Since the poor blog is all but dead now, let’s resurrect it for one last purpose before it goes quietly into the good night.

As I’m sure you’re all aware, Adventure Gamers is comprised of a crack staff of more than 25 volunteers from all over the globe, and we cover all new international English-language adventure releases across all major platforms. Then there’s that whole “30-year history of the genre” thing that we’re still trying to catch up on after the fact. Whew! It’s a lot of work, and inevitably some things still manage to fall through the cracks. Not many! But some.

That’s where you come in. And you DON’T need to be a good writer to help!

Sure, we’re always on the lookout for promising writers willing to help with our ongoing preview and review coverage, but there’s room for anyone who’s passionate about the genre and motivated to help in various ways. Read on to discover ways that you – yes, you! – can contribute to making Adventure Gamers even better than it is today. And with apologies to the US Navy, let me just remind you all that it’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!

All requests and applications should be submitted through our Contact Form page or sent directly to me at: .

Screenshots

Send us your pictures! No no, not photos of yourself (especially not those photos!), but high quality screenshots of your favourite adventures. If a picture is worth a thousand words, you can leave our writers in the dust with your contributions in this area. Next time you’re playing a game (or if you’ve stockpiled some already), check out that title in our Games A-Z database, and you may just find a pressing need for more images, particularly for older or more obscure titles.

There are free screen capture programs available to download if you’re feeling ambitious, but for the most part, any keyboard with a “Print Screen” button on it is all the technology you need (well, that and a basic image program to paste it into). It’s that simple, so anyone can do it. Try for a nice selection of interesting locations, characters, and puzzles that reflects the best and most diverse elements of each game (ten pics of the opening cutscene is not particularly helpful). We do ask that you avoid any images that could be considered a major spoiler.

Donate-a-Game

“Why haven’t you ever reviewed Game X?”

Ever found yourself wondering this question? It’s true, even with many hundreds of reviews written, there are lots of older games the site wasn’t around to cover originally, or simply fell through the cracks in later years. So why haven’t we reviewed them yet? Generally, the answer is very simple: we don’t have them.

Since you can’t review what you don’t have, here’s where you can help. If you’ve got older games sitting around collecting dust, not worth the trouble to pawn off on eBay, and you’ve been wondering what to do with them, how about donating them to us? It’d be a huge plus to have a resource pool of older games to review in between new releases. If you’d like to be involved, simply send us a list of all games you’re willing to make available, and we’ll contact you if and when a reviewer is ready to cover any game on your list.

But hey, like we tell the publishers, just because you send them doesn’t mean we’ll agree with you about how good they are!

Freeware Games contributors

Our freeware adventure coverage (formerly known as “Underground Games”) has dwindled down in recent years, and we’re committed to getting back on top of the vast treasure trove of indie games. Reviews and monthly news articles are squarely on our radar right now, and we're looking for people willing to contribute in those areas, plus help maintain and update the information in our games database. New games added, screenshots posted, plot synopses written, release dates noted… that kind of thing. Since freeware games are rarely publicized through regular distribution channels, this job involves routinely scouring the popular indie game websites and blogs for new details. We’re not looking to duplicate the efforts of such sites, merely ensure that the same games are getting proper exposure here at AG.

Interviewers

Doing interviews is a cushy gig. I mean, where else can you make someone else do most of the work and take all the credit for it? Of course, good interviews take proper research, planning, and care, so it’s not as simple as firing off the same question list to anyone and everyone. Developer contacts will be supplied, so if you’re interested in pursuing developer interviews, whether by phone, Skype, or email Q&As, let us know! Regular ongoing contributions will be expected, however, so please, no “I interviewed Person Y three years ago; do you want to post it?” types of offers.

News updaters

If you like your assignments in short, quick bursts, news is where it’s at! Good writing skills are a must, needless to say, but equally important to reporting news in a timely fashion is availability and promptness. The goal is to report all news stories within a 24-hour period of breaking (preferably much, much less), so the more people we have available the better. Most adventure news is publicly announced through press releases and emails, so heavy investigative journalism is rarely necessary (no need to camp out on Jane Jensen’s front yard, even if you want to), so the main role here is simply to condense stories into publicly presentable news items like the ones you see on the home page. Cheesy headline-writing ability is not a prerequisite.

