AdventureGamers.com Top 100 All-Time Adventures

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So, Adventuregamers.com put together this list of the 100 best adventure games of all-time! IMHO is a great list, especialy since it mixes old classics with very recent games without sounding too biased.

Especially usefull for those who think the genre is as dead as RPGs.

It has some weird stuff, but is okay. I would change the position of some games like The Dig and L.A. Noire (and maybe add a Freddy Fish game ), but Grim Fandango is easily one of the best, even if the controls are a bit cluncky.

DISCUSS!

EDIT: Just saw this on the Random Adventure News Thread, but fuck it, is a nice list and the hotlinks make it useful enough to deserve a thread on its own.

Pray tell, how they could have managed to miss one with a hundred titles long list?
And LOL to Indigo Prophecy and Syberia II.
No KGB and no The Void also.
Typical pandering mixing old and new based more on recognizability than anything else.
Don't get me wrong, is an a-okay site, but that list, like all the lists, is stupid.

On list like this, position is the lest insteresting thing to me. I like to see a overall view of what's considered good, and it's nice to be able to click on the list and get an overview of any game that you may have missed.

I should be worried then, I know all of them.

Sometimes I see posts like this and I can't help but think that I must use most of my leisure time really bad.

The problem is, ranking does matter because it shows the mindset of the people making the list, and if they're not compiling a good list whilst being one of the more prominent sites in the genre, there's a big, big problem: it makes the entire list suspect and it shows that the genre really hasn't recovered from its "death" in the eyes of the mainstream. It wouldn't have bothered me so much (I won't repeat my frustrations here since they're in the other thread) but the poor choices go pretty much all the way to the top where they put Gabriel Knight 2 - which isn't a bad game at all; probably one of the best FMV games around and I certainly enjoyed playing it - above a lot of the other choices on the list.

But what's worse than the ranking on the list or the list itself, is that there's no discussion or arguments put forth as to why the rankings should be what they are; on what metrics are they comparing two games? From the site:

So in other words, there's no way to figure out why the best is the best. And then they don't even try to show the arguments over which is better than what and why (insert an Andhaira smiley here if you want) which would have at least given the list some value other than "these games might be good, but you might not like them or they might be bad and just everyone here liked them so..." as you could maybe figure out if a game was to your tastes or not.

Rank according to longevity. Rank according to innovation. Rank according to exploration. Hell, make multiple lists. Or just do what they've done and show the arguments for and against game X being "better" than game Y. But at least do something with the list.

Lists will ALWAYS create this reaction. Are you 100% happy with teh Codex Official Top 5 RPG's of last decade? Diablo II, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Gothic II + Night of the Raven, Baldur's Gate II, and Arcanum? And we also are one of the most prominent sites in the genre.

There is no hivemind in that website or here, is just a list made by the site staff, and they wrote a little text explaining why every single game was chosen. And thank god is not a shitty gamespot-like "this is the best game ever because of this and this" bulletpoint fest, just honest reviews about why they found it so good and why you should play.

The order is not as important as the games on it, just face it as a "must-play" list. You can go from top to bottom, or just browse the overviews after something you might enjoy. They gave us a list, we choose how to use it. I'm gonna search for interesting stuff that I've might have missed, and also posted it here so that bros may discuss it and maybe even recommend a game that's not on the list.

10. Portal 2

Grim Fandango is the first. I'm okay with this list.

Great list? You've got to be kidding.

92. The Dig
57. Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit)

Fuck no.

38. Full Throttle
36. Sanitarium
33. L.A. Noire
26. Heavy Rain

FUCK NO!

This list is downright retarded, I am not even going on Portal that should not even be there since its a platform game.

Yes, actually. I don't personally like all of the choices, but I'm sufficiently aware of why people would like them. And yes, the adventuregamer's list has a lot of these games are genuinely good; either from my own experience or from what I've heard. But it also includes ones that I know are not as good as some they've put lower down (or not on the list at all), that other people also mention as being good games while including some titles that don't get talked about in the same way.

