I found a short editorial on Gamespy’s Game of the Year 2002 section, that was so good I decided to blockquote it in its entirety.

There was a time when adventure games were still not only plentiful, but actually dominated the gaming industry. In the early days of PC gaming, some of the most recognized brands belonged to Sierra, and ended in the word “Quest.” These games presented interesting stories, accessible gameplay, and puzzles that were at least somewhat logical (as opposed to the often bizarre types that are found in modern adventure titles). Now they’re gone, and there’s no real reason for it.

Aside from the notorious difficulty of making logical text-parsing interfaces, it’s relative child’s play to duplicate the functionality of the old Sierra games with modern tech, using all of the nifty 3D bells and whistles we’ve come to expect. A team could easily use any modern, licensable 3D engine to create a system of rooms or areas that you could explore, from an isometric perspective, with camera changes as you went from room to room. A decent team of designers could create, in 3D, a map the same size as the one found in Sierra’s Quest for Glory in just a few months.

The rest of the time could be spent on the gameplay itself. Make the puzzles inventive but comprehensible; the dialog crisp, witty and refreshing; the interface smooth and easy to use. The adventure genre isn’t dead… it simply wandered off the path at some point and became weird and inbred. With a little effort, the types of game we often reminisce about could be brought to a whole new audience.

That’s something I’ve asked myself many times: where did all the adventure games go? I still have very fond memories of The Secret of Monkey Island (Link to Monkey 4 since I couldn’t find a product page for Monkey 1) and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.