Casual Games reviewers

Yeah, yeah, I can hear the collective groan from the anti-casual space from here, but casual games are a fact of life now, and many of them cross firmly over into “lite adventure” territory. Too many, in fact, as it’s proving impossible to stay on top of them all. We’re not interested in covering garden variety “HOGs” (hidden object games), but we are looking for writers with an interest and ability to review games that clearly blend casual/traditional adventure gameplay elements. (Games like Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove , The Fall Trilogy and 3 Cards to Midnight are some of the titles we’ve reviewed so far.) Volunteers for this position won’t be restricted to writing only about casual games, but this will be the primary responsibility, so only those familiar with casual content already should apply for the role.

And more!

Okay, I can’t really think of anything more, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. We can surely make use of talented artists, videographers, or anyone else who’s highly motivated and simply in need of a role to fulfill. If that’s you, let us know what your interests and abilities are, and perhaps we can come up with something that’s just the right fit. These are all volunteer opportunities, and not all of them are formal staff positions, but we’re all here because of our love for the genre, and everyone’s participation is welcome!

With the recent release of CSI: Deadly Intent proving to be something of a disappointment, it got me thinking fondly back to one of my favourite crime series that still knows how to grab the imagination in a vice-like grip. While my first true adventure game love was Secret of Monkey Island, there was another series that threatened to steal away my affections and that was Police Quest. I was initially given the first Police Quest (In Pursuit of the Death Angel), then the second game by a friend a few years later, and was completely unfamiliar with the series or its pedigree. Although I found the first game difficult to adjust to with its incredibly basic visuals and dated animation (that became more enjoyable when remade as an enhanced point-and-click adventure) it was the second game, The Vengeance, that really struck a chord.

The creation of Jim Walls, a former employee of the California Highway Patrol, the Police Quest debut sees Sonny Bonds play the lead role of a rookie officer. Starting off with the most basic of equipment, from night sticks, cuffs, notebook and pen, Sonny gets to perform a variety of duties, from pulling over drunk drivers, patrolling the area and making arrests. It isn't long before Sonny unwittingly uncovers a drug cartel and soon becomes an undercover officer in order to bring down the ringleader Jesse Bains. It's a decision that will later come to haunt the ambitious fellow in the sequel. Now serving as a Homicide Detective (complete with forensic kit including fingerprint brush and powder), Sonny gets to investigate a wider range of crimes and can interview suspects and gather evidence. Not long into the game, Jesse Bains has made his escape from jail and this time he is out for the officer that put him there. It made for a gripping tale full of twists and turns that required quick thinking as much as it did investigating the scenes of crime. My love for The Vengeanceis something that is echoed with Evan Dickens' excellent review of the game, which highlights just how unique the game is even today.

With these games firmly in my heart, I decided it was essential to get hold of Police Quest III: The Kindred, which further cemented my passion for the series. Scrapping the part-text interface of The Vengeance in favour of a pure point-and-click adventure, The Kindred has Sonny Bonds taking on a more senior role as Sergeant Detective. With excellent writing and a well paced game that sees Sonny doing the more mundane elements of police work like office management, as well as the usual hands on activities, a larger storyline soon comes into play. I’ll never forget the half-naked hysterical man at the lake, the distraught woman at the shopping mall and the difficult working relationship with Officer Morales, who seems to be hiding a thing or two. The fact that the case later impacts on Sonny Bonds' personal life with an incident involving his wife, childhood sweetheart Marie, helps to connect the gamer emotionally with the storyline and its characters. Although there were moments in the game that proved to be a sticking point (a crippling bug that made it impossible to complete the pentagon puzzle without a patch, which I wouldn't be aware of until much later), the general atmosphere combined with a decent blend of puzzles backed up with real life police procedures meant that you always felt like a law enforcement officer and not just playing a game about one.

While the prospect of death in adventures can often be off-putting, in the Police Quest games it was a necessary gameplay device: you were an officer of the law equipped with a gun and dealing with unstable citizens and drug dealers who could turn on you at any moment. This element of risk made each situation true to life and compelled you to adhere to the correct procedures. Every death was logical and made sense in the context of the setting, rarely frustrating the player.

