Ever tried Star Trek 25th Anni? A nice mix of multi-ending proper adventure [where dialog choices matter, not just logical puzzles with objects] and some space combat.

The border between adventure and RPG is really thin, unless we look at extreme examples of each genre, like Monkey Island and Ultima. But when we take, for example ST25th and Lands Of Lore, the difference isn't that big. And then, there's Quest for Glory.;)

Also check out Omikron: The Nomad Soul. It's a little more ambitious than Quantic's subsequent releases. It really makes you feel like their is a whole world out there. It was really intimidating when I was a kid.
I really liked Star Trek 25th Anniversary. You're performance on away missions could vary between players. There were multiple solutions to puzzles and the red shirt didn't always have to die. I never did learn how to keep Spock from dying on that Romulan ship though.

As a Kid I always loved playing Adventure games over RPGs. Now that seems to have totally changed for me since I discovered the Persona series. I realized that not all RPGs are the same swords and sorcery bullshit that had kept me from enjoying them in the past. In recent years some truly inspired ideas have come out of the genre, like Resonance of Fate's approach to combat.

And despite seeing a rebirth in recent years, Adventure games are really showing their limitations. I was initially excited about Telltale's catalog but I've only really enjoyed Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, mostly because it reminded me of the Adventure games I played when I was in my early childhood like Putt-Putt goes to the Moon or something like that.

I've finished it about a week ago, performance rating 89% [i know, i suck as a starship captain] and i don't remember such an event. I mean, i don't recall a Romulan ship. ;)
The last 'episode' was seriously botched though, especially the last thing You do on board the destroyed vessel, and the forthcoming fight.

As adventure games go, well, modern ones took the Lucasarts approach. While there's nothing wrong about that, the lack of variety shows. It's like with shooters, different names, same boredom inside.

There's room for both.

I actually used to really love RPGs, but lately I've been focusing much more on Adventure games because RPGs just take so much time.

Out of the 22 games I've finished so far in 2011, 5 have been adventure games, and 0 have been RPGs :)

Actually, checking last year's list, the only RPGs I finished were King's Bounty: The Legend and Recettear, and one playthrough of Torchlight. Unless you count Puzzle Kingdoms and Puzzle Quest, which I really don't.

Stonekeep, Arx Fatalis, and Beyond Divinity are two RPGs I started within the last couple years, put a bunch of hours in, and then stopped playing.

LoL Vermin Hunt have you tried hunting rats in Drakensang? :) It has a nice twist on that side quest.

Next to Heavy Rain, another try should be Gemini Rue.

Warcraft 3?

Well, WC3 *was* immensely more hero-focused than the previous games. It fits many of the modern norms of cRPGs, except that there's no actual roleplaying. From a game mechanics standpoint though, it's easy to see how people could think it's an RPG. He'd hardly be the first.

They always have some kind of twist or at least funny variations but spoofing the vermin hunt cliché has already become a cliché, too. ;)

I often wish they would just move on and try to come up with something really original. Just like the new adventure games that make fun of old adventure games conventions and still repeat the same clichés and jokes over and over again. It's stopped being funny ages ago. Just because I like scary movies doesn't mean I'll love Scary Movie, so they won't bring back the golden era of adventure games just by copying and parodying the classics all the time.