i don't know if you guys know the Broken Swords game (the first one). It's an adventure game made by revolution studios, a london-based company. i think it was released in 1997, so it's quite old. there are some cut scenes but the gameplay is centered around guiding (it's mouse-based) a guy named georges stobbard. well, that was a great adventure that made me say "waoaww, that was way too cool" and makes me a bit dreamy. lots of travelling around europe, action scenes, great story, rhytm, lots of talking of course, cheesy jokes and a cool character. i think it is one of the best games i played, even if the screen resolution&graphics looks *bad* compared to today's superior special effects. that makes me into thinking about the "performance race" i am seeing nowdays. i am not saying cheesy 3D graphics are bad, but if a gamer has some kind of superior gaming experience with plain old graphics, why spend millions on graphics engines and super-sized photo-realistic textures ? i mean, i think nowdays game designers focus too much on technical aspects of their game. they 'd say they want 500k + polygons and lens flare and everything without thinking first about the gameplay and the EXPERIENCE the game is going to give to the kid or guy playing at the other end. on this gamer developer forum that i know, there is this maitrek guy who says far cry is not a game. i agree with him because now i just feel 3d fps games are just technical applications showing how good the developers' 3d engine is. ok, maybe i say all of this because i am new to gaming, but what i know is that i'd prefer to buy & play broken swords than any other game around righ now. and i am sure a lot of people would react like me. so maybe people working in the game industry should consider themselves as entertainers, creators and artists than technical developers. they should aim to entertain gamers and give them an experience. maybe try to express some kind of personal vision. exactly like creating a movie or writing a book. in fact, i'd like one day to be in an industry that has the same objectives ( and coolness) as the film industry, with a different medium. making memorable and breath taking products. not just some kind of quick-fix-and-throw-away-technical-products.

Agreed. The adventure game might be the most conducive medium for storytelling, and I would rather see a new well-thought adventure game than another FPS with new and improved 3d graphics.

Also, Revolution recently released two of their other old titles, Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress as freeware, and given the BASS code to the ScummVM developers so it can be played on current machines. You can download Beneath a Steel Sky and ScummVM at this web site. Lure of the Temptress is available at Revolution's web site here.

The ScummVM site also has the Broken Sword cutscenes available for download.

Thanks Migs for the link.

I think I am going to download and play Beneath a steel sky again. It was many years since last time I played it.

Btw,

in fact, i'd like one day to be in an industry that has the same objectives ( and coolness) as the film industry, with a different medium. making memorable and breath taking products. not just some kind of quick-fix-and-throw-away-technical-products.


I don't think that Hollywood is about making memorable and breath taking products. Hollywood is about making money.

I love all the old adventure games! I used to play the LucasArts stuff (Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Full Throttle, The Dig, Monkey Island, etc - also the Police Quest and other Sierra games) and loved em. So much fun, and I would really like to see a good adventure game come out now that Far Cry has pretty much sated my appetite for high-graphics FPS.

I agree. Graphics don't make a game...they make the medium through which you SEE a game. And it damn-well better have some content on the other side.

Actually, a number of "fast paced" action games suffer speed loss on normal computers because of the 'superior graphics'. What genious made the decision that the importance of visuals should override gameplay?

If you ever start designing a game with thoughts of the visuals first...you're doing it wrong.

Quote: Original post by Veovis
I agree. Graphics don't make a game...they make the medium through which you SEE a game. And it damn-well better have some content on the other side.

Actually, a number of "fast paced" action games suffer speed loss on normal computers because of the 'superior graphics'. What genious made the decision that the importance of visuals should override gameplay?

If you ever start designing a game with thoughts of the visuals first...you're doing it wrong.

I think it depends on the game. Good graphics can greatly enhance a game, but how much attention you should pay to the graphics, particularly at the expense of other features, depends the genre. FPSs often rely on good graphics, and although playing the first Doom is still, in my opinion, enormously fun, it's admittedly hard to compare it to a game like Raven Shield. However, when it comes to adventure games, the story is the most memorable part of a good adventure game, not the graphics. I think when designing an adventure (or an RPG for that matter) one should pay careful attention to delivering the story effectively. I enjoy playing all the independent freeware adventure games out there, despite the fact they usually don't have cutting-edge graphics. Not everyone is a highly skilled graphic artist, anyway, so there's no point in being picky.

Quote: Original post by Avatar God
I love all the old adventure games! I used to play the LucasArts stuff (Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Full Throttle, The Dig, Monkey Island, etc - also the Police Quest and other Sierra games) and loved em. So much fun, and I would really like to see a good adventure game come out now that Far Cry has pretty much sated my appetite for high-graphics FPS.

I listed some promising adventure games in development a few days ago, in case you missed the thread.

1997 is not "very old"!!!!!

I have many games from the early 90s installed here, and regularly play games I used to enjoy from the early 80s on an emulator.

There are great games from all eras. I don't think today is any different, but it's certainly getting harder to see through the marketing and the technology.

Actually, Broken Sword was released in 1996, Broken Sword 2 in 1997, and Broken Sword 3 in 2003.

I've heard this time and time again. People tend to recall past games fondly and say the modern games just aren't like they used to be. I think the truth is that there have been good and bad games in all eras of gaming.

You can find some pretty good games among the crap nowadays, but current exposure to the bad games makes everyone remember the current bad games. When people think of the past, they tend to remember the good games, the ones the they had lots of fun playing. The bad games of the past tend to be forgotten, which is why the past always looks so much better.

There were quite a few bad games in the past that had the same failings as modern games: pretty graphics but bad gameplay. I remember one in particular, Outpost from Sierra, which I believe came out in 1994. It was very pretty, but it was essentially unfinished. You could play for a few hours, but everything would kind of come to a halt because the game wasn't all there.

I'm sure others can come up with bad games from the past. I view game production like movie production or book writing. You'll have good ones and terrible ones no matter what time period you look at. People, however, mostly tend to remember the good ones, and only remember bad ones if they made some kind of very strong impression.

I don't think that Hollywood is about making memorable and breath taking products. Hollywood is about making money.

true and false. yeah they put a lot of special effects and fancy colors in movies to attract people but behind every great movie there is always a great story. they would never invest millions in a new movie if the story wasn't original, great, breath taking or memorable as i say. this just doesn't compare to the games where i feel the scenario was made by high schoolers

anyway let's go back to the post


about the year 1997 being old :
being in the computer industry where the chips are supposed to double their power, i think 1997 is quite old. the games nowdays cannot just be compared to (at all) to the games made 7 years ago.
quote:

proof that emphasizing gameplay works : blizzard
these guys prefer to make a game with a perfect gameplay, true story and a great ambiance. and they are not afraid to release it monthS later. i remember they had the capacity to make warcraft 3 full 3d with full camera control for the gamer and they just dropped it. they also have 5 races at the beginning and they dropped it because it was too much elements for the gamers and didn't bring nothing worthwile for the gaming experience.

did they sell the games ? yeah, sure i think they are among the best selling studios out there. they sell their copies with a minimum of 3 millions copies each. and they still do.

gameplay&story is also important because it builds fidelity. i tried one day warcraft2. it made such an impression on me that i just had to buy diablo and warcraft 3 when they got out, knowing i'll get qaulity games with great story. there are millions of gamers who behaves like me out there.

bottom point is i think a game designer should focus on the story & ambiance & gamplay first then choose graphics technology. yeah, and of course you can make compelling graphics in the process, but let's just say it would be the icing on the cake.