phoenix Wright there are two decent ones for the NintendoDS, there also was Fahrenheit recently for PC, XBox and PS2, soon there will be Dreamfall and if you look a bit in the past there was The Moment of Silence, Westerner, Black Mirror, Runaway, Syberia, Still Life and plenty of others. Not all of them might be up to the legendary LucasArts ones, but many of them are still quite good, some, like Fahrenheit, even try something different then classic point&click and succeed at doing so, some other of course not so much (BrokenSword3).
So while the adventure genre has far less games to offer then the first person shooter genre, there are still plenty of gems available that shouldn't be missed and several other on the way. The adventure genre seems to have found it niche to live in.
Back in September, Telltale bought the rights to the Sam and Max adventure game from Lucasarts
I can't WAIT. I was disappointed when Lucasarts cancelled Freelance Police, but it's great to hear that TT put it back into development. Sam and Max Hit the Road , along with Day of the Tentacle, are among my favorite adventure games.
Good to see a company is trying to revive the genre.
Really? My goodness.
Would you care to get me a hard number so we can begin the countdown? (KOTOR notwithstanding.)
What I'm doing is just playing through the great Lucas Arts games I never got around to or haven't tried using ScummVM.
Who knows how many hours of gameplay that's worth. Heck, there's two free games to download, I've got four or five more games on the shelf I bought from a friend, including Loom and Sam and Max, still in it's original box. The two I have played, Monkey Island and Full Throttle both are easily good enough to deserve a replay.
Play Command HQ online
"Rather than getting a Grim Fandango or a Monkey Island, 3 or 4 times a decade, now we can touch those people 3 or 4 times a year."
But will they "touch us" in a good way? I'd much rather have Grim Fandango or Monkey Island a few times a decade than a steaming pile of crap a few times a year. Don't get me wrong, if they can put out games on that level then I'll be the first one buying. But I have to wonder if they can sustain the quality that we've come to expect from those types of games.
Story based games have always been a good kind of game to play, i recently found out that one of my teachers still plays all the monkey islands, and her daughters play it too, i was surprised at that, but alas, it seems they are still there, and still good... the humor in monkey island is the greatest
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
I've played the third Monkey Island and Toonstruck and I must say that I like them and am interested in getting more titles. They're often going cheap in game stores or the classifieds of your papers.
I think there is a site dedicated to retro games such as this, but failing that Ebay might be a good place to check these gems out. Haven't checked for a while so I'm not sure.
There have been many times when dealing with people that I wished I could kiss my own butt goodbye
I think it was a mistake not to make this kind of games anymore. I know many people who belong to the much-less-than-hardcore-gamer category. These people arent very charmed with the shooters, the stragegy games, the online rpg's and so forth. I hear stuff like "what about that game with the rabbit and the dog, don't you have that one anymore" all the time. I think if game producers want to draw more people to their products, they should be making as much Sam&max's, SpaceQuests, Larry's, Day of the Tentacle's and Beneath a Steel Sky's as possible. By the way, i do recall a recent contemporary title. Something like "return to mysterious island", which belongs to the story adventure type of games. Anyone seen that one?
My wife and I love to play adventure games (I guess we call them storied games now?) because one can play and the other can watch and both have an enjoyable experience. We are currently in the midst of Indigo Prophecy and recently completed Still Life, Grim Fandango (she had never played it), Resident Evil 4 (more action than adventure but tremendously exciting for player and watcher), etc.
The better the story the better, the better the voice acting the better, the better the music the better. Graphics have little to do with it, so perhaps these games will make a huge comeback when the videogame graphics orgasm is over. I.e once all games look really good, other thinks like acting, plot, music will differentiate.
The DS seems to be shaping up to a great console for adventure gamers. Phoenix Wright is utterly hilarious, with an awesome storyline and fascinating puzzles. I hope Capcom is going to localize a few more of the Phoenix Wright games, appearently there are several GBA sequels to Phoenix Wright available in Japan.
The only bad thing I can say about Another Code is that it's too freaking short. It should have been three times as long at least.
The dual screen/touchs creen combination really works great with adventure games.