AdventureGamers.com Top 100 All-Time Adventures

[made]

Perhaps first we must - in good old GRPGD tradition - define what an adventure is?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Are you sure they're the idiots?

Are you saying there's a chance I might be an idiot?

"No, Andy, you are the idiots. And then Andy played Myst."

Don't.

Hell, with puzzle solving being the major thing you have in this genre other than walk around, talk to people and watch cutscenes, it should be seen as combat in RPGs is seen around here.

Alright, let's back up here. Do you even know the difference between a puzzle in an adventure game and a puzzle in a Myst-game is?

Puzzle in LeChuck's Revenge: you're locked in a cell, the key is in your reach, unfortunately it's guarded by a vicious dog, you can try and grab the key but the dog will stop you, search the room, in the other cell is the skeletal remains of another prisoner, hmm, you see a wooden stick on the floor, pick it up and use it to get a bone, give the bone to the dog, get the key, open the door, the replace your face on the wanted posters with the face of a sightseeing captain so the guard doesn't arrest you the next time he sees you, instead he arrests the sightseeing captain (whom you'll eventually have to let out of the cell to solve another puzzle).

Puzzle in Riven: Place marbles in a grid, each colored marble corresponding to a specific location.

The first puzzle is a puzzle created directly due to the circumstance of the game's plot. It makes sense.
The second is a puzzle that is just there and must be solved because it's in your way. It has only loose ties to the game's already fiber thin plot.

Neither puzzle is particularly challenging.

Seriously, when the subject is adventure games, some people on the Codex are weird, to say the least. Everyone loves gameplay and a good challenge, but then when it comes to adventures, suddenly you want a completely story driven experience or something, what the flying fuck

Adventure games are story-driven games. I don't know what experience you have with the genre (it honestly sounds as if you have zero) but if an adventure game isn't driven by its plot and characters then it's driven by its puzzles and that makes it a puzzle game with a story.

To be "Myst-ified" would be a bless to this genre because we have way too many story-focused adventures.

Then with people like you around I will continue to mourn this genre.

Too bad Portal is not doing this and all it brought to the table is controversy.

Portal is a puzzle game. The gameplay is all about clearing obstacles. You complete one level, you move to the next.

I'm actually amused by this "puzzle games has almost entirely taken over the genre" because this is as accurate as to say "with turn based, tactical, thinking man's cRPGs almost entirely taking over the RPG genre, I'm not very surprised". I mean, have you actually seen the latest releases?

It is not accurate at all because turn-based games were never a genre. Adventure games were, however, and Myst took it, removed everything the fans held dear and focused entirely on more fundamental puzzles. "Real" puzzles, I suppose. When plot and characters slowly started to reclaim the genre the new puzzles stayed the same which is why I now have to solve the Towers of Hanoi to enter the inner sanctum of a serial killer and shit instead of the developers creating a sensible plot that has the character discovering a more non-bullshit way inside.

Also: Broken Sword is number four. Fuck the Adventure Gamers.

 

[made]

Indy 4 did it right imo. It had both kinds of puzzles and all (or most) of them made sense. To enter Atlantis and the colonies you needed to juggle the discs and it didn't feel out of place because that's how the Atlanteans rolled.

 

[Art Vandelay]

No

and

what a stupid list....

 

[shiteatingnippledick]

Pretty generic list, I always like lists with more personalized touch more. Especially the 1-20 is pretty boring.

I'm surprised that they didn't put L.A. Noire higher than 33 though considering they gave it 5 stars and huge praise.

 

[Redlands]

Are you saying there's a chance I might be an idiot?

Yes, well at least I am, because you're pretty much wrong.

Adventure games are story-driven games. I don't know what experience you have with the genre (it honestly sounds as if you have zero) but if an adventure game isn't driven by its plot and characters then it's driven by its puzzles and that makes it a puzzle game with a story.

Yeah, no they're not.

Have you played any of the original text adventure games before? Take Zork: there's no real story to be had, just wandering about, solving random-ass puzzles. Hell, a lot of the early adventure games were like that; that's why they're called "adventure games" in the first place: you go exploring, you solve puzzles, and as a reward you get to explore more. Yeah, you still had stories, but the puzzles were the main reason why they were made. Stories became important much later. Myst is actually pretty much a return to form in that respects.

What differentiates adventure games from puzzle games is adventure games make world exploration (whether that be through just wandering around and observing or by interacting with characters) integral to the puzzle-solving process and vice versa. You may not like Myst-like games, but they're part of the genre, or the genre is invalid as the originals aren't even included. It'd be like saying dungeon crawlers aren't RPGs because they don't have a story.

Otherwise what you're arguing for is Living Books aimed at older people. Or older horses.

 

[Drakron]

I think the anti-Myst comes from Myst being very much puzzle games.

