3D adventure games.

[miguel]

Colossal:
"But would you rather play a crappy 2d game from the 90s over a good 3d game?"

The answer is obviously, no.
I mentioned the graphics ageing better than midi because it is really a fact that we all agree. Ok, some of us will say no, they love the sound of midi sound effects on Loom, or Indiana Jones, but they sound like crap.

Most of us are the result of generations of people that were eye educated and can tell an egiptian art form than a renaissance one. We know what Miguel Angelo did or who Dali was and can separate different time periods or styles.

Now, use your imagination and think of a world that stood still in the early 90s in terms of technology, can you imagine what great 2D master pieces could have emerged? What great games could have been made?

I have nothing against 3D, I even say GK3 was the best adventure game I played, but I think that 3D is not the right way to build an adventure game.
Like Stupot said, in 2D games you may have to walk through a scrolling screen, but if well done, it just adds to the story.

[Babar]

The problem with 2D graphics today is that to make them would require a dedicated artist (or artists) to work on each and every single screen individually. When you compare this to 3D, where textures are all done from beforehand, and room/level design basically only involves deciding which shape which polygon should be in which place, I think it can be seen why a company would prefer 3D- it is less work. Besides, unless you are catering to mobile games or gameboy or something, who uses 2D?

(That's all my own personal feeling, and I may be wholly ignorant about this specific aspect of game design. I wouldn't know).

[mkennedy]

Unfortunately "Broken Sword, Sleeping Dragon" would not run on my PC, The irony is though that I got that version on DVD because it was cheaper than the original compilation. Myst Uru was a 3D adventure game as I recall, though it seams there are less inventory based puzzles in the 3D adventure games that I've played so far. The first 3 Alone in the Dark games had that 2.5 d with nicely drawn backgrounds but low poly models. Number 4 stuck with the drawn backgrounds, but saw significant improvement with the models.

[InCreator]

At least 2D games don't age as badly in the graphics department.

Questionable, depends on definition of "aged".

3D has one end that's immortal: realism. For photorealistic 3D game, all you can improve is texture size, some shaders and polycount.

Max Payne 2 for example... released in 2003. By today's standards, and how much technology has improved over 5-6 years, game should be old as hell.
But it doesn't look like one. It's realistic. Still very good looking. So what if there's no HDR shaders? I find it looking even better without one. 3D has a definable end to its looks, just like 2D.

[Babar]

I'm not too sure about 3D games being able to emulate realism all that well. I'd think a photo-realistic 2D game would look a lot more real than most 3D. Even with the latest games, unless you have a really high-end PC, aside from the cutscene videos (sometimes not even those), none of it looks very real. I always found that the most 'pretty' 3D games were the ones that didn't go too strongly after realism, and incorporated the flaws of the 3D that they used at the time to make it into the 'style' of the game....

[blueskirt]

I don't think the problem of recent commercial adventure games is the 3D graphics and in my opinion commercial adventure games have far more important issues to solve than the real 3D environment vs 3D rendered two dimentionnal graphics debate. I haven't played a lot of recent commercial adventure games, but from the handful of games I played:

For one, all the good people from the golden ages, those that moved this genre forward, have all been fired, retired or moved on different genres. People who make adventure games nowadays only copy the Monkey Island 2 and Myst formulas but with more recent graphics and different stories. You can't blame people when they say this genre hasn't evolved a single iota in the last 10 years contrary to the other genres out there.

For two, there's simply not enough details and writing except when it's revelant to the story, you will hardly see mountain of jokes and injokes hidden in adventure games anymore, something LucasArts and some designers at Sierra were champions at. There used to be a time where you'd type something silly or use the zipper icon on everything just to see if Al Lowe planned a funny message to this action. There used to be a time where you'd still have fun, even if you were stuck on a puzzle for hours, just by fooling around and finding these funny messages. Nowadays if an object is not revelant to a puzzle, you won't even be able to interract with it, that's just not right. And if someone say it's because it would ruin the mood of the stories, well, maybe it's time they learn to write something other than murder or paranormal investigations.

For three, the art of puzzles designing has been completly lost after all these years. We're very far from the witty and original puzzles from the good old days, those that made you feel smart and creative. Nowadays makers can design 3 kind of puzzles: nonsensical Myst-kind of puzzles, far-fetched combination puzzles you cannot guest without a walkthrough and no brainer puzzles that are either fetch quest, either clues collection, either involve the cliché keys, sticks, rocks, ropes, credit card, crowbars, knives and screw drivers.

