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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."
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?
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
Enemies that drop ammo and stores is not something that I would normally equate to a Resident Evil game. If they dropped Raccoon City AND they dropped most of the old play mechanics, what exactly is 'Resident Evil' to RE4 but the name?
BTW, Mercenaries is not a sequel, so I don't even know why it is being discussed unless the thread really isn't about sequels and rather about interesting shifts in gameplay.
I' afraid i have to disagree, take Mario 64, a 'sequel' to Super Mario World, yet it was far more innovative than a first generation game such as Clay fighters, or Turok could ever be
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
The gaming industry is increasingly motivated by profits for major conglomerates (the EA sports deal comes to mind), not even just little publisher shops anymore. In an environment like that, you have to have companies that are willing to use the profits from a major hit series to fund development on more groundbreaking items. Better yet, support a studio with a history of groundbreaking games (Bungie anyone?) and let them keep doing what they do best. Even then, what the masses want is what's going to fill the shelves in most cases. We're lucky to see any creativity at all sometimes, and creativity in a sequel, well, that's just unheard of in many cases. Scott McCloud wrote about this in the context of comics. Penny Arcade covered some of this in a series a few years ago.
Do not touch -Willie
GTA3, Dune 2, Mechwarrior 2, Star Control 2 come to mind as more innovative than their predecessors.
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...when the article claimed that Resident Evil invented the survival horror genre.
Resident Evil: third-person survival horror game, using polygon graphics on rendered backgrounds, where a lone character wanders around fighting zombies. Key scene that sticks in everyone's memory: the bit at the beginning where the dogs jump through the window. Published 1996.
Alone in the Dark: third-person survival horror game, using polygon graphics on rendered backgrounds, where a lone character wanders around fighting zombies. Key scene that sticks in everyone's memory: the bit at the beginning where the dogs jump through the window. Published 1992.
Question: which of the above was innovative?
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.
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.
Don't believe me? Check out the EVIL bat: spooky screen shots! (possibly not safe for work, kids or elderly with weak hearts).
Sometimes my arms bend back.
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?
Metroid Prime is the most radically changed sequel I can think of, except possibly Mario 64.
The notion that a game in development may one day spawn a sequel can have a positive effect on development of that game. Knowing that we don't have to fit absolutely everything into that initial game makes it easier to focus on providing a solid product without feeling that we're trashing our great ideas forever.
By way of example, during development of Inago Rage, it was clear to us that players might enjoy a multiplayer mode. This is natural for an FPS, but in Inago, since players also create their own arenas, the idea of collaborative building made it doubly interesting. But it was not something we felt we could do in the time we had. A half-assed multiplayer compontent would disappoint players and diminish the single-player component. So, we didn't add it. What kept this from becoming a disappointment to us (enthusiasm counts for a lot in game development) was the knowledge that we could always add it as part of a sequel, an expansion, or even a version update.
During the development of a game, there always comes a time when you lock down the features and put the pages of brilliant concepts and great player suggestions away. I think that some of the greatest elements in a sequel come about when developers are given the chance to implement ideas they were passionate about in the first game, but had to tuck away for later.
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Inago Rage - A first-person shooter where you build and fly
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
I'm surprised no one mentioned this game. I assume it's because it was released about the same time as Halo2, GTA:SA, Half-Life 2, WoW.
I expected MGS3 to be a run-of-the-mill sequel. I was wrong. It's excellent. The enemy AI and gameplay have been vastly improved. The final boss battle scene is beautiful, and there's a boss battle that takes place over a huge area.
On top of this, the game story is excellent. Seriously, check this game out.