Adventures of Old

I'm sure that anybody more than slightly beyond my own twenty-three years of age will laugh heartily when I say that I am growing old. This is because they are ancient and jaded, and their favorite thing to do is to make fun of younger people and dismiss what they say. I'm not quite to that point yet, but I can feel the metamorphosis occurring. Oh, sure, the teenage store-clerks still check my ID whenever I buy liquor, but little do those vexatious whelps know that whereas I could once quaff more shots of the hard stuff than they had seen birthdays, and wake up the next day starving for breakfast, I can now only manage about half that amount, and I wake up desperate for more sleep.

Vexatious whelps, did I say? Oh no. I have reached that point. I guess my tired brain was simply too addled to realize it before now. The time, it does fly.

The signs of my impending decrepitude are various and plentiful. For one, I am terribly insecure about the supposed problems that I face, even though those problems may not exist at all; and I tend to use dramatic words like "impending," "various," and "plentiful" to describe them. And I should probably see an optometrist, since although distant traffic signs used to be perfectly legible to me, these days I catch myself squinting at far-away, blurred-out smears in a desperate effort to resolve their form, even though my conscience tells me that I should be paying attention to things like stop signs and pedestrians. My left ear is partially broken, ever since I made the mistake of flying across the country with a head full of mucus, which prevented my controlling the pressure within my skull while the pilot traced his cruel parabola through the sky. I also can't stay awake for more than sixteen hours without yawning--and, if someone else is within earshot, complaining. I sometimes stare at my hairline in the mirror, as I consider certain of my relatives who either went bald or grey at a young age. Heck, I can't even eat like I used to. The golden days of my gorging on mounds of cooked animals while boasting of my similarities to Thor have sadly slipped away.

But I do not lament the (presumably) long future that awaits me, so much as I do the briefer past that escapes me. That is the real torment of time's passage, as anyone who has lived through a few decades of it will tell you; and I find that I am even more sensitive to the passing of time than most. Whenever I think about the people, places, and other kinds of nouns that meant a lot to me in the past, but which I know will never again affect the course of my life, I'm apt to get all weepy. I can handle goodbyes, but usually not goodbyes-forever.

If the universe were a truly just place, we would all be able to revisit our pasts, much like Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim was not a happy man, I admit, but that's because he didn't get to select which moments of his life to revisit; he experienced his whole life at once. He lived by different rules than we do, but he was no more free. I guess that means Kurt Vonnegut is only slightly more just than the universe at large.

This terrible feeling, of being constrained by the Fates to a life without the bliss of time travel, only intensifies for me when I consider the games industry. Unlike some people, I'm not prepared to issue a blanket condemnation of the direction the industry has recently taken. Even during what I view as a relative downturn in the industry's creative health, I have no trouble picking out the gems, which seem to shine even brighter on account of their rarity. But today these gems form only a small pile, and are mostly of a similar cut and hue.

I could have used somebody like Billy Pilgrim, back when I was busy choosing my favorite types of games, to tell me that most of those types would soon vanish from the market. If he were particularly kindhearted, he might also have informed me of whether these genres were gone for good, or if they would eventually see a resurgence. Because frankly, it's been more than seven years now since adventure games, space sims, military sims, and mech sims took their collective leave, and the suspense of waiting for their return is killing me even more rapidly than the onset of age. Will these former behemoths of the PC-gaming landscape ever fully awaken, or should I reach for the Kleenex and say goodbye forever?

I believe that the answer to that question lies largely with Funcom's Dreamfall, sequel to The Longest Journey, and, therefore, to one of the greatest adventure games ever made. Dreamfall, as it happens, has just gone gold, and will soon ship to stores. Its release constitutes the most significant event in the adventure genre in at least five years, and its success or failure, both in the eyes of critics and at the retail market, will determine what the next five will be like. It deserves your rapt attention. After all, it is potentially a fountain of youth; and if it fails in that capacity, then perhaps it will yet succeed as a brief trip back to a better time, the value of which I cannot overstate.

Comments

I am 22 and I too sometimes feel like I have lived two lifetimes. Early twenties is the new late fifties. I toddle off to bed at sometimes as late as 11:00 and wake up at 6:30 even on the weekends. The missus and I like to watch American Idol and then probably read or game a little before sleep. I've almost completely given up drinking for the inconvenience of it. Read that line again. That has got to be "old speak."

