Feature: The 49 Best Sequel-Less Games Subscribe to this RSS feed

Games 5-2

5- Adventure (Atari 2600)

Mazes, dragons, swords and keys brought action/adventure play to consoles in Adventure. Just bring the chalice to the castle without perishing. While not sophisticated by today's standards, Adventure was a far cry from Pong, and seemed like an incredible feat of software engineering. Anyone who played the game when it was first released can remember regaling friends with tales of their knightly conquest. A few colored dots and lines manipulated with a joystick (that had only a single button!) transformed into chivalrous knights seeking to steal the Grail from sinister serpents. Or something similar.

Despite the sophistication of today's games, you have to heave a nostalgic sigh as you think back on trapping the bat in a castle or succeeding at the randomized quest. Nearly 30 years later, it may be more fun to remember than it is to replay, but Adventure holds a special place in gamers' hearts.

Adventure might seem simplistic now, but most games draw on elements of Adventure and can be considered spiritual sequels of sorts. As with the other seminal games like Space War, nearly every design decision from Adventure resurfaces and is reconsidered in every new game.

Does Adventure really need a sequel? Wouldn't adding anything more than the basic weapon and wyrms detract from its elegance? Don't be surprised if someday the name Adventure resurfaces, looking as much like the original as, say, The Bard's Tale.

4- Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GC)

This brilliant psychological horror game explored the impact of Lovecraftian terrors throughout the ages, introducing characters from a Roman Centurion to a Cambodian slave girl, allowing players to decide the fates of ancient, chaotic gods. Bouncing characters through time, Eternal Darkness made the first century BC as central to the plot as the modern day world, and mixed the banal with the supernatural and the incomprehensibly horrific.

On top of the time travel, Eternal Darkness sported a magical rune system that provided tremendous variety during play. Three different types of magic (and three similar, but not identical, paths through the game with very different endings) provided a lot of ways to play, making this one of the few games that was worth fully playing through several times. A clever story, vivid settings and compelling characters were much of the game's appeal, but it didn't stop there. The game perfected the effects of insanity for its generation of consoles.

Game effects representing the path to madness are critical to any game undertaking the unknowable horrors of eldritch divinities. To that end, Eternal Darkness not only messed with your character's head, it messed with yours. Sure, it might present basic visual and auditory hallucinations like limbs falling off or distant screams. The game also would try dirtier tricks like faking video input problems or pretending to delete save games realistically enough to make a gamer's heart skip a beat.

Eternal Darkness was designed as a stand-alone game, but its success (both cult and critical) wasn't matched by sales. The developers would love to make another, and we can only image what they could do with the Wii interface, but any sequels seem trapped in limbo.

3- Beyond Good & Evil (PC, Xbox, PS2, GC)

Jade, the lovely female protagonist of Beyond Good & Evil, is a photojournalist. A photojournalist who just happens to race seacraft and raise a bevy of orphans in a remote lighthouse... in her spare time. If that's not enough, Jade's world is under assault by the DomZ, a foul alien race that constantly bombards her world, Hillys. Running out of cash to keep up the shield that protects her orphanage/home/garage/studio from orbital bombardment, Jade picks up a job cataloging Hillys' wildlife.

From there, Jade becomes embroiled in her government's duplicitous involvement with the alien invaders and sets about exposing the nefarious plot, all the while taking pictures of animals and keeping food on the orphans' table. Not content to confine itself to any one genre, Beyond Good & Evil ranges from puzzle play through combat, photography, racing and stealth all in a framework that would suit any adventure game. The intuitive context-sensitive command system mixed with the sophisticatedly stylized visuals to create the complete game experience. Certainly, there were oddly anthropomorphic animal characters and an unforgettably French soundtrack ("Propaganda!"), but the game was undeniably great.

Beyond Good & Evil was intended as the first part of a trilogy - a trilogy that has yet to materialize. The game received great reviews and, contrary to popular opinion, sold quite well. Even so, some complained about the shortness of the game, and its development was hardly efficient. The developers were understandably proud of their water effects (and said so, often) but should have spent more effort on the portions of the game that have withstood the tests of time. Fortunately, Michel Ancel has more clout than most developers, so you might see a sequel. Just don't hold your breath to learn Pey'j's fate.

2- Grim Fandango (PC)

Manny Calavera's grim reaping responsibilities are sidetracked by souls denied their rightful passage. This suave, but undeniably dead, hero can only investigate this film noir afterlife abomination on the Day of the Dead. As such, the adventure game Grim Fandango is spaced out over a series of annual episodes that poke fun equally at popular culture and classic films. Only by unearthing the Hector LeMans' inanimate infractions can Manny find his final rest and avoid being sprouted.

Aside from an unbelievably memorable plot, Grim Fandango was an evolution in adventure games. It was the first use of LucasArts' latest adventure game engine (LucasArts was then an adventure game powerhouse) and sported controls that were unusual for its genre. Those controls, together with the 3D characters, took some getting used to by traditional adventure gamers, but nothing could stand in the way of Grim's greatness.

Why no more Manny? Tim Schafer is busy at Double Fine making other games (like the top and final game on this list) and publisher LucasArts has moved away from adventure games. Once LucasArts pulled the plug on its own sequels to Sam & Max Hit the Road and Full Throttle, the future for Grim Fandango sequels became darker than Manny's time in the Department of Death. Don't expect more Meche or Dia de los Muertos. Let this game be a classic - a "Citizen Kane" of the gaming world. But with a few more jokes.