Computer GAMING:
                In today's cut-throat market

                   By Andrew Wielochowski

The 15th century saw the reign of the first books and how does
that compare with modern day TV and computers? When they came out
people said their fantasies would kill young minds. And now you
constantly hear school teachers and parents urging their kids to
increase their imagination by reading. Oh the wonder of reading...

And this same argument can be fitted to the fight between text or
graphics. I'm going to try not to take sides, after all I'm
presently still writing text adventures so I should be all for
them.

TEXT ADVENTURES versus GRAPHICAL ADVENTURES

I remember when I was still bashing away on the keyboard of my 386
with 8MB of RAM and I was frantically trying to escape from
Iberspleen IV. Yes, Jacaranda Jim was the first text adventure
that I ever played. It was a little short of brilliant. For one
thing I could play it on my little computer. So whilst playing it
I would come across and solve puzzles and whilst all this was
going on my mind would be constantly conjuring up images of the
action which was unfolding. Next came Space Quest IV and I could
play it on my computer and it had graphics and fancy animation and
I loved it. I just moved the mouse and pulled my hair out, but I
didn't do very much typing at all. But does this prove that I'm
not using my imagination and therefore does it mean that graphic
games aren't as good as Text adventures? ...  HELL NO!!!!

A text adventure is made to be a text adventure. That is to say
the writers are aware of the limitations so are able to conjure up
images in the players head that have such strength and enormity
that they would never work out anywhere near as immense if they
were in full SVGA 3D accelerated graphics, but their puzzles can
only extend to a certain level of complexity due to the limited
parser vocabulary and the 0D-ness of the game.

A graphical adventure boasts graphics and an interface where you
don't always have to type. Excellent 'cause I had enough of
spending ages rephrasing some sentence until the computer
understood it. Here is an extreme example:

>LOOK
There is part of a radiator here
>LOOK AT RADIATOR
Don't understand RADIATOR
>GET RADIATOR
you cant do that
>GET PIPE
You get the bit of radiator pipe

In graphic adventures you see the object normally and with the
point and clicks you just click on the object for looking,
picking, licking and moving. But they have another advantage which
is brought about by graphics and the easy ability of controlling
the character via mouse or arrow keys. Ok every one consider this
scene in Space Quest 5: Due to a transporter mishap you are on a
strange planet and have the body of a fly and a downsized head.
But this comes in handy because you've managed to gain access to
the inner workings of a keycard operated locked, which works when
the keyboard blocks some lasers and allows other beams to pass
through to their sensors. So you are inside the lock and there are
nine beams in rows like:

***
***      where * = beam
***

You then have to move your character under each beam and observe
the bolts by the side to see if they operate when a beam is
triggered. Now I may have not describe it too well, but I hope you
get the drift now here is how I would think it would work in a
text adventure.

>LOOK
You have found the inner workings of the lock. The lock appears to
work on laser beams, this is pretty obvious when you see the nine
red beams of light which take up the space of the lock. To the
side you see a few large metal bolts, clearly somehow activated by
the lasers.

>WALK UNDER LASER BEAM
I do not understand what you are trying to do
>WALK UNDER LASER
Which Laser, LASER1, LASER3, LASER3, LASER4 - LASER9

>WALK UNDER LASER1
As you walk underneath the first laser you hear a click and one of
the bolts slides back.

This whole scene would take a lot of typing and time, whereas with
a graphic adventure you could do all this very quickly.

So for the first part I feel that I can say this: a text adventure
allows for a much greater use of imagination and therefore the
images you see can be as powerful or as bland as you want.
However graphic adventurers have the potential of being much more
user friendly and easier to control and the depth and complexity
of the puzzles due to the easier to use interface could be so much
greater and more complex than can be achieved with a text
adventure.

MODERN GAMES, PATCHES AND BUG FIXES

However once again we are going to come across the argument about
how all the latest games require more power and more money. Now my
opinion on this is that the power can in most cases be justified.
All the latest adventures have cut-scenes, these are a humorous
interlude during the game and can achieve things which wouldn't be
as funny in text. The best example I can think of at present would
be Monkey Island 3 at the start when Guybrush is narrating his
diary and certain things are happening which conflict with his
opinions in a funny way, they cannot be adequately put into text
to seem as funny or to have the same impact on the reader /
viewer.


