304: Evolution, Not Deviation

[ANeM]

Your points on DA2 didn't really resonate with me. I don't mind that they wanted to change the combat system, the one in DA1 was utterly dreadful. I don't mind that they wanted a change of cast and setting, that is pretty normal for RPGs (including changing the main character). I don't even mind that the game took the focus off the Grey Wardens.

What bothers me is the design choices. They set the game in a single city, but the city itself is very bland, almost entirely lacking in personality, and basically does not change for the entire ten years of the game. Then on top of that it is reusing the same three dungeons for absolutely everything in the entire game? You're right, I'm mad that DA2 is not "More of the same" in that regard, because DA:O certainly did not have such a hack-job world design, and if it did reuse dungeons it certainly did a better job of hiding it.

As for the change of story, well.. What story? I admit that DA:O was pretty upfront when it came to laying down your motivation (Kill them darkspawn) but I quit DA2 well over half way through the game and can not for the life of me tell you what the over-arching narrative was. As best as I can tell I was playing through some fantasy reinterpretation of the A-Team, a bunch of semi-shifty, but good hearted dudes running around solving everyones problems.

As for the combat, they replaced two second TPKs due to not spending 20 minutes planning beforehand with waves upon waves of cannon fodder materializing out of thin air, with no way of telling when they will actually stop, giving the player no concrete way of measuring their progress or success in battle until after the fight is over. As far as I am concerned both are pretty horrible mechanics, though the first one is more frustrating.. I guess that is an improvement, of sorts.

I'm not mad about change, I'm mad about all the things the game expects me to look past in order to get even a glimmer of enjoyment from it.
The game sold itself as an epic fantasy rpg, and it isn't. If the epic doesn't start in the first ten hours it isn't epic. Hell, if a game is released on a developer that prides themselves on providing 80+ hour single-player narratives is repeating content en mass within the first two hours, it is NOT epic.
It is a bad television serial.

Then there was the "ever-changing world" Bioware claimed we'd take part in. Somehow what we got was the complete opposite. Not only does the world never change, but it goes out of its way to feel completely the same everywhere you go, so much that caves situated twenty miles apart have the same god damned rock formations.
Really the only promise DA2 managed to keep was its "New visual style" which was a shocking transformation from "Extremely generic fantasy rpg" to "slightly less generic fantasy rpg"

I'm fine with studios wanting to do something different with their franchises, but when "something different" is inarguably rushed product*. Sure, it is impressive for how rushed it is, but impressive garbage is still garbage.

*Seriously, try to argue that all those repeated assets are not only not a product of the <12 month development cycle, but also that they are somehow a positive feature. Maybe you can base said argument on how players will never get lost

 

[beema]

Oooh, I don't know about your Fallout 3 example. I mean, personally I agree with it, but I know there are a lot of people on here that will tell you you are completely f'ing insane for suggesting that, and that F3 is buffalo turd compared to 1 & 2.

General George Armstrong Custer will become 22% more racist than before.

lol
Why did they decide to use this throw-away joke as the pull-quote for page 1?? hahaha

festooned

Oh hell yes. I love that word. You get points for using it.

 

[CopperBoom]

Weird that way the author kept referring to nipples.

No one else think that?
No one else curious about his nipple obsession?

 

[Nimcha]

Great article. And I'm not too worried. The people who cried over DA2 will always be crying about something, because they're old and think they're entitled to something because of that.

 

[Theysaid]

...

I think that a big problem with follow up games, and Hollywood re-imaginings of franchises as well, is that they are boringly conformist and safe to the point where anyone with a pulse finds them disgusting. They look back at the originals which seem strange, unique and memorable compared to the mass of content that is made using the conventional wisdom of the day. Then a remake or sequel is planned but the people remaking arrogantly think they can do better by sensibly applying current conventional wisdom and the essence is lost.

This is exactly what happened with Deus Ex, the leads are on record as saying so. They made the original as something dangerous and crazy to shame their fellow developers who were taking the safe option and gamers loved it. But one person complaining is louder than ten happy people so they lost their nerve with the sequel and made the sequel safer. I would also say that Dragon Age 2 is a significantly safer game than Dragon Age: Origins, at least in design if not in the end result in terms of public opinion.

What is the spirit of the original games that needs to be preserved? I would say that with some games if you ask ten different people you will get ten different answers so that a game re-imagined by one person is likely to disappoint a lot of people. In that case talking about the "spirit" of the game is only likely to anger people who think that the spirit of the original has been totally lost. You can't capture lightening in a bottle.

