Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Nintendo To Be the Hero of the Adventure Genre?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the riding-to-the-rescue dept.

DreamWinkle writes "If you've spent the last few years playing old King's Quest VGA updates and longing for Space Quest and Day of the Tentacle, you'll be interested to know that the Adventure genre might be facing a resurgence — at Nintendo's hand. The adventure game was killed off by the console (poor controls and too much competition), and so it's ironic that Nintendo might be able to pull it from the grave. An article at About.com looks at how Nintendo could use its virtual console to make adventure games profitable again." From the article: "The reason that adventure games are disappearing is because they don't compete well with other genres. Trying to create an adventure game that meets the graphical standards of an audience taught to expect Elder Scrolls IV makes the whole endeavor far less appealing. However, building a product to compete with Geometry Wars might be more doable. Adventure games are not disappearing because no one is buying them; they're disappearing because people are buying other types of games far more often. "

7 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. I know this is Slashdot, but... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What about the multiple adventure games that appeared on the Xbox? Surely Syberia made at least enough sales to warrent a sequel.

    In any case, saying that consoles killed-off adventure games when you can buy adventure games for a console right now is a bit ... wrong.

    --
    Comment of the year
  2. Zelda by anjin-san+3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The popularity of the adventure genre may come and go, but there will always be Zelda

  3. I GUESS it's possible... by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering that the internet has existed as a distribution method for adventure games for...oh, over a decade now and that there hasn't been a huge resurgence, I've got my doubts here. Don't get me wrong - I love the genre and would applaud its rebirth. But when you've got a title like Sam and Max, that was close to 90% done with years of anticipation behind it...well, you lose faith. I'm not sure what it'll take to revive the genre, but we haven't hit on it yet. But on the other hand...the Wii's controller is definitely suited towards a point and click interface. ;)

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
  4. Graphical quality? by Drachemorder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think graphical quality is any impediment to making good adventure games that can compete. I can certainly imagine a Monkey Island game in beautiful 32-bit color at 1280x1024 resolution, with smooth professional animation. Far from being obsolete, I think computers are at a point where it's possible to do adventure games with very high-quality artwork. Realtime-rendered 3D games might be the fad right now, but realtime 3D rendering still has some visual limitations. A 2D adventure game could very well look better and handle better than most 3D games if done properly.

    1. Re:Graphical quality? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Disagree, I just played (and completed) Curse of Monkey Island which used Hollywood quality 2D animation, and then played the demo of Escape from Monkey Island which used 3D. Curse ruled, Escape demo sucked, no two ways about it. The 3D models didn't have anywhere near the charm of the 2D characters and looked incredibly ugly to boot. Walking around in a 3D environment was just a distraction.

      Also, you can have fundamentally resolution independent 2D graphics, not sure why you think that's restricted to 3D (which isn't res independent anyway as textures are always bitmaps). I'd love to see a renaissance of Curse style games, and if Nintendo can do that then bring it on.

  5. The adventure genre? Which one ? by Chaffar · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It's funny how the word "adventure" was used to define the LucasArts-style adventure puzzle games (DOTT, King's Quest) as well as the RPG-type Elder Scrolls IV.

    The truth is that the former genre is pretty much dead (to my disappointment), since apparently the standards were set so high in the past that any game that comes along and that doesn't offer 200 hours of laughter and entertainment is deemed a failure by the "critics" and the game performs poorly in sales.

    As for the latter genre, well I don't think the genre is dying. As the success of Elder Scrolls shows, people are willing to pay big bucks for that kind of entertainment.

  6. They were twenty years ago by The_Honkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nintendo, the developers that brought us The Legend of Zelda and it's sequel. Without those two games we might not even be here disscussing the effects of the "adventure" genre.

    --
    I am what I am and thats what I am -Popeye