So, better graphics means more power can, in most cases, achieve
better results. Graphics and sound have achieved something that no
text adventure has yet to achieve, scaring the willies out of you
as you turn a corner or create such tense atmosphere that one
false move makes you leap out of your skin and feel like you have
just run a marathon, only two games have achieved this for me,
Thief: The Dark Project and Aliens Vs Predator.

@~I got quite spooked by the maintenance man in Infocom's Lurking
@~Horror ... Sue

But text adventures and graphical adventures make me laugh much
more than something like Thief, Quake, Half-life etc. So I think
that better graphics can enhance the gameplay, but the
manufacturers should still remember we aren't all die-hard cash-
wielding gamers.

Which brings me to my final subject: the prices. The best example
to use would be one from my recent experiences, having finally got
a bit of money in my account I go shopping for two things, (a) a
mouse and (b) a new game. So I go through shop after shop and
eventually settle for looking around GAME. Whilst there, I see the
latest DISCWORLD game: DISCWORLD NOIR. However it was priced at
œ34.99 and the mouse I wanted œ19.99.

People, I know I can't afford to be forking out œ34.99 for a game
or œ28.99 a week or so later. The companies aren't conning us with
the quality or power needed for the game, they are conning us with
the price. I'm sure in America you'd be paying much less for a
game straight off the production line, but here they are trying to
push for the greatest amount of money they can scavenge off the
gamers, many of whom are teenagers probably in university hence
near permanently broke. So what are they doing to us? I believe
that if all games were priced at around œ10 - œ20 right off the
companies will have a increase in sales and less piracy, because
people don't have to think twice about paying œ10 for a game they
really want, but will think for ages and wait for prices to drop
if the game they want is œ40.


Text adventures have the advantage therefore of being much
cheaper, many free nowadays and hosting just as much enjoyability
as the latest Sierra adventure game. As well as this, any new
adventure game doesn't need endless patches and bug fixes as has
become the trend of software these days.

STATS

Windows 98: over 3000 bugs
Alien Vs Predator: Retail version no save game function
Sin: Needed a patch near immediately due to a fatal problem on
some computers

But I've never had an adventure game needing a patch, I've got
many Sierra games (Half-life) is one of the non-adventure ones.
And they don't need patches. So could it be due to the eagerness
of the companies just to get the games off their backs and into
the shops so they can start earning money. Or is it due to the
competition, because they have this fab game with great graphics

and sound and they can't afford to wait another week to fix bugs
because otherwise some other company will take the claim to fame?

I had to download a patch so I could save games in Alien Vs
Predator but many others may not have easy access to the Net and
so will suffer doing all the levels slowly and dying only to start
all over again. Are games (all games) being aimed more for those
with access to the Internet and supplies of bug fixes? Look at
console games, virtually free of major bugs ... why? Because you
can't apply patches to them, as they have to be perfect. And this
means that it takes months longer for them to be released, because
they go through EXTENSIVE bug testing. So why can't all PC games
go through the same process ...?  Well I believe that it is due to
the cut throat market that makes all game developers anxious to
get the game out before it is classed as old tat and out-of-date.

So are we, the gamers, partly to blame? In our rush to get the
games and by discarding games that are considered to be old news
are we causing the frantic rush between companies to get the games

out and working, with or without the bugs? Or is it just they want
the games off their backs and want to see the cash coming in?

BASICALLY ROUNDING UP NOW

I think that in the great text adventure Vs graphic adventure war,
there is no winner, there is but a stalemate. Graphic adventures
mean possibly more complex puzzles and an easier to use interface
with the advantage of sound and colour, whilst text adventures
hone the use of imagination, can summon great images in the mind,
are cheap and small, so being excellent for all types of computers
and can be just as clever and as intricate as the next best game.
And I think to quote Steve Provost, "the software companies are
shooting themselves in the foot" but we aren't being conned. They
are producing games, which are up to a high standard, but are
being forced by the consumers to release them as quickly as they
can. And they need to use all the latest powerful systems because
consumers who have the money to buy these systems are more
impressed with the graphics and wouldn't get a game with the
graphics or gimmicks of yesterday's games.

The software companies are honestly, I believe, trying to produce
good quality games and are seriously putting a lot of effort in,
but they make the mistake of assuming we all have powerful
machines and that we all have access to the Net to download the
latest patches ... unfortunately we don't all have the power,
money and Net access so they should try and respond to the need of
the masses as well as the needs of the minority? Now you are left
with one question to answer for yourselves: who are the masses and
who are the minority?









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