I think that another way to say "playing it safe" in this case is "how can we appeal to a larger audience?" I believe that's what happens when sequels seem much different than the original. The follow up to Deus Ex (Invisible War) was clearly an attempt to appeal to more people. It was nice enough not to call itself "Deus Ex 2" because it took out a lot of details from the first game that perhaps some players didn't like. But many that liked the original were disappointed.

Same goes for Dragon Age 2 (which should have at least followed Deus Ex's example and not used "2" in the title). It is not a sequel to DA:O. It is a shift in gears to a larger audience. And even if its combat changes made a lot of people happy, it was still a disappointment due to some of the trimming of the game to get it out of the door sooner (as previously mentioned by others -- reusing the same dungeon, etc). My personal opinion about Dragon Age: Don't hype DA:O as the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate then make the sequel devoid of that spirit. I'm not saying don't make a game like DA2, just don't market it as a true sequel.

I understand that companies want to sell more copies. But when they take a game that was critically acclaimed and try to make it "more accessible" or appeal to a larger audience, it would be nice if they could be a little more clear about their intent. On the other hand, as a player, I won't go out and pre-order or blindly buy any more sequels. That way I can get a better understanding of a developer's intent through reviews.

 

[Marohen]

"And yet, many negative reviews cite the lack of a consistent set of characters between games as well as the far more personal and ultimately less epic storyline. [Dragon Age 2]"

I hate the game because the combat was boring and repetitive and its reliance on Skinner Box quest design to overshadow the lack of a clear and compelling plot. Here's a game where I was never really interested in playing but couldn't put down once I started purely due to completest compulsion.

That being said, I wasn't really bothered by the different characters, in many ways I find them and their interactions to be superior to their Origins counterpart.

This example and its reasoning irked me, is all.

 

[Canadish]

Yeah...I read the article.
I understand what the writer is saying, but his points about Dragon Age 2 were weak.
He's just doing the same thing as the Lead Designer of the game, blaming gamers for not enjoying it because it was "different". That was not the problem. I thought it would be, but it turns out there was bigger issues.

I didn't enjoy Dragon Age 2 because it was a poorly done, rushed game.
It reused environments, it had enemies appear out of nowhere right in front of you, it ignored your "choices", it's world was Tiny even without the reused environments, quests involved nothing but murdering people, and to top it off, was buggy as all hell.
This is just unacceptable from a AAA title. Its utterly lazy, sloppy design.

Did everyone working for the Escapist get some super special magic copy of the game that was twice as big, with variety in gameplay and had all the bugs fixed? Because all the sites staff seem to praise and defend it, always falling back on that silly defense, blaming gamers for not having fun. It's ridiculous.

While I would agree designers should try do different things, they should not mess with the core of what a franchise is. Start a new franchise is you want to try something wild that doesn't fit with a current one either in terms of gameplay, or lore.
(That or make it very clear that you are doing a deviation. Dont lie to people and trick them into thinking it's like the original)

Dragon Age 1, low fantasy RPG.
Dragon Age 2, High fantasy Action game with heavy RPG influence.

Final Fantasy used to be really good at innovation while maintaining the soul of the previous titles, but it all went downhill after 10-2, and all the talent left Square. Perhaps it had something to do with it becoming Square-Enix.
Regardless since then, it's just lost the magic that made it Final Fantasy. Now the franchise is just a big budget JPRG series.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Did everyone working for the Escapist get some super special magic copy of the game that was twice as big, with variety in gameplay and had all the bugs fixed? Because all the sites staff seem to praise and defend it, always falling back on that silly defense, blaming gamers for not having fun. It's ridiculous.

While I would agree designers should try do different things, they should not mess with the core of what a franchise is. Start a new franchise is you want to try something wild that doesn't fit with a current one either in terms of gameplay, or lore.
(That or make it very clear that you are doing a deviation. Dont lie to people and trick them into thinking it's like the original)

This is why I didn't buy the game myself. There were too many "uncertainties" about it. I loved the first one to death, and was upset that Bioware felt the need to "change it" for a mainstream feel. It was one of the more critically acclaimed games to come along in a while! Is that not a clue that they did something right when they created it? The only thing bad about it I ever heard was that being a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, people were disappointed that it wasn't multiplayer like its predecessor's were.

