Welcome to Team Chat, the newly-renamed GameSpot PC letters page--the place to get your questions answered about PC gaming. Got something on your mind? Tell me about it.

Stop me if you've heard this one. So this guy walks into a bar and says,

Adventure Gaming Redux
[POSTED: 28-Jan-02]

 
Hey Greg! Is it me, or are adventure games an endangered species? Am I the only one who still enjoys playing games like Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry? I mean, come on! Why is it that adventure games are getting neglected? It's like no one cares about them anymore.

Take a look at the adventure genre page on GameSpot--several games on the top 10 were released in 2000. It's like strategy games and RPGs just kind of buried the adventure genre.

I'm looking at the previews for upcoming adventure games... and it looks grim, and I'm not talking about Grim Fandango. In order to get a thrill out of the adventure genre, I have to resort to digging up my dusty CD-ROMs and 3.5" floppy disks... or even worse, delve into uncharted territory and download abandonware no one has ever heard of.

The two big adventure game makers were Sierra and Lucasarts. Sierra has now given up on all its "Quest" series (all of which were excellent in their own right) and have traded them in for its newfound success in Half-Life and their other games. And LucasArts is too busy milking its Star Wars license for all it's worth to go ahead and make another adventure game, and probably won't for a long time. I heard a rumor of Grim Fandango 2 back in 2000... but still nothing.

I'm severely dissapointed at this genre lately, and I truly hope it does not die. There once was a time when adventure games were flooding the market... now they're a rarity. I can't have fun with the top-down RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Diablo and such... I just can't get into them. The last top-down RPG I really enjoyed was Jagged Alliance 2, and that only cost me $10.

So will there ever be a spark to rekindle the dying flame of the adventure genre, or will I, and people like me, just have to wait another four or five years till Sierra or LucasArts puts out another sequel to one of their series? Then again, since adventure games are probably doing so poorly, they'll probably drop all their series and just stick to their money makers, right?

--Logan B.

Hey Logan. The bad news is, yes, adventure games are pretty dead. Dreamcatcher still publishes them pretty regularly, but these newer adventure games--imported from Europe--aren't really of the high caliber that you came to expect from Lucas and Sierra.

The good news is, I get a lot of letters like yours, which is suggestive of the fact that there's definitely still demand for PC adventure games. So there's still hope. For example, we already know that there's a sequel in the works to LucasArts' Sam & Max Hit the Road (which, disappointingly, is currently scheduled to be an Xbox-exclusive). I've also heard a little rumor that one of Sierra's beloved 'Quest series may well be revived at some point in the relative near future, but you didn't hear that from me. Also, it's reasonable to expect that there will be another Myst game at some point--last year's Myst III: Exile sold quite well, so clearly not all adventure games have to be commercial disasters these days.

I don't think adventure games are dead--they're just dormant. The genre's changing gears a little, since after the release of Myst in the early '90s, adventure gaming pretty much got stuck in a rut trying to mimic that game's success. But I wouldn't be surprised if adventure gaming made a comeback in the next couple of years. Let's hope so.

If you've been to a game store in the past week or so, then you probably noticed the new smaller box size that's been used for some new releases like Black & White: Creature Isle, Medal of Honor, and SimGolf. The boxes are smaller--so how come the prices are still just as high? This reader inquires.

Now 40% Smaller
[POSTED: 28-Jan-02]

 
Hey Greg,
I thought part of the reason PC game publishers are in the process of adapting to the new smaller-sized boxes was to decrease cost for the consumers, as well as create more selling space on retail shelves. The latter reason I can understand, having worked in retail, and the former I was intrigued by when I first heard about the change a while back. But when Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the first major PC game to use the new boxes, released at a full price of $49.99, I was taken aback. Now, I didn't expect anything like 50% off, but I did not count on anything higher than at least $40. Have I misunderstood the intentions of the publishers? Somewhere, somehow that box cost them less to produce, but won't they share the savings with us?

--Aaron P.

Hey Aaron. While I can't say I'm positive, I'm reasonably sure that switching to a new box standard actually cost EA more money somewhere along the line, rather than less money. Over time, yes, the smaller boxes should cost slightly less to produce than the bigger boxes. But there are a lot of other hidden costs associated with switching standards.

Besides, I don't think the possibility of lower retail prices was the motivation to change box sizes anyway. More selling space is definitely the bigger issue. Apparently Wal-Mart, a major PC game retailer, has mandated that it will no longer put PC games on the shelves if they aren't sold in this smaller box size. I know that got some publishers to sit up and take notice. The reason Wal-Mart would take this stance is because, previously, a majority of its shelf space was being cluttered with PC games that haven't sold for squat. Meanwhile those tiny PlayStation 2 games are selling like hot cakes. So the smaller box size not only reduces the overall amount of shelf space required for PC games, but also could help give PC games a longer shelf life. But yeah, I wouldn't expect them to be much cheaper. By the way, I think Medal of Honor is going for $39 in most stores.

It was a real downer when Looking Glass Studios went up in smoke some months ago. At least the Thief series will live on, but some of Looking Glass' great games will only live on in our memories. In some of our memories, anyway, like this reader's.

Ode to Terra Nova
[POSTED: 28-Jan-02]

 
Hey Greg, do you remember Terra Nova: Strike Force Centari, which was released way back when by Looking Glass? I remember it getting rave reviews but selling very poorly. Most people think that's due to the game's steep system requirements for the time (a was Pentium recommended back when most had 486s). My point is that it was a brilliant game idea. It was a mech-type game but it had a more accessible interface than any of the MechWarrior games. It had a dash of Wing Commander because of full-motion video in between missions, which made your squadmates seem like more than mere bots.