Despite the advance of technology that typically makes such games difficult to run natively, the introduction of emulators like DOSBox and the re-release of a classic compilation means that this series is still very enjoyable today. Sadly, the legacy of Police Quest is something that lingers within the remains of Sierra's past, seemingly never to be reawakened, and its fortunes weren't quite the same after the third game. With Jim Walls no longer part of the Sierra fold, the fourth game began with a brand new character and more investigative approach to gameplay, a change that many Police Quest fans (myself included) found difficult to take to. Further games in the series took an entirely different approach, focusing on the more trigger happy side of the SWAT team, with the Police Quest brand eventually dropped altogether. While Jim Walls left Sierra and created Blue Force, a game very reminiscent of the series in style, it lacked the magic that played such a huge part in Police Quest's popularity.

A whole new decade has now come and gone since then, and still nothing quite like Police Quest has been seen on the market. While there are plenty of detective games, forensics investigations, and games that feature cops prone to carrying a gun or two, none have blended together the same mix of puzzles and realism in quite the same way since.

Sonny Bonds, we salute you.

Movies and games have never been happy companions. Somehow the two mediums just don’t get on and experiments in cross-breeding have rarely panned out. As an afficionado of the truly awful, I own some fine examples of unsuccessful attempts.

Movies made from games rarely work, with only the tiniest slivers of original game story surviving. Doom turned its solo horror into a multi-marine slugfest with gameplay only represented in the closing minutes with an all-too-brief first-person bout of shooting that could have been ripped straight from any game-in-action video. Tomb Raider had lots of high-octane action sequences but not much in the way of raiding. And let us not forget the master of this arena, Uwe Boll, whose many classics include such delights as Alone in the Dark. To his credit, Mr Boll fully embraces the “dark” but he never once seems to get to grips with the “Alone” part, bringing commando teams in at every opportunity. At least Edward Carnby didn’t discard his trusty revolver for one of the high-tech machine guns the film was filled with, even if he isn’t quite the Victorian Gentleman adventurer I remember from the first game.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the film-makers seldom seem to have interest in the source material, beyond its potential ready-made audience. When those involved in making a film have some personal investment in the original, the film benefits as a result. Whilst it might not be about to win any Oscars in the near future, the Ben Jordan film Le Chateau Macabre is a good example of this. This story of ghosts and mysterious suicides at a French hotel could easily find a place as a game in the popular freeware series. Hardly surprising, since the title role is taken by the creator of the series, Francisco Gonzalez himself. There is even a cameo by the creator of the AGS games engine, Chris Jones, as regular series character Percival Quentin Jones.

So, is the long-running attempt to bring Myst to the movie screen an example of the former or the latter? Brainchild of the Mysteriacs, Patrick McIntire and Adrian Vanderbosch, the seeds of this idea run back as far as 11 August 1994. On that day Patrick’s mother bought him a new computer game that he found pretty cool. That game was Myst and in 2004, his love of that game led to Project Passage being born. Since then, Patrick and Adrian, both involved in independent film, have put in a lot of work, liaising with Rand Miller, creator of the Myst game, and even creating a concept animatic outlining the intended plot of the film. .

It has been a tough slog for them, as anyone looking at the Myst Movie website can see for themselves, but the project got a big boost recently with the official endorsement on Cyan's own website. This isn’t the same as the movie actually going into production of course, but it’s a big step forward and may be just the boost the project needs to start becoming reality. Maybe this is another thing that will fade away, but the fact that the dream has run this long without dying gives me hope. Call me a mad optimist in a cynical world, but I wish them well and look forward to the day I can see the fruits of their labours.

Almost inconceivably, Day 2 at E3 was bigger and crazier than Day 1. It was open for more hours, there were more people attending, I got more swag, I saw many more adventure games, and I even represented Adventure Gamers in a human interest piece for Slate Magazine. In every way imaginable, today was all about more.

I started out the day in the South Hall with an early morning meeting (okay, 10am, but it sure felt early) with the folks at White Birds. The developers of such games as Paradise and Sinking Island have a lot of new products on the horizon they think adventure fans will be interested in, including a new franchise for the Nintendo DS called Criminology (or Crime Scene as it’s known in North America), based around forensic investigations. They’ll also be bringing the franchise to Wii, iPhone, and PC, but under the name Scipol (short for “science police”). In fact, White Birds is also dedicated to expanding their other games to different platforms, and for that reason they’re porting their PC game Nikopol to the iPhone. I was able to get a look at an early version, and the graphics are remarkably clear. Their third and final announcement here at E3 is Paris Mystery Files for the DS and Wii. It’s inspired by the Professor Layton series, the biggest difference being that all the puzzles will be related directly to what you’re doing in the story instead of simply assorted brainteasers.

