Adventure video games
Americans have long had a love affair with adventure, going back to the early days of pirate novels and Treasure Island. Filmmakers revived the genre of the Saturday matinee with classics like Raiders of the Lost Arc and Star Wars, and it wasn’t long before the video game industry began eyeing this lucrative market with something like envy. Early attempts to capture the dusty swagger and staggering scale of such tales were doomed to fall short, but that was before gaming technology caught up to filmmaking in vision and complexity. Today, adventure games are alive and well, offering deep storylines and the thrill of immersion in some truly epic stories.
The latest consoles seem to have been designed for the task. Outstanding rendering hardware, theater-quality Dolby sound and plenty of 3D modeling are making the latest games less like diversions and more like the real thing. With memory and removable media that can hold several gigs of cut scenes and environment, today’s top adventure games actually let you explore the vast worlds only implied by modern movies. For many, such innovative design makes the consoles nothing less than portals to excitement.
Harkening back to the last generation’s favorite epic, Star Wars itself has long owned a berth on America’s favorite game shelves. Celebrated digital pioneer LucasArts continues to pump out titles for each new platform and console, part of a corporate mission plan that puts digital media and interactivity front and center. In a whimsical move, the company has teamed up with American institution Lego to release Lego Star Wars, a version that revisits the original trilogy. Today’s Xbox 360 version owes much of its look and tone to its predecessor, but the scale and thrills are very much a product of the 360’s increased firepower.
Sam Fisher remains a wildly popular character, helming one of the finest video game franchises on the original Xbox – Splinter Cell. In the latest title, young Fisher is once again called to put out fires in an international tale of subterfuge and intrigue, this time serving double-duty for opposing factions John Brown’s Army and the NSA. The game designers upped the ante this time around, however, by enhancing the graphics, bettering the faders and other lighting touches and adding something that changes the franchise dramatically: multiplayer mode.
No stranger to adventure, Nintendo has released another title from its flagship Zelda series, this time exploring a new part of the story in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. All the familiar touches are here, from the popular characters to brilliant puzzle design that offers frustration and exhilaration in equal measure. The world is epic and detailed, including a number of new tools and weapons that haven’t yet appeared in the franchise. Of course, the action itself demands your best skills.
People crave adventure, but in today’s busy culture, sometimes the best we can manage is some vicarious thrills. If you’ve been on the hunt for fine adventure titles and come up short, consider checking out the top rental sites for greater quantities of your favorite games.