Take Pepper's Adventure in Time. It's "ranked" higher than the entire Leisure Suit Larry and Colonel's Bequest series, and part of the Quest for Glory and King's Quest ones. There has to be a good reason why this is so, since not too many people get nostalgic over Pepper (and from my own perspective, for good reason), while the others are pretty well-liked series, and many of them have entries that are (from a game designer point of view) crafted better and/or (from a player point of view) much more enjoyable to play. But there's no rationale given, no real argument as to why it's better. How can I possibly react to this list without disdain if all they say is "X is good. Y is good. X is ranked higher than Y. But no, we're not going to tell you why that is so."

They don't even justify why they include the Portals as an adventure game (rather than as a shooter game). I can see a possible argument, but I'm not the one who needs to make it to me. They are.

Just because a list creator can manage a few more words than Gamespot does not make it better. I find it weird that you argue for a ranked format by saying "at least they didn't turn it into a bulletpoint fest"; in fact, a bulletpointed list of these games, with the explanations that they gave, would have been far less objectionable and achieve the same purpose.

RPS didn't rank any but their top game; everything else came out on different days, but they weren't. It's a much better way to handle these subjective "good game lists" than the usual "Top X"; especially if you're not going to bother to use any metrics to make the games more impartial. Another better example is the CRPG Addict. Yes, his rankings are subjective, but he's actually gone through and detailed the whats and the whys in a measurable way.

I'm not the one who decided to rank them. They did. The onus is on them to justify their list. Saying a lot of nice things about a game is all well and good; but they don't bother to say why X is better than Y. In fact, they seem to relish in the fact that they applied no real rule into ranking these games at all.

If they go to the effort of making a list with rankings without justification and include nothing for people to understand why they chose to do so other than "it's good", then they fail at justifying their rankings. If it's on a "best list", then of course it's got good features; but don't claim it's better than something else without saying why. If you don't want people to respond to their rankings and argue them, don't make a ranked list.

I'm not the only one who's going to be looking at the ranked list as what it is: a ranked list. If you want to color in the numbers with black circles, then you're certainly free to do so, but if someone makes a list with bad choices, and not justify them in any way, that's a bad choice. I'm not here to make the argument as to why someone else might like something better. That's their job.

Not really, no. They let next-gen gamers write reviews for classics they've only heard of recently thanks to GOG. KGB or Dreamweb are trashed as a result (causing lots of butthurt in the comments).

Also a dozen *quest games and every Lucas adventure ever made in the top 100 - how surprising.

I was trying to be nice.
I have already wrote that the list is just pandering.
On a side note, I am a Myst fan, but Myst IV no, just no.

As far as these things go, it's a decent enough list. Has some good games on it, and most of them are Adventures.

Other than some already mentioned: The Longest, Most Boring, Banal Conversation at number 2 is a travesty. Grim Fandango is a good number 1. TLE is too low at 7, it shits on any of the games between 2 and 6, and should probably even tip out Fandango at 1 given it actually tries something different with its gameplay and mostly succeeds (also gets points for not being another cartoony comedy).

I'll just leave this here:
This game thing is #57 on the list. Now, if you really think Portal is the biggest problem on this top 100, you have some serious problems.

And about Portal being or not an adventure... I don't think this is as easy as it seems. I mean, it's a story driven game where you progress by solving puzzles, and that's all there is about it, so it's pretty understandable why they've labelled it as one, I can't see where's the gigantic heresy. I've seen some people ranting about Portal having "fast paced first person" controls, therefore not an adventure, which is as full of shit as one can possibly get. Genres like that are not defined by the point of view.

Personally though, I wouldn't put it on a list like that, exactly because of the controversy regarding its genre. If you're not entirely sure about it, why risk when you can put other great, pure adventures in its place?

By the way, I haven't played TLJ and Gabriel Knight 2... are these really that good?

TLJ has your run of the mill puzzles, people that praise it usually do for the story and atmosphere, personally the pseudo philosophy in it always irritated me.
Without mentioning that is practically a green multikult manifesto.
GB 2 is the best FMV adventure ever made. IMHO.

Yeah, TLJ is pure hit-or-miss. I like the story, but it can sometimes get a little tiresome. And GB 2 is as good as they say, definetly a must-play.

Fucking amateurs, they failed to even LIST the undisputed best adventure game ever created: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Rete/dont-shit-your-pants

Other than that, Monkey Island 3 is the most enjoyable adventure game. A jihad on anyone who says differeent.

Yeah, though I mostly did my ranting about this to friends/in the other thread.

