Ron Gilbert and adventure games

[Lalala]

I kinda miss sometimes the adventure games, there is not much, and not much quality out there anymore.

Here is an interview of Ron Gilbert at Gamasutra: Gamasutra - Feature - "The Grumpy Gamer Speaks: Ron Gilbert On His Post-Guybrush Universe"

[Hatorade]

I disagree. List of awesome:

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Full Pipe
Vigil Blood Bitterness
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle
Sam and Max Episodes 1-6(hilarious!)
All available via steam
Others:
Syberia 1 +2
Fahrenheit(may fav in a long time) AKA Indigo Prohpecy state side.
Grim Fandango

Sherlock Holmes and also Scratches was pretty cool despite the low reviews

Oh and The Experiment which I believe I have a thread on somewhere.
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/other...ght=experiment

[Sean]

To be honest, the guy just endlessly whines and whines - hey buddy, there's two excellent platforms you can release your little project on called WiiWare and XBLA. They were made for exactly the kind of things he's talking about.

He's also clearly never played anything Japanese. Plus what Hatorade said - the adventure game market has always been there and is still there.

Btw, did anyone ever get Fahrenheit to work on Vista? I was mid-game when I switched OSs and never could get it working so just ended up putting it down. I didn't try the US version, but I don't want to play a censored version of the game.

[Hatorade]

Adventure | abandonia more stuff here.

[Hatorade]

1) Copy all files to hard drive

2) Change file Fahrenheit.msi to the file from:

RapidShare: Easy Filehosting (after download , unpack)

3) Double click on Fahrenheit.msi and install

This worked for me I had the same problem.

I also think I needed the no-cd fix. Euro version.

More info here http://forums.eu.atari.com/showthread.php?t=48851

[spronk]

He is absolutely right in one thing, its graphics and combat/fighting that are driving games now, not story. I kept hearing all these people rave about Mass Effect and Assassins Creed, when I finally played them I thought they were ok story wise, nothing exceptional and not a real "smooth" story experience (I also liked GTA4 but same feeling). Most of the people I talk to playing MMOs view quest text as something to skip through as fast as possible.

Sam and Max were pretty good, but other than that nothing really gamewise that really made me laugh like a movie or TV show would, or like Monkey Island or Leisure Suite Larry or Space Quest or the half dozen other old classics.

The publishers he's meeting are also probably right that a pure adventure game wouldn't sell very well in todays market, which is sad. Hope someone does pick up his game and its a great game, I'd definitely buy a copy.

[Sean]

Considering that people *bitch* that some RPGs are nothing but interactive movies (hi2u 45 minute cutscenes), I'd say he's not absolutely right at all.

And hell, let's look at the Metal Gear Solid line of games - you literally spend more hours going through story than you do actually playing the game.

[Lost Ranger]

Originally Posted by Sean

Considering that people *bitch* that some RPGs are nothing but interactive movies (hi2u 45 minute cutscenes), I'd say he's not absolutely right at all.

RPGs and Adventure games are two entirely different things. RPGs may still be going strong but as far as story goes they are about all that is. Adventure games are still here but I can't think of the last adventure game that was a "big" release.

Outside the RPG field and even within the RPG field story telling has dropped in quality. Far too many games have fallen victim to great graphics and shitty story (hi Crysis) and I don't see that trend ending any time soon. Decent story telling should not be for RPGs only, and like I said even some newer RPGs have made me roll my eyes.

Edit: Also, games like MGS should be the rule not exception. Great story telling and plenty of action and they both go hand in hand perfectly. The sad thing is that for every game with a great story that we can list. We could list 10 more that completely failed at it. Paying out more money for a solid story line is worth it imo. Programmers should stick to making the game and not the story behind it

[Sean]

They are different, but he was making broad sweeps of gaming in general and referencing Halo and such. So it's quite applicable. You can't just cherry pick Halo and say there's absolutely no story telling going on in gaming in some big ass generalization.

[Quineloe]

Download Adventures of Robin Hood, The | abandonia

omg I played that one. It was so awesome running around killing everyone. First game with a kill frenzy option like GTA!

kinda sucks how you can't DL most of the games there.

[Burf]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

Grim Fandango

Not to nitpick, but that one came out 10 years ago.

[Tolpan-Mortalis]

ZLORFIK! What the hell happened to good 2d adventures? Check out the following two (high quality) fan projects:

For everyone who liked the old Ron Gilbert adventures, and understands some german, don't miss: Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space
It's really awesome with a lot of references to all those old games, grafic reminds me of Day of the Tentacle but slightly less comic-like with higher resolution. Currently only available with german speech-pack.

Also keep an eye open for Broken Sword 2.5
It's supposed to be released in about 1 month from now, stills and line up of voice actors looks awesome, they even got the original (german) voice of George Stobbart from Broken Sword 1 & 2.

For both games the german version of the page seems to offer slightly more information.

[Kreugen]

Adventure games and RPGs sort of melded into one genre. RPGS used to just be combat simulators, and adventure games had all of the puzzle solving and such. And then there was Hero's Quest / Quest for Glory, which combined both so effectively that they've been like peanut butter and chocolate ever since.

Adventure games aren't dead, they just have action now.

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by Burf

Not to nitpick, but that one came out 10 years ago.

Graphics are stylized so it has aged well.

[Horse]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

I disagree. List of awesome:

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Full Pipe
Vigil Blood Bitterness
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle
Sam and Max Episodes 1-6(hilarious!)
All available via steam
Others:
Syberia 1 +2
Fahrenheit(may fav in a long time) AKA Indigo Prohpecy state side.
Grim Fandango

Sherlock Holmes and also Scratches was pretty cool despite the low reviews

Oh and The Experiment which I believe I have a thread on somewhere.
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/other...ght=experiment

The company that did sherlock holmes has a few others that are OK.


Gilbert is basically not the darling anymore, his old homeboy Tim Schafer did fine by Psychonauts which blurred adventure and platformer pretty well.

The problem with adventure games is that they've, essentially, all been done before and even though there are some passable in your list, aside from Fahrenheit's control scheme there has been little innovation. You've either got

1. the old vague / ridiculous puzzle in the middle of nowhere to advance

2. the oh, you didn't think to click on the 10x10 pixel area under the table? Dumbshit, you don't advance

3. the hey why didn't you combine the paperclip with the oil painting to make a trap to capture the mouse to lure the cat out and around its collar it has a key to the oatmeal barrel filled with microchips and a piece of paper with a 6 digit number on it amazingly obscure logic.



Those adventure games aren't very adventurous when you're stuck and wrestling with whatever random device they utilize to move you through the narrative. That doesn't bode well in the ADHD "download a game and play for 2 minutes then on to the next game" scape that's out there.

He wants to write novels, XBOXLIVE prefers short poems.



To be fair to Gilbert, he was a part of the golden age where your list of awesome would be about 10x longer than that and the next adventure game was pounced on and lapped at like the current MMOs are in the press... and had his darling yanked from him, or so the story goes.

I'm pretty sure he's aware of XBLA since he was creative collaborator for the penny arcade game and using that similar tech for his serialized stuff.

The issue isn't that there's no platform for it, it's that there's no other way at the scale he wants to work. Adventure games get chapters or they get nothing.