What's happening to adventure games?
Conclusion: Light at the end of the tunnel
So, should we damn the adventure, close the final chapter in the book of adventure gaming, and try to find consolation in the marvelous revival of role-playing games? Not if you ask me. Because although the crisis is severe, and there seems to be no other choice than to say "good-bye" to some of the genres we loved in the past, there's still hope for the adventure.
This hope is a tendency best described as the "social adventure". In the center of such an adventure stands the human being such as it is, with tts thoughts, feelings, joys and grievances. But it lives in a society of other human beings, and their relationship, their common feelings, hopes and fears are the core of the game. Puzzles tend to be as realistic as possible: no more "use-that-with-this" feasts; their significance is secondary. Graphics are also not of primary importance; the technology ceases to be the primary focus. Instead, the interaction and the dialogue are finally given the lead. The game becomes a realistic "interactive movie", a movie where the most fantastic things can happen.
There are at least three really great adventures of this type made in the Modern Era. They all seem to belong to the style I tried to describe above, and each one of them can start a great tradition, if we only give them a chance:
- "Gabriel Knight - Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned" - the sequel to two fantastic games made during the Romantic Era. It combines an incredibly detailed, inspired story with much imagination, romantic religious fantasy, and our well-known everyday world. The possibilities of the series seem endless.
- "Grim Fandango" - In the imaginary World Of Dead, everything is very similar to what we see here among the living. This poetic, atmospheric parody has everything an adventurer needs, but the emphasis is on the variety of characters and the relationship between them. A powerful epic of life, death, love, and hate that absolutely cries for a sequel.
- "The Longest Journey" - A vast, epic RPG-like story; intriguing, with fascinating characters; realistic and profound dialogue; an incredible mixture of dream and reality, of fantasy and everyday life, of the majestic and the ordinary. All this combined into one game that may bring us the adventure Renaissance, if we could just pay more attention to it.
Humanity is a rich race, and the possibilities of our imagination are endless. The serious social adventure seems to be the one to conquer the throne in the near future and to bring us back the glory of the Adventure.
About the author: Unicorn is a regular MobyGames contributor and avid adventure gamer.
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