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The Return of Storied Adventures?

Posted by Zonk on from the dance-the-grim-fandango dept.

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."

7 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Their first adventure game by Kazzahdrane · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Their first adventure game by grumbel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ### Please define "bad graphics".

      "Unpleasent to look at"

      I havn't played Bone yet, but the screenshots look rather ugly, the same 'ugly' that was already present in Sam'n Max2 screenshot. And no, that kind of ugly doesn't come from a lack of shaders, but from going 3D in the first place. Both Bone and Sam'nMax seem to be a perfect fit for good old classic 2D graphics, going 3D just trashes that style down, which is why I don't understand why they did go 3D. The old Sam'nMax looked perfectly fine and even today it looks still quite good, replace the 320x200 graphics with something along the lines of 1024x768 and you could reuse the graphics basically 1:1. There is no need for 3D shaders and all, they should have simply skipped all that completly.

      That said, I don't mind use of 3D in adventures, Fahrenheit looks briliant in 3D, but for comic style graphics I don't consider 3D much of a good choice, sometimes cell-shading can help to get the style closer to classic 2D look, but they didn't even use that in either Bone or Sam'nMax2.

  2. Bone by Negative9 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  3. Telltale Developing New Sam & Max Game by dividedsky319 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  4. At last by j0ve · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

  5. Adventure games are where its at by Gulthek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  6. Agreed! The DS rocks for Adventures. by LKM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.