The State of Adventure Gaming

By Randy Sluganski
May 1999

Pamela Anderson Lee

I recently read in an article in the Wall Street Journal that there are more searches done on the Internet every day for material (pictures?) of Pamela Anderson Lee (Baywatch, Barb Wire) than any other topic on the World Wide Web. She is mentioned on or the subject of over 150,000 web sites and is the object of over 9,000 queries a day! Some businesses have even injected Pamela Anderson Lee's name on their sites just so their company name will come up during a search. We at Just Adventure wanted to assure you, our dear reader, that we would never stoop so low as to gratuitously include Pamela Anderson Lee's name on our site solely for the reason of acquiring more hits. Rest assured that our higher moral standards and commitment to adventure gamers worldwide would prohibit us from ever abusing the name of Pamela Anderson Lee in such a despicable fashion. Our heartfelt apologies go out to Pamela Anderson Lee for the misuse that her name, Pamela Anderson Lee, seems to encourage among those with little or no principles.

Is Anybody Listening Out There?

A fellow co-worker (yes, I do have a full time job) asked me if I had ever played Silent Hill. A few hours later, after I had modestly explained to her that I was the editor of the most prestigious adventure site in the world and she had begged to read my review of Silent Hill, she asked me why there were not more of those "adventure type, puzzle games" on the Playstation. Seems she does not own a computer, but she and some of her friends would love to have more adventure games to play on their consoles. Are you listening, Sony and Sega? There is a whole market out there that you are ignoring! Why, I would guess that even Pamela Anderson Lee would love to have more adventure games to choose from on the Playstation and Dreamcast.

E3 Diaries

Yes, starting next week my infamous E3 Diaries will return! You can be privy to my innermost secret thoughts as I explore the dark side of the convention in search of the elusive adventure game. JA will also have a live link (courtesy of our friends at Eidos) to the show, so you may even see me wandering around in search of free food. (If you see someone who looks like Fabio, well, that is not me--I will be the guy standing next to him with the glasses and graying hair). I promise you that we will have more exclusive and updated information on new adventure releases then any other site on the web or my name is not Pamela Anderson Lee, oops, Randy Sluganski. Be here later this week and I may even let a few facts slip about our exclusive E3 contest.

Hard Drive in Need of Viagra?

Just so you don't think that the staff of JA is getting lazy, I experienced a hard drive crash on one of my computers that wiped out three reviews I was working on, an interview, and my saves on four games in progress, not to mention all of my contacts and personal emails I had received. If I did not respond to an email you sent me from April 18 to April 26, rest assured it is nothing personal. Everything is now back up to speed and we will be once again updating the site on a daily basis during the weekdays.

With a Little Help from My Friends

I just wanted to give some unsolicited plugs to the other adventure sites on the Internet that are helping to keep the adventure genre alive whilst the embers burn low (and, no, Pamela Anderson Lee is not making me do this!). These are people who, like the JA staff, love adventure games and are not afraid to voice their opinions. Over at Quandary, edited by Rosemary Young and Gordon Aplin, there is always an interesting read by our friends from "down under." Quandary has been around since 1995, and Rosemary and Gordon's love for the adventure genre shines through. Adventure Review, edited by Philip Jong (aka Doogie Howser), is another excellent site for adventure gamers. How Philip, who is a fourth-year medical resident at the University of Toronto, finds time to edit a site devoted to adventure games and anthologies is beyond me, but his effort makes a heart warm. Over at Interactive Fiction, Stephen Granade always has more than enough insights and interesting reading to keep you interested for hours. Lovers of both text and graphic adventures are welcome. Finally, over at Games Domain, Barak Engel and Steve Metzler keep the rooms at the Traveller's Inn occupied with their excellent updates of all things adventure and RPG. The above sites are not the only adventure-related sites on the Internet, but they are the best.

Wishy-Washy

Someone on the staff recently asked me why JA seems to receive letters that basically say, "JA sucks." There is never any coherent explanation as to why and what we suck (please do not insert any Pamela Anderson Lee jokes here). After assuring the staff member that for every negative letter we receive at least 10 positive emails and after theorizing that 14-year-old, prepubescent boys should not be permitted to surf the Internet without adult supervision, I offered the following: take a look at our editorials. They are chock full of opinion. We take sides. Now go to some other sites: they are wishy-washy. Their major bone of contention is that genre-crossing may be evil or that companies that release games that need patches are bad or some such drivel. We don't expect everyone to agree with our opinions, but we do hope to encourage intelligent conversation. Someone actually refused to write for us because we are controversial and publishers and distributors read the site and may get the wrong idea! Whoa, is this person a future PR shill or what? In fact, this person's attitude is exactly what is wrong with the computer gaming industry as a whole.

Well, that's if for this month. Not much new on the adventure front, but be here next week for our E3 updates!