Ripoff Games That Became More Famous Than The Original.

Starbird

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From another thread in the Other forums, but game related.

Quite a few spring to mind actually:
- A lot of the feel and setting of the Halo games is insanely similar to a seldom remembered gem called Gunman Chronicles back in the day.

- Prey was doing Portals...well, Portals quite a bit before Portal arrived.
 

Shoggoth2588

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The original Saint's Row was an unabashed rip-off of the Grand Theft Auto 3 games on the PS2 and while the 5th installment of GTA is the better selling game series, I think the Saint's Row games are a lot more fun. It's a sentiment that other people share as well, I'm sure, even if GTA5 sold far better than the latest Saint's Row 4 + Expansion bundle thing. When I finally do upgrade to a next-gen console I'll be prioritizing SR4+GoH instead of first-person GTA5 anyway.
 

HardkorSB

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Alone in the Dark was basically Resident Evil 0.5.
RE took the style and gameplay of AitD and improved on it.
 

Bad Jim

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Shoggoth2588 said:
while the 5th installment of GTA is the better selling game series, I think the Saint's Row games are a lot more fun.
Unfortunately, the thread title says "more famous", and GTA is clearly the winner there.

Back in the day, there was a game called Doom. It didn't have much plot, but the plot that did exist was about a teleportation experiment going wrong and a bunch of monsters invading. Then Half Life came along, took that exact same plot and ran with it. It doesn't play like Doom at all, but it definitely has the same plot.
 

Shoggoth2588

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Bad Jim said:
Shoggoth2588 said:
while the 5th installment of GTA is the better selling game series, I think the Saint's Row games are a lot more fun.
Unfortunately, the thread title says "more famous", and GTA is clearly the winner there.

Back in the day, there was a game called Doom. It didn't have much plot, but the plot that did exist was about a teleportation experiment going wrong and a bunch of monsters invading. Then Half Life came along, took that exact same plot and ran with it. It doesn't play like Doom at all, but it definitely has the same plot.
Alright, alright, mine was personal but how about this: First-person maze wherein you can be killed by roaming baddies. You can find guns to defend yourself, the game stirred controversy for a bit but still sold like gangbusters and is a legacy title to this day...Sounds like Doom, right? Well, would there be a Doom if they didn't steal from Wolfenstein? Wolfenstein is great and all but isn't there a lot of hype for the next Doom whereas the last few Wolfenstein games were sleeper-hits/cult classics at best? Yeah, Doom 3 stumbled but where's the Brutal Wolfenstein mod that revitalized interest?
 

Roboshi

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Starbird said:
From another thread in the Other forums, but game related.

Quite a few spring to mind actually:
- A lot of the feel and setting of the Halo games is insanely similar to a seldom remembered gem called Gunman Chronicles back in the day.

- Prey was doing Portals...well, Portals quite a bit before Portal arrived.
I believe the portal trailer was about 2 or 3 years before preys launch, so I wouldn't be surprised if prey was an attempt to make portal look like the copy.
 

Vivi22

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Starbird said:
- Prey was doing Portals...well, Portals quite a bit before Portal arrived.
Aside from the treatment of Portals in Prey being quite different from those in Portal, Narbacular Drop which Portal was based on was released five days after Prey was first announced to the public. It's unlikely the guys behind it who went on to make Portal with Valve were ripping off Prey when they did it.
 

Bad Jim

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Shoggoth2588 said:
would there be a Doom if they didn't steal from Wolfenstein?
Not a ripoff due to Doom and Wolfenstein being made by the same company, id Software.
 

Lugbzurg

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Bad Jim said:
Back in the day, there was a game called Doom. It didn't have much plot, but the plot that did exist was about a teleportation experiment going wrong and a bunch of monsters invading. Then Half Life came along, took that exact same plot and ran with it. It doesn't play like Doom at all, but it definitely has the same plot.
Doom has a lot of plot. Heck, there's so much plot that the game has plot twists. There's establishment of character and backstory for The Doom Marine, a very detailed setup, and a few surprises. Also, Half-Life's story is incredibly different. Just because they share a similar catalyst in scientists accidentally opening a portal to another dimension that releases monsters into their laboratory, does not mean they go in the exact same direction. I don't remember half of the Black Mesa Research Facility being teleported into Xen. I don't remember a marine cleanup megasquad killing everyone in the UAC to keep the demon incident quiet. I don't remember Gordon Freeman actually being killed off in the first hour or two and having to break out of Hell. I don't remember anyone watching over The Doom Marine with an interest in his skills.
 

remnant_phoenix

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"Ripoff" might go too far, but God of War became a lot more popular than Devil May Cry, and God of War had the same basic gameplay: third-person action combat with a fixed-camera relying on combos and quick reflexes in order to control the battlefield and dominate multiple foes.

Now, I do think that God of War (the first one by itself, that is) had a much better story than Devil May Cry, and yes, God of War had prettier graphics, but I think that it's absurd that people were talking about how God of War "redefined action games" when most everything that God of War did gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry did better four years prior. To boot, Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier the same year as God of War, and it has more depth and challenge in its gameplay than the entire God of War trilogy COMBINED.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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remnant_phoenix said:
"Ripoff" might go too far, but God of War became a lot more popular than Devil May Cry, and God of War had the same basic gameplay: third-person action combat with a fixed-camera relying on combos and quick reflexes in order to control the battlefield and dominate multiple foes.

