Does anybody else feel very protective of 'true' adventure games?

So I just came across this forum hoping to find like-minded classic adventure game fans and within the second post I jumped into I saw references to Assassin's Creed. Immediately my brain goes nuts saying that isn't an adventure game and I wish we could have our little point-and-click proper adventure haven of what these games used to be. I realise so many things are hybridized now but it's sad that adventure games seem to be losing their identity to 'action-adventures'.

/Rant

It really is to be expected,I pointed that out in one of the earlier threads in this forum about "your favourite adventure games this gen"when I saw games like Assassins Creed,Batman,Resident Evil,God of War and even Super Mario Galaxy being mentioned in there,but it´s not surprising considering the adventure genre hasn´t been exactly mainstream since the mid to late 90´s,and for those audiences only recent titles like The Walking Dead(and to some extent,Double Fine´s upcoming adventure game,mostly because of the kickstarter buzz) are mentioned because almost everything else is fairly niche these days.

Wich is a damn shame because the genre is among my favourites and many of my all time greats are adventure games.

I just wish this genre had a more niche-d term, I suppose. Adventure has become too generalized and corrupted into the mainstream every-other-AAA-game sphere. Survival Horror, for example, is at least defined. Though I suppose even that is being broken down from it's classic classification by publishers who are desperate to provide mass appeal.

I feel that many people confuse Adventure and Action games.

something like Assassins Creed to me is more of an action game but I can see it as an action-adventure.

when I think of adventure game I think of things like Syberia and The Longest Journey as "true" or traditional adventure games.

So I just came across this forum hoping to find like-minded classic adventure game fans and within the second post I jumped into I saw references to Assassin's Creed. Immediately my brain goes nuts saying that isn't an adventure game and I wish we could have our little point-and-click proper adventure haven of what these games used to be. I realise so many things are hybridized now but it's sad that adventure games seem to be losing their identity to 'action-adventures'.

/Rant

tempertress

Adventure is a very broad term.

But i guess when i think of adventure i think of a long story driven game with many gameplay mechanics. But i guess point and click springs from Telltale Games and the old to mind. If anyone says pure adventure game to me (if that exists), i'll immediately think of Secret of Monkey Island, Dreamfall and more recently the Walking Dead.

Although does an interactive story mean an adventure game? Is Dragon's Lair an adventure game? I don't know, its interesting to see where the line is.

Adventure is a very broad term.

But i guess when i think of adventure i think of a long story driven game with many gameplay mechanics. But i guess point and click springs from Telltale Games and the old to mind. If anyone says pure adventure game to me (if that exists), i'll immediately think of Secret of Monkey Island, Dreamfall and more recently the Walking Dead.

Although does an interactive story mean an adventure game? Is Dragon's Lair an adventure game? I don't know, its interesting to see where the line is.

Ilovegames1992

[QUOTE="Ilovegames1992"]

Adventure is a very broad term.

But i guess when i think of adventure i think of a long story driven game with many gameplay mechanics. But i guess point and click springs from Telltale Games and the old to mind. If anyone says pure adventure game to me (if that exists), i'll immediately think of Secret of Monkey Island, Dreamfall and more recently the Walking Dead.

Although does an interactive story mean an adventure game? Is Dragon's Lair an adventure game? I don't know, its interesting to see where the line is.

iowastate

Yes.

As i say though when i think of adventure games i go straight to point and clicks for some reason.

A very good reason - that is pretty much what a "true" adventure game has always been.

the open world games that many people have recently begun to refer to as action-adventure are really Action games pure and simple.

and adventure game is something on the order of Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper.

which is more involved and has a larger world than many of them we were used to back in the day but still follows the point and click find and search forumla where you have to look all over and get things discovered and puzzles solved in the correct order to solve the quests and win the game.

While many if not most of the recent games are too easy - the same can not be said of Adventure games - most of them are quite challenging.

even with a walkthrough you can not easily work your way through many adventure games which is why many of us like them so much

I would define Dear Esther as a graphic novel.