Not this is necessary bad, The Dig is very much a puzzle game but as said, the problem is people blame Myst for all the clones that come after and yes, illogical puzzles are the worst and I would say that was what doomed the Adventure gender.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Redlands and Spellcaster, allow me to start by yelling Jesus Christ sitting in Henry Rollins' Def Leppard Express! Now go back and read my post. I'm arguing against shitty puzzles here. I don't want towers of hanoi-like puzzles. Those are minigames. I want puzzles that are woven into the story. That is what I am arguing for. Obviously there is nothing I can do to make the genre go back to the way I liked it and I accept it, grudgingly. Genres evolve all the time and the adventure game is not the only genre that has met its demise because of the popamole mainstream.

edit: And also, Redlands, saying I dislike solving a puzzle just to move to another is not it at all. Reading comprehension can't be a thing where you're from, can it? Don't make me do a craig's list version for you, fumbduck. I'm a writer, you know.

Also, text adventures like Zork are a subgenre called interactive fiction. They are nothing like Myst and you're retarded if you aim to make such a comparison.

Also 2, "Myst's brilliance". Sure, whatever makes you feel better. But in my world we just call that a series of natural events.

 

[Drakron]

Shitty puzzles? you mean the illogical puzzles that existed in the Golden Age of adventure games and that were staples of LucasArts and Sierra adventures game.
Grim Fandango is very guilty of that, the "saving grace" is the entire game is like that and does not suffer from the problem were puzzles are mostly logical and then it drops a illogical one that stumps the player (like GK3).

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I'll take those "illogical" puzzles over minigames any day.

 

[Sceptic]

If I hear one more of you claiming that Grim Fandango is a "traditional" adventure from the "golden age of adventure games" I'm gonna stick every single adventure game from 1981 to 1995 up your ass, and trust me, that's a LOT of games.
Next one of you's gonna link to that fucking awful Old Man Murray article again

And I don't see how any of you has addressed Horsie's initial comment: Tower of Hanoi-like minigames are shit, whether they appear in a Myst-like, in an IF game, in a "traditional" adventure game, or in KOTOR. Hell it sucked even when it appeared in Island of Dr Brain, where it was quite possibly the worst non-word minigame. I do agree that adventure games aren't necessarily defined by their story, though Zork is a borderline example if you consider IF to be its own genre, but even then all the original Sierra adventures (Wizard & The Princess, KQ1, Mystery House, etc) were more adventure games than puzzle games, despite having extremely minimal story (well, KQ1 probably had the most elaborate, but that's not saying much).

That said, I love Myst, and I really don't blame it for all the horrible cheap clones that followed it, for the same reason I don't blame Doom for all the shovelware Doom-toos that swamped the market in the mid-90's.

 

[Drakron]

Again, nothing wrong with Puzzle games and I had not much trouble with The Dig that, again, its a puzzle game and its very clear about that.

The problem comes from the "cat hair" puzzle, I was reading about and a article mentioned what exactly made me look for the solution, at that point Gabriel had a photo of himself so I was trying (and naturally failing) to replace Mosely's picture with Gabriel's picture since that is the logical thing to do.

Also Jane Jensen did not create that puzzle, it was created by Steven Hill, the game’s producer and the team hated that puzzle.

http://www.gabrielknight4campaign.com/cat_hair.php

Also bad design is bad design, Grim Fandango had one of the worst controls and inventory so its "top 10" in every "Top Adventure Games" always been somewhat of a surprise to me because the controls ARE shit and that is almost never mentioned.

Yes, minigames are bad and can ruining a game, like Alpha Protocol HORRIBLE design that made then harder BECAUSE of your level or because they stand up but does not mean they are completely bad, Mission Critical at one point forces you to play a kind of strategy game and as I found no real difficulty on what you actually had to do there was a mandatory tutorial were the later missions were much harder but you had to beat then, for no real reason, in order to progress the game.

 

[Redlands]

And I don't see how any of you has addressed Horsie's initial comment: Tower of Hanoi-like minigames are shit, whether they appear in a Myst-like, in an IF game, in a "traditional" adventure game, or in KOTOR.

Probably because most people posting in this thread agreed that minigames are shit. And if you want a Myst-like with minigames, Myst isn't it. Shivers is it. 7th Guest is it. (Actually it's probably more accurate to call these ones 7th Guest-alikes; Shivers was pretty much Sierra's answer to that.)

