Thursday, February 18, 2010

new challengers




Holy crap.. LOTS of new characters!  :)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Sequels... a bit of a video game ramble

Lets talk about sequels... video-game sequels are pretty commonplace, and for a good reason.  First, they are safe for developers.  These games cost untold amounts of dollars to produce, so they want to spend it on a game they know is going to sell.  Its less risky.  Its also less risky for the consumer, since they are more likely to drop $60 on a game they know they will like, than one that is alien to them.  The only disadvantage is that with developers focusing their attention on sequels... we get fewer original and new IP's. 


That said, I just finished one sequel, and I am in the middle of another.  I finished Mass Effect 2 over the weekend and it was a brilliant game.  Better than its predecessor, and better than most games I have played in a long time.  A truly fantastic game... immediately after finishing it, I "rolled up" a new character and started again.  My second play through didn't get far due to the arrival of Bioshock 2.  Now here's a game that didn't need a sequel, but got one anyway (the developers would have been stupid to not capitalize on the first one's success).  So far it is a great game, I am not sure how it stacks up to the original just yet (need to play it more) but it is enjoyable... same great atmosphere and gameplay, with a couple new twists.  The thing that bugged me about it was that it was so similar to the first game.  But after 5 hours or so in I realized that that was a good thing, and I liked it more for that reason.  It felt like a more "in-tune" continuation of the story.



I got to thinking... maybe this is the best way to go about sequels... for example, take Halo 1-3.  Same basic style, and gameplay, but different story and setting.. all of which were enjoyable and fun.  then you have Halo:ODST, easily the best of the bunch, but not a true sequel.. same style and gameplay, but very different setting and characters form the other 3 Halo games.  More like an "off-shoot" than a sequel.  and Take Bioware (my fav. game developer of all).. they had Star Wars:KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2...  for all intents and purposes, they are all the same game.  Same style of play, same story progression structure, combat is tweaked with each one, but mostly they are the same game just in different settings with different characters and stories.  And they are all brilliant.  A lot of game are being sold as trilogies, Mass Effect among them, which is cool.  You know that you get three games to tell a story, and then, (like ODST and the up-coming Halo:Reach) you can get some off-shoots set in the same world.  This is the way to go.. and I look forward to Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, and subsequent off-shoots in their respective universes. (I really want Mass Effect 3...like now)

and of course we have the king of all sequels...  Final Fantasy!   and lucky number 13 comes out in a few weeks!  woohoo! (already got mine pre-ordered at Amazon)