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Not Every Game is a Sequel
Earth Wind and Metal writes "In response to a recent article from the Guardian about the lack of original games, Siliconera selected ten brand new titles set for release in 2006 to keep your eyes on. Five of the games are new to the USA and the other five are making their world debut. The list includes the robot house sim Chibi Robo, sandbox mecha RPG Steambot Chronicles, Taito's DS cooking game Cooking Mama and of course Okami." I am *really* looking forward to Okami.
There are also spinoffs and prequels.
... not made in Japan?
Seriously, what about Spore? Ok, maybe there's a tenuous connection to Sim Life, but seriously, Spore is gonna be a whole new thing.
The article doesn't mention a single PC game. Why talk about sequels vs original games without at least mentioning computer games?
People love to talk about how so many new games coming out are sequels, and they are - But so what? If the games are high quality and you have fun playing them, then just enjoy! I could understand this a bit more if people were saying "this game sucks", but all they seem to be saying is "this game is a sequel".
I'm not saying that some more original IP wouldn't be nice, but it gets tiring seeing all these blogs/comments/websites/etc stating the obvious.
Okami's concept screams "make me on the Nintendo DS." Does anyone else agree or is it just me?
My question is what therefore becomes an original concept for a game? Don't we really already have the most strangely unimaginable games out there? With games being the most lucrative form of entertainment and appealing to all sorts of genres we fall into the same stereotype as with movies. Every so often a gem comes out that everyone loves, but don't we still all go back to our old favorites, it's like comfort food. They become old friends and the sories and plots become our own sort of mythos. Therefore to me the idea of griping about original games is the same as griping about all the fantasy books being based on Tolkein, etc. Debate anyone?
Such as the Final Fantasy series. With the exception of Final Fantasy X-2, each game is nearly unique except for some common elements (Like the theme song, chocobos, and the fundamental underpinnings of any RPG like hit points and experience). It would be like calling episodes of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits sequels, the story is completely different, but the theme song is the same.
I've never understood what line of reasoning leads people to think that sequels are automatically a bad thing. I mean, if the sequel doesn't add anything new to the gameplay of the original, then it's bad - but that's not because it's a sequel, it's more like it's because you're overcharging for an expansion. And if a sequel is a bad game, then it's bad - but not because it's a sequel, rather it's because it's a bad game.
...but is it art?
How many not made in India?
I like how they try to respond to a cynical article about lack of originality in games by pointing out a bunch of cutesy Japanese titles (with the possible excpetion of the mech one).
And what's up with the Dynasty Warriors clone? "But it has more bad guys!!!111" It's good that someone broke the mold - and hey, maybe it's a fun game - but I wouldn't trumpet it as a genre-defying revolution in video games.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: Where are the gritty, realistic, 0% cute, immersive, nonlinear (within reason) sci-fi RPGs? Have any even been made in the past few years (other than KotOR of course)?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
The FF series, ok, it does manage to have different stories, swing between medieval and SF, and even change the game mechanics (whether it's needed or not). Duly noted, and true.
But how many others do that?
E.g., to pick on another long series of games, take Sierra's empire building games. Exactly what was the fundamental change between Caesar and Emperor: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom? I've actually had Caesar III, Pharaoh, Zeus and Emperor installed at the same time at one point to make a comparison, and make no mistake, they were the same game with different sprites.
The only noteworthy tweak I can remember was that after Pharaoh they finally introduced road-blocks, so you can make essential NPCs (e.g., those supplying a city section with food and water) move in a loop instead of wandering stupidly into the desert while everyone in town leaves in droves. Otherwise, other than changing the sprites to fit a different civilization, they just largely kept releasing the same game over and over again.
It took PopTop's Tropico to shake the status quo, and give that team the idea to finally give NPCs a brain. E.g., to have each person on the map go to the market when they're hungry, instead of having pinball supplier NPCs walking in a loop. So they dutifully produced another mindless clone, I'm talking about Immortal Cities: Children Of The Nile, except this time they cloned Tropico instead of their earlier games. (And to add insult to injury, accompanied by a mess of interviews and trailers in which they act as if they're the ones who invented that, and noone before COTN ever thought of that.)
Which brings us to another phenomenon: mindless clones of whatever sold well last year.
Worse yet: often _clueless_ clones, by people who don't even like or understand the genre, but just have to make a RPG or The Sims clone or whatever, without even understanding what people liked about those games.
And city building is used above just as an example. It's not even the worst offender. Other genres are worse offenders.
E.g., take EA's neverending series of "Some Sport 2006", where the only major difference from last year's installment are the player names. 'Nuff said.
E.g., take economic games. For every occasional gem like "Die Gilde" ("Europa 1400: The Guild"), you have about a hundred clueless "me too" exercises, often missing the whole point. Everyone and their grandma just has to imagine that giving people a rectangular area to place shops on, and slapping on a title ending in "Tycoon", is all there is to it. Actually worrying about gameplay, balance or diversity is obviously not needed.
