The Longest Journey 2 Revealed

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an interview on Adventuregamers.com previewing the recently announced The Longest Journey 2, a sequel to one of the last 'traditional' adventure games, Funcom's critically acclaimed The Longest Journey. The game's lead designer, Ragnar Tornquist, is quoted as saying "We are all through with point-and-click route. The reason for that is that I find the more immediate controls to be more interesting." We ran an earlier story on how the next Broken Sword game is making a similar transition.

Missing The Point

[Teknogeek]

People are going to complain...people HAVE been complaining...about Static not being a point-and-click adventure game like the first TLJ. And there's a good reason for that, too -- that type of game has a long and glorious history in computer gaming. Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle...heck, pretty much ANYTHING LucasArts is famous for that doesn't involve lightsabers.

But at the same time, such complaints miss the point. The Longest Journey was good not because it was a point-and-click adventure game, but because of its story. It may not be Lord of the Rings, but anyone who didn't feel even slightly sad when Cortez died has no heart whatsoever.

Will Static play differently from Longest Journey? Duh. Will it be worse because of that? Not necessarily. To think it will be is to be too focused on the choice of chisels to see the sculpture being created.

Re:Missing The Point

[secolactico]

Sometimes the transition to a new production form (not just the interface) has a lot to do with previous experiences in the genre.

Case in point: A lot of people felt confortable with Grim Fandango's interface, but when Monkey Island adopted it, people were up in arms.

Of course, gamers are particularly jealous of the Monkey Island series. When #3 came out, people complained about the artwork (and the way Stan waved his arms).

Re:Missing The Point

[DavidLeblond]

Broken Sword 3's interface is similar, except the 4 buttons of the gamepad will be used for 4 different verbs that vary by object.

I like that they are going to the direct control of the character approach, because it allows them to port to consoles easier which expands the adventure genre considerably.

Re:Missing The Point

[pebsmith]

I think more people were upset with EMI because it just wasn't as good a game as Grim Fandango. I think there were more problems with the interface in EMI because items were less accessible than they were in Grim. Anyway, it seems silly to be critiquing a game that has barely been started and is still two years away. Let Ragnar do the game then we'll get our adventure-purist hands on it.

Re:Missing The Point

[startled]

"The Longest Journey was good not because it was a point-and-click adventure game, but because of its story."

I don't understand how anyone liked TLJ. I tried and tried and tried to get into it. Then I tried playing it co-op with a friend. It sure felt like the longest journey-- no one would shut the hell up. They even made jokes (with the old sailor) about how long the dialog went on, while you were subjected to them repeating the same dialog over and over again, much of which wasn't relevant to an

Journey?

[kurosawdust]

If Steve Perry is in this game, I'm sold - he's a killer app for any platform.