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It's games, and websites like this that make me remember fondly of the older games industry. The period from the mid eighties to the mid nineties was the golden age of gaming. Games were fun, risky and above all original. This title from 1994 is no exception. Taking an original story, Revolution crafted a fine stepping stone to bigger and better things later on.
It was clear from day one that Revolution wanted to steal the mantle of "best adventure game maker" from Lucasarts. While today in 2009, they have achieved that aim, sadly it was only by default as Lucasarts stupidly decided to quit making that style of game due to the lack adventure game sales. The idiot generation just couldn't get these type of games. Apparently, having to think about solving complex puzzles without shooting someone violently every five seconds was just to hard so the gaming market in general has suffered as a consequence when you look at the cookie cutter, generic, unoriginal shit that gets churned out today.
The follow up the the moderately successful Lure Of The Temptress, Beneath A Steel Sky was a worthy successor to that game. It was well written, excellently drawn and a well thought out puzzler. It's real main issue stems from it's awful shortness. In a time when adventure games were long and sprawling, this was a short affair at best. I remember playing this when it first came out in 1994, I even still have the original box and discs! The games briefness was my main issue then and it's my main issue now.
While in retrospect it towers above most of the modern games of today, it still feel somewhat short of the mark considering the opposition games of the day, namely Lucasarts adventures. That by no means is a bad thing. The Lucasarts adventures were and still are the unreachable high mark of the genre. But BASS did something that no other adventure game did in it's day. Come close to Lucasarts.
If you are in that idiot younger generation that needs to shoot people constantly in games, you owe it to yourself to play this game, it's an important title in game history. (But you probably don't care about that). And if your an older gamer, like me. You owe it to yourself to relive one of the better games of your childhood.
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hypnotoad8128: It's games, and websites like this that make me remember fondly of the older games industry. The period from the mid eighties to the mid nineties was the golden age of gaming. Games were fun, risky and above all original. This title from 1994 is no exception. Taking an original story, Revolution crafted a fine stepping stone to bigger and better things later on.
It was clear from day one that Revolution wanted to steal the mantle of "best adventure game maker" from Lucasarts. While today in 2009, they have achieved that aim, sadly it was only by default as Lucasarts stupidly decided to quit making that style of game due to the lack adventure game sales. The idiot generation just couldn't get these type of games. Apparently, having to think about solving complex puzzles without shooting someone violently every five seconds was just to hard so the gaming market in general has suffered as a consequence when you look at the cookie cutter, generic, unoriginal shit that gets churned out today.
The follow up the the moderately successful Lure Of The Temptress, Beneath A Steel Sky was a worthy successor to that game. It was well written, excellently drawn and a well thought out puzzler. It's real main issue stems from it's awful shortness. In a time when adventure games were long and sprawling, this was a short affair at best. I remember playing this when it first came out in 1994, I even still have the original box and discs! The games briefness was my main issue then and it's my main issue now.
While in retrospect it towers above most of the modern games of today, it still feel somewhat short of the mark considering the opposition games of the day, namely Lucasarts adventures. That by no means is a bad thing. The Lucasarts adventures were and still are the unreachable high mark of the genre. But BASS did something that no other adventure game did in it's day. Come close to Lucasarts.
If you are in that idiot younger generation that needs to shoot people constantly in games, you owe it to yourself to play this game, it's an important title in game history. (But you probably don't care about that). And if your an older gamer, like me. You owe it to yourself to relive one of the better games of your childhood.

I don't know where you are pulling some of these ideas from. How old ARE you? I will admit that the mainstream has, I would argue, 'evolved' past adventure gaming, but just because you have some misguided nostalgic memories doesn't give you evidence of the crumbling gaming world around us! Adventure games of your Golden Era are linear, "point-a to point-b" contraptions whose purpose was only to mask the deficiencies of hardware or capital of the time. For their time they had an important place as chief story-tellers when no other game genre could provide as memorable and deep plots, graphics, and conversations. Today, we have the hardware and know-how to implement full voice-acting, unique and incredible looking backgrounds, and plots into any game genre of our choosing.
Your rant reminds me of those who say modern music sucks, and their underground favorites of way back when are vastly superior, whilst simultaneously ignoring modern indie-scenes and the craptacular mainstream music of their day. If anything, you have given me perspective! I complain about today's games that last me 15 hours; buying BaSS would have only lasted me 3!
I think the industry was definitely more willing to try new ideas back in the 80s and 90s, but that's also because there were a lot of ideas that just hadn't been tried yet.
I also think there were more "great," "innovative," and "memorable" games made the further back you go, but that also seems to be due to the industry budgeting itself out of existence. When you look at the indie scene and what people are trying to accomplish on smaller budgets, it doesn't look like the innovation disappeared at all.
You just have to be willing to accept that not every game is going to be one of the best games ever made. If I had to list every game worth my time I've ever played it would be a big list, but only because I've been gaming since before I was 5 and buying/researching my own games since I was 12 or 13. When you look back at all the great games you've ever played what you remember will always dwarf what you're looking forward to. That goes double when you're attached to a genre that's gone out of style.
I think this is just a somewhat confused post. The AAA games industry is no longer willing to take as many risks because there is so much more money involved now than there was 20 years ago.

However, Indie games are just as experimental, possibly more so.
I wouldn't say the LucasArts level is unreachable. Mïcroids did it with Syberia 1 and 2, and FunCom did it with The Longest Journey - both games regarded to be better than the best LucasArts game, Grim Fandango. I am not hating on LA, I love their games, but to say they were never bested or at least matched is just plain wrong.

And Machinarium was nominated for GoTY 2010, and was truly a great adventure in that same vein, so not all hope is lost :)
I am inclined to agree. One online MMO I still play for *Gamers don't say these words* reason, leads me to believe this is what gaming has been reduced to. A perfect example is the amount of very similar applications made for the I-Device series (IPods, ITouches, IPads, what have you). There's at least 5 that are focused on blowing up things with a single click, quite similar to what's happening in my game where everything keeps getting power-creeped and they release mid-term sales (Once a quarter) that boost sales dramatically in return for absurdly powerful beyond the limit things. Mind you, to make these look even more powerful, they change older things to make them appear even weaker. It's kind of a sad cycle...
Though i have lost a lot of faith in most of the mainstream market and AAA titles etc, i still believe great games are being made. Most of these are by indie companies or even just by one man projects.

Either way, great games are still being made, wether they are adventure games, shooters, rpg's. You cant call people "the younger idiot generation" just because they prefer to shoot things in games, that just makes you sound stupid.
We keep buying, so they keep producing.
They lead, we follow. We are but lowly sheep and they, our masters.
(If you're interested in a decent FPS indie game, look for one called Interstellar Marines.)
This guy hit the nail on the head when he wrote this topic.

I'm a part of that generation of gamers that grew up from the mid '80s to the early-mid '90s. There were so many great games at our disposal. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros 3, Ultima, Sonic the Hedgehog, Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Secret of Monkey Island, the list goes on.

People who write these statements are in their late 20s and 30s. As for myself, I will be turning 30 later this Fall.

My problem with modern games is the vast marketing that is involved with them. These days you pay more for cosmetics than you pay for the actual product. What I see is not the incentive to push forward. Rather the idea that it's one step forward, two steps backward.

There is a reason why games like Secret of Monkey Island remain fresh. They were original, influential and provoked laughter. Lucasarts was a powerhouse back in the day. Sierra wasn't too shabby either.

Now we just get titles that immediately write 'been there, done that'. Despite having been something we probably already seen ten years ago, the idea now is to make money. Not to make great games, but to make money.