Then the second one comes along to "mainstream" the game, for a "wider audience". I started getting my first little nigglings of doubt when they said that, and rather than pre-order like I did the first one, I would wait to read reviews. And the giant mix between professionals and amateur reviews keeps me away. I'm not about to blow money on something that I may not like, and considering I can't return it if I don't, it keeps me away from buying it.

Bioware created too much doubt in me from the get-go by not staying "true" to the new IP they created, especially since from everything I have read, it is most definately a de-evolution from the first.

 

[Yukichin]

I agree that it needs to capture the essence of the game, the feel of it. What I find disappointing is when people insist that because there's one change they disagree with, IT TOTALLY RUINS EVERYTHING.

For instance, Silent Hill. I feel like all the entries so far--besides Homecoming, since I haven't played it--have captured Silent Hill in some form, whether it be psychological stories (particularly Shattered Memories) or the atmosphere (all the other games). Yet because they change things up even just a little bit, some of the fans complain, which quite honestly irritates me.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I think that another way to say "playing it safe" in this case is "how can we appeal to a larger audience?"

That's not what I meant and it's not what the Ion Storm people thought thinking about the game in post mortem terms. The problem wasn't that they were asking what they could do to make the game appeal to more people but what they could do to make the game better in that their friends in the "village" of game developers and journalists respected it more rather than build directly on the original which was respected more by the "nation" of gamers than the "village" of insiders. I think that now, more of those gamers who loved it have entered the industry so it may be more respected.

Industry insiders sometimes say that certain things have to be done to make games "appeal to a wider audience." Other times they say things need to be done to advance the medium as art or just because it is good modern design. But too often it is just insular thinking by people who are not connected enough with the people who play the games. Don't you find it weird how game journalists and developers get really angry and paranoid when people carry on liking games that do what they always liked instead of whatever favourite industry trend or buzzword game they are in love with?

 

[The Random One]

Interesting points. The thing with sequels being 'betrayals', you see, is that it's betraying people's expectations of it. I'm all for brand new innovative things, but if you want to be brand new and innovative, then why is there a 2 in your game's title? Innovation should be tackled from the beginning, not tacked in as a feature. And it's sad that I can understand the devs' motivation to slap their new ideas to a known franchise to calm down the fidgety investors, but once you're releasing an FPS as a sequel to an RTS my sympathy quickly vanishes. (I don't care if people prefer known quantities. I don't. I'll always choose the unpolished new idea over the polished well-threaded one. I don't deserve this.)

Then again, in an industry where even the new IPs are best described as except with actual creativity is hard to come by.

There are two games that I would consider to be good games but bad sequels. The fist is Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I loved the game, and loved the new prince's medieval Duke Nukem style. (Mostly because I had a 'Cube and didn't even know what God of War was.) But I couldn't enjoy it much because I knew it meant the Prince from the first game - the spoiled teenager who had a strange love-hate chemistry with the archer girl and who monologued while leaping from ledge to ledge - was gone. I liked both characters, but wouldn't trade one for the other given the choice; I wasn't given it.

And the other game is GTAIV. GTAIV is actually a game I hated while playing but now think fondly of. It was an attempt to push games as a medium as far as it could go, and it had some of the most humane characters I've seen in gamings, and it could rival those in many other media (even if to balance it out the rest of the caracters stepped right out of the Bag O' Stereotypes). It had an understated, grim tone that informed its visual and gameplay and created a truly hopeless world. It was great. But it wasn't GTA. GTA is the game in which you steal cars and drive them off cliffs. GTA is the game in which I would with much difficulty drive a hovercraft up a mountain and then drive off its cliff to see how long it would fly for and how many sections I could add to a luggage cart I would them tow with a tow truck. Eventually, I was resigned to the fact that GTAIV was the best Driver game I had ever played, and then went on to play my favourite GTA game, Saints' Row 2.

And I think at some point this year I'll add a third game to this list: Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. Yeah I know it sold as well as sand on the desert. I don't care. Sandbox games in a Mario style world? That's a fucking awesome idea. But what the hell happened to my 3D platformers? I used to like those!

 

[pezwitch]

Did everyone working for the Escapist get some super special magic copy of the game that was twice as big, with variety in gameplay and had all the bugs fixed? Because all the sites staff seem to praise and defend it, always falling back on that silly defense, blaming gamers for not having fun. It's ridiculous.