I would also like to add a thought to the first point of your article and see if you agree with it. Everytime I complete a game whether it be killing the final boss or collecting all the knick knacks or winning the big race, I always come away from it satisfied and tired. Like a chapter in the book of my life has been completed. I get up and usually have a quiet meal or go to sleep. It occurs to me later that I view my game accomplishments in the same light as most of my other real world accomplishments. Getting a good paying job is more important than beating Ninja Gaiden on Hard, but it wasn't as difficult. Maybe I, and some others of us, feel so old because we've accomplished so much. Every game we play is another experience added to our life.

I started gaming when I was 4. That's 18 years of games. I recently compiled a list of every game I could ever remember playing. Not beating or owning but just playing for a substantial ammount of time. My number so far is 358. That's 1.7 new games a month for 18 years.

I ask you, my friend, who wouldn't feel old after that?

"Youth today is wasted on the young," said a grumpy old man in Bedford Falls.

23!? Some of us here have more than twice those years, and will continue to compare as such for at least a year or two more.

Regardless, I, too have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Dreamfall. But, I've been hit too many times by "innovations in adventure games" which turn the game into something much less fun than it could have been. The most recent that comes to my mind being Indigo Prophecy. The arcade-like twitch controls almost entirely ruined the game for me. I couldn't see what was going on in the game as much as I was seriously inducing repetitive motion injury while focusing entirely on the superimposed controls.

But this problem goes back at lot further. Take Grim Fandango, for example. A *great* game that has, in my opinion, only one real problem, the keyboard-only 3D controls. Dancing Manny side to side trying to get his face to be pointing at the object I think may be something he needs to interact with was frustrating, to say the least. Happily, newer 3D adventure games went back to using the wonderfully precise control afforded by a mouse.

I bring these up because Dreamfall has also gone down the innovation path. There's some highlighted wedge which can be rotated around the active character to control what s/he can interact with. I know that this is at least in part due to the game being targetted for both PC and console, but I'm worried that it'll turn into the same frustrations of Grim Fandango.

I also understand that there are timed situations in which you need to choose which of several choices to make within a brief period, which takes me back to Indigo Prophecy.

Please, oh please let Dreamfall *not* get dragged down into the unfun game bucket because of its "innovations".

My god, but you old folks do go on.

All you had to say was 'Dreamfall' - gold!

Old at 23? You sir, are insane! 24, now THAT's old.

Anyway, I never wondered why the adventure genre died a silent death in the late nineties. They mostly are games about designers and how they wanted you to have fun, not about the players and the pure gameplay.

23? Man, for some reason I always assumed Lobo was older.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

23? Man, for some reason I always assumed Lobo was older.

It's because of his philosophical babble-talk.

Nice article, Lobo, although I do think you're a bit too young to sound so decrepit. For the holidays this year, I think I'll get you a cane, with which you might hit passing whippersnappers.

I want to hit some whippersnappers!

KaterinLHC wrote:

whippersnappers

I don't know what it means, but I absolutely love that word.

Lousy circumspect, eloquent kids!

Great article.

Maybe its that I havent followed the development of Dreamfall, but how can it determine the fate of the dead genre? I played The Longest Journey and loved it. It was a great game, and it was the only significant adventure game I noticed since the 90's.

Has Dreamfall leveraged the success of TLJ so well that it is really in a position to positively affect the Adventure genre? It certainly can't negatively affect it, unless you count maintaining the status quo as negative (I do think there's an argument there for that)

Even if Dreamfall does very well, I dont really see companies starting to develop point and click adventure games again. As much as I'd love to see a new Monkey Island game. Im not holding my breath.

Billy Pilgrim was not a happy man, I admit, but that's because he didn't get to select which moments of his life to revisit; he experienced his whole life at once. He lived by different rules than we do, but he was no more free. I guess that means Kurt Vonnegut is only slightly more just than the universe at large.

I just reread Slaughterhouse Five, and I'd like to remind you that Billy Pilgrim was kidnapped by aliens and forced to cohabitate naked with a porn star for a significant period of time, during which they had much sex. That seems fairly ample repayment for many of the other woes in his life.

*edit - Oh yeah, Great article! and as someone who is a couple years your elder, let me emphasize... stay young! You're only as old as you feel, and while it may be harder to feel young as time goes on, it's still there. Do fun, dangerous things and live to tell about it, enjoy yourself. You've got plenty of time to sit around complaining later:-)*

Take solace that when you stare at your hairline the outcome is still questionable.

You kids today...why in my day, we had text adventures. On water cooled computers. And we liked it! You kids are all spoiled with your high faluting giggathingy computers and your games without words...

Get off my lawn, you!

dejanzie wrote:

Old at 23? You sir, are insane! 24, now THAT's old.

