As I mentioned earlier, Myst III is coming to the XBox and PS2, and Full Throttle II is scheduled for release on "next generation" consoles in addition to the PC. Microids also announced after E3 that they were planning a PS2 port of Syberia by the end of the year.

Aside from these PC ports, it looks like most adventures on the console will have at least some form of action sequences. More and more action-heavy and puzzle-light games once known as action/adventures are now being called "adventures," but there also are some console games that come closer to the original definition of "adventure."

You may have missed it on the Sega Dreamcast -- I certainly did -- but Shenmue generally received high marks as a more-or-less-adventure game that had plot, dialogue, and puzzles, with some action thrown in. Microsoft owns the exclusive rights to the American version of Shenmue II, which is already available elsewhere on the Dreamcast but is an XBox-only title in the US. The parts that I saw of the game at E3 seemed to focus on the action bits, so-called "quick time events" that basically boiled down to pressing the right buttons to match symbols that flashed on screen. I wish I'd been able to see more, but I don't know if I was looking in the wrong places or if that's just all there was to the demo.

Still, this game may give adventure fans something close to an adventure that isn't available on their PC. According to a preview at gamesradar.com, even the third title in the once point-and-click Broken Sword series will be including something similar to these quick time events. (Thanks to the recently restarted Adventure Gamers site for the link.) Adventure gamers may just have to accept action sequences if they want to play adventures on consoles. If it's any consolation, remember that some of the early Sierra games also included some action sequences.

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Continuing the trend of console demos that I wish had shown more, Eidos has talked a lot about the Tomb Raider franchise, claiming that the new Angel of Darkness game would add more types of gameplay and more story than recent sequels had given players. While the PS2 demo of the game did show a more modern engine, none of the new gameplay was evident from the short demo at E3, and the graphics were good but not eye-dropping. From all the previews that were written months ago, I'd hoped to see at least some more adventure-like elements, but the evidence just wasn't there. Maybe Eidos will have more to show later, though.

This by no means is intended to be a comprehensive list of console titles -- consider it more of a sampling than a survey. As the "next-generation" consoles continue to expand, I'm sure we'll cover more about the relevant games.

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