I remember hating Saints Row 1 with a passion, it was a shitty, obvious clone to cash in on my beloved GTA.
Then Saints Row 2 came out, and its not art, but it took everything and made it better. And one of my favourite moments involves some on-mission convo where your accomplice changes your radio station to something he prefers and begins singing along badly to the song that is on while your guy berates him. I think they change the radio a few times there. If someone has a video of that, that'd be awesome.
I find Saints Row 2 amazingly intersting to study because... I cannot put my finger on why I find it so incredibly fun whilst I find Vice City bone crushingly boring.
Vice Citys flaw is that the second island is amazingly fucking dull, theres a HUGE dock area that does ntohing, a run down area that does next to nothing and then the fancy area at the top that does nothing and on the first island there are areas I visited for a mission like once, right at the top of the map. That first area is amazing and so the rest feels weak by comparison.
Brutal Legend basically resurrected the Action/RTS. I refer to Battlezone and Sacrifice, in which you are an individual avatar, and build units and defend a base like you would in a regular RTS, but at the same time you have to fight alongside those units. These are the only RTS games I like and I want to see more of them. I wish Halo Wars went in this direction, like getting to drive the vehicles that you build. But I must say I'm in the mood to learn Starcraft 2.
Actually someone from Shiny's Sacrifice worked on BL. But BL now sets a standard for the genre on consoles.
KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
Man, I feel like this thread was just made to talk about Darksiders.
Darksiders is like the perfect example anyone could use in regards to homage/stealing ideas.
I've flat out laughed aloud as I've come across the equivalent of Heart Pieces, and Compasses. When I found out my horse could boost his speed 5 times before he had to wait to regain some strength, I had a smirk on my face for the longest time.
However, Darksiders did something that Zelda did not. Write a good god damn story. It felt amazing that after the first dungeon, I didn't need to go to the next dungeon simply because it existed in the world
I will say though, that while Darksiders seems like a great game now. I can see that if we lived in a world where we actually had regularly scheduled Zelda clones, maybe it wouldn't be so amazing, but because I only get my Zelda fix once every 4 years (courtesy of Nintendo) then I'd love to scratch that itch more often.
Blizzard brings another point to this argument really. For as long as I can remember, Blizzard has never actually done anything innovative themselves. They've always borrowed from their competition (with maybe the exception of their CG team). While on paper, that sounds pretty lame, but Blizzard had a knack for knowing how to steal an idea, and improve on it. World of Warcraft is nothing more than every other MMO's good points combined.
However, Darksiders did something that Zelda did not. Write a good god damn story. It felt amazing that after the first dungeon, I didn't need to go to the next dungeon simply because it existed in the world
I'd say there is a big difference between having a story and having a good god damn story. Let's just reconsider in which category Darksiders belongs, here.
Anyway, I think Darksiders showed one important thing: originality is absolutely worthless, because it doesn't make a good game. Obviously, Darksiders was made by some talented guys, with the talent not all that evenly distributed probably, but talent nonetheless. While it's easy to call it another money-grubbing scheme, it's also quite a good game.
I believe that there's a simple reason why the first reaction to obvious copycats is disappointment: because copycats are always inferior. A copy can never be better than the original, unless it distracts from that shortcoming- in the case of Darksiders, the distractions are lots of new added elements, which, funny enough, are copies as well. You could take any single element from Darksiders and compare it to the game it originated from: it's worse.
And that is utterly unimportant next to the fact that it's still fun.
But that's not why most people bought Darksiders, eh? Admit it. You wanted Zelda. I wanted Zelda. I'm a little baffled as for why so few developers have ever thought of exploiting a starving fan's greed before. There might be some people who were genuinely interested in the atmosphere, on of the few entirely original aspects of the game; but who am I kidding, most people appreciated that aspect only when they started playing already.
So, in conclusion: the wish for recycled elements is, in the end, an illusion; greed, nostalgia (which is just a fancier word for greed), or just disappointment which where "new" games are going. "Old" elements, which are popular enough to be perceived as defining traits, can't sell a game forever. Come on, you already feel silly for buying another Mario or Zelda, and you just have to justify it afterwards with whatever meager changes were made. Only unknown elements can make something truly interesting, although they still don't affect quality all that much. That is pretty much the reason why sequels "in the vein of their predecessor" are, at best, refinements, but always less interesting.
