[This blog page has been retained here due to historical reasons, but up-to-date story of The Adventure Gamer can be found on a separate page].
In case you haven’t been paying attention or are a newcomer to this blog, The Adventure Gamer is a creation of one person, known only by his alias, the Trickster. Things evolved and now it is a group effort, managed by a community of adventure game enthusiasts. The rules are still same, as when Trickster was doing it solo. One of us plays a game and writes posts of his or hers efforts to beat it. No walkthroughs are allowed, but the player can make a Request for Assistance, if the situation looks dire. The game need not be won, but the player must at least play it for six hours, before completely abandoning it.
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| We work hard day and night... |
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| ...and sometimes we have to get out hands dirty... |
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| ...but that just makes the rewards seem that much better! |
If you answered any of these questions affirmatively, just join our Google Group https://groups.google.com/d/forum/adventuregamer or send us a message to adventuregamer@googlegroups.com ; we’ll be happy to take you along in our trip through the adventure gaming history.
Join the TAG reviewers, see the worlds (or graphical simulations of them)!
It’s AFGNCAAP’s life in TAG reviewers!
Sounds intriguing... and I detect a lure for me to bite to blog about The Scoop. I doubt I could get any assistance here since nobody has heard of it before and, since I only recall death after death in that game, I don't think I could beat it without a walkthrough (is there even one?!).
ReplyDeleteWell, it's also a covert announcement of our new irregularly updated "Missed Classics" -series that covers games which did not make it to the official playing list and which the reviewer thinks still deserve a post. The Scoop would fall well in it, if you are interested. Since it is not the official list, the rules can be little less strict - it could more like a regular review and you could use a walkthrough, if required. I found one walkthrough for Scoop in the net, but it's a bare minimum - just a list of actions to do.
DeleteOh yeah, and I forgot to mention, the first "Missed Classics" -post is planned to be published next week.
DeleteHmm... Okay. I'll see what I can whip up if I can tear myself away from goddamn Skyrim for a while. I blame my OCD acting up even though it's a terrible, terrible game.
DeleteI've just gotten back into Skyrim myself - and I strongly disagree with your statement on the quality of the game - though I'm suddenly wondering if the 260 hours I've played so far means I have some OCD myself :)
DeleteSkyrim is actually a trap. The truth is that it's not a very good game - none of the characters have any actual personality or depth, they're just cleverly written to seem like they might. It's an eternal fetch quest/collect-a-thon with very little purpose. But in that same breath, it's bloody addictive. (I'm at 68/75 achievements and 186 hours played, that's two playthroughs - one vanilla one with full DLC etc.. and by the end of it I was definitely asking myself why I was still playing.)
DeleteEither way? Kenny, there's a rule. If a game exists, it has at least someone who's bothered to make a list of either cheats/hacks or walkthroughs. Given the nature of adventure games, SOMEONE has to have played it before - so we can always give the quick help-out-and-cheat if it's needed. Besides. You'd probably be amazed what you'll remember after running the thing up - SQIV, for instance, irked the living daylights out of me as a kid, but I played it about a year ago and found it almost painfully simple. Go figure, right?
I can understand people not liking Skyrim, but to say it's a bad game... that's a bit unfair.
DeleteIt's likely you guys just don't have gaming priorities meshing with what Skyrim/Bethesda do better than most, which is exploration, moddability and sandboxiness. (I made up two of those words, but I think you know what I mean.) I'd also say Skyrim's great at immersion and atmosphere.
Sure, characters in games like Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic 2 are much better written, but dialogue and characters are those games' focus, whereas exploration and non-linearity are Skyrim's focus. For the record, I also love the Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic games.
Actually, everything Aperama said about Skyrim I'd say about World of Warcraft. I played a bit, but because interacting with other people is not my focus when gaming, I just figured I don't appreciate what WOW does better than most and so stopped playing - took me about 6 months to realise the game wasn't for me though. :)
So, basically, exploration and immersiveness are the main reasons I keep playing - I love seeing something in the distance and actually being able to go there to see it up close - something that in most games would just be background decoration. I love walking through the Whiterun of Windhelm markets and see people chatting with each other or hawking their wares - I love going to a tavern in the evening to find most of the townspeople relaxing after a hard day at work - just seeing people going about their business rather than standing there waiting for the player character to talk to them before they do anything as they do in most games.
