Do these words mean anything to you: Sierra, Lucas Arts, Tex Murphy, Gabriel Knight, Access Software, Sanitarium, Jane Jensen, Roberta Williams, Revolution Software, Roger Wilco, Malcolm Corley, Guybrush Threepwood, Tim Schafer, Chris Jones… For most modern gamers these are empty, meaningless names and titles. “Oldies” and old gamers are ready to shed a tear when they look at them. I can’t resist either: pleasant memories overwhelm me and take me to the seemingly not-so-distant past, when the sun shone brighter, the grass was greener, and I could only dream of shaving in the morning.
So what is it about these words and what do they have in common?? Call it what you want: adventurous games, quests or “hunt for points”. These are symbols of the gaming industry of the 90s, the parents of many modern projects, the legacy of a dying and deteriorating genre.
They will never be like this again. The tentacles of change inevitably squeezed in here too. Having thrown away “everything unnecessary”, they stretched them out and threw them into a huge number of projects. Some of which were able to surprise and truly please. Successful experiments of such crossings and mutations can, for example, be called:
.the “Silent Hill” series, magnificent in https://betmexicocasino.co.uk/login/ its dark atmospheric surrealism;
.a mind-blowing interactive novel from the Russian studio Ice Pick Lodge – “Petroleum”. Utopia";
.an insane embodiment of the works of the no less insane Howard Phillips Lovecraft from the now deceased Headfirst Productions – “Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth”;
.Quantic Dream’s damn exciting "Fahrenheit" and "Heavy Rain";
.frightening "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" and "Penumbra" from Frictional Games.
Others suffered the expected fate: the abyss of oblivion. That’s where you go.
Many will object to me and, I’ll say right away, they will be right. Classic adventure games are still being released today. But, unfortunately, every year there are fewer and fewer successful projects. And the overall level of quality is going down at an alarming rate. Year after year, Telltale continues to feed us with its semi-serial imperfections, which have completely lost at least some interest and originality (their latest work, Jurassic Park: The Game, is a wonderful confirmation of this). Her Interactive has put Nancy Drew on the assembly line and does not see the obvious: by adding in quantity, they significantly lose in quality. Daedalic cope with mixed success. Only Pendulo Studios still holds the bar. Sometimes something unexpectedly great comes to us from the “indie country” (thank you, Amanita Design). In fact, for 2010 and 11, worthy projects can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Heavy Rain, Gray Matter, Whispered World, Next Big Thing. And 2012 generally promises to be the busiest year for adventure games. And this, my dear optimists, in your opinion, is not a deplorable situation?
Every year the genre becomes more and more isolated in its chamber world, every year it becomes more and more difficult for it to look out to us from its dark cage. Swear all you want, but that’s how it is.
Judge as you wish, strictly or not. It’s boiling..
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P.S.
"But I don’t want to go among mad people" Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."How do you know I’m mad?"said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you woudn’t have come here.»