As long these issues remains unsolved, the real 3D environment vs 3D rendered two dimentionnal graphics debate will be entirely pointless in my opinion. They should first learn to make adventure games good again, then they should concentrate on this problem.

I mentioned the graphics ageing better than midi because it is really a fact that we all agree. Ok, some of us will say no, they love the sound of midi sound effects on Loom, or Indiana Jones, but they sound like crap.

You forget that even nowadays iMuse is still praised by the people working in the industry and that the Monkey Island 2 soundtrack is still considered to be one of the best use of music in video games.

[miguel]

blueskirt: I think you wrote what I also believe is correct. You have focused something that is the MAIN ingredient on a good Adventure Game: Humour. Somehow in the way it got lost. Bad writers? Yes, I think so.

"You forget that even nowadays iMuse is still praised by the people working in the industry and that the Monkey Island 2 soundtrack is still considered to be one of the best use of music in video games."

I preferred the Amiga version back then, it sounded way more professional and with «real» instruments. I'm sorry, it's just the way I feel about Midi, it sucks.

[Stupot]

I've just been reading this preview of the recently announced Black Mirror 2 and it's interesting to note that the developers had started making this a 3D game, but discarded the idea and reverted to 2.5D.

The original plan to develop Black Mirror 2 completely in 3D was dropped early in development. Fans of the first game in particular will thank the developer, as the game looks great and manages to keep the visual style of its predecessor. The pre-rendered backgrounds and the 3D characters are elaborately designed and left us with the same good impression as the graphics engine, which was specifically developed for Black Mirror 2. According to the developer, players will be able to explore about 150 scenes during their adventure.

According to this article they did this purely for aesthetic - rather than functional - reasons but, for me, if a good story is the most important feature of an adventure game, then I'm more likely to get drawn into it if the backgrounds are easier to look at and more believable... and the makers of BM2 presumably think along the same lines.

[TerranRich]

That is awesome news. I have the Black Mirror, but never played it. Perhaps I should finally.

[Ali]

I agree that to create a thoroughly detailed environment in realtime 3D would be more of a challenge than 2D or pre-rendered 3D. It has been achieved though, I feel. When I mentioned Myst 5, I should have mentioned Dreamfall. The game had it's peculiarities (including no actual puzzles at points) but it's locations were delightfully detailed and atmospheric. I also found the environments in Broken Sword 3 and 4 to be very likeable.

I think if we set this debate a few years in the past the argument would be, "we don't need 3D at all, Monkey Island 4 was terrible." Since we've seen some gorgeous 2.5D games like Syberia, the argument is now, "We want 2.5D, but not full 3D, Broken Sword 4 wasn't up to scratch."

As I said, I agree with most of the observations in this thread. I just feel that peoples' disappointment with recent games is probably a consequence of their lack of wit, charm and originality rather than engine. By that measure, there are a lot more poor 2.5D adventures than full 3D.

[ManicMatt]

yeah, I played a demo of "Belief and betrayal" and on most thing's I'd just select "use" and 90% of the time he'd say "No I don't think so.". The man is bare footed at the beginning, so lets use the shoes. "No I don't think so." Oh, okay. Well lets play that piano in his apartment and hear a little song. "No I don't think so." Oh.. well lets eat some cold pizza. "I don't think so." and so on. The main thing I wanted to implement in Limbo (When I go back to it next year.. maybe) is exactly what you guys miss in most commercial games these days. I want every single item in my characters inventory to be able to have a different response on every NPC, so you have fun goofing around.

Belief and Betrayal:

[Stupot]

I want every single item in my characters inventory to be able to have a different response on every NPC, so you have fun goofing around.

Yes, this is something which a lot of games fail to do, but which there is no excuse... and to me, a 2D or 2.5D game has the capacity for a lot more such interactions than 3D because these little extras don't cost as much in terms of filesize and performance... in a 2(.5)D background you can create dozens of hotspots with nothing more than an extra few lines of code... but to have such an interactive environment in a 3D game you have to make each of the 3D items first, and if you want dozens this gets expensive... which is why in BS4 there are very few items to click on unless they are vital to the advancement of the game (apart from the occasional bookshelf or something).

