Putting games like Syberia and Tomb Raider into the same genre, Adventure, seems a bit silly to me. Tomb Raider is clearly an action oriented adventure game full of exploration and shooting. Syberia is an adventure but a story driven one with clues building up to solve an ongoing mystery.

If I go to a store to purchase an adventure movie I don't go to the Mystery/Suspense section, I go to the Action/Adventure section.

In my opinion almost all adventure games fall into Mystery/Suspense more than Adventure. Shouldn't games currently being called Adventure games actually be called Mystery?

Am I the only one?

-Bryan

To use your analogy,

I may go look in action for a fast paced adventure,

But I wouldn't look for comedy, science-fiction, drama, family or romance in mystery-suspense.

Any book regardless of topic (if it is fictional) involves reading through to the end to discover what the whole story means and how it ends. The fact that that ending IS a mystery to the reader at the beginning of the book, doesn't mean the story is in that category.

If a game is truly story and/or character driven. The ending will almost always be at least somewhat obscure until you work your way though the game and possibly up to the very end. I wouldn't categorize the Monkey Island games, DOTT, Sam n Max or Ankh as mystery/suspense games. Nor would I categorize the Legend of Lotus Spring or Pilgrim as mystery/suspence either. And though Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is mysterious in parts - no would think of anything with Indie in it -- as anything less than pure adventure.

That's an interesting thought, Bryan. Especially when I think about a lot of the newer games : Black Mirror, Nibiru, The Moment of Silence, Still Life, Indigo Prophecy, the Delawares , Hope Springs Eternal, Last Half of Darkness...

I agree with Gatorlaw. Mystery/Suspense is too specific a category to put most adventure games in. A lot of them are mystery/suspense but a lot of them aren't and would have to be classified as adventure, imo.

It would be nice to be able to find the specific category mystery/suspense though. Tha games Nickie mentioned would all fit nicely.

I definitely agree that the term 'adventure games' is really applied to a wide variety of games though, some totally different than others, Bryan. Subcategories would be nice.

Melanie

Good point. Reminded me of this online store that does have that available.

CD Access

What does make sense is a qualifier after the term adventure... like Puzzle, Mystery/Murder, sci-fi, Fantasy, Comedy

How about one of those gauge bars (don't know what they are called) like a thermometer that has a spectrum with a Myst-type on the left to a shooter on the right with maybe 3 points between.
Games today DO have a great variety of action to adventure levels compared to 10 years ago and, like Melanie says, we could use subcategories to help with our selections.

Right now, the whole subject's a mystery to me.

Never did understand all the categories, what with the seeming (as I see it) sometimes overlapping in definitions.

For those confused, its best to hear what your Boomer Buddies have to say about a game. Read all of Becky's links to the various Adventure games. Its pretty easy to determine from screenshots and description of gameplay what sort of game it will be. But anyway, these dealers of games should get the facts right and put an action/adventure label on an adventure game that has action. I ve seen shooters classified as adventure.

I agree BillyBob: Unless the game is part of a series (Nancy Drew, Syberia, etc) I usually wait for it to come out before buying it. Then I wait for posts to show up in the other Forums: Reviews, Hints, Adventure Game Discussion, and especially Glitches. Then I know if it has much action in it or players have a lot of problems with the technical aspect of the game.

I also agree that the category for Adventure is often linked with Action. If I go to Best Buy it's not unusual to see a game like ATTWN next to Baldur's Gate. Seems as though we've been complaining about this for a while especially when the Best Of lists come out at the end of the year.

tuesday next

I think part of the reason so many games seem to be part of the mystery sub-genre is that a mystery lends itself very easily to many adventure game elements: picking up clues, uncovering the true story, solving puzzles, etc. A mystery is one of the easiest stories to plot, because you have a very clear idea of where you need to go and of many of the things you need to do to get there. But I certainly agree with gatorlaw: in some respects, all stories could be considered mysteries: the mystery of "what's going on here?" Of course, by that some token all stories could be considered fantasy, because someone made them up.

Many of the games nickie mentioned I wouldn't really consider mystery, but horror. I actually think horror lends itself really, really well to games.

I like joanie's idea of an action/adventure guage bar...but I think you'd have a hard time getting anyone to agree what went where on the spectrum!

WW

i've never liked the way games are currently listed everywhere - i'd rather see "rpg,action" for those things like Tomb Raider,and "adventure" for the stuff like Syberia - at least then i wouldn't have to sort through a hundred rpg/shooters looking for something like ATTWN , but i don't see how it could be done ?? i agree that combining those two categories seems silly some of the time,tho'.

Hi

I've totally given up as regards definitions of adventue games to be found within ANY advertising blurb

"Modern" games deemed as adventure seem to me often to be vastly different in many ways to "older" games that were called adventure I come to Boomers and read comments from actual players.

Cheers.

Mad

I agree that the whole adventure genre is wide enough to entirely confuse and bewilder one who is new to this type of game. Sub-categories are a good idea, I think - particularly if there is insufficient main game info on the back of the box.

True, WW. One more category.

Melanie

I agree, so many games, like movies, could be crossover. It would be nice to see a format where primary genre can be complimented with a secondary genre. Adventure, Action or Adventure, Mystery or perhaps Adventure, Action. This would help clarify games' contents outright.

-Bryan