Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackal
We can always keep pushing the bar a little bit further until eventually everything is eligible. But that's the slippery slope argument and you have to draw some lines somewhere. Alone in the Dark is certainly one of those genre-blenders that could go either way. But since it went on to largely spawn a whole new genre of its own, I see no reason to consider it an adventure now. Certainly the bulk of its influence was NOT on the adventure genre, so it's rather insignficant to this list.
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Agreed, the influences of AITD resulted in a very different genre. But, as I see it, the game came out during the so-called golden age of adventures, and in a sense you could say that it was a classical adventure that introduced combat elements; by the same logic, most of us agree that Quest For Glory is an adventure with lighthearted RPG elements.
Admittedly, the beginning was very unforgiving with the wolf hunting you, but for the vast majority of the game you're solving puzzles. Let me put it this way:
Portal is a game clearly divided into sections or levels that feature puzzles which are an increasingly more complicated variation of the same mechanics, and are of no consequence to the overall story. That is, when you solve those puzzles, you do not care about the story.
AITD allows the players to explore a house in a non-linear fashion, solving puzzles that require use of an inventory and are related to the story (especially near the end), as well as reading documents that help uncover mysteries. It has a very distinct element common to most adventures which is not present in Portal: exploration.
Yes, yes, very lose definitions but I'm trying to make a point here: I'm not saying that Portal is a better game than AITD or vice-versa, but AITD is more adventure than Portal,
for sure. Hence why I think it should have been (at least) considered a candidate for this list.
