Countdown Rebuttal

You’ve all read enough of my opinions on adventure games over the past month, I’m sure. Now, as promised, here’s what the rest of our fine staff of adventure aficianados had to say about the Top 20 Adventure Games of All-Time.

– Evan

Marek Bronstring, Editor-in-Chief

I do not completely agree with Evan’s choices for his Top 20, but I can’t really comment on the list as a whole, for the simple reason that I have not played all the games. Therefore I’m going to use this rebuttal article to put a spotlight on a game I love very much. I believe Day of the Tentacle is an excellent choice for the number one game of all time, as its puzzle design is simply unrivaled. However, I’d like to make a case for a personal favorite of mine, Grim Fandango.

What makes Grim Fandango the best adventure game of all time? I believe it’s because it escapes from the cute and nonchalant (but admittedly charming) stories that were prevalent in the classic nineties graphic adventure. Space Quest: the sci-fi parody. Maniac Mansion: a teenage horror/comedy. King’s Quest: an interactive fairy tale. Very well executed games by any standard, and cornerstones of adventure gaming legacy. But in hindsight, it’s hard to call their stories very innovating. In the pioneering days, these stories were simply never done as a game before. I personally regard Grim Fandango‘s high-concept story as the genre’s true coming of age.

LucasArts boasted the game as the most ambitious graphic adventure they had ever developed. Grim Fandango is a unique mix of different influences, including the animated film A Nightmare Before Christmas, papier-mache skeletons from Mexican folklore, Aztec, Mayan and Art Deco architecture and many classic film noir movies. The story centers around Manuel Calavera, a travel agent in the Land of the Dead, who gets enveloped in a conspiracy of crime and corruption. Together with his driver Glottis (a demon specifically summoned for this task), Manny embarks on a four year search for redemption. On his journey, Manny becomes part of an underground resistance network and even gets to run a casino in the Casablanca-inspired port town of Rubacava. Grim Fandango is, without a doubt, the most brilliant, stylish and inspired adventure game ever created. A few interface nags are not detriment to the game’s originality.

Evan cites Grim Fandango‘s interface as a misconception, which I strongly disagree with. The concept of the interface is, in fact, very innovative. In Grim Fandango, there are no superimposed interface elements. The protagonist itself is the interface—something the designers of Escape From Monkey Island unfortunately failed to understand. The sense of immersion is incredible. In theory, its the best keyboard interface I’ve seen for an adventure game. If the technical implementation were a little better, I would even prefer this interface to traditional point-and-click. Sadly, the collision system often has the character sliding past an obstacle or, even worse, slings it off into an opposite direction. This problem can only to be attributed to the programmers. Evan’s write-up implies that the interface is a bad idea altogether, which is just not true.

I started this rebuttal by describing Grim Fandango as a high point in adventure gaming. Somewhat ironically, the game was released in 1998—arguably the start of the genre’s dry season. Grim Fandango‘s initial sales results are said to have been dissapointing. It even caused LucasArts to temporarily abandon the graphic adventure. Despite massive critical acclaim, few people knew about the game. Some have blamed this on bad marketing, or the difficulty of pigeon-holing Grim Fandango into a single category. Grim Fandango‘s sales did come about a little later on, but LucasArts was not without problems at the time. The Grim Fandango team sadly decided to leave. (Whether LucasArts can recover from this huge loss of talent remains to be seen.) If you haven’t played Grim Fandango yet, you should rush out and buy it now. I recommend the new Entertainment Pack, which also includes XP-compatible versions of The Dig, Full Throttle and Sam & Max Hit the Road.

Mind you, Day of the Tentacle is an understandable choice for the number one game. I certainly don’t mean to bad-mouth other games either. But we’re talking about Top 20 of best adventures ever made. In my opinion, Grim Fandango‘s unique world and characters are something that no other game in any genre has come close to.

Tom Arbour, News Editor

Having played through just over half of the titles on Evan’s list, there are nine games remaining that I’ve either yet to play at all, or only experienced in a short gaming session or two. So that’s at least nine spots that I’d have inevitably filled with different games. This is not to say that I disagree with Evan’s Top 20—with the possible exception of King’s Quest VI (which is a wonderful game in it’s own right, but not one that I would have immediately thought of as #3 of all time) my top eight titles would remain virtually identical to his, if not in that precise order.

The only title that instantly comes to mind as being sorely missed is Gabriel Knight 2, which is no doubt my favourite FMV adventure of all time. I apologize to all Texphiles reading this, but although an appealing character, Mr. Murphy just doesn’t tickle my fancy like he does for others. The Beast Within was composed of an amazingly intricate story that melded fact with fiction, and included werewolves, ancient evil-battling bloodlines, mad kings, and even German opera. And it was well-acted to boot (a feat that few FMV-based games can claim).

All in all, I can’t imagine the amount of work it must have taken Evan to compile this list and its accompanying articles (personally, I doubt I could settle on my top five breakfast cereals, let alone a list of twenty adventure games), and I can’t see how anyone could say the effort was anything but a success.

Josh Roberts, Underground Co-Editor

Having read Evan’s Top 20 list and discussed all of his choices with him before its publication, I can honestly say that he and I were on the same wavelength for many of the games he selected. Would I have switched things around a little? Absolutely. The top spot of my list would have been a toss up between Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire, Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. But Day of the Tentacle is right up there too, and certainly makes a strong case for itself as the number one game.

What else would I have done differently? I might have replaced a game like Pepper’s Adventures in Time with the equally under-appreciated Conquests of the Longbow by Sierra On-Line. I would have dropped Beneath a Steel Sky (sorry, I really can’t stand that robot sidekick) and given stronger consideration to possibly the best FMV game ever made, Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within. And I certainly wouldn’t have put the first King’s Quest game on this list, no matter the historical significance.

Still, in looking over Evan’s list one final time, I can’t fault the hard work, research, and sheer effort it must have taken to put together this monstrous compilation of the best of the best. And like all of these games, Evan himself has proven himself to be at the top of the heap as well.