<story><title>Why are We Still Talking about LucasArts&apos; Old Adventure Games?</title><url>http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/189899/why_are_we_still_talking_about_.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danso</author><text>This is a good question as the answer should be  self-evident -- i.e. they were just great, well-written fun games --  but it&apos;s not. As pure gaming, they weren&apos;t &quot;great&quot; in the classical sense. I mean, after you&apos;ve finished them, you can&apos;t keep playing them over and over because there&apos;s nothing really to &quot;play.&quot;&lt;p&gt;And story-wise...I would think that today&apos;s games &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; have better writing. I mean, games are a &lt;i&gt;huge&lt;/i&gt; industry now, and so, theoretically, the writing talent should be much better (in the same way that game budgets can now bring in big name actors to do voices).&lt;p&gt;So maybe the answer doesn&apos;t lie &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; in the quality of the programming or writing, but in the execution and the way things just &lt;i&gt;fit&lt;/i&gt;, despite the limitations of the genre. Hand-drawn cartoons are &quot;limited&quot; in their ability to depict reality, yet the Disney classics will still stand the test of time no matter how good CGI gets.&lt;p&gt;Maybe there&apos;s just something innately appealing with how adventure games, designed during the technological limitations in the LucasArts era, clicked in our brain. Limits are often &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt; things, especially when it stretches creator and player alike to imagine things outside the boundaries.&lt;p&gt;Of course, bigger budgets/production quality don&apos;t linearly translate to &quot;better&quot; -- Raiders of the Lost Ark vs. Indiana Jones IV (I can&apos;t even remember the title of it) is a good example. And there&apos;s always the power of nostalgia to exaggerate how good things really were back then...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>EliRivers</author><text>&lt;i&gt;I mean, after you&apos;ve finished them, you can&apos;t keep playing them over and over because there&apos;s nothing really to &quot;play.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yet people did. And still do. People read some books over and over again. People watch some movies over and over again. The same music, over and over again. And some people, the same games, over and over again.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why are We Still Talking about LucasArts&apos; Old Adventure Games?</title><url>http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/189899/why_are_we_still_talking_about_.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danso</author><text>This is a good question as the answer should be  self-evident -- i.e. they were just great, well-written fun games --  but it&apos;s not. As pure gaming, they weren&apos;t &quot;great&quot; in the classical sense. I mean, after you&apos;ve finished them, you can&apos;t keep playing them over and over because there&apos;s nothing really to &quot;play.&quot;&lt;p&gt;And story-wise...I would think that today&apos;s games &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; have better writing. I mean, games are a &lt;i&gt;huge&lt;/i&gt; industry now, and so, theoretically, the writing talent should be much better (in the same way that game budgets can now bring in big name actors to do voices).&lt;p&gt;So maybe the answer doesn&apos;t lie &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; in the quality of the programming or writing, but in the execution and the way things just &lt;i&gt;fit&lt;/i&gt;, despite the limitations of the genre. Hand-drawn cartoons are &quot;limited&quot; in their ability to depict reality, yet the Disney classics will still stand the test of time no matter how good CGI gets.&lt;p&gt;Maybe there&apos;s just something innately appealing with how adventure games, designed during the technological limitations in the LucasArts era, clicked in our brain. Limits are often &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt; things, especially when it stretches creator and player alike to imagine things outside the boundaries.&lt;p&gt;Of course, bigger budgets/production quality don&apos;t linearly translate to &quot;better&quot; -- Raiders of the Lost Ark vs. Indiana Jones IV (I can&apos;t even remember the title of it) is a good example. And there&apos;s always the power of nostalgia to exaggerate how good things really were back then...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TsiCClawOfLight</author><text>Most AAA games are so linear nowadays that I&apos;d rather replay old adventure games than recent titles.</text></comment>