Cheers to adventure!

Kings Quest actually taught me a fascinating little lesson. Sometimes its easy to forget yourself in some things, and you have to remember your roots before you realize what you've forgotten. Its not in the sense that you lose the qualities that make you, but rather its that you kind of overlook them for qualities you want or see as favorable with others. Of course King's Quest did this with its clever writing and 3 part path system, and the way my aim was different than the outcome. However a bigger game related example came with the very game itself, and fits that very lesson: Adventure games are just the best and I've sort of forgotten to admit that.

On paper, I don't like what most refer to as "adventure" games. They're illogical, contrived, and often bottleneck the game into a tight path that contradicts actual adventure completely. I'm talking about your point & clicks, metroidvanias, and just some broadly labeled "adventure games" like Zelda. Then again, I also kind of love other adventure games. I love the story driven 3rd person shooter adventures like uncharted, I occasionally enjoy the amazing experiences found in a few artsy adventures like glitchhikers, I love the 3D platformer "mascot" adventure games where games like Spyro sucked me into the medium, the feeling of experimenting with a fully fleshed out world in a stealth game like Dishonored, and I even like quite a handful of zelda-esque games that aren't zelda (such as the criminally undersold Okami). They're all still contrived, weird, and strict in their own ways, but yet when the right traits and execution meets, its just one of the best things in gaming. Adventure resonates with my views even in places removed from immediate adventure. I can sit by the mechanically sound, and more calculating games like first person shooters (one of my favorite genres), but at the end of the day I got into them in the first place for that idea of seeing cool aliens, or experiencing epic battles. Maybe both at the same time. I've also spent hours upon hours within strategy games not because of their deep rules, but because it was a fun way to build my own adventures with the rule customization. I'm in this stuff in large part for the adventure or exploring a world unique and distant from my own. The only place I've ever actually found myself not going in for adventure at all, might be occasional multiplayer games like Awesomenauts... but even then, there's that lacking feel where I'd beg for a full story with their great cast of fighters.

So its kind of a surprise to myself that I don't focus much on discussing the "adventure". Its kind of easy to have lost that idea in today's gaming media. We're surrounded by angry hyper-critical consumers trashing weird things, high demands and cuts from publishers, and an emphasis on online activity and gimmicky fluff instead of the simple stuff like just having a solid campaign adventure. The solution isn't any better, with people holding high praise to the indie scene where its flooded with rogue-likes and puzzle platformers. People seem to look more at Destiny, or more in the opposite direction like at Rogue Legacy, so much so that a mechanically amazing adventure focused single player shooter like Wolfenstein (a type of shooter that was at its height back around the early 2000's) is considered a throw-back title by many. Its easy to judge and analyze mechanics all day, or discuss the latest controversy (both of which I do quite frequently), but what of the celebration to such a simple pleasure as just sitting down for another playthrough at Ratchet and Clank? Well okay I've praised that game plenty to, but not enough behind why its such a timeless game to me, or how it embodies that spirit of what makes me a gamer.

King's Quest helped wake me up with the feel-good adventure stuff around me. A book full of zorro tales at my side, Robin Hood pop figures in front of me on my TV stand, a dragon & castle figure over on the desk, Tomb Raider trilogy & Ratchet and Clank in the bag at my feet brought along "just in case", and memories of princess's bride popping up for comparison with the game at hand; The want for adventure, stories, magic, and discovery has never left me. Its just that I've simply failed to realize and respect it as much in the area of games. I've been craving adventures and creations of the human imagination since I was a dragon-obsessed little kid, but I've been so deep into game culture that I tend to talk about analyzing rather than the wonder like I would with other things. Of course I do still care about mechanics, and community, but at the same time I care about them because it influences what I can do within the world I paid to immerse myself into.

Thanks for taking me there spyro!

Adventure and wonder is what made me love games to begin with. From tiny post-toddler days of play, I was playing pre-school point and click games that mocked animation (if you grew up in the 90's, you probably know some of what I'm talking about). I loved old disney movies, and so I naturally loved that idea of interacting with a game like putt-putt and going on his adventures. Then something blew my mind: the concept of 3D movement in a fantasy world. Thanks to Spyro, I was truly having treasure hunting adventures across magical plains. Meanwhile seeing my dad play Tomb Raider was about as much fun as watching television. A suspensful T-rex appearance, ancient mummy monsters that shattered into exploding pieces when shot, and mystical treasures hiding away by secret invisible floors of magic. Oh and I will never forget the final bosses of each game, like the torso hatch-ling monster of 1, the Dragon of 2, or that awesome (and creepy sounding) spider alien of 3. Then there was Mario 64, Gex, Banjoe & kazooie, all adding a wacky cartoon touch over top of a medium quickly proving to be full of imaginative wonders waiting to not only be uncovered, but touched by your controlled character directly.

Truth be told I don't know what it is completely about certain adventure games that turns me away from them. Well I do kind of know (and said it earlier), but aren't all games quite contrived in some way? I suppose its something about the predictability about the situation. Once you notice that pattern in Zelda, or that the next puzzle will be crazily disconnected in a point and click beyond its worth, you just lose the motivation to go on unless you know something amazing will come out of it. Yet those games usually yield minimal results, with stories or settings trimmed or just plain not worth the asking task. My standards for adventure are also what keep me from some other genres that do things almost too different. Its why I can't just love minecraft. You'd think a whole world of random and unpredictable elements, and made fit to reshape by players would be amazing for "adventure". Instead its really empty. Sandbox games are fun until you've poked at everything once. When all the tricks are shown, or even just all the big ones, you're just left with a hallow world that was generated by slapping numbers together, rather than one that was hand crafted for amazement. Like a good movie, or your favorite artist's music, you'll keep coming back to a well executed video game campaign. Meanwhile a blank canvas is just that, its for people that want to create rather than discover. That's not to say they don't offer some adventure for the right type of person, but its just not there for me personally. A very similar case can be made for open world games, or RPGs that have more dialogue and inventory screens than they do exploring.

Oh but Witcher 3 just crushes other open world games AND rpgs in a sense of adventure

Meanwhile the general faults almost kind of help the good games of its kind. The contrived stalling or challenges teach you to have patience, or give you a kick that fuels a short term addiction via persistence to overcome something. The linearity is there because you can't expect too open of a world to tell the same great adventure. The lack of logic is there because imagination is as well. Sometimes these faults jump the shark, and frustrate you out of the game. However other times, it makes that magical moment in Shadow of Colossus, or makes it more real and human towards your efforts to complete a tough game like Star Fox Adventures. Its part of the ride, and the actual sense of adventure. We may not love everything, but we're not supposed to, instead we endure it, beat it, and witness something amazing alongside the feeling of triumph.

So cheers to adventure games.They aren't as in demand or respected as they should be in the current bloated industry, but there will always be a time, place, and need for them in some form. King's Quest was a weird traditional adventure game I didn't expect to see coming, but it sure shined some light to the subject and proved that you can indeed find adventure even in unusual places for yourself. A satisfying sense of adventure works in mysterious ways like that. So to those who are here for all the laughter, friends, enemies, treasure, mysteries, and sense of discovery that adventure brings us, this article is dedicated to us all and the games that bring us these emotions. Happy journey, travelers.

Oh and uh... yes I am aware I said the word "adventure" way too much in this article. 62 times in fact. ...and I'm leaving it that way. :p