In one of the ages of Myst (Channelwood, I think it's called, it's been a while since I've played it), pretty much all of the puzzles are exactly what Andyman was wanting: they're perfectly integrated, as they're all about powering up machines by directing water along various pipes. Given that all the people that used to live there are all gone, it's not all running, so it fits perfectly well in with the world you're presented with, and it fits in with the story because, yeah, the brothers weren't known for their compassionate behaviour. Another age, again, is about mostly controlling pumps, which again are on an abandoned world and so there's probably only enough power to do one properly. Another age (the Mechanical age) has you, again, just trying to figure out how to use machinery to rotate a tower. That's pretty much the puzzle of that age, aside from getting a combination to exit again (which I'll address in a bit). Again, it's integrated pretty well and suits the story for that age. Even the combination to escape does kind of fit, as there was a war going on and I doubt Atrus wanted any of the "pirates" to come through to other worlds (although the location of the clues for it are in a bit of a bad spot for that). In fact, most of the puzzles involve figuring out how to work machinery.

And on further reflection, there really aren't all that many puzzles in Myst.

And you know what, even though I don't entirely agree with the argument myself, there is one to be made that, yes, the weird abstract puzzles of Myst actually are integrated with their world pretty well. You're Atrus, you're apparently a smart enough guy to write links to different worlds, and you're not the only one. You can't very well just stick all your linking books into one big safe marked "IMPORTANT AGES DO NOT STEAL"; you have to hide them because you're not the only smart world-linking guy who's out there. The puzzles are abstract because they're essentially combination locks (in fact, they are all pretty much literally that, as far as I can remember); and they're hidden within the world for the same reason you hide your safe behind a painting or a secret wall: so nobody realizes that there is a safe there at all.

Now all this isn't explicitly told to you; but that's why you have the note telling you to look under the dock. That's why you read the unburned journals in the library. Granted, it's not a standard way of telling a story; and it's far more archaeological in nature, but to dismiss it as an abstract puzzle game despite the fact that these things are included and there is a reason for their existence? That just seems to stretch it a bit for me.

I do agree that adventure games aren't necessarily defined by their story, though Zork is a borderline example if you consider IF to be its own genre, but even then all the original Sierra adventures (Wizard & The Princess, KQ1, Mystery House, etc) were more adventure games than puzzle games, despite having extremely minimal story (well, KQ1 probably had the most elaborate, but that's not saying much).

This was my big problem with what Andyman said, aside from him making some statements on Myst that I tried to provide counterarguments earlier. It's like saying cRPGs are defined by their stories, when some have hardly any and are still good, and the foundation games of the genre didn't really emphasize that as much. The story of adventure games is a tool of the genre, not the raison d'etre of the genre. That limits the genre for no good reason, other than your own personal preferences.

Both Zork and Myst have puzzles to solve, and even more fundamentally than that, both involve exploring a world at its core. It doesn't matter if Zork is an "interactive fiction" as a subgenre or a separate genre: they have a fundamental game feature in common, and it's stupid to argue otherwise.

 

[Sceptic]

People love Grim Fandango, no one wants to admit its obvious flaws.

I don't know, everyone I know that loves the game (including me) always adds "but if it weren't for those %$#&^% controls" whenever the game is brought up. The only ones that don't mention the atrocious controls are shitty Top Something lists that fail to include Timequest (I don't remember, is there an Infocom game on there? because not including Trinity is an even worse crime).

I haven't said that

Yeah that wasn't you, that was Drakron.
I love GF. Not for its controls (ugh), not for its puzzles in particular, but then you may've noticed from other threads that I tend to be forgiving of puzzles as long as they're not totally retarded (GF's are not) and the game's just fun enough, which GF is. It helps that I'm a bit of an atmospherefag, and GF delivers in spades in this one respect.

Probably because most people posting in this thread agreed that minigames are shit. And if you want a Myst-like with minigames, Myst isn't it. Shivers is it. 7th Guest is it. (Actually it's probably more accurate to call these ones 7th Guest-alikes; Shivers was pretty much Sierra's answer to that.)

Mmm, good point... I had forgotten about 7th Guest and Shivers. Shivers was alright actually, at least the minigames felt like more creative puzzles than 7th Guest's been-there-a-thousand-times ones. Incidentally I agree that Myst's puzzles aren't minigames; about the closest is the maze in Selenitic, which is also the shittiest segment in the game even if you do figure out the trick.

And on further reflection, there really aren't all that many puzzles in Myst.

No, but some (like Channelwood's) are quite elaborate and take a while to complete. It also depends on how you split them up; Stoneship is really one long puzzle, but if you split it into its sub-pieces it's about 3 chained puzzles. It really isn't a long game, but a lot of the charm comes from soaking in the worlds and taking your time to explore and figure out what's going on and what really happened (which, in and of itself, provides the solution to one of the puzzles). Quite a bit of reading too.

Both Zork and Myst have puzzles to solve, and even more fundamentally than that, both involve exploring a world at its core. It doesn't matter if Zork is an "interactive fiction" as a subgenre or a separate genre: they have a fundamental game feature in common, and it's stupid to argue otherwise.

