Socom Us Navy seals !

Explain, since I\'m from the thinking that the gameplay is every bit as free and open as modern games such as Shenmue... which is basically an adventure game. Instead of actually looking at an object you pick up.. you read a description. Granted, this kind of freedom didn\'t become readilly prevelant until the late 80\'s with the advent of "3D" graphic adventures from static graphics and text. Some games were more free than others, admittedly. Quest for Glory and Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis both featured rather nice fighting scenes (although no where near on par with standard fighters.. but what do you expect, these are adventues.. not action games.. and the battle systems were sufficent such as in QFG2 & 4 and Conquest of Camelot)

Also.. you can\'t really complain about Adventure game\'s lack of depth in gameplay without also complaining about EVERY other older game. Games advance in their complexity as time goes on.. designs move forward in order to stay competetive. That\'s just how it goes... and it\'s true for all games from the likes of Contra to Kings Quest to SimCity. Alot of gamers actually PREFER the simplicity of older games.. when you didn\'t have to worry about the complexity of modern game engines and could just sit back and pick up a game to play. It\'s why, I think, games like Solitare and Tetris are still such big hits.

Looking from a purely old game perspective, Adventure games (IMO) had far more capacity than other games. Going back to Contra for an example.. all you could do was run, jump, and shoot. That\'s it. In adventures, you were exploring an entire digital enviroment.. interacting with it.. combining things.. talking with the locals.. and in a good game, every action you tried had a reaction.. even if it was only a silly text message. In a game like Contra.. you just didn\'t get any responce at all if you tried something outside of the games parameters.. hell you didn\'t even have a route to try it.

mm.. take a look at Shenmue.. take a GOOD look at it. Aside from graphics, there is nothing.. NOTHING that hasn\'t already been done before in the adventure games of old.. with maybe the exception of realtime weather. That\'s hardly a critical point since what does that really add to the gameplay.. and can you really blame them considering the sophistication of the SCI and SCUMM engines of the time? I mean, even QTE\'s have been present in a slightly altered form and presented differently.
Shenmue jus bumped up their frequency and importance in the game. Are you really prepared to judge Shenmue and Shenmue II by the same standards?

i simply cannot believe yer comparing an middle 80\'s 4 color click death adventure game to shenmue

you will burn in hell for ths blasphemy

It\'s easy.. look at the actual gameplay parallels. Expecially with Quest for Glory, since that\'s the game which most closely resembles Shenmue in terms of gameplay IMO. Everything from improving your fighting skills, playing mini-games, and simple "Simon says" button pressing sequences. And then there\'s also parallels in the enviroment itself... with dynamic NPC conversations, realtime day-night transitions, buying trinkets which have to significance to the actual game, season changes, and time specific events. In fact.. it even goes a step further by altering the gameplay depending on your mix of skills and classes and requiring you to find food and water. And unlike how Shenmue FORCES you to find a place to sleep for the night at 11pm.. you can stay stay awake for as long as you want in QFG at the risk of fatigue and eventual death.

As much as you may not like to admit it.. Shenmue is very much an adventure game which much more closely matches older IF than modern "Squarish" RPG\'s. The game is more polished, more modern, but it\'s roots are firmly based in the past. In fact, Yu Suzuki said in an IGN artical (will find the link upon request) that he drew his inspiration for Shenmue party from old adventure games.. going so far as to list MysteryHouse (Sierra developed, Roberta Williams of King\'s Quest fame to be exact) as one of his favorite old games of that time.

Oh, and BTW: Point and Click interface didn\'t become popular until the advent of the SCI engine which was first used in 1990. Not the middle 80\'s. Unless you\'re talking about LucasArts\'s SCUMM engine.. in which case it was more than 8 bit (unless you\'re talking about the *bleh* NES version of ManicMansion) and did not allow the player to die. Also, I\'m not exclusively compairing a AGI based engine game to Shenmue, I\'m compairing the wide array of adventure games from multiple companies from times ranging from 1978 to 2001. Opps, almost forgot. The "Point & Click" interface was the SCI engine.. which is 256+ colors. The AGI (which you\'re refering to I take it, was never 4 color. It was always 16 color, but improvements in the engine build allowed for smaller pixels and more detailed scenes. The only 4 Color engines used were with the static graphics Text adventures like "Adventures in Serenia", which weren\'t programed in VGA since the standard of the day was still CGA.

sonyfan, you make my head hurt

Then don\'t try arguing against someone who is more knowlagable than you when it comes to Adventure Games.

its not about knowledgable

its about taste, and yers differs from mine

That is true, adventure games.. and even an appreceation for older games in general is not something that\'s for everyone. I can\'t argue with tastes, although if someone\'s going to critique a genre or system they should know the basics of it.

I think that\'s a good general rule for everyone to follow by.

Originally posted by mm
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Rainbow Six (and Rogue Spear) = r0x0r!