My theory: Darksiders 2 will be a success, because the marketing will be great, but the reviews will be horrifying. Because then, no-one will want to excuse the copycat of a copycat.
Unless there's something new. And I really hope there is, because otherwise, I'll feel really silly for buying another Zelda again. :P
I remember hating Saints Row 1 with a passion, it was a shitty, obvious clone to cash in on my beloved GTA.
Then Saints Row 2 came out, and its not art, but it took everything and made it better. And one of my favourite moments involves some on-mission convo where your accomplice changes your radio station to something he prefers and begins singing along badly to the song that is on while your guy berates him. I think they change the radio a few times there. If someone has a video of that, that'd be awesome.
I find Saints Row 2 amazingly intersting to study because... I cannot put my finger on why I find it so incredibly fun whilst I find Vice City bone crushingly boring.
Subliminal messages hidden within Saint's Row 2's environments constantly remind you you're having fun.
Blizzard brings another point to this argument really. For as long as I can remember, Blizzard has never actually done anything innovative themselves. They've always borrowed from their competition (with maybe the exception of their CG team). While on paper, that sounds pretty lame, but Blizzard had a knack for knowing how to steal an idea, and improve on it. World of Warcraft is nothing more than every other MMO's good points combined.
Blizzard's biggest innovation that they've contributed is in World of Warcraft. Instancing was their idea. They weren't the first to get it to market, but they were the first to talk about it. When they first started talking about WoW in preview articles, one of their biggest selling points was basically just a slam against the competition (Everquest). They advertised that players would have their own copy of bosses and would not be fighting for spawns with other players. This idea was revolutionary at the time.
Of course, with Blizzard's incredibly slow and meticulous design process, other companies actually ended up beating them to release with instancing, but the idea was theirs.
I've been thinking kind of the same thing about starcraft 2. It isn't just the cover system, it is things like directional fire (being hit in the rear hurts more than the front) and map control that other RTSs have put forward. The xel'naga watch towers are a step towards map control, but only the barest baby step towards it. I think the community's expectations of starcraft 2 have limited them. Perhaps the map maker will allow you to include this sort of thing (map control, at least) but I doubt it.
Also, @Kor - WoW is not the best points of every previous MMO put together. It is new player friendly EQ with a high degree of polish. Maybe the last expansion has changed that, but WoW was disappointing to me in a lot of ways.
Actually another huge innovation that Blizz has made in WoW is the phasing quests and zones. That shit it awesome, and so far it is still unique to WoW. I'm not sure if we'll ever see other games do that, but they should because its totally badass. Phasing was introduced with WotLK.
Within a franchise, I expect games to be fairly similar. I've never really understood why people complain that zelda/mario/starcraft/god of war/etc sequels are all too samey, because the entire point of the sequel is to put out something similar so that fans of the first get more - the company makes more money without creating a new IP and the fans get more of what they want. Occasional gameplay innovations are fine, but if they put in something that drastically changes the game or throw everything out the window and make something completely different, that's no good.
I think this is what killed Sonic. After the Adventure games Sega just started churning weird spinoffs and games that were nothing like the previous ones in an apparent attempt to move more copies with gimmicks. We can see how well that turned out; and Sega is apparently going back to the classic sonic formula.
This is not to say I hate innovation; I love games that come up with fresh new concepts and implement them in crazy and fun ways. But when I go to the store and buy the next Zelda game, I'm buying it because I want to collect heart pieces and trade garbage in a quest to acquire a sword of ultimate power and crawl through dungeons; I don't want it to turn out to be a racing game half the time because nintendo felt the need to 'innovate'. If the gameplay is completely different, it should either very obviously be a spinoff (ie mario kart) or be a new IP.
Here is a fantastic example of genre evolution: Metal Gear Solid introduced us to third person stealth. Couple years later, Splinter Cell came into the game, and added lighting to the stealth considerations.
Garret would like to have a word with you.
Well, he did state 3rd person. But yes, Thief was pretty much the definitive sneaker, while MGS (at least the original) is a large part action game.
I wish another game would have sound as good as Thief had. There was separate visual/collision level geometry and sound level geometry so the sound could realistically travel through rooms and corridors, rather than just depend on distance of source. If there was a solid wall between you and the next room the only way you could hear sound from it was if there was a passage to it nearby, and even then it'd been substantially softened by the distance.