Agreed mostly, and TBH the whole subcategorization of adventure games is probably even more of a waste of time than our favorite "What is an RPG?" Take Scott Adams's games; some (the ones I remember at least) were a linear series of puzzles to be solved one after the other, but the manner of solving them was otherwise identical to adventure games of the time. I sometimes think of his games as puzzles games, but are they really any different from adventure games? Aren't they more like "linear Zork"? There's really not much point in drawing a fine distinction sometimes.

 

[Redlands]

I don't remember, is there an Infocom game on there?

Yeah, it's at 50. In fact, all the text adventure games by Infocom are at 50. That's another problem I have with a list. Some game series get more than one entry, while some are all grouped together. It's not even a Top 100 list.

Mmm, good point... I had forgotten about 7th Guest and Shivers. Shivers was alright actually, at least the minigames felt like more creative puzzles than 7th Guest's been-there-a-thousand-times ones.

Since Shivers was one of the first adventure games I finished (pretty sure it's the first, actually), I do have some fondness for the game, but from a design point of view it's terrible at worst and mediocre at best, and that's not limited to the puzzles/minigames either. However, it does have some randomness to it, and so a little bit of replayability, which is something a lot of adventure games lack.

Agreed mostly, and TBH the whole subcategorization of adventure games is probably even more of a waste of time than our favorite "What is an RPG?" Take Scott Adams's games; some (the ones I remember at least) were a linear series of puzzles to be solved one after the other, but the manner of solving them was otherwise identical to adventure games of the time. I sometimes think of his games as puzzles games, but are they really any different from adventure games? Aren't they more like "linear Zork"? There's really not much point in drawing a fine distinction sometimes.

I'm going to disagree: categories do a pretty good job of describing mechanics or play styles, so you can kind of tell if you're going to like something based on if you've liked others of a previous style.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

This was my big problem with what Andyman said, aside from him making some statements on Myst that I tried to provide counterarguments earlier. It's like saying cRPGs are defined by their stories, when some have hardly any and are still good, and the foundation games of the genre didn't really emphasize that as much. The story of adventure games is a tool of the genre, not the raison d'etre of the genre. That limits the genre for no good reason, other than your own personal preferences.

The story is indeed the tool of the genre but it is the very same tool that makes the puzzles work. The puzzles should be the thing that drives the adventure, not the other way around. Personal preference, sure, but everything boils down to personal preference. It's not even worth bringing it up. Always assume that people are talking about shit they want shit to be. Saves you some time.

Coming from AdventureGamers this was a very poor top 100.

 

[Phelot]

I never liked The Longest Journey. Nothing worse than playing in a world populated by hipster art fags.

Portal... ugh. This is what OldmanMurray thought should replace the adventure game genre.

 

[Horus]

LA noire........

 

[Outlander]

The exclusion of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and Future Wars, among others; the inclusion of stuff like Portal and Silent Hill (which I enjoyed but doesn't belong here) and the placing of The Dig at position #92 automatically make that list a pure-shit list.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

If Portal 2 is on there, then why not Psychonauts?

Why are all the Infocom text adventure games listed as one entry? Why not list all the Sierra adventure games as one entry then? Or all the LucasArts games?

Toss me in the mob chanting "shit-list!" at this thing.

 

[ghostdog]

AdventureGamers.com is the most amateurish piece of shit niche site there is. They are idiots and one day my lithuanian hitmen will destroy them.

So true.

 

[Guido Fawkes]

I'm specially butthurt about them not giving attention to several kickstarter revivals, while frequently bending genres and sucking up stuff like Portal and L.A Noire.

Fucking traitors. JustAdventure is a much better site.

 

[Ringhausen]

Hey, they aren't running a charity. Also they admitted that one of the reasons why they GOTY the Portal games is because they ... don't play adventure games. From their free time I mean, an individual staff member will generally only play the games he has to review. With Portal on the other hand everyone gives it a whack so it wins by default.

Also the site's been infected with trojans for a while, haha.

 

[Redlands]

Hey, they aren't running a charity. Also they admitted that one of the reasons why they GOTY the Portal games is because they ... don't play adventure games. From their free time I mean, an individual staff member will generally only play the games he has to review. With Portal on the other hand everyone gives it a whack so it wins by default.

Also the site's been infected with trojans for a while, haha.

So Portal is a good adventure game according to them because it's not an adventure game?

Also re trojans: beware of geeks bearing gifts.

 

[Ringhausen]

So Portal is a good adventure game according to them because it's not an adventure game?

It's an adventure game because they, Adventuregamers, played it, duhh. And you can't really blame them, most adventure games released these days are rather crummy. It's like if the codex liked Dark Messiah more than.. uh.. mmm.. can't think of an RPG equivalent of a bad TLJ clone.