Then, let's wait for Witcher 3, TBD. CD ProjektRed promises to deliver a game that fulfills the requirements for both yours and ours: Strong storytelling with colorful characters and a wide open world with loads of interactivity.
DeleteCan I please try my hand at Let's Playing a game, either Gateway, the original Leather Goddesses of Phobos or The Dagger of Amon Ra? I love those games. Here is my information: I am Israeli, but currently living somewhere else; my age is my business; I think the first adventure I played was King's Quest 5--I enjoyed it then, but in retrospect, the series was pretty awful and overshadowed by most Sierra games--my favorite adventure game is Gabriel Knight; I like to read, watch movies, watch television, use the Intenet, play sports occasionally and read comics; I never miss Sleepy Hollow or The Flash; one interesting thing about me is that I have dreams that make Super Mario 2 look like Inception, like the one in which I was myself at three different ages and also Sonic the Hedgehog.
ReplyDeleteAlso, is anyone here familiar with Russian history and culture? I would like to see K.G.B. played by someone who can give us the context behind the story of Russia at the end of the Cold War.
DeleteNice to hear that you are interested of joining the ranks of our game reviewers! Firstly, I’d suggest you’d contact directly our e-mail address (adventuregamer@googlegroups.com). That way, the whole of reviewer team can answer you, since not everyone checks these old posts regularly. While you contact us, you could send a bit more detailed version of your What's Your Story -answers: we try to make our readers get to know our reviewers better, and too summarized answers don't really help in that.
DeleteI could say in advance that since we’ve had bad experiences with people committing themselves to a game, writing a post or two and then leaving it unfinished, we have to be pretty choosy. First and foremost, we want people who are really committed to the blog. Every reviewer tries to manage at least one post per week, when they are on blogging duty, and while we understand that delays can happen, we do wish such would be only temporary.
As you probably know, we publish both “regular” games with a (more or less) strict schedule and Missed Classics. We would like you to begin with a Missed Classic, since it’s not so great a catastrophe for us, if you decide that you don’t really want to do it after all. Leather Goddesses of Phobos, which you suggested, is a good choice for a Missed Classic. Because the Missed Classics are meant to be published “between” the regular games, we hope that the text is more compressed than in regular game posts (at least the intro and final rating should not be separate posts).
So, I suggest that you send us a first post for Leather Goddesses of Phobos (I suppose the game will take more than one post, but if you do manage to compress all of it to one post, that’s fine too). Just to test how fast you can make the posts, we’ll try to simulate what the reality of TAG reviewing is like: try to make and send us the next post at least next week etc., except for the post with the final rating (so, if the game takes three posts, send us the first post, then the second post, at the latest, week after the first post, and don’t send the third post, but just inform us that it’s ready). We’ll give you more information about the formatting and the sharing of screenshots, when you’ve contacted us.
If the test goes well and we like the quality of your posts, we’ll publish the whole thing then (the publication will go probably at least till December). As for getting to play a regular game, the schedule is already filled for all the 1991 games. We’ll decide the players of 1992 games in the comments of the next Year Ahead –post, which will be published most likely around the time, when Maupiti Island has been finished (still some games to get there). Both Gateway and Dagger of Ammon-Ra are coming up in 1992, but I have to say that there already might be interest for Gateway among our reviewers.
Can I please try my hand at Let's Playing a game, either Gateway, the original Leather Goddesses of Phobos or The Dagger of Amon Ra? I love those games. Here is my information: I am Israeli, but currently living somewhere else; my age is my business; I think the first adventure I played was King's Quest 5--I enjoyed it then, but in retrospect, the series was pretty awful and overshadowed by most Sierra games--my favorite adventure game is Gabriel Knight; I like to read, watch movies, watch television, use the Intenet, play sports occasionally and read comics; I never miss Sleepy Hollow or The Flash; one interesting thing about me is that I have dreams that make Super Mario 2 look like Inception, like the one in which I was myself at three different ages and also Sonic the Hedgehog.
ReplyDelete