Blizzard's biggest innovation that they've contributed is in World of Warcraft. Instancing was their idea. They weren't the first to get it to market, but they were the first to talk about it. When they first started talking about WoW in preview articles, one of their biggest selling points was basically just a slam against the competition (Everquest). They advertised that players would have their own copy of bosses and would not be fighting for spawns with other players. This idea was revolutionary at the time.
Of course, with Blizzard's incredibly slow and meticulous design process, other companies actually ended up beating them to release with instancing, but the idea was theirs.
I went and looked up some date's on wikipedia. I am curious to hear about when they talked about instancing. Anarchy Online had it and it was released about 3 months prior to the announcement of WoW. Did they talk about it beforehand without mentioning the name?
I read up on phasing and yes, that does sound pretty neat.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
Within a franchise, I expect games to be fairly similar. I've never really understood why people complain that zelda/mario/starcraft/god of war/etc sequels are all too samey, because the entire point of the sequel is to put out something similar so that fans of the first get more - the company makes more money without creating a new IP and the fans get more of what they want. Occasional gameplay innovations are fine, but if they put in something that drastically changes the game or throw everything out the window and make something completely different, that's no good.
I think this is what killed Sonic. After the Adventure games Sega just started churning weird spinoffs and games that were nothing like the previous ones in an apparent attempt to move more copies with gimmicks. We can see how well that turned out; and Sega is apparently going back to the classic sonic formula.
This is not to say I hate innovation; I love games that come up with fresh new concepts and implement them in crazy and fun ways. But when I go to the store and buy the next Zelda game, I'm buying it because I want to collect heart pieces and trade garbage in a quest to acquire a sword of ultimate power and crawl through dungeons; I don't want it to turn out to be a racing game half the time because nintendo felt the need to 'innovate'. If the gameplay is completely different, it should either very obviously be a spinoff (ie mario kart) or be a new IP.
The worst are the NMA guys who insist Fallout has to be a certain way aesthetically. I'm not arguing that the Fallout 1 and 2 have superior interactions with NPCs than Fallout 3 but saying that a Fallout game is only truly Fallout if it has an isometric view and badly pixelated characters is daft.
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KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
My theory: Darksiders 2 will be a success, because the marketing will be great, but the reviews will be horrifying. Because then, no-one will want to excuse the copycat of a copycat.
Unless there's something new. And I really hope there is, because otherwise, I'll feel really silly for buying another Zelda again. :P
Well, if Darksiders 2 becomes a 4-player co-op version of Darksiders 1 (Re: Four Swords Adventure), then I am fucking sold already. The industry is already short of decent co-op games, so it's already a bonus in my mind.
Hell, just mix Darksiders, which is already a Mutt of a genre, and add some Castle Crashers in there.
Within a franchise, I expect games to be fairly similar. I've never really understood why people complain that zelda/mario/starcraft/god of war/etc sequels are all too samey, because the entire point of the sequel is to put out something similar so that fans of the first get more - the company makes more money without creating a new IP and the fans get more of what they want. Occasional gameplay innovations are fine, but if they put in something that drastically changes the game or throw everything out the window and make something completely different, that's no good.
I think this is what killed Sonic. After the Adventure games Sega just started churning weird spinoffs and games that were nothing like the previous ones in an apparent attempt to move more copies with gimmicks. We can see how well that turned out; and Sega is apparently going back to the classic sonic formula.
This is not to say I hate innovation; I love games that come up with fresh new concepts and implement them in crazy and fun ways. But when I go to the store and buy the next Zelda game, I'm buying it because I want to collect heart pieces and trade garbage in a quest to acquire a sword of ultimate power and crawl through dungeons; I don't want it to turn out to be a racing game half the time because nintendo felt the need to 'innovate'. If the gameplay is completely different, it should either very obviously be a spinoff (ie mario kart) or be a new IP.
The worst are the NMA guys who insist Fallout has to be a certain way aesthetically. I'm not arguing that the Fallout 1 and 2 have superior interactions with NPCs than Fallout 3 but saying that a Fallout game is only truly Fallout if it has an isometric view and badly pixelated characters is daft.
Nah, that's not what I meant.
Example:
Compare Super Mario 64 to Sunshine or Galaxy.