Speaking of squadmates, some had different abilites like demolitions, field-repairs, and so on, and mission objectives often required the use of such specific abilities. So basically you had Tribes-style years before Tribes. The single-player storyline combined with the varied missions was good enough to keep you playing till the end, too. I could go on and on about the great features of this game, but my question is, with current technology why doesn't anyone make a similar single-player experience? Outwars from Microsoft had some similarities and better graphics, but the gameplay was nowhere near as good. And I know Tribes 2 is very similar and in fact more complex in terms of gameplay, but it's multiplayer-only. Considering the popularity of squad-based tactical games these days, something like this could sell by the truckload.

--Aamir A.

Hey Aamir, I definitely remember Terra Nova. Though Looking Glass Studios is perhaps best known for the System Shock, Flight Unlimited, and Thief games, those who played it tend to agree that Terra Nova was also outstanding. You're right, it combined the feel of a mech game with the much faster pacing of a shooter. I believe it was one of the first PC games to feature smooth, texture-mapped 3D graphics--back before 3D acceleration was standard. The graphics were all low-res, but the polygonal terrain looked great.

Perhaps the closest thing to Terra Nova was Heavy Gear 2, a game with a similar theme--you piloted armored suits, which were nimbler than the behemoths in the MechWarrior games.

Aside from MechWarrior 4, it seems like giant robot games are all but dead. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but clearly there's a combination of factors that led to this gaming subgenre's apparent demise. Actually, space combat sims like Wing Commander have died right along with mech sims. I think it's basically that A) most people don't like playing games with joysticks anymore, and B) that game designers haven't managed to differentiate mech games and space sims from first-person shooters, a genre that's much more popular. I'm glossing over what's certainly a complicated issue, but basically I agree--it's too bad there aren't games like Terra Nova anymore. Looking Glass is dead and gone, too, so don't hold your breath for a sequel.

Is the best game of all time the one you've got all figured out in your head but you've never told anyone else about? This reader wonders what he should do if he's got a great idea.

IP Also Stands for Intellectual Property
[POSTED: 28-Jan-02]

 
Hi! OK, I have a question--if I were to approach a game developer with an idea, is there a chance that it would try my idea out? While I'm at it, what makes a good multiplayer game? I'm just asking because one day I hope to make my own game, and if I do, it would probably be a multiplayer game. Well, thanks for reading this. Bye!

--Tom F.

Hey Fernando. Nothing is impossible, at least according to the designer of the Metal Gear games. At any rate, if by some chance you have the world's greatest game design idea in mind, I would recommend that you take some precautions before shopping it around. Depending on how serious you are, you might want to look into legal counsel about how to protect that idea as your own, so that it isn't stolen. Here's a bad scenario for you. I'm a hotshot game designer. You're a brilliant man with a brilliant idea. You tell it to me, hoping I'll make your game. I laugh you out the door, then make a bazillion dollars thanks to your brilliant game idea. No one believes it was originally yours and you become a hermit, and grow carrots. You wouldn't want that.

What makes a good multiplayer game? I think the single most important quality in a multiplayer game is for it to actually work properly and run smoothly over an average Internet connection. You'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) as to how many multiplayer games are prone to crashing, prone to lag, etc. I also think multiplayer games all need to be accessible--the game itself should have a server browser built into the front end, so you don't need to quit out or know someone's IP address if you're just trying to play online. I think the best recent example of a well-made multiplayer game is Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Besides the fact that it works, it's fast, fun, emphasizes competition between teams, is well balanced, and includes tools for people to govern their game session--hotkeys for quick communications, the ability to vote out people acting like jerks, and so forth.

What with GeForce 3 cards all around us, you'd think most PC games would be running smoothly at this point. But that's not always the case. This reader's wondering why his new card doesn't yield the results he expected.

Fast Times
[POSTED: 28-Jan-02]

 
Hi Greg,
I just picked up a copy of Medal of Honor: Allied Assalt and I was wondering if you could help me out with something. I'm running a GeForce 3 with 256MB of RAM and an Athlon at 850 Mhz, but for some reason I still get massive slowdown. I have all the effects cranked up--I thought the new video card could handle it, but apparently not. I didn't throw down $320 so my games look like crap. Is there anything you know that I could do to keep the game from bogging down to an abysmal frame rate? Thanks!

--Dan

Hey Dan. Your GeForce 3 card is powerful, but it can't do all the work. I myself have an Athlon 1.1 GHz with a GeForce 3 card at home, and Medal of Honor doesn't run smoothly with everything turned on for me either. If you notice, the default settings for the game actually have some of the graphical effects set lower than their maximum settings. I would encourage you to play with these defaults--there isn't much difference in terms of visual quality, but you'll get a much smoother frame rate. For what it's worth, though Medal of Honor is using the Quake III: Team Arena engine, clearly it's been heavily modified. The Omaha Beach sequence in Medal of Honor is much more complex than what you'd find in a typical shooter, and later in the game, there's a level where just about every object is destructible. Quake III didn't allow for anything like that. At any rate, the added complexity of the game means your CPU--not just your graphics card--is working hard to keep up with the game. Now's a great time to invest in more RAM, too. You can get another 256MB for about $60, and that should noticeably improve the performance of your system in virtually everything it does.

Thanks for joining us for this installment of letters, and have a good weekend. Got a question about games on your mind? Write to me.