E.g., heck, take FPS, the genre which pretty much made mainstream the practice of releasing two dozen identical games per year. Get a graphics engine, bolt on two dozen unrelated maps, and the bog-standard assortment of guns (knife, pistol, SMG, sniper rifle, shotgun, flamethrower) and call it a new game. Oh yeah, and bolt on a half-baked multiplayer mode where no thought was given to weapon balance or map layout for multiplayer, and just reused whatever the single-player game had.
In some cases the sequel not only didn't really add anything new, but was actually a step back and folded back into the comfy mediocrity of being another "me too" clone. E.g., Unreal 2. It did away with all the Unreal universe and unique weaponry (e.g., the flak gun being a unique something in between a shotgun and a grenade launcher, but not quite either), and replaced that all with a generic SF universe and generic FPS weapons (yay for having a standard shotgun again.) In fact, it was another dime-a-dozen generic FPS that only reused the franchise name.
I could go on, but methinks you get the idea already. When some of us complain about sequels, spin-offs and raping a franchise name for a quick buck, what we have in mind is the above. It doesn't mean literally that exceptions like the FF series don't exist. It just means they're just that: exceptions.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Not trying to troll here, but can someone explain why Cooking Mama is supposed to be fun?
Why not cook real meals (at a job or for the homeless) instead?
Spore looks great in screenshots and theory and all, but I'm a bit disillusioned by all the games that promised depth. The most recent one being Fable, I thought I was going to be able to do anything I wanted, and it turns out the things they presented as only a few options were ALL you could do.
:/
So, I'm waiting to see if Spore is the Holy Grail or just a Pacman/Simwhatever/Warcraft/Starcraft clone
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I hadn't seen Okami before reading this story, and the trailer was a bit slow to download - so I made a torrent for it.
Looks like a pretty cool game, but then I like cel-shaded stuff. Wish I knew WTF flossie was on about in the trailer tho.
Registering accounts later than some other chrisb since 1997
Fuck, man. At this point I wish every new game was released for the DS.
it seriously lacked content. I mean, it's basically a list of names, with screenshots.
.de, in german of course) might even put a ps2 on my shopping list.... together with katamari or what's it called...
but even though, okami (if it ever comes to
From the blurb:
"In response to a recent article from the Guardian about the lack of original games, Siliconera selected ten brand new titles set for release in 2006 to keep your eyes on."
OK, let's look at some of these "ten brand new titles":
Beatmania (Playstation 2)
After the success of Dance Dance Revolution in the USA, Konami has finally decided to bring the first Bemani game over.
So this is just another dance dance revolution but you press buttons with your hands instead of your feet... and that's not a sequel??
N3: Ninety Nine Nights (Xbox 360)
This brilliant game is developed by Q? Entertainment and action veteran Phantagram. On the surface it looks like a Dynasty Warriors clone
"Dynasty Warriors clone".... says it all really.
Every Extend Extra (PSP)
The second title from Q? Entertainment has more in kind with their other titles (Lumines and Meteos). Every Extend Extra is actually an extended version of the PC game Every Extend.
"An extended version" - heeellllooooo????
Drill Dozer (Game Boy Advance) & Exit (PSP)
Both are side scrollers - I 'm sure it would take a lot to make a new & innovative side scroller... and I'm sure I've seen a robot with a drill on his head before.
Seriously, the article is meant to be arguing that not all games are sequels, and they use these as examples?
Haydn.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
Prince of Persia: warrier within worse than sands of time
Jak and Dexter: 2 and 3 worse than 1
Zelda: Majoras mask quirkier than Ocarina of time (maybe not)
All of these were probably due to the artistic vision guys leaving the project after the first episode, leaving the sequels technically sound but suffering from committee itis.
Anyone not an otaku will read 'ookami' as something like 'ukami'. 'oo' is generally read as in 'spoon'.
It might be best to spell the name of the game 'ôkami' - I believe this was done with Shôgun Total War - which would not cause hilarious mispronunciation among average English-speakers, but simultaneously satisfy the pedantry of .jp geeks.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
RPGs always have sequels, whether they're direct like Xenosaga or indirect like Final Fantasy, so it's kind of tough to bring them up in this case. Anyway I don't think the audience for these games are so huge because of the nonlinearity aspect. People like an experience from beginning to end. Nonlinear games are so involving that 90% of the gamers that play them wouldn't see 90% of the game. Where is the incentive to produce these types of games?
Twinstiq, game news
The problem with video games is that a "sequel" does not necessarily means the same thing as with a movie. A sequel to a movie usually (most of the time) tells a story that happens after the previous one, involving the same characters. In video games, this is far from true. People tend to mix sequel (sonic 2, mario 64) with franchise (CIV4, Doom3, Elder scroll). In one case, the game usually keeps most mecanisms and in the other, the NAME is what is kept (and sometime some characters or game genre). Why do people complain about sequels? Because they are incremental improvements and we feel ripped when we just shell out $50 to by a version 1.5 (mostly the same, with new maps and some improved graphics).
TFA: "...placed virtual billboards for the Subway fast-food chain within the popular massive multiplayer online (MMO) game Counter-Strike..."
Wait a minute, I thought the mainstream media actually understood video games!
I hate being wrong.