I long for the days of the old Sierra and Lucasarts Classic adventure games. The Laura Bow Mysteries, King’s Quest, The Dig, Full Throttle, Monkey Island. It’s been a long time since there’s been a great adventure game. Developers such as Quantic Dream – the creators of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy here in North America) and the upcoming Heavy Rain – and Funcom – the developer of The Longest Journey series – have been bright lights in a dark age of first-person shooters and “sandbox” games.

I mainly play games for story. If the storyline isn’t fun, the gameplay certainly can’t save it. I admit, I’m the guy most mainstream gamers seem to hate. I have patience for cutscenes that go on for several minutes. I’m not chomping at the bit to move on without knowing what the story holds – my primary motivation to continue. Truth be told, if I were to watch someone else play a game start to finish, I would be equally satisfied as if I had played it myself and there would be no need for me to play it over.

And so it is my pleasure to discover that Lucasarts may be ushering in the second age of Adventure games, starting with a remake of The Secret of Monkey Island, the original pc adventure, and releasing it on Xbox Live Arcade later this year. This will be a scene-for-scene remake with huge graphical and auditory improvements as well a fancy new hints system for the uninitiated gamer.

I daresay this could bring some intelligence back to the gaming world. One where puzzles don’t always involve shooting things in sequence, or moving heavy objects. A world where dialog isn’t an afterthought.

I am extremely excited about this and have been angry with developers (read: Lucasarts) because they stopped making adventure games altogether, opting instead to make some pretty mediocre ones – exceptions being the Knights of the Old Republic games, which are only a step removed from an adventure game so that’s ok. I hope that the world of gamers are with me in this, and I hope we can send a message to developers that says we are DYING for some good adventures. That there IS a market for it.

And then the floodgates will open again.

I just finished playing Xbox Live’s edition of 1 vs 100 Beta.

I’ve had my Xbox 360 offline for a while. I get some games, beat them, rack up a disgusting amount of gamer points and sneak up on Daribus with my fattened Gamerscore. The only reason I plugged the network back in was I was afraid someone hacked my Live account, which wouldn’t be the first time.

The first thing that popped up was an update. An update which probably had something to do with the 1 vs 100 game but I can’t be sure.

Then the spotlight said something about 1 vs 100, which I’d heard of but then again I don’t watch much TV – just very specific shows. Perhaps it’s not as popular in Canada as in the US.

It took me a while to figure out that the game is played within a certain timeframe on certain days, exactly like a television game show. In fact, this game represents a fresh approach to online gaming. It’s a Massively Multiplayer Online Game Show. This beta is exclusively Canadian, featuring Canadian trivia (and yes, it includes an inordinate number of hockey related questions). The finished version or “Season One” will launch in North America and Europe sometime between now and June 21, 2009 (Game details page claims Spring 2009).

I played with my whole family and it was oddly entertaining for everyone. I’d experienced similar gameplay before from titles like Scene It!, but the scale of this game was obvious from the 7000 other players I was competing against.

According to xbox.com’s 1 vs 100 Game Details page, there are prizes to be had which includes a laptop and an Xbox 360 (which seems odd since theoretically you must already own one to compete…).

The different versions of 1 vs 100 are 1 vs 100 Live and 1 vs 100 Extended Play. 1 vs 100 Live is a two-hour game with a live host in which players may be selected for high-profile roles like the Mob and The One. 1 vs 100 Extended Play is a fast-paced, half-hour show—the more you play, the better your chances of being picked as the Mob or The One in 1 vs 100 Live!

Could this be the start of a new genre of games? I smell a MMOGS Jeopardy in the works.

More details available here: http://www.xbox.com/en-CA/live/1vs100/

Years ago there was an unspoken competition between my group of friends – who had the best computer? This generally revolved around graphics since our primary focus in computers at the time was competitive LAN gaming. I was a late bloomer here and it was unusual for me to last very long in matches, at least as far as Counter Strike or Unreal Tournament went. I had not yet learned the tricks of keyboard customization, and so when I found that I was better controlling movement with my left hand and actions with my right, I actually had to cross my arms to do it, as I was unaware of the WASD standard. This led to being taunted for quite some time, even after I learned the ropes. Keep in mind this was ages ago.

Anyway as time went on we did less and less LANs. Partially because we moved on to real jobs and families, partially because it was before I became a professional Network Admin and we took hours troubleshooting the LAN to sort through firewall conflicts among other things, so some of us lost patience for it. But then at the tail end of the original Xbox generation, we finally discovered Halo. Halo 2 specifically.

And it taught me something wonderful. Although less precise than a mouse, Console First Person Shooters (FPS) are the only way to go. Don’t get me wrong, I get that people enjoy pimping out their gaming rig with the best video card, processor and RAM configuration along with a laser mouse and 24-inch LCD. If I had a constant overflow of money I could throw at that, it would be great. But I don’t. Most people don’t. Not to mention how easy it is to cheat on most PC systems. Wall hacks, skin hacks, auto-aim, auto-headshot, no-reloads, and more. It’s just not fun anymore at that point.

So in comes console gaming. What GPU/CPU/RAM combination gives you the best performance? Oh, wait! They’re all the same. No smooth graphics for one while choppy for another. No editor to remove wall textures in order to see through them. No programs or scripts running in the background to perform stunning instant headshot victories. And the controls? Everybody gets the same one (usually).

In fact, generally the only real advantage you can achieve aside from modified controllers (which is a niche market at best) is by way of a good internet connection or a sizeable TV. Everyone is on an even playing field, as it were. Skill vs skill alone.

And in console games I’ve prospered. Every so often I have my ass handed to me, but I personally know of only one other Halo player who is my equal, and he runs dcolumbus.net. From my PC gaming days I discovered my love of being the Sniper. For some reason there’s no better feeling in competitive gaming than picking someone off and know the frustration that he must be feeling. I absolutely harass people with the sniper.

However, there is an obvious exception to the superiority of console games, and that is Real Time Strategy (RTS). Nothing beats the mouse and keyboard shortcuts for a good game of WarCraft, StarCraft, Age of Mythology or the classic, Age of Empires. It simply is too precise for a dual-analog controller to handle, and the graphics are typically minimal so no there’s not much effect of graphics on gameplay.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love PC games if the hardware didn’t need to constantly be upgraded, but even then I’d prefer console games to be on equal footing with all other competitors assuming we’re talking about a multiplayer scenario. Otherwise for single-player campaigns that my computer can handle? Sure, great.