In galaxy, you're jumping to get powerups out of boxes, collecting coins, throwing stuff at goombas, etc. Stars make you invincible. Galaxy is still recognizably a mario game; but the levels are wrapped around spheres/3-d objects instead of flat planes, which adds a lot.
In sunshine, the levels are on a flat plane like 64, yet the entire gimmick of the water pack is entirely unlike anything in any other mario game, resulting in it feeling very unmariolike.
Changing engines or settings isn't what I'm talking about. They could put mario into Halo's setting but if he still collected coins, jumped on enemies to kill them, and collected powerups out of floating boxes, it'd still obviously be a mario game.
Does that analogy make any sense? What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people get core gameplay mixed up with the engine or the setting or whatever, when really the core gameplay is the basic design concepts the game was built around, whether it's "jump on enemies and pick up mushrooms to grow huge" or "an RPG set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi land with lots of NPC interaction".
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
Then you shouldn't buy sequels.
It's like going to watch Die Hard 5 and complaining that it's an action movie just like the other 4.
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
Then you shouldn't buy sequels.
It's like going to watch Die Hard 5 and complaining that it's an action movie just like the other 4.
X
Wrong. Die Hard 4 is nothing like the other 3, its a stupid, generic action film as easily forgotten as it was apparently written. John McClane hides under tables and drags his torn up feet over glass. He doesn't ride fucking Jets. [/rant]
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
Then you shouldn't buy sequels.
It's like going to watch Die Hard 5 and complaining that it's an action movie just like the other 4.
X
Wrong. Die Hard 4 is nothing like the other 3, its a stupid, generic action film as easily forgotten as it was apparently written. John McClane hides under tables and drags his torn up feet over glass. He doesn't ride fucking Jets. [/rant]
Notice I said 5 (referring to a hypothetical 5th die hard that doesn't suck), not 4, precisely because of what you just said.
I've been thinking kind of the same thing about starcraft 2. It isn't just the cover system, it is things like directional fire (being hit in the rear hurts more than the front) and map control that other RTSs have put forward. The xel'naga watch towers are a step towards map control, but only the barest baby step towards it. I think the community's expectations of starcraft 2 have limited them. Perhaps the map maker will allow you to include this sort of thing (map control, at least) but I doubt it.
Map control is already a key factor in the original SC, unless all you do is play big game hunters and other money maps.
Directional fire is unnecessary, engaging with the maximum number of units simultaneously in SC is essential to winning battles (especially for Zerg) and flanking means more of your units will attack at the same time instead of only some attacking (and dieing) while the units in the back are still moving to get into position.
Just because these things are not explicitly spelled out for you in huge neon lights doesn't mean they don't exist in SC or that they are any less important than in relic games.
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
Then you shouldn't buy sequels.
It's like going to watch Die Hard 5 and complaining that it's an action movie just like the other 4.
X
Wrong. Die Hard 4 is nothing like the other 3, its a stupid, generic action film as easily forgotten as it was apparently written. John McClane hides under tables and drags his torn up feet over glass. He doesn't ride fucking Jets. [/rant]
Notice I said 5 (referring to a hypothetical 5th die hard that doesn't suck), not 4, precisely because of what you just said.
I've been thinking kind of the same thing about starcraft 2. It isn't just the cover system, it is things like directional fire (being hit in the rear hurts more than the front) and map control that other RTSs have put forward. The xel'naga watch towers are a step towards map control, but only the barest baby step towards it. I think the community's expectations of starcraft 2 have limited them. Perhaps the map maker will allow you to include this sort of thing (map control, at least) but I doubt it.
Map control is already a key factor in the original SC, unless all you do is play big game hunters and other money maps.
Directional fire is unnecessary, engaging with the maximum number of units simultaneously in SC is essential to winning battles (especially for Zerg) and flanking means more of your units will attack at the same time instead of only some attacking (and dieing) while the units in the back are still moving to get into position.
Just because these things are not explicitly spelled out for you in huge neon lights doesn't mean they don't exist in SC or that they are any less important than in relic games.
Map control is the wrong term for what the other poster was talking about. The previous poster was specifically talking about territory control and holding map nodes. In Dawn of War, this means requisition points and power stations. And as he also mentioned, SC2 does have some territory control in the form of the Xel'naga towers. Control these and you get a big patch of fog of war revealed.