Next I rushed over to the West Hall (no small feat, I assure you) to sit with dtp entertainment, where I was excited to see The Black Mirror 2 and Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island . Black Mirror 2 takes place 12 years after the events of the original title, and gives an all-new protagonist the opportunity to experience the horrors of Black Mirror Castle for himself. The graphics are absolutely amazing, with really impressive amounts of detail creating a consistent sense of atmosphere. Ghost Pirates is the latest from Autumn Moon, and has a unique twist: since you play as a ghost, you can’t talk to anyone, nor interact with many parts of the environment. In fact, you’re invisible to living beings. Because of these restrictions, you have to figure out ways to accomplish things in unusual ways, like moving a few small objects in order to trick a corporeal person into doing what you want.

From dtp it was straight to Wizarbox, who detailed the new version of So Blonde for the Wii and the DS. Unlike a lot of DS and Wii games we’ve been hearing about, this isn’t a port of the PC game, but rather an “alternate” game posing the question: What if Sunny had landed on the other side of the island? All the puzzles after the tutorial are completely new, with many new characters, and almost 100% new locations. Wizarbox only had the DS version available for me to play, but it worked like a charm. The graphics are very impressive considering the system’s limitations, with lots of color and background animations in every scene.

After a break for lunch (bland hot dogs! woo!), I headed to LucasArts and a 45-minute long walkthrough of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Editon , the high-definition remake of the classic game. If you’re not excited about this yet, you should be. I spoke with some of the game’s producers, and these guys are passionate about Monkey Island, even going as far as to say it’s the whole reason they work for LucasArts. All the voice actors (even the Voodoo Lady) from Curse of Monkey Island are back and they sound terrific. You can seamlessly switch back-and-forth between the classic version and the HD version at any time, which makes the HD version look even more impressive. And best of all (at least for me), they gave me the greatest swag in the history of swag: a t-shirt that says “I Found the Treasure of Mêlée Island … and all I got was this Stupid T-Shirt.” That’s right, I now own a replica of the friggin’ treasure of Mêlée Island itself! So cool!

Last but not least, I sat down with Deck13 for a first look at their new adventure game, Haunted . It’s another light-hearted game from the creators of Ankh and Jack Keane. As you’d expect from its title, this game also features ghosts (haven’t you heard? ghosts are the new black), but it has its own unique features to help it stand out. This time you play as a homeless girl in 18th century London who has a coterie of ghost friends that follow her around, each with unique capabilities to help her solve puzzles. It has a similar art style to Deck13’s previous titles, but with a lot more detail in the backgrounds and some more advanced tech driving the graphics. It’s very early on, so it could change a lot before it comes out, but it definitely looks interesting.

Of course, I did other things today as well, including playing games like The Beatles: Rock Band and Brütal Legend. I talked with a programmer at DoubleFine, slyly suggesting they work on an adventure game next, but she wasn’t going for it. She suggested I take it up “with Tim [Schafer].” Sure, I’ll get right on that. If you have any desire to look at my big face or hear my nasally voice, check out www.slatev.com, the video version of Slate Magazine, and click on “Gaming Through the Recession”. They interviewed a bunch of people at E3 about how the gaming industry has been affected by the economic downturn, and for whatever reason one of those people was me. You’ll see me at 2 min 56 seconds, and then once more before the video ends.

Tomorrow is the last day of E3, and I don’t expect to see many more adventure games, so this may be the final daily round-up at AG. I am taking one final crack at getting in to see Heavy Rain at Sony (after being rebuked today), so keep your fingers crossed and start passing the hat around for bail money. In any case, there’s no rest for the weary-from-lugging-swag, as there are detailed previews still to come, so stick around over the next little while for E3: The Aftermath!

