Creativity in Game Sequels

The New York Times (reg. required) has a look at two sequels that manage to recapture some creativity from the original games. Resident Evil 4 and Mercenaries aren't just knock off money makers, a refreshing note in a rehash heavy industry. From the article: "Capcom's invigorating leap into 2005 includes tossing out what had been the basic premise of the series, which centered around a manmade virus that destroyed Raccoon City."

Comments

also

[pluke]

see nintendo games over the last 20 years. Pumping out sequel after sequel but never resting on their laurels. It is not sequels that characterise stagnation in the industry, but tarting up old games, you hear me EA?

Re:also

[snuf23]

"And if you have a context (franchise, etc.) in which a particular game type works, there's not necessarily a reason to abandon it."

True. But if you never create new worlds and characters, you will never come up with a new Zelda or Mario. Pokemon almost single handedly rejuvenated the Gameboy market, not so much because the RPG was totally revolutionary, but because the new characters struck a chord with the players.
In the case of products such as Star Fox adventures, wouldn't it have been better to introduce new characters as Dinosaur Planet? Did putting Fox into a game non-characteristic of previous Star Fox games help either the game or the Star Fox brand? Especially seeing as there was no space ship flying Star Fox game out on the GameCube?

Re:Sequels are *ALWAYS* less creative. No exceptio

[servognome]

GTA3, Dune 2, Mechwarrior 2, Star Control 2 come to mind as more innovative than their predecessors.

Re:Sequels are *ALWAYS* less creative. No exceptio

[Bullet-Dodger]

Your error is that you assume that the first version was created in complete isolation, with no similarity to any other game (creatio ex nihilo, seeing as you're fond of latin). There are many ways that the first version of just about any game is related to previous games. Yes, a sequel is related to the previous version, but that relation can be quite small and superficial. It can easily be smaller than the connection of the first game to other, technically unrelated, games.

History is written by the victors

[Webapprentice]

Alone in the Dark may have been one of the first survival games to have come out (I played that game on the PC), but it came out at a time when the gaming population was small compared to the overal population.

Resident Evil 1 came out in the Playstation era, with a much larger number of gamers. The game came at the right time, and it won the mindshare.

There is a difference between who came first and who was able to get "on the map." Invention history has shown that being first does not always get you remembered.

Sequel == Game by same publisher?

[Osty]

Since when is Mercenaries a sequel? The article calls it Pandemic Studios' follow up to "its innovative strategy game Full Spectrum Warrior." Since when is a "follow-up" game a sequel? And what makes this a "follow-up", other than being developed by the same studio? Is Full Spectrum Warrior a follow-up to Pandemic's earlier games like Clone Wars or Triple Play Does that mean Full Spectrum Warrior is a sequel to a baseball title? By that rationale, id's Doom 3 is a sequel to their previous title Quake 3 Arena. Does this seem silly to anybody else?

Not always

[Have Blue]

Metroid Prime is the most radically changed sequel I can think of, except possibly Mario 64.