While I would agree designers should try do different things, they should not mess with the core of what a franchise is. Start a new franchise is you want to try something wild that doesn't fit with a current one either in terms of gameplay, or lore.
(That or make it very clear that you are doing a deviation. Dont lie to people and trick them into thinking it's like the original)

Dragon Age 1, low fantasy RPG.
Dragon Age 2, High fantasy Action game with heavy RPG influence.

I am one of the people who thought DA2 was a betrayal because Bioware marketed DA:O as an RPG (they marketed it so hard they based a pen and paper game on it) and DA2 seemed to have most of the RPG elements pulled out of it.

Now, having said that, I do not begrudge game designers changing franchises. Warcraft is one of my favorite franchises and there is a huge difference between Orcs & Humans and WoW. Blizzard did it right though - they slowly changed their franchise from an RTS to an MMO. And it worked.

Another franchise whose sequel worked is Portal. There is much more character development in Portal 2 than there is in Portal, more history, different types of areas to explore... It is a beautiful, practically perfect sequel.

I actually was hoping for more Portal and less Dragon Age in this article.

 

[thejackyl]

I'm reminded of the contrast between Legend of Zelda and Legend of Zelda II: The Adventures of Link. Mind you I believe both are good games. But I think more games should do games like this.

Or rather, do more spin-off games, so to speak. For example:

Spoiler: Rant about Halo

You want a Halo game, you are going to look for the big word "HALO" on the front cover. You see 5 or 6 options (forgive me if I miss some).

Halo
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo: ODST
Halo: Reach
Halo Wars

5 are FPS, 1 is an RTS. How many fans of the FPS titles picked up Wars and figured it was a continuation of the FPS franchise, as a FPS game. Some people will like this, some people will hate it, but at the end of the day if you're pissed off that you thought you were buying an FPS, only to find out its an RTS you only have yourself to blame for not flipping the box over... Now what was I saying?

Now, RTS's aren't ground breaking or anything special, but it is nice for a change of pace from the established ground of FPS. Was it a good game? I don't know I haven't played anything past Halo 1.

Spoiler: Rant about Resident Evil

Resident Evil is another good and bad example of this. Survival Horror was new water back when it came out. (okay when Alone in the Dark came out) and it got 5 good games (I've only played 0,1,2,3, and CV) with the established pre-render background, stationary camera scheme. And later comes RE4. Gone were the inventory management issues, and the camera (not controls, they were the same) issues, and we also have a new style of game play. Great. Than RE5 comes along and... it's more of the same established by RE4, but added nothing new, apart from an annoying partner system, which was annoying in RE0 and is still annoying in RE5.

Another thing, after playing the newer ones, and coming back to the old ones... you know which ones I like better? The originals (2 being my favorite).

Hell, even taking an FPS engine and trying different things with it. In the end, you still have a first person game, but you might have something greater.

Portal - First Person Puzzle Platformer
Amnesia - First Person Survival Horror, with no weaponry
Condemned - First Person "Shooter", with a strong focus on melee combat

After all this I have been thinking about my game buying habits. If I like a series, I like being able to know roughly what to expect before I buy it. But I would like my new games to add something new to the table. Even though it really isn't necessary (See Uncharted 2, I thought it was a pretty good game, despite not pushing any envelopes)

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I'm sorry, but I've played Deus Ex 2 and it was really bad. I didn't feel any betrayal, I knew what I was getting into and prepared myself for the badness. It still was horrible to play.

 

[VonBrewskie]

This article reminded me of something. I hope I am not flamed into ashes for mentioning this, but the Socom franchise suffers from a debilitating form of addiction: Socom 2ism. Every person that has invested time in the Socom franchise seems to say the same thing: "Give us an HD version of Socom 2. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Just give us what we want." I feel like so many die-hard fans ignore the advancements in the series because it's "Not Socom 2 HD." I feel like the developers are held hostage by we, the gamers in this case. I was happy to see that Socom 4 took a step towards increasing the accessiblity of the series, but was dissapointed that the game no longer has that kernal of familiarity I want from a Socom title. The article mentions how a game needs that kernal to not feel like a betrayal. I think that's why die-hards have been clamoring for Socom 2 HD for so long. Socom 2 was the last title that truly "felt" like a Socom title. I would like that magic I felt the first time I played Socom 2 to be recreated, not necessarily in an HD remix, but in a sequel that truly develops the series.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

It's why I love Super Mario Galaxy. Dragon Age 2. God of War. Donkey Kong Country Returns. The Assassins Creed titles where it's all about free running and stabbing dudes. The feel of the game, as the games I love. It's why I'm excited for the new Kirby, and the new Zelda. Because they are exactly how I know the games to feel, and they feel just like it. And I love them for it.