Controlling a patch of minerals is not the same because you can build a base on it. Territory control traditionally limits the amount of static fortification you can do, and instead forces you to use units as defense and play roaming defense over a larger territory.
I've been thinking kind of the same thing about starcraft 2. It isn't just the cover system, it is things like directional fire (being hit in the rear hurts more than the front) and map control that other RTSs have put forward. The xel'naga watch towers are a step towards map control, but only the barest baby step towards it. I think the community's expectations of starcraft 2 have limited them. Perhaps the map maker will allow you to include this sort of thing (map control, at least) but I doubt it.
Map control is already a key factor in the original SC, unless all you do is play big game hunters and other money maps.
Directional fire is unnecessary, engaging with the maximum number of units simultaneously in SC is essential to winning battles (especially for Zerg) and flanking means more of your units will attack at the same time instead of only some attacking (and dieing) while the units in the back are still moving to get into position.
Just because these things are not explicitly spelled out for you in huge neon lights doesn't mean they don't exist in SC or that they are any less important than in relic games.
Map control is the wrong term for what the other poster was talking about. The previous poster was specifically talking about territory control and holding map nodes. In Dawn of War, this means requisition points and power stations. And as he also mentioned, SC2 does have some territory control in the form of the Xel'naga towers. Control these and you get a big patch of fog of war revealed.
Controlling a patch of minerals is not the same because you can build a base on it. Territory control traditionally limits the amount of static fortification you can do, and instead forces you to use units as defense and play roaming defense over a larger territory.
This is true in starcraft as well - static defenses generally aren't that useful beyond acting as speedbumps because even small groups of basic units will power through them. You need to have an army intercepting the enemy, not be relying on photon cannons or bunkers or whatever.
I mean you can hyptothetically turtle the fuck out of an area and build 50000 defensive structures on it but it'd be so expensive that it'd practically guarantee you'd lose- it'd just take a long time.
Blizzard stole phasing from LOTRO. It wasn't done in exactly the same way, but they took it, polished it, and made it work better.
Honestly if there's one thing Blizzard have done very well that no MMORPG has done before it's excellent marketing plus reaching out to casual/unusal MMORPG markets.
Map control is the wrong term for what the other poster was talking about. The previous poster was specifically talking about territory control and holding map nodes. In Dawn of War, this means requisition points and power stations. And as he also mentioned, SC2 does have some territory control in the form of the Xel'naga towers. Control these and you get a big patch of fog of war revealed.
Controlling a patch of minerals is not the same because you can build a base on it. Territory control traditionally limits the amount of static fortification you can do, and instead forces you to use units as defense and play roaming defense over a larger territory.
What are map nodes? CoH and DoW had resource nodes, which are equivalent to resource fields. The primary addition was in CoH where you could cut-off resource nodes by severing their link to HQ territory. It was neat, but this primarily amounted to economy harassment and was also removed for some bizarre reason in DoW2.
And it's not just about controlling the one expansion, you can control entire sections of map and their expansions by holding key points in the map. Sometimes securing expansions is not even the goal of map control, denying your opponent scouting or preventing harassment for example. Xel'Naga watchtowers are also not some kind of step towards whatever, they just provide vision over an area - something that a couple of zerglings could accomplish previously (which you'd still be required to hold a certain territory for them continue functioning as scouts).
As for the static fortifications thing, Arkan explained that pretty well. I'll just add that you must not have played CoH much, where static fortification was integral in any team game and in a lot of Brit and Wehr strategies in general.
Map node was just a generic term I used for control point. And controlling a choke point is not the same thing as having control points on a map. Its just a different type of resource management. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I like both. I enjoy base building, and personally I consider base building to be a staple of the RTS genre. I grew up with Warcraft and Command and Conquer, both of which have substantial base building. Of course, I also enjoy squad tactics games such as DoW2 and CoH. I think there's definitely room for both.
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
Then you shouldn't buy sequels.
It's like going to watch Die Hard 5 and complaining that it's an action movie just like the other 4.
Not really, it's like going to see a movie series that didn't switch to color, because the originals were in black and white.
It depends on whether you view a particular facet as a stylistic aspect of the game, which just changes the purpose and focus of the gameplay, or a holdover from an older era where we just hadn't had the idea that would eliminate the headache yet. Like adventure games moving away from the big rows of action buttons, or text parsers.
