The rebirth of adventure games

The world and its dog seem to have reached the conclusion that Ghostbusters: The Video Game had a decent enough story but had terrible gameplay. I don't want to come across as smug here but I thought that was incredibly obvious from the moment such a game was announced. How could I make such a potentially unfair prediction? Well, in the ghostbusters films, there were no sections where they had to capture 10 wandering spirits in order to unlock a door which would lead to a boss battle where they had to hide behind a table and then shoot a stupidly oversized boss in the weak point.

The Ghostbusters films were all about character, story & humour and there is only one genre which can successfully incorporate all three of these elements and still have half decent gameplay: Adventure Games.

What evidence do I have for this? Well, even if you ignore the new Monkey Island & Sam and Max games from Telltale, I have an example from history for you.

Discworld.

Like Ghostbusters, it's a series based around humour, character and story. Like Ghostbusters, there are no sections where Commander Vimes has to arrest 10 pickpockets before he unlocks the mission where he chases a dwarf on the back of SGT. Detritus. Unlike Ghostbusters, there have been three Discworld games, all of which have been (to a greater or lesser extent) good.

I'm quite happy to claim that you could make a passable adventure game out of most franchises that would usually be considered impossible to adapt to gaming. William Gibson's Neuromancer, for instance. Steven Sodoberg's Solaris. Doctor Who. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Anything where story is the focus can be adapted, to a greater or lesser extent.

I'd actually really like to play a Doctor Who adventure game.

Previously, it's been said that there isn't an audience for such things but Telltale Games have quite comprehensively shown that's not true. The resurection of the Monkey Island franchise has been rabidly popular and, perhaps more impressively, it's proved to be one of the most thought provoking and moving game experiences I've ever had.

I can't go into too much detail, because of spoilers, but in the five episode series, the main character essentially has a tonne of metaphorical shit dropped on him episode by episode. There's a lot of humour to be found in these situations but it all comes to a head in episode five where the humour is mixed with a deeply felt melancholy. The entire gameplay environment changes - the colours used are less bright, the voice acting becomes more subdued... the entire game seems to slow...

And if you think games are too logical and ordered to properly capture something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I just have to point you in the direction of The Path.


There is a problem with what I'm saying, though. Making a good adventure game is *incredibly* hard. This is mainly because by far the most important part of an adventure game is the story and dialogue. As I'm sure you all know, these factors are usually amongst the last to be added to the game, and are usually the single aspect that receive the least attention.

Then there's the problem of gameplay. If the plot and so on flop, all you have left to fall back on are the puzzles, which are never really good enough to justify it. Adventure games aren't like Far Cry 2, where it doesn't matter that the plot is balls because you always have shooting Africans to fall back on.

That and, even taking into account that adventure games are cheap to produce and distribute (because they don't need anything like top of the line graphics) they still represent a significant financial risk.

But adventure games are on the way back and, thanks to digital distribution, they're making more money than ever before.

Here's hoping that some time in the not too distant future, companies like Telltale have the pull to attract really big licenses like The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. Hell, maybe they can do another Discworld game.

Man, that'd be awesome.