It’s time once again for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, known to its friends and admirers as E3. Just those two little digits can send a video game enthusiast’s heart aflutter. It isn’t quite the spectacle it’s been in years past, but this was my first E3 experience, and as a life-long fan of video games, having the opportunity to actually attend myself on behalf of Adventure Gamers was a dream come true. The first day of the three-day event is the shortest, six hours instead of eight, yet somehow I managed to get some hands-on time with 17 unreleased games (only four adventure games, so don’t get your hopes that high). So does it live up to the hype? Did I get lots of “swag?” Was it as fun and crazy as we’ve all imagined it to be? Yup, yup, and yup again!

As soon as the doors opened to the West Hall (there are two full-sized halls, West and South, and I didn’t even step foot in the South today), everyone swarmed in and started seeking out the biggest and most important games. While most of my journalistic colleagues headed to God of War III or Modern Warfare 2, I stayed true to the cause (at least at first) and went right for Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box for the Nintendo DS. The sequel to one of my favorite all-time puzzle-adventure games has finally been localized for North America, and I couldn’t be happier. The demo only lasted 10 minutes, but that was time enough to remind me that every puzzle indeed has an answer.

Nintendo definitely had the biggest presence of any company in the West Hall. After Professor Layton, I couldn’t resist checking out a bunch of other really cool games, like Wii Sports Resort (my first swag of the day: a Frisbee), and New Super Mario Bros., a side-scroller in the classic Super Mario Bros.-style but designed specifically for four players at a time, which was only announced just a few hours earlier at the Nintendo press conference. If you’re an RPG fan, you’ll want to check out Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story for the DS. The brothers have been miniaturized and are living inside Bowser’s body, so naturally they’re forcing him to finally use his powers for good. Returning a little closer to the genre we all know and love, I next checked out the new Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion for DS, a hidden-object adventure that also features interrogation puzzles and color-matching. No sign of Another Code R for Wii, which is a shame, as it looks like one of the most promising adventures ever to hit the adventure-friendly console, and I’d have loved the chance to put it through its paces.

Some of the other big presences in the West Hall were Sony and Capcom. I couldn’t bring myself to get in long lines for the hottest Sony games, but I did manage to play Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (more shoot ‘em action with Nathan Drake) and Batman: Arkham Asylum, which features my new favorite feature: Detective Vision. All the baddies carrying guns show up in red, which lets you know Batman can’t tackle them head-on, and instead you’re forced to take to the shadows (or the rafters) to sneakily take the thugs out one at a time. On the Capcom side of things, I had a round with Tatsunoku vs. Capcom (various anime characters battle Capcom characters, Street Fighter-style) and Dark Void, which is the lovechild between Gears of War and The Rocketeer. The main reason for being there, however, went sadly unfulfilled, at least for today. Capcom isn’t showing Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth at all, while Sony is showing Heavy Rain behind closed doors only. I’m as disappointed as you are, but there’s still a chance yet to see Quantic Dream’s ambitous new thriller, and you can be sure I’ll do my best to get on the other side of those doors before all is said and done.

In the afternoon, I fared much better on the adventure front when I sat down for a nice hour-long chat with the good folks at City Interactive, the Polish developer behind the Chronicles of Mystery and Art of Murder games. They’ve got new titles in the works for both franchises slated for later this year. In fact, the former is actually getting a dual platform treatment. Chronicles of Mystery: Curse of the Ancient Temple for Nintendo DS is a retelling of the original Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual, but adjusted for a more casual audience (more hidden objects, for example), while Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life is the next full-fledged point-and-click PC adventure, bringing back Sylvie Leroux, who is now in pursuit of, well, the Tree of Life! City also revealed they’re hard at work on Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny , in which FBI agent Nicole Bonnet returns to track a killer who leaves playing cards on the bodies of the victims. Production on Cards of Destiny is so early that they didn’t have anything for me to see first-hand, but they at least want fans to know the series will be back.

We’ll have a more detailed preview of City Interactive’s games in the coming days, as well as longer looks at Professor Layton and Women’s Murder Club, but with two more days of E3 still to come, I’m afraid there’s only time for these teasers for now. So that’s Day 1 in the bag, but tomorrow is going to be even bigger and busier, with two more hours of show, and five times as many appointments with adventure game companies. If games like Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island and Black Mirror 2 mean anything to you, or you’re interested in finding out what’s in store from the likes of White Birds, Deck13, and a little company called LucasArts, stick around for tomorrow’s report! Come to think of it… Yipes! I better bring a few extra pencils, and maybe another notepad while I’m at it. See you then!