I remember hating Saints Row 1 with a passion, it was a shitty, obvious clone to cash in on my beloved GTA.
Then Saints Row 2 came out, and its not art, but it took everything and made it better. And one of my favourite moments involves some on-mission convo where your accomplice changes your radio station to something he prefers and begins singing along badly to the song that is on while your guy berates him. I think they change the radio a few times there. If someone has a video of that, that'd be awesome.
I find Saints Row 2 amazingly intersting to study because... I cannot put my finger on why I find it so incredibly fun whilst I find Vice City bone crushingly boring.
Subliminal messages hidden within Saint's Row 2's environments constantly remind you you're having fun.
They certainly packed those subliminals in when I based jumped of the penthouse suite's balcony down the hotel's atrium while the bombs I planted went off around me. I had as much fun in that 5 seconds as I've had in the previous year of gaming. I actually squealed with delight.
It's kind of weird to me to see people defending base building in the new starcraft. That was definitely one aspect of the genre that I hoped was gone for good. But then, I'm not much of an rts'er.
You will take my base building from my cold dead hands.
Here is a fantastic example of genre evolution: Metal Gear Solid introduced us to third person stealth. Couple years later, Splinter Cell came into the game, and added lighting to the stealth considerations.
Garret would like to have a word with you.
Well, he did state 3rd person. But yes, Thief was pretty much the definitive sneaker, while MGS (at least the original) is a large part action game.
I wish another game would have sound as good as Thief had. There was separate visual/collision level geometry and sound level geometry so the sound could realistically travel through rooms and corridors, rather than just depend on distance of source. If there was a solid wall between you and the next room the only way you could hear sound from it was if there was a passage to it nearby, and even then it'd been substantially softened by the distance.
Tenchu actually came out before MGS and it did both 3rd person stealth and used Light.... Not to mention sounds too.
Posts
Vice Citys flaw is that the second island is amazingly fucking dull, theres a HUGE dock area that does ntohing, a run down area that does next to nothing and then the fancy area at the top that does nothing and on the first island there are areas I visited for a mission like once, right at the top of the map. That first area is amazing and so the rest feels weak by comparison.
Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKdV7aMMK10
And the best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1hyY__CkoQ
Actually someone from Shiny's Sacrifice worked on BL. But BL now sets a standard for the genre on consoles.
Action/RTS
Darksiders is like the perfect example anyone could use in regards to homage/stealing ideas.
I've flat out laughed aloud as I've come across the equivalent of Heart Pieces, and Compasses. When I found out my horse could boost his speed 5 times before he had to wait to regain some strength, I had a smirk on my face for the longest time.
However, Darksiders did something that Zelda did not. Write a good god damn story. It felt amazing that after the first dungeon, I didn't need to go to the next dungeon simply because it existed in the world
I will say though, that while Darksiders seems like a great game now. I can see that if we lived in a world where we actually had regularly scheduled Zelda clones, maybe it wouldn't be so amazing, but because I only get my Zelda fix once every 4 years (courtesy of Nintendo) then I'd love to scratch that itch more often.
Blizzard brings another point to this argument really. For as long as I can remember, Blizzard has never actually done anything innovative themselves. They've always borrowed from their competition (with maybe the exception of their CG team). While on paper, that sounds pretty lame, but Blizzard had a knack for knowing how to steal an idea, and improve on it. World of Warcraft is nothing more than every other MMO's good points combined.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
I'd say there is a big difference between having a story and having a good god damn story. Let's just reconsider in which category Darksiders belongs, here.
Anyway, I think Darksiders showed one important thing: originality is absolutely worthless, because it doesn't make a good game. Obviously, Darksiders was made by some talented guys, with the talent not all that evenly distributed probably, but talent nonetheless. While it's easy to call it another money-grubbing scheme, it's also quite a good game.
I believe that there's a simple reason why the first reaction to obvious copycats is disappointment: because copycats are always inferior. A copy can never be better than the original, unless it distracts from that shortcoming- in the case of Darksiders, the distractions are lots of new added elements, which, funny enough, are copies as well. You could take any single element from Darksiders and compare it to the game it originated from: it's worse.
And that is utterly unimportant next to the fact that it's still fun.