 

[Phishfood]

Well the answer to this kind of IP confusion isobviously to make a new IP. But that defeats the object of the recognition of a brand. Therefore i think the safest thing to do it for gods sake Manage Expectation. If you are going to make a weird offshoot of your game make it obvious simply by the title; remove it from the main series like was done with things like Halo Wars. Right opf the bat people were told "This is not a main halo game, it is an RTS off-shoot", stil had thr halo brand but expectations were at least partyl managed.

Pretty much what I'm thinking. I'm sure Deus ex 2 [spits] was a good game if you had never played the original. I'm betting the new XCOM game [spits again] will be good if you like FPS games but to us X-Com fans its a piece of junk. I like burgers, I like pizza but if I order a burger and you bring me a pizza I will complain.

The two Deus Ex Games and the one pile of shit in the middle do show one good way to do sequels - keep the story, keep the universe but drop the main character. Die Hard 2 would have been at least 95% as good if it had been someone else playing a different character, possibly better. Heck, looking at the glut of superhero movies lately they show a prime example of why sequels can be worse - The fun part of Iron|Bat|Spider man 1 over 2 was that in 1 you get to see them develop from human to superhuman.

Saying all that, I never finished DAO and never played any of the DLC because I got to about 40 hours in and just got sick of the mechanics. I got sick of parking the mages in the rear, putting the fighters up front and clicking through the same sequence of abilities and such for each fight. This is also the main reason I haven't bought DA2, I got bored of the mechanics of the game.

 

[UnclGhost]

It's probably worth noting in the article that the entire point of Metal Gear Solid 2 was to directly question why you were expecting what you were expecting.

 

[veloper]

That's 3 pages only to reach a very vague conclusion:

To make a sequel outside the comfort zone, beyond the "do the same thing, only bigger" attitude, you have to grab hold of what lies at the heart of a game property. And what lies at the heart isn't necessarily its mechanics, its characters, or its graphics. It can be, but every property is different. At the center of each game universe lurks a unique feel, a kernel of origin that, when maintained, can grow a whole separate game that still feels like a proper scion of the original.

The core gameplay mechanics should always remain. This isn't different for any property. If there's a story in the original, the story in the sequel should atleast be somewhat consistent in tone and lore to the first one.

This is not what makes a good sequel though and the question asked here isn't so relevant.
A good sequel can sometimes be nothing more than taking a good game and then making it even better, fixing the flaws in the original and doing more interesting things with the basic concept.

Most of the examples of failed sequels in this piece, didn't fail because they played it too safe or differed too much, but because the originals were better games.

 

[zinho73]

I think that because of all the nonsensical rage on the internets, people are mixing arguments on why Dragon Age is not a worthy sequel. To me there`s nothing to do with the intimate story. Intimate story can be great, but DA2 story is flat and really goes nowhere. Dialogues are great, banter is great, but the story do not deliver a sense of accomplishment. I`m not talking about saving the world, but nothing you do matter much. And if you asked me what defines a Bioware game I would say that it is not that "the story is the game". What defines a Bioware game (story related) is choice. Without meaningful choices (or at least the illusion of), the game just feels wrong.

And I`m not talking about just dialogue choices. I mean choice of armour, choice of classes, choice of background, choice of companion`s roles, choice of tactics, choice of camera angle, I could go on.

Beyond that, DA2 was clearly a rushed project, with technical glitches and various design decisions that are there not to be different and bold, but to cut corners.

The fact that it is still a relativelly good game speaks volumes of Bioware talent, but it is definitely not a worthy sequel and would be much more accepted if it was released as Dragon Age: Kirkwall.

Good sequels: Portal 2, Baldur`s Gate2, Half-life 2, Team Fortress 2, X-com 2. Curiously, what they all have in common is "more of the same". They are just good games, tested, refined and polished conceptually. In my mind, that`s what a sequel should do. There`s plenty of room for inovation inside those boundaries.

A complete different take on the same universe is also welcome, but let`s be honest, this is just another game. A good example of this is the Oddworld series, with Stranger`s Wrath.

In other note: how come no one to this day is capable of doing a proper x-com sequel? Or even a proper rip-off for that matter.