I can see that argument; it's the one I came up with to justify its inclusion (though it would have been better if they had made it; they just said "well, it is an adventure game because we say it is"). There's a big problem on where the line is between puzzle games and adventure games and Portal definitely sits on the line. I'd argue it was more of a puzzle game as solving the puzzles don't really have any effect on the game world (other than progression through the story).

I think they really included it on the list because it was popular and kind of like an adventure game and they liked it, rather than for any proper reasons.

TLJ and GK2 are both games I enjoyed playing. But play Gabriel Knight 1 before you play 2; it's a much better game.

In terms of puzzles, neither has any really difficult ones (some of them are a bit stupid and illogical though), but some do require a little thought.

In terms of game world, both do better than most, but they both suffer from a lack of "look at" simple environmental objects that you used to be able to do fairly often in Sierra games back in their heyday. TLJ's characters are probably more realistic than GK2's (ironic when GK2 is a FMV game). Both games have a lot of talking. Neither is bad, but TLJ is far better; sometimes I found GK2's characters to be a little embarrassing but usually in a way that fit with their characters. Some of the talking in TLJ is optional as well. GK2 is supposedly based in Germany, and it's kind of nice to have some "contemporary" (at least for the time) adventures about the place in amongst all the fantasy and sci-fi (TLJ does both, which is also interesting, but I can't go into too much without spoilers). Both games (well, playing GK1 first for GK2) have a good set-up of the playable characters, setting them in their universes much better than most adventure games where there's no real connection between them and the world they're in: this works in some games where it makes sense - like the Myst ones - but most don't do it as well.

In terms of plot, TLJ is a lot more stereotypical "save the world" stuff, but it's done well and you do meet some memorable characters. I do kind of like the investigation slant of the Gabriel Knight games, as it does feel like you're investigating something a lot, though it's a lot less so in GK2 than it felt like in GK1.

Also worth noting is that TLJ definitely lives up to its name. It's a very long game, so if you like it you'll be getting good value for your money. GK2 is also pretty decently-sized for a FMV game, unlike Phantasmagoria.

I would probably rank TLJ high on my list of adventure games that I've played; probably not #2 but it'd probably be in the top group. Gabriel Knight 2 isn't; but it's still pretty good, and some of my negativity towards it comes from the fact that I really enjoyed 1 a lot: GK1 is definitely in my top group as well.

Thanks Kz3r0, Felipe and Redlands, I'll check them out later

Yep, I totally agree. And as you said, they should've come with those explanations, not us.

AG is a great site to keep informed about the genre, keep track of interesting releases and previews, things like that. They have some great reviews but some horrible, unforgivable ones, including Dreamweb as you've mentioned. Actually I'm part of the butthurt crowd on the comments there.

Forums used to be nice but I almost never access there these days. They used to have some p. users.

Other than that, well, all the criticism is aimed at the often shitty reviews, really, there's not much else to bash there. I'm a long time Telltale hater (mediocre-at-best titles, horribad Jimmy Neutron-like graphics and animations, shit writing, shit music, lore rape everywhere etc) and AG suck their balls hard with every shit they release, including giving a 3/5 to the catastrophic Jurassic Park game they made, just because it's a Telltale title. Imagine if it was another developer, they'd give it a 0.5/5 at best.

I haven't played Heavy Rain, but judging from Fahrenheit, David Cage is an atrocious developer and I doubt it deserves 4.5/5 like they gave it.

Also, somehow they see Machinarium as the second coming of Christ or something. Don't get me wrong, it's a great little game, but 17nd best adventure ever made? I'd put it at #100, just as a link with the modern age or something.

So you're saying they're like the RPGWatch of adventures? My thoughts exactly.

Well, you got me

Portal is a Platform game, a Puzzle Platform game and if you say Portal is a adventure game then other Puzzle Platform games should be considered as adventure games ... like Lemmings.

And as I am at it, how about the hidden object games from Big Fish games? if we put the idea that Puzzles=Adventure then pretty much every single game that uses puzzles is a adventure game, meaning the Tomb Raider games are adventure games.

In fact why is a Silent Hill game aadventure games? there are puzzles but Silent Hill is very much a action game and as much a adventure game as Resident Evil and I dont think Konami ever sold then as adventure games, always as Survival Horror.