This leads me to my first commentary: Adventure Gaming
Anyone who knew me in my childhood knew I developed a very real and long lasting crush on the genre, stories and characters of Adventure Games, and in particular, the King's Quest series by the now defunct Sierra Online. Not counting playing Winter Games on the Amiga, or Burgertime on the Intellevision II, Kings Quest 5 was my first video gaming experience and it had a big impact on me. (I say video gaming experience a little lightly, since my actual playing of the game consisted mostly of hiding behind a bed, either because I was fearful of the subsequent events in the game as my dad played it, or because I knew if my sister spotted me while playing it she would kick me out and precious chunks of story would be forever lost to me. I did contribute a little bit, capturing the elf with honey to get out of the evil forest, but it was fairly minimal.) When Kings Quest 6 came out, I played the game solo, became immersed the story, the character interaction, and I developed quite the crush on young Prince Alexander of Daventry. I was falling in love with make believe characters long before the word "fangirl" made it a cool thing to do.
Adventure gaming died out in the late 90s, and nothing is looking like it will ever make a mainstream (for games) comeback ever again. There are independent game developers, including a bunch who are releasing a pseudo FQ9, but for all intensive purposes, it is a lost age.
I find this to be a great tragedy. While every genre has its positives and negatives, I feel that adventure gaming is particularly suited for that which I crave in a game: a mental work out, a strong story line, interactive and ever developing characters, and seemingly open-ended possibilities in what is actually a fairly linear story. Yes, in this case, the illusion of freedom is more important than actual freedom, because it gives the story-tellers (the game developers) much more an ability to tell an engaging and complex story.
Adventure games, in my opinion, are so well suited to story and character development in part because the game can drag on slowly at times. As the lost gamer tries to figure out her next move, he is exploring the walls, opening all drawers, smashing all vases, which incidentally, also can be conduits for the player to learn more about the world, stories and people of the game. The adventure gamer is well trained to retain every piece of knowledge gained, because they know it may be useful in future puzzles. It often is, but even in the case that it isn't, the gamer is already more immersed.
The lack of hack and slash, battles to acquire money and get upgrades, and a limited inventory also help the player in this regard. Much as I love an RPG from time to time, monotony has the tendency to put the brain on autopilot and player immersion faces distractions.
Finally, adventure games feature some very well developed characters. The player spends such a long time with the main characters, and often overhears their thoughts that are also designed to give the player hints about the next puzzle. These thoughts, or conversations with NPCs help to indirectly and directly enrich the character in ways that a more direct quest or mission is not always able to do.
(There is no doubt about it, non adventure games can and do perform well in these areas. One game that comes to mind is Jade Empire. I am just suggesting where adventure gaming can be strong.)
Now, that being said, onto my critique of :
THE DIG
When I was younger I toyed with LucasArts shareware, but I never really got into it. In part it was because I never really felt the story was going to be compelling. Sam and Max, Escape to Monkey Island, these were titles that were reportedly very entertaining, but a lot because they were comedies.
When The Dig came out, it was significant in that it lacked a lot of the
Steven Spielberg is the director on this production, and for better and worse, it shows. The opening is impressive, for an older game, an the player does immediately jump into the scenarios given to Commader Boston Low, Maggie Robbins and Ludgar Brink, through the initial tutorial puzzles. I could see that this storyline was going to have a lot of promise. None of the characters initially struck me as likable, but at this stage of the game, that didn't concern me. That could come later.
The three find themselves stranded on an alien planet and have to work their way through incomprehensible languages and "dangerous" conditions in order to find their way home.
Herein lies my first problem with the game: no death. No real consequences for making mistakes.
There is of course death, death is written into the story. However death does not come from a wrong move. It comes from a preordained event in the game and it cannot be avoided. At one puzzle, I was sure I would have a real problem if I did not get my timing right, jumping over a crevasse just as a wave gushed through it. Having made the jump correctly the first time, I was disappointed to come back to it later and attempt to fail to see the reaction, only to have him fall down the fairly high crevasse walls, into the sea and onto the beach where Low is fit and ready to try jumping again.
