Still Life, developed by Microids and released in 2005, was an adventure game about the FBI agent Victoria McPherson, who was investigating a serial murder. The case had eerily much in common with a case her grandfather Gus, a private investigator of Post Mortem fame, had been investigating. The case was never properly solved, but through a series of mergers and take-overs, it became ever more unlikely that Microids would ever release a sequel.

Today, however, they have announced that a sequel has been in the works since June and will be ready in November 2008. In the sequel, Victoria investigates a new murder in Maine that bears strong resemblances to the original murders. Although the murderer seems to have removed all clues, a journalist claims she has found a lead and wants to speak to Victoria. Because the journalist has previously written very critical articles about Victoria, she does not feel like meeting Paloma, who then gets kidnapped by the killer. The player controls both characters in turn.

Good. I always wanted to see the story concluded, even if the game is typical Microids sh**.

Awesome news! It's about time the story gets concluded in some way.

So they are shit? Sigh... this decades adventure games sure do confuse me. I can understand the 80's and the 90's, but 00's? I just have no clue: the worst adventure games are made in this decade, and they are also more popular and well-known.

We're holding on to a thread. There are still lots new of adventures these days, but a good narrative or creative gameplay is hard to come by. It's my favourite genre, but I enjoy one out of ten games released. The amateur scene is fairly strong, but some companies apparently only turn to the genre because of the low production costs.

So now it is low? I remember that one reason for demise of the adventure games was high production costs.

I think part of the problem also is the lack of replay especially nowadays with how strictly linear the plots have become. The puzzles also have become quite asinine whereas before you'd feel really clever figuring out a puzzle, nowadays you just shake your head in disbelief that "that's how you solve it" since the solution makes no sense.

What I'd still like to see, first person adventure games that really take you inside the setting, mostly like Penumbra, but good (ie: no fighting). All I'm saying is if you can't write interesting characters then at least bring me into the game. We've had First person shooters for decades now is it really that hard to make a FPA? Instead of gun you interact with the object you're aiming at. Move around, crouch and look under the table to see the key taped to the bottom of it etc.

Agreed. Apart from Tex Murphy series, Normality/Realms Of Haunting duo and a couple of recent Myst clones there was very little effort made in that particular area. Why? Lack of investment and necessary programming skills among the "artistic types" of developers is my answer.

Btw, for the adventure games, that was a way to evolve, - substituting the the lack of challenge with the exploration and interaction possibilities. Something Fahrenheit and Dreamfall tried to do. Yet they're still trying to hang on to retain some "challenge" in their games introducing stupid QTE sequences and atrocious fighting and/or sneaking.

Why don't you let go? People want to play adventure games not for the sake of "being challenged" or "satisfaction of beating it to the end". They want exploration and boosted interaction possibilities, that will allow them to do some more things then shooting/jumping stuff.

I can't see how that can be a reason. If no one is interested in the game of your chosen genre then he won't buy it, regardless of your budget.

Last time I heard, Microïds were dead. Who is behind the name now?

It appears that the rumors of Microids death were highly exaggerated. ;-)

That's nice but where's your original source?

Here.

*Does the Macarena*

But still....they say the game started development in June 2007 and will launch in November 2008. That's like 16 months of development time. We all have seen how buggy these less than 24 months development cycles games are.