See part one two posts up. This second part is really great and one of the better reads in this thread.
The Cold Hotspot Part 2
Quote:
You've heard it countless times before. According to the media the adventure game is dead. Or dying. Or at least no longer important. The irony is that other genres, like role playing games (RPGs) and first person shooters (FPSs), have been borrowing key attributes and techniques of the adventure game for years, and even some of them are doing it better now than most modern adventures. You can discern this in titles like No One Lives Forever 2, Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, Deus Ex, Beyond Good & Evil, and Fable. When this happens, the game expands into new territory, it grows, deepens, and the player often discovers a new way to have fun. The game innovates and the genre diversifies. Silent Hill 3, despite its survival horror pedigree, features wickedly difficult puzzles on par with that of Myst or The Longest Journey. Fable, an RPG, rewards players for thorough exploration by allowing them to discover peripheral but enriching stories about the game's world and characters, very much like an inquisitive dialogue tree in any adventure game.
So then, why are adventure game designers not doing the same by plucking elements from other genres, being inspired by them? And why this tunnel vision notion from the adventure community that any outside influences will destroy the genre as we know it? Today developers and many gamers treat any suggestion of experimentation and - god forbid - innovation, as if it were heresy.