You can't even get trapped in the game for poor decision making. There were a couple of puzzles I struggled on, and it seemed like perhaps I had gotten into the puzzle before I could collect the instruments I would need too solve it. In every case I found this was not so. The game ensures you will have everything that you need when you need it, even if you are in a specific area and cannot leave to other rooms.
The lack of real "failure" in part takes the agency and control away from the gamer. It makes the gamer a little less consequential to the success of the protagonists, since the worst possible scenario cannot occur.
Along the lines of death come criticism #2. Unlikeable and mostly stagnant protagonists and entirely undefined NPCs. Death usually brings out a reaction in a gamer. How many hundreds... thousands, millions(?) sobbed over Aeris as Cloud brought her to the lake and let her sink into her final rest? The thought of King Graham's possible death in Kings Quest 4 gave Roberta Williams a deluge of fan mail pleading that he be spared.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Brink's first death was early on, so it is somewhat expected that I would feel little for his passing. The little character development that had occurred to that point painted him as a serious professional who was starting to lose that professionalism in favor of childish arrogance. "Finally a chance to use my training" says the world renowned archeologist in the least sarcastic tone imaginable as he picks up the shovel. Well, now we know he is a dick.
Actually, he is the only one of the 3 to have any character development at all though. After revivification, he becomes increasingly more insane and irrational, which did spark some feeling of me wishing Low would just punch him out. The most unnerving thing about him though was the red eyes he had as he got more insane.
Low doesn't change at all, and ultimately he seems an unlikely main character who is doing all the things the user makes him do. He is a trained military and NASA astronaut, but he spends most of the time in the first half whining that Maggie and Brink won't hang out with him. Brink makes several death threats to he and Maggie, and while it is later clear that Low has the obvious physical advantage, he does nothing to stop them, and only encourages Brink by submitting to his demands. He is a commander, but does nothing at all about insubordination from both Maggie and Brink throughout the game.
Maggie is no better. Aside from her lightbulb switch of saying Brink just needs time alone to calling him a madman, she exhibits no change either. Her voice actor is dry and dull with everything she is saying sounding like it is coming from the lips of a bored secretary. This includes everything from informing Low that Brink is dead, to talking to the ancient alien race.
As the planet is uninhabited, I can understand why most of the NPCs would not be well drawn out. They are mostly primitive lifeforms. However interactions with the long gone alien race in the final cut scenes maintain this lack of character development. In one sweeping paragraph of conversation they inform Low he is wise and strong for helping them return to their home planet, he can bring his friends back to life and he can send them all back to earth. A kurt, "everything is all better in the end you can go back to normal now" ending that might be suitable for E.T., but was beneath the potential of this game.
All in all, the puzzles wee interesting, but I feel like I did not get too immersed in the game, and that cost enjoyment for me severely. Throughout the game I didn't feel anything like I did when Prince Alexander faked his death, or I was uncovering the secrets of Alhazred and Mordac, or speaking with the lord of the dead. I was told Spacetime 6 was beautiful, and while I understand the limitations of the graphics, I did find plenty of places beautiful in the Kings Quest world that outshone Spacetime 6.
Oh well.
Final Part of this entry:
Kongregate
Disappointed, I got online and went to www.kongregate.com. It is a vice. It is home to a lot of homemade and low budget games that are mostly bad and good for wasting time. Every once in awhile though something good is there, and there are a couple of very good point and click adventure games of the comedic and serious variety.
What two days of THE DIG could not do (elicit any sort of emotion past a chuckle or annoyance), 4 games on Kongregate did quite well. These games are not point and click, and they are short and simple, but through them I felt emotions such as delirium, despair, desire, and even a little aroused in the games Coma, Company of myself, Don't Look Back and Loved. They can be played at the following links:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/wittyhobos/coma
http://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/the-company-of-myself
http://www.kongregate.com/games/TerryCavanagh/dont-look-back
http://www.kongregate.com/games/AlexanderOcias/loved
