If you’re a gamer, chances are, you certainly ain’t a strange to sequels, it’s also extremely likely that you’ve come across Activision’s power-selling franchise, Call of Duty. Modern Warfare 3 launched this week to a raving swarm of gamers, soon becoming immortalised as the quickest selling entertainment media product of all time, backed by a number of positive reviews. That didn’t stop some people however; taking to the user review system over at Metacritic, many spammed the system with negative entries, hailing MW3 as the most expensive map pack of, also blaming it for the struggle among new IPs despite not having to innovate since 2007. Is it perfectly acceptable to re-shelf the same experience year on year or should we expect studios to stray away from the copy and paste cycle?
Dan: I firmly believe that not every game on the planet HAS to innovate. So MW3 is similar to MW2? Brilliant, that’s exactly how I want it. As much as gamers shout and scream for innovation, how many are willing to take a punt when something new hits the shelves? Not many. It seems developers are damned if they do, damned if they don’t these days. The sales figures say it all really, with games like CoD and FIFA making unbelievable amounts of cash.
Kris: This is a bit of a toughie. If you’ve got a fantastic experience why not replicate it time and time again? Of course it needs tweaks to keep it fresh, if you don’t evolve at all then your fans will likely become sick of it. Some might call it the “lazy” option, but it’s also the logical one from a business perspective. As long as you put enough in to keep people coming back then why not go for very gradual evolution?
On the other hand games like Assassin’s Creed are certainly worth a mention. This will be the third year in a row that Ubisoft will have put out an adventure starring Desmond and Ezio, and there are some pretty significant differences between AC2 and Brotherhood, and it looks like Revelations will change even more. There’s no arguing that the core Assassin’s Creed gameplay is changing, but Ubisoft are more than happy to build a significant number of mechanics on top of that. To me this is the real way to do it, to create a fantastic core game and then to pile innovation after innovation on top of those, rather than just mildly tweaking those some mechanics.
Aran: Let’s face it, gaming now is all about the safe bet due to a combination of financial uncertainity and the risks of new IPs failing, like Enslaved (yes, I’m still bitter there won’t be a sequel). I don’t hate on studios for churning out sequel after sequel, their primary goal is profit after all.
However, game companies shouldn’t be afraid to take a risk every now and again otherwise the industry will stagnate. Think about it, at one point Mass Effect was a risk and at one point Assassin’s Creed was a risk. These two are huge franchises now and AC has switched to the yearly release. Really, churn out the copy and paste stuff if it’s making money but invest some of that money into new ideas and IPs.
Sympozium
Its like how I’m not bothering with Revelations so early, I’d rather wait since the money wouldn’t be worth much to me. Wouldn’t play online after fisishing the Single Player or something.
The Seperate parts is a good idea, I never bother with the online mode.
The Sequels….. eh its annoying thats all, not much games that have been released since like September are not fresh. Would like to see that but with all the big sequel theres just no chance that companies would be confident enough.
The worst… some are just like watered down… Some things in Skyrim is gone like seperate spells from like weapons which is a shame, shields doesn’t seem to block arrows great now although I can’t remember how that was so I avouid shields now…and the menus >_> its a bit akward to use K/m sometimes especially going through spells so I’ve resorted to the gamepad for nights…
Sympozium
Oh… and Ultimate Tenkaichi needs to be mentioned.. argh worst Sequel ever ruined by silly QTE and ruination of the gameplay that made Tenkaichi/Raging Blast Enjoyable.
DW: Gundam 3 even had a silly fields design, that almost ruined it more me, the huge fields and gameplay wasn’t a problem on Gundam 2 now they’ve just made it super samey.
Seeing the next game to be so limited…is so cruel.
Forrest_01
What i don’t yet understand about the splitting of a game is how this affects the platinum trophy – Surely if you have no access to multiplayer & multiplayer trophies are required to be earnt for the platinum, that essentially means you can never get it doesn’t it?
bacon_nuts
Good point.. maybe a platinum for each half of the game, if you half it. Only one if you get the whole game. Or only one if you get one half of the game, then the other (to stop double platinizing). Or maybe they could just give you half the platinum for each half of the game, that might be the easiest..
Deathbrin
Oh come on. Going this American disabled-oriented approach into competitive will mean the next Terminator game will have a Platinum for every level
R1MJAW
Indeed, as far as I’m aware the whole trophy list is added regardless of which components you buy, however in order to get said platinum trophy you would need to buy all the seperate parts (or the full game bundle).
In a related note, I really enjoyed the story mode except for the final fight which was a total nightmare … it was totally scripted. You weren’t allowed to just fight the guy, you had to basically avoid him for two rounds, land x amount of body blows in the next three, avoid him for another two rounds and then you could actually fight him.
Forrest_01
Crikey, with all that hoo-ha, i’m surprised you weren’t instructed to take a dive in the fifth! XD
R1MJAW
Indeed, it totally ruined what was quite a fun story mode.
bacon_nuts
I’m usually willing to take a gander at new IPs if they look good, sequels annoy me slightly sometimes. but yeah, I wish there more more new games, although I fully understand that it’s a huge risk and the companies would rather stick to what they know, and only take risks when they have to, much less often. Also, Dan, you can mute other players when playing online?
Omac_brother
Why bother being making new IPs when the same old Call of Duty, a £40 Map pack with a bolt on single player sells so much every year? The industry needs to change before more inventive and creative IPs are developed.
Bladesteel
“somewhat sunlight-deprived denizens ”
Yeah, the weather has been awful this summer and autumn.
“there are only so many times I can hear the word “fag” without wanting to tut ferociously.”
I think you’re overreacting here. I get that you hate interruptions to your game, but if you’re playing with randoms you’re going to have to accept that some of them will need a break for a smoke every now and then.