Now, I do think that God of War (the first one by itself, that is) had a much better story than Devil May Cry, and yes, God of War had prettier graphics, but I think that it's absurd that people were talking about how God of War "redefined action games" when most everything that God of War did gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry did better four years prior. To boot, Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier the same year as God of War, and it has more depth and challenge in its gameplay than the entire God of War trilogy COMBINED.

GoW was DMC for the masses. It was easier to comprehend and easier to play but still a solid experience, so I don't begrudge it. Also, as a Greek dude, I enjoyed seeing my myths done justice. It was clearly made with enough love that it escapes the label "ripoff" and becomes more "inspired by" DMC, at least in my eyes.


All in all, unlike some of those other ripoffs, I believe GoW is worthy of a good portion of its praise. Even though it sorta stagnated. Let us not forget that DMC2 is also a thing. While DMC is much better, it's not perfect either.

Now Bayonetta, that, that's pretty much near perfect. Platinum games took the crown back. I can't remember a recent good GoW game.
 

Broderick

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Flammablezeus said:
Minecraft. I wouldn't be surprised if most people haven't even heard of Infiniminer.
The thing about Infiniminer though is that it is really only tangentially related to minecraft in it's mechanics. It was a team based, first person game that involved mining in a cube-like world. They share the voxel-like graphics, as well as the mining and some building/procedural generated elements. Aside from that though, it is pretty much a far-cry to what Minecraft turned out to be; an open world first person game with lite rpg mechanics and a heavy emphasis on building and crafting. So I would probably think "inspired by" is a better descriptor.

Edit: I do agree that minecraft definitely was quite the imitator in it's early years. It has definitely evolved over time into a different beast, but I understand at the beginning it's resemblance to Infiniminer is quite apparent.

As for mine? Probably any game owned/published by King. They rip off games of all types and reskin them, then milk them for all they are worth.
 

Doopliss64

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The biggest ones I can think of are Angry Birds, Plague Inc. and 2048 (Crush the Castle/I think something else before that, Pandemic and Threes respectively). Angry Birds was at least an across-the-board improvement, but Plague Inc. was pretty... uninspired.

2048 really stings because it's so obviously flawed and Threes was legitimately awesome.
 

ASnogarD

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Flammablezeus said:
Minecraft. I wouldn't be surprised if most people haven't even heard of Infiniminer.
Thing is Notch used to post on TIGSource, and once showed off this little Java app which made a 3D world with cubes you could pick up and place about, players used it to make art and stuff and offer suggestions... in other words there was no crafting and real gameplay, so its hard to say it was a copy/clone of any game more like a game growing out of a funny app and just kept growing.
 

Charli

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I suppose DoTA could be argued to have supplanted it's WC3 Roots in the eyes of many gamers. In many iterations.

Though that's a combination of factors and circumstance. It wasn't so much ripped off as it just evolved into a seperate creature, had several children who were then adopted and nurtured by different people.
 

Casual Shinji

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remnant_phoenix said:
"Ripoff" might go too far, but God of War became a lot more popular than Devil May Cry, and God of War had the same basic gameplay: third-person action combat with a fixed-camera relying on combos and quick reflexes in order to control the battlefield and dominate multiple foes.

Now, I do think that God of War (the first one by itself, that is) had a much better story than Devil May Cry, and yes, God of War had prettier graphics, but I think that it's absurd that people were talking about how God of War "redefined action games" when most everything that God of War did gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry did better four years prior. To boot, Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier the same year as God of War, and it has more depth and challenge in its gameplay than the entire God of War trilogy COMBINED.
Maybe it became more popular at the time, but I think Devil May Cry has the same amount of clout among gamers as God of War does. Probably even moreso now, since GoW has kind of worn out its welcome. It certainly didn't take DMC's thunder.
 

Starbird

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remnant_phoenix said:
"Ripoff" might go too far, but God of War became a lot more popular than Devil May Cry, and God of War had the same basic gameplay: third-person action combat with a fixed-camera relying on combos and quick reflexes in order to control the battlefield and dominate multiple foes.

Now, I do think that God of War (the first one by itself, that is) had a much better story than Devil May Cry, and yes, God of War had prettier graphics, but I think that it's absurd that people were talking about how God of War "redefined action games" when most everything that God of War did gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry did better four years prior. To boot, Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier the same year as God of War, and it has more depth and challenge in its gameplay than the entire God of War trilogy COMBINED.
Eh they both seemed pretty popular and have a very different playerbase. Both are good in their own right too, and feel very difference.

Honestly I see DMC and Ninja Gaiden (the earlier ones) as having more in common.
Charli said:
I suppose DoTA could be argued to have supplanted it's WC3 Roots in the eyes of many gamers. In many iterations.

Though that's a combination of factors and circumstance. It wasn't so much ripped off as it just evolved into a seperate creature, had several children who were then adopted and nurtured by different people.
Hah. I think Lol is the poster child for this.