This 'goofing around' can be a very useful feature, because, okay the plot might not necessarily be advancing, but it helps to set the tone, and create the atmoposhere in which the story is set, and makes the player feel more involved.  So this is definately a reason why 2D is more suited to adventure games.

[TerranRich]

The only problem is perhaps the lack of time to add in every possible interaction response, especially when they're red herrings or just plain useless. With commercial games created by big companies, they have deadlines, and sometimes useless responses just aren't put in because they're not crucial to the game-play.

[miguel]

Yeah, but then you pay those big companies 50 bucks for unfinished products.
I would like to see those games pass our forums evaluation and critics.
Man, I'd like to see those games go through Snarky comments!

[TerranRich]

LOL, you have a point, but keep in mind that deadlines are in place for a reason.

Also, keep in mind, there's an old saying... something about a piece of art (equally applicable to games) never being truly finished, only ready for the public.

[Snarky]

For one, all the good people from the golden ages, those that moved this genre forward, have all been fired, retired or moved on different genres. People who make adventure games nowadays only copy the Monkey Island 2 and Myst formulas but with more recent graphics and different stories. You can't blame people when they say this genre hasn't evolved a single iota in the last 10 years contrary to the other genres out there.

Well, actually, Dave Grossman (Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle) works for Telltale, Ron Gilbert (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island) is creating the semi-adventure DeathSpank, Jane Jensen (Gabriel Knight) is designing the upcoming Gray Matter, Hal Barwood (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis) designed the soon-to-be released Mata Hari, Simon and Mike Woodruffe (Simon the Sorceror) consulted on Simon the Sorcerer 4: Chaos Happens, the latest game in the series, Lee Sheldon (The Riddle of Master Lu) designs all those Agatha Christie games, Bill Tiller (Monkey Island 3 graphics) is making A Vampyre Story, the Broken Sword games (last installment 2006) are still designed by Charles Cecil, and Steve Ince (who did graphics for Broken Sword, as well as Beneath a Steel Sky) is responsible for So Blonde. And Chris Jones and Aaron Conners (the Tex Murphy series) just announced Three Cards to Midnight, a new adventure game. A lot of the greats from the golden age are still working in the field.

"You forget that even nowadays iMuse is still praised by the people working in the industry and that the Monkey Island 2 soundtrack is still considered to be one of the best use of music in video games."

I preferred the Amiga version back then, it sounded way more professional and with «real» instruments. I'm sorry, it's just the way I feel about Midi, it sucks.

MIDI is just a protocol (used in nearly all electronic instruments and equipment), it doesn't determine how music sounds. You can play MIDI on an Amiga, too. While MIDI music didn't sound great on the Adlib or Soundblaster cards back in the day, you could get much better sound on an MT-32, and these days, with dynamic wavetable sample support on standard sound cards, you can get almost completely realistic music on a PC with MIDI. There's actually been some call for games to return to MIDI for music, as a way to again enable the dynamic effects of iMuse and similar systems.

[TerranRich]

The OTHER Chris Jones I idolize! I haven't heard about his new company or his new game yet! That's awesome!! The Tex Murphy games were some of the best adventure games of all time.

[miguel]

Snarky, I didn't know that, thanks for the technical info.
But you have to agree with me that some people praise those retro sounds and bips like it's the coolest sounds and music in the world, and fair enough, taste is something personal,
but isn't Monkey 3 the best game in the series? Why? It had top 2D graphics and an amazing sound score and voice-overs!
The vinyl vs digital battle has a reason to be, but late 80s PC music and sound vs modern sound output?

[blueskirt]

but isn't Monkey 3 the best game in the series? Why? It had top 2D graphics and an amazing sound score and voice-overs!

You'd be surprised by the number of people who prefer the first or the second one.

Personally, I have no preference when it come to music, a good music is all I ask for, no matter what instruments were used. I have fond memories of the CMI soundtrack, with its banjo and its accordion, just like I have fond memories of the MI2 soundtrack. I have game soundtracks on my HD that range from the C64 era all the way up to recent games.

The only thing I have a problem with is when someone change the sound of a music I grew up with. Generally, I don't like MT-32 or orchestrated versions of soundtracks that I grew up on the Adlib/soundblaster versions, just like I wouldn't like midi or C64 rendition of the CMI soundtrack. There are of course several exceptions to that, but in general, I prefer the sound I grew up with, no matter how bad people might say it is.

[miguel]

I guess that's fair enough for me.
I understand what you're saying and I also get attached to the sounds I grew up with.