But that's not why most people bought Darksiders, eh? Admit it. You wanted Zelda. I wanted Zelda. I'm a little baffled as for why so few developers have ever thought of exploiting a starving fan's greed before. There might be some people who were genuinely interested in the atmosphere, on of the few entirely original aspects of the game; but who am I kidding, most people appreciated that aspect only when they started playing already.
So, in conclusion: the wish for recycled elements is, in the end, an illusion; greed, nostalgia (which is just a fancier word for greed), or just disappointment which where "new" games are going. "Old" elements, which are popular enough to be perceived as defining traits, can't sell a game forever. Come on, you already feel silly for buying another Mario or Zelda, and you just have to justify it afterwards with whatever meager changes were made. Only unknown elements can make something truly interesting, although they still don't affect quality all that much. That is pretty much the reason why sequels "in the vein of their predecessor" are, at best, refinements, but always less interesting.
My theory: Darksiders 2 will be a success, because the marketing will be great, but the reviews will be horrifying. Because then, no-one will want to excuse the copycat of a copycat.
Unless there's something new. And I really hope there is, because otherwise, I'll feel really silly for buying another Zelda again. :P
Subliminal messages hidden within Saint's Row 2's environments constantly remind you you're having fun.
Blizzard's biggest innovation that they've contributed is in World of Warcraft. Instancing was their idea. They weren't the first to get it to market, but they were the first to talk about it. When they first started talking about WoW in preview articles, one of their biggest selling points was basically just a slam against the competition (Everquest). They advertised that players would have their own copy of bosses and would not be fighting for spawns with other players. This idea was revolutionary at the time.
Of course, with Blizzard's incredibly slow and meticulous design process, other companies actually ended up beating them to release with instancing, but the idea was theirs.
Also, @Kor - WoW is not the best points of every previous MMO put together. It is new player friendly EQ with a high degree of polish. Maybe the last expansion has changed that, but WoW was disappointing to me in a lot of ways.
I think this is what killed Sonic. After the Adventure games Sega just started churning weird spinoffs and games that were nothing like the previous ones in an apparent attempt to move more copies with gimmicks. We can see how well that turned out; and Sega is apparently going back to the classic sonic formula.
This is not to say I hate innovation; I love games that come up with fresh new concepts and implement them in crazy and fun ways. But when I go to the store and buy the next Zelda game, I'm buying it because I want to collect heart pieces and trade garbage in a quest to acquire a sword of ultimate power and crawl through dungeons; I don't want it to turn out to be a racing game half the time because nintendo felt the need to 'innovate'. If the gameplay is completely different, it should either very obviously be a spinoff (ie mario kart) or be a new IP.
I wish another game would have sound as good as Thief had. There was separate visual/collision level geometry and sound level geometry so the sound could realistically travel through rooms and corridors, rather than just depend on distance of source. If there was a solid wall between you and the next room the only way you could hear sound from it was if there was a passage to it nearby, and even then it'd been substantially softened by the distance.
I went and looked up some date's on wikipedia. I am curious to hear about when they talked about instancing. Anarchy Online had it and it was released about 3 months prior to the announcement of WoW. Did they talk about it beforehand without mentioning the name?
I read up on phasing and yes, that does sound pretty neat.
The worst are the NMA guys who insist Fallout has to be a certain way aesthetically. I'm not arguing that the Fallout 1 and 2 have superior interactions with NPCs than Fallout 3 but saying that a Fallout game is only truly Fallout if it has an isometric view and badly pixelated characters is daft.
Well, if Darksiders 2 becomes a 4-player co-op version of Darksiders 1 (Re: Four Swords Adventure), then I am fucking sold already. The industry is already short of decent co-op games, so it's already a bonus in my mind.
Hell, just mix Darksiders, which is already a Mutt of a genre, and add some Castle Crashers in there.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Nah, that's not what I meant.
Example:
Compare Super Mario 64 to Sunshine or Galaxy.
In galaxy, you're jumping to get powerups out of boxes, collecting coins, throwing stuff at goombas, etc. Stars make you invincible. Galaxy is still recognizably a mario game; but the levels are wrapped around spheres/3-d objects instead of flat planes, which adds a lot.
In sunshine, the levels are on a flat plane like 64, yet the entire gimmick of the water pack is entirely unlike anything in any other mario game, resulting in it feeling very unmariolike.