Correct. There are some games around which are labeled as adventure but are not. I mean AC isnt' really an adventure game, is it. Some RPGs can be counted as adventures though. ( like Fallout NV for example) there are a lot of exploring and you can combine stuff to make new usefull items but rarely any puzzles or guessing and things. A real adventure game for me is the point&clicks.

Quite correct - tempertress pointed this out early on regarding the blurring of lines between adventure and action games.

People have recently started to confuse action and adventure genres and a role playing game with a lot of action packed adventuring quests is often referred to as action-adventure rather than simply an action game an RPG or in the case of Fallout3 it could also be an FPS RPG for scrabble or WWF.

Oblivion or Skyrim could also be called action-adventure RPGs but by no means FPS RPGs - FPS only applies to bows in frames per second in real life archery.

I know this because I not only have a marksman medal I also took archery

Adventure games are a pretty broad genre... covering everything from text adventures, to point & click graphic adventures, to visual novel games, to interactive movies, to 3D sandbox adventure games... not to mention the hybrids that combine several of these sub-genres (such as The Walking Dead and Zero Escape from last year).

However, I agree action-adventure games should not be included, since it's a genre that has strayed way too far from adventure games... so much so that action-adventures are probably closer to RPG's than they are to adventure games... not to mention the action-adventure genre itself being even more broad than adventure games. Besides, action-adventure games already have their own forum, so there's no need to mention them here.

I would define Dear Esther as a graphic novel.

iowastate

this is why I avoided the genre of visual noval - the majority of them use the Renpy format and have at least a few decisions that will have some impact on the outcome.

  Dear Esther is simply watching the story unfold and doesn't really have a genre.

this is why I avoided the genre of visual noval - the majority of them use the Renpy format and have at least a few decisions that will have some impact on the outcome.

  Dear Esther is simply watching the story unfold and doesn't really have a genre.

iowastate

However, considering how interactive visual novels, despite revolving around moral decisions which have a big impact on the narrative (far more so than any other video game genre), are still debated over whether they qualify as 'video games'... I doubt many would be willing to accept these linear "kinetic novels" as video games at all.

[QUOTE="iowastate"]

this is why I avoided the genre of visual noval - the majority of them use the Renpy format and have at least a few decisions that will have some impact on the outcome.

  Dear Esther is simply watching the story unfold and doesn't really have a genre.

Jag85

However, considering how interactive visual novels, despite revolving around moral decisions which have a big impact on the narrative (far more so than any other video game genre), are still debated over whether they qualify as 'video games'... I doubt many would be willing to accept these linear "kinetic novels" as video games at all.

[QUOTE="Jag85"]

[QUOTE="iowastate"]

this is why I avoided the genre of visual noval - the majority of them use the Renpy format and have at least a few decisions that will have some impact on the outcome.

  Dear Esther is simply watching the story unfold and doesn't really have a genre.

iowastate

However, considering how interactive visual novels, despite revolving around moral decisions which have a big impact on the narrative (far more so than any other video game genre), are still debated over whether they qualify as 'video games'... I doubt many would be willing to accept these linear "kinetic novels" as video games at all.

I think these new-fangled "graphical adventures" are ruining true adventure games. The kind where you read the game and your own imagination supplies the graphics.

I just wish this genre had a more niche-d term, I suppose. Adventure has become too generalized tempertress

people can call AC an Adventure Game but that doesn't make it one - it is discussed on the Action game board.

this forum is popular for invasion regarding action games and even some RPGs only because it is not as crowded

I would have to agree with anyone who references Zelda or Dark Souls when talking about adventure games. Perhaps the latter is more RPG, but I have to say that adventure game is a broader term as mentioned by another, and RPG would be more sub-genre in the same vein darksoulja7

Sorry, I couldn't help but agree with the points you are making here. I hope it is appropriate to tell you about an online adventure game I have been making. It is kind of in the style of Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest type games. I would love for you guys to beta test it. The link is http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/paxamore/jeffsbaker