Uh oh. That's less than 2 months away for me. Guess I better get a bumper sticker that says "Better over the hill than under it".

Chiggie wrote:

Maybe I, and some others of us, feel so old because we've accomplished so much. Every game we play is another experience added to our life.

Oh man. So even the very act of gaming contributes to our feeling old? I hadn't considered that. But if feeling old is more about looking backward than forward, as I assert in the article, you may well be right.

croaker wrote:

I bring these up because Dreamfall has also gone down the innovation path. There's some highlighted wedge which can be rotated around the active character to control what s/he can interact with. I know that this is at least in part due to the game being targetted for both PC and console, but I'm worried that it'll turn into the same frustrations of Grim Fandango.

Ditto. I sure hope not, but it seems unavoidable. With luck, the rest of the game will make up for the control inadequacies, as did Grim Fandango.

polypusher wrote:

Has Dreamfall leveraged the success of TLJ so well that it is really in a position to positively affect the Adventure genre? It certainly can't negatively affect it, unless you count maintaining the status quo as negative (I do think there's an argument there for that)

I think it's very possible. Gal Civ 2 has recently reminded us how important good word of mouth can be to a game's sales, particularly to those of a sequel to a fan-favorite title that didn't sell as well as past genre blockbusters. If Dreamfall is as good as The Longest Journey, then I hope that it will be to the adventure genre in 2006 what Baldur's Gate was to the RPG genre in 1998. If it fails, there's not much in the pipe for the foreseeable future that could have the same effect.

Lobo, great to get 2 of your articles in such a short period of time. Just cause I don't comment doesn't mean I didn't love it.

Sorry to hear your pain, Grandpa Lobo Just think, in 2 years you can rent a car! The first real sign of getting old is around 27-30, when your metabolism slows down and you put on 15 lbs overnight. However, once you get over that and live on a few years, you'll probably find that your brain continues to develop when your body stops. If you have a rich mental life, getting old is not a problem. You, Lobo, should do fine. My 30s are easily the best age I've lived thru yet.

And here-here for Dreamfall! However, the adventure genre is far from dead.

You'd prefer comatose? vegetative state? Playing The Longest Journey almost felt like necrophilia to me.

We get maybe 1 adventure 'hit' every 2-3 years (no stats to back that up) Thats such a massive difference from the first half of the 90s when we were seeing all the Quest games (Space, Kings, _ for glory), all the SCUMM games LucasArts did... if there were other popular adventure games at the time, I didnt have a wide enough scope to notice. Those 2 companies developed them like they were going out of style... which apparently, they were.

People still try to create new adventure games, mostly just fans or very small teams (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/) but even the best of those might only get 1000 downloads, ever.

Wow, I didn't realize Lobo was so young.

For the holidays this year, I think I'll get you a cane, with which you might hit passing whippersnappers.

I'm turning twenty this Sunday and I already own and use a cane. At least I did use it...I broke it a few months ago.

Much like Nirvana did, when I was eighteen, this article is speaking directly to me. Great job. Had a couple of real "yeah!" moments, reading. Nice obligatory gaming tie-in.

[edit] - You're not old until you shotgun a kid for walking on your lawn.

Except for the hairline, I'm right there too(23), and I had to give up pepperoni. I missed the Time of Great Adventuring because I didn't have a computer so I shall lament the passing of the psx(Sony has said production of the playstation has stopped forever), the greatest gaming platform ever, so says my nostalgia, and complain that too many people lament the adventure genre instead.

I have a vague theory that perhaps genres die when their pinnacle is achieved. Can there be a better space sim than Freespace 2? The Wipeout series is the only entry into the Wipeout-genre. There may be other contenders but the Twisted Metal series is the only one that matters. Thank God for indies, open source projects, Logitech owners who apparently demand joysticks be manufactured so they can play at home, and Logitech managers who figure that if they absolutely have to make joysticks they might as well sell them.

Vector wrote:

Wow, I didn't realize Lobo was so young.

For the holidays this year, I think I'll get you a cane, with which you might hit passing whippersnappers.

I'm turning twenty this Sunday and I already own and use a cane. At least I did use it...I broke it a few months ago.

Pimp canes don't count.

I've got a cane. I suppose I need it, since Lobo's advancing age doesn't yet compare to my own. I'll try to keep from shotgunning kids on my lawn.

A followup in a hands-on preview on Dreamfall: http://black-house.net/?page_id=111. It's spoiler-free and mostly discusses the game's mechanics.