Thursday, November 03, 2005
Unique Games
As the industry gets bigger and more mainstream it gets more expensive to make games and making unique games is not the best way to guarantee that you will recoup the cost of making the game. As a result making games in popular genres, making games similar to the most popular games, and using popular franchises is a surer bet to make up the money put into the game than going out on a limb. While there is nothing wrong with this in general, since videogame companies are businesses and making money is the primary goal, it does get disheartening when you get tons of copycat games and retreads of franchise games as opposed to more companies trying new ideas or at least new franchises. Of course this doesn't mean that sequels and even copycats are automatically bad nor does it mean that unique games are automatically good. But it is nice to see companies try.
Here are some of my favorite new takes on exisiting franchises:
Resident Evil 4 - Camera change which went with the faster gameplay and new monsters very well. Plus actually making you have to pay attention to cinematics was good.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Great adaption on the old games, great way of telling the story in-game. Sadly UBISoft took the easy, violence and genericness for the sequel which while retaining the gameplay gets muddled down in generic looking violence with the Prince's generic rage.
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - I personally thought cel-shading gave the game its own unique charm that seperates it from the other Zeldas. New takes on weapons (the grapple hook was real cool) new gameplay mechanics, and better AI for enemies (relatively) were also present in the game. It also opened up the overworld to be more expansive as opposed to the hubs of OoT and MM. Along with having the best mainstory of any Zelda and also answered the obvious question of whether there were multiple Links in the Zelda universe is a plus. The fact that this game was differant in many ways to other Zeldas shouldn't be a big surprise since every Zelda in the franchise has something(s) that seperates itself from the others in the franchise.
Metroid Prime - Answered some of the prayers of Metroid fans since '94. Did a very good of copying the feel of a Metroid game in a first-person view and also defied the idea that because it had shooting it had to a FPS. Seriously, do people consider Contra and Metroid to play the same just because they share the same perspective and look sorta kinda similar? No. So why does Metroid Prime have to be the same thing as Halo or Doom just because you shoot things from a first-person perspective.
And now my favorite unique games or franchises (new during this generation):
Katamari Damacy/We <3 Katamari - Roll a giant ball around collecting objects in the games world so you can cover up the mistake that your father the King of the Cosmos made. About as unique a game as you can get and the sequel manages to add more to the quirkiness.
ICO - This also included unique takes on genres. You lead a girl around by the hand solving puzzles and beating the odd occurance of shadow creatures. Though it sounds rather Zelda-ish (and it is) this game still is unique in a way that probably needs to played as it is hard to describe. Unique atmosphere is probably the best way to put it.
Pikmin/Pikmin 2 - As a stranded(hunting) space explorer you control a herd of plant/ant beings who do your bidding to take down monsters and recover pieces of your ship(find stuff). Like many unique games, words just don't do it justice.
Viewtiful Joe/Viewtiful Joe 2 - Revives an old favorite genre (2d, side-scrolling beat-'um up platformer) and adds it own twist to the mix. The VFX allowed for great depth and intese gameplay throughout.
Killer 7 - Violent, crude, confusing, its a lot of things. The gameplay while unique in this day and age is overshadowed by the strange (unique) presentation. Capcom could have easily made this game like any other game of its type but chose to try to make it stand out with a psychadelic presentation rare for the more violent games.
Shadow of the Colossus - I'd have probably felt bad if I forgot this recent gem. While it looks like an adventure game it isn't as much and is primarily about killing 16 Colossi and only them. Nothing else. It works amazingly well but yet again is something that is easier to get a grasp of playing then trying to describe them to others.
I'm sure there are tons more (some good, some bad) but listing them would take forever and I don't own them all (notice I didn't even put any XBox games on there but that may be for a good reason ^_^) and others idea of unique might be and probably are differant from mine. But I don't care. I'm always right anyway. I hope that we see some more unique games and franchises next generation. Sony seems willing but I don't know about MS and Nintendo seems keen on doing so. So there you go.
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Here are some of my favorite new takes on exisiting franchises:
Resident Evil 4 - Camera change which went with the faster gameplay and new monsters very well. Plus actually making you have to pay attention to cinematics was good.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Great adaption on the old games, great way of telling the story in-game. Sadly UBISoft took the easy, violence and genericness for the sequel which while retaining the gameplay gets muddled down in generic looking violence with the Prince's generic rage.
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - I personally thought cel-shading gave the game its own unique charm that seperates it from the other Zeldas. New takes on weapons (the grapple hook was real cool) new gameplay mechanics, and better AI for enemies (relatively) were also present in the game. It also opened up the overworld to be more expansive as opposed to the hubs of OoT and MM. Along with having the best mainstory of any Zelda and also answered the obvious question of whether there were multiple Links in the Zelda universe is a plus. The fact that this game was differant in many ways to other Zeldas shouldn't be a big surprise since every Zelda in the franchise has something(s) that seperates itself from the others in the franchise.
Metroid Prime - Answered some of the prayers of Metroid fans since '94. Did a very good of copying the feel of a Metroid game in a first-person view and also defied the idea that because it had shooting it had to a FPS. Seriously, do people consider Contra and Metroid to play the same just because they share the same perspective and look sorta kinda similar? No. So why does Metroid Prime have to be the same thing as Halo or Doom just because you shoot things from a first-person perspective.
And now my favorite unique games or franchises (new during this generation):
Katamari Damacy/We <3 Katamari - Roll a giant ball around collecting objects in the games world so you can cover up the mistake that your father the King of the Cosmos made. About as unique a game as you can get and the sequel manages to add more to the quirkiness.
ICO - This also included unique takes on genres. You lead a girl around by the hand solving puzzles and beating the odd occurance of shadow creatures. Though it sounds rather Zelda-ish (and it is) this game still is unique in a way that probably needs to played as it is hard to describe. Unique atmosphere is probably the best way to put it.
Pikmin/Pikmin 2 - As a stranded(hunting) space explorer you control a herd of plant/ant beings who do your bidding to take down monsters and recover pieces of your ship(find stuff). Like many unique games, words just don't do it justice.
Viewtiful Joe/Viewtiful Joe 2 - Revives an old favorite genre (2d, side-scrolling beat-'um up platformer) and adds it own twist to the mix. The VFX allowed for great depth and intese gameplay throughout.
Killer 7 - Violent, crude, confusing, its a lot of things. The gameplay while unique in this day and age is overshadowed by the strange (unique) presentation. Capcom could have easily made this game like any other game of its type but chose to try to make it stand out with a psychadelic presentation rare for the more violent games.
Shadow of the Colossus - I'd have probably felt bad if I forgot this recent gem. While it looks like an adventure game it isn't as much and is primarily about killing 16 Colossi and only them. Nothing else. It works amazingly well but yet again is something that is easier to get a grasp of playing then trying to describe them to others.
I'm sure there are tons more (some good, some bad) but listing them would take forever and I don't own them all (notice I didn't even put any XBox games on there but that may be for a good reason ^_^) and others idea of unique might be and probably are differant from mine. But I don't care. I'm always right anyway. I hope that we see some more unique games and franchises next generation. Sony seems willing but I don't know about MS and Nintendo seems keen on doing so. So there you go.