Changing engines or settings isn't what I'm talking about. They could put mario into Halo's setting but if he still collected coins, jumped on enemies to kill them, and collected powerups out of floating boxes, it'd still obviously be a mario game.
Does that analogy make any sense? What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people get core gameplay mixed up with the engine or the setting or whatever, when really the core gameplay is the basic design concepts the game was built around, whether it's "jump on enemies and pick up mushrooms to grow huge" or "an RPG set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi land with lots of NPC interaction".
I am also one of those people who values originality way more than polish, though. I usually much prefer playing through a somewhat crappy brand new game, then a well done remake.
Then you shouldn't buy sequels.
It's like going to watch Die Hard 5 and complaining that it's an action movie just like the other 4.
X
Wrong. Die Hard 4 is nothing like the other 3, its a stupid, generic action film as easily forgotten as it was apparently written. John McClane hides under tables and drags his torn up feet over glass. He doesn't ride fucking Jets. [/rant]
Notice I said 5 (referring to a hypothetical 5th die hard that doesn't suck), not 4, precisely because of what you just said.
Map control is already a key factor in the original SC, unless all you do is play big game hunters and other money maps.
Directional fire is unnecessary, engaging with the maximum number of units simultaneously in SC is essential to winning battles (especially for Zerg) and flanking means more of your units will attack at the same time instead of only some attacking (and dieing) while the units in the back are still moving to get into position.
Just because these things are not explicitly spelled out for you in huge neon lights doesn't mean they don't exist in SC or that they are any less important than in relic games.
We cool blood *fist bump*
Map control is the wrong term for what the other poster was talking about. The previous poster was specifically talking about territory control and holding map nodes. In Dawn of War, this means requisition points and power stations. And as he also mentioned, SC2 does have some territory control in the form of the Xel'naga towers. Control these and you get a big patch of fog of war revealed.
Controlling a patch of minerals is not the same because you can build a base on it. Territory control traditionally limits the amount of static fortification you can do, and instead forces you to use units as defense and play roaming defense over a larger territory.
This is true in starcraft as well - static defenses generally aren't that useful beyond acting as speedbumps because even small groups of basic units will power through them. You need to have an army intercepting the enemy, not be relying on photon cannons or bunkers or whatever.
I mean you can hyptothetically turtle the fuck out of an area and build 50000 defensive structures on it but it'd be so expensive that it'd practically guarantee you'd lose- it'd just take a long time.
Honestly if there's one thing Blizzard have done very well that no MMORPG has done before it's excellent marketing plus reaching out to casual/unusal MMORPG markets.
What are map nodes? CoH and DoW had resource nodes, which are equivalent to resource fields. The primary addition was in CoH where you could cut-off resource nodes by severing their link to HQ territory. It was neat, but this primarily amounted to economy harassment and was also removed for some bizarre reason in DoW2.
And it's not just about controlling the one expansion, you can control entire sections of map and their expansions by holding key points in the map. Sometimes securing expansions is not even the goal of map control, denying your opponent scouting or preventing harassment for example. Xel'Naga watchtowers are also not some kind of step towards whatever, they just provide vision over an area - something that a couple of zerglings could accomplish previously (which you'd still be required to hold a certain territory for them continue functioning as scouts).
As for the static fortifications thing, Arkan explained that pretty well. I'll just add that you must not have played CoH much, where static fortification was integral in any team game and in a lot of Brit and Wehr strategies in general.
Not really, it's like going to see a movie series that didn't switch to color, because the originals were in black and white.
It depends on whether you view a particular facet as a stylistic aspect of the game, which just changes the purpose and focus of the gameplay, or a holdover from an older era where we just hadn't had the idea that would eliminate the headache yet. Like adventure games moving away from the big rows of action buttons, or text parsers.
Once you've played with tactical zoom, trying to play any rts without it is like trying to play and order units about without using the mouse.
They certainly packed those subliminals in when I based jumped of the penthouse suite's balcony down the hotel's atrium while the bombs I planted went off around me. I had as much fun in that 5 seconds as I've had in the previous year of gaming. I actually squealed with delight.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
You will take my base building from my cold dead hands.
Tenchu actually came out before MGS and it did both 3rd person stealth and used Light.... Not to mention sounds too.