Sober Thal said:
ReinWeisserRitter said:
Sober Thal said:
ReinWeisserRitter said:
Nice to know that not everything has to be a fricking trilogy these days (just 95% of everything, apparently) and that some games are actually given the decency to just end on their own merits, although I'm certainly in no hurry to see anything from the same guy who made Heavy Rain.
Isn't it nice to know that great games
can continue tho? I don't get why people ***** about games having sequels, when the games that get sequels are good games. Or do you think that shit games are the ones that get sequels? If that's true, then I can understand your reservations.
Too many things get beaten into the ground because they did okay in sales, things that never needed a sequel and never really benefited from one; they just got it, either because the people who made it wanted to milk it, or because the company didn't want to put all of their effort into something before they knew it would sell. This industry is a business, and I'm not unaware of that, but there can be no truly great games when business is all it's about, and we're getting more and more to the point where there's no actual heart behind...
anything, where everything is a wholly shallow attempt to get your money, and nothing more. Someone in creative control making a decision based on whether they think it's right for the would-be franchise or its consumers, not whether it's right for their wallets, is something to be appreciated these days.
You aren't saying anything new. People have been mentioning this for years, and I still fail to see what on Earth you're talking about.
Let us get specific then...
Fair warning: I love the single player campaigns in Halo and Call of Duty. Do they warrant full price day one? Not to most people that post here. I get that. But you can't ignore the masses who love (continually) the multiplayer shootem up deathmatch shit that's been being slinged since Counter-Strike, eh?
You used the words 'truly great games', and I am at a loss at naming them in your context.
Sure, different strokes for different folks and all, but I have always been a believer in that: If it ain't broke, don't fix it (JUST GIVE ME MORE). Mario Galaxy was great, so was Mario Galaxy 2. It was a shameless copy paste idea, but it was more of what I wanted. The Halo games were great, I'm not sure you'll agree with me here, but I also think the CoD games are great. You can argue that, but you'll only be a vocal minority.
You might want to just dismiss my text because I equate good quality with good sales, and that's fine. But just realize that you're on the outside looking in. People buy things because they want to. Because they like the thing.
If you want to think artistic integrity exists (more than sales production) within billion dollar corporations, that's fine too. Keep telling yourself Valve sells hats because gamers want them, ect.
The point I want to make (even tho I fail miserably time and time again) is:
I want 'more of the same' when I find a product that I like. If you think differently, that's fine too.
Cheers!
I think from the basis of it, he is refering to games that have a somewhat plot-tightened focus, the ones you mention are more focused on a carbon-copy style scenario with focus on gameplay and mechanics for fun, not so much the actual universe and story
There is nothing bad in that at all, it is merely a focus on preference.
A good example I can come up with is a franchise such as... Final Destination. The first movie was great (for its time), terrifying and intense, made you speculate. But... in the end the moral of "You cannot escape death" was pretty damn obvious. Now fast forward to a heck lot of sequels later, the same moral remains, no changes, no development, just a new cast for the slaughterhouse
It is mindless entertainment, but really... people come there to see "how are they going to die?", not "what will be revealed in this movie?" because nothing has since the first movie. It was not really -meant- to have any sequels.
Sequels are not harmful to development of mechanics, or gameplay (like FPS'es and platformers, where this is really essential), but they can be spell the doom of story and plot development. Since most stories are planned out and finished before the first scene is made in movies/books/games. If you make an all round story (take Dragon Age: Origins for example), it is finished, everything is concluded. Then a few weeks or months later your boss comes and says: "So... we need you to continue the story!".... Then yeah, you're a bit flabbergastered, since everything was concluded, you have to start from scratch or do rescurrections, weird plot twists and a lot of omnipotent intervention or lore-rewriting in your own universe to force a new story to come along. If you did not plan sequels in advance.
There is this really weird synergy between gameplay/mechanics and plot/story, so I cannot really compare it to other media tbh, it needs both, but in different doses depending on what genre we're talking about.
Still, it comes down to preferences in the end, one does not take out the other and vice versa, the only thing that really matters at the bottom line is: Time. The biggest blockbusters does not require long sessions in order to do anything, especially not fps titles, they are mindless fun, a bit along the lines of Angry Birds.
Story-driven titles takes a lot more time and atmosphere to get absorbed into, therefore if a sequel takes all that investment and screws/twists it around to fit into a new title that was originally not meant to be... people get kinda upset/bored/apathetic. Because it feels forced and unnatural.
So yeah... it is nice to see a publisher letting a developer say "The End", and then not immediatly say "Continue" "...But, that was the end" "Well, we want more, go on" "..........Ehm.... hmmm... right".
There needs to be room for both imo, I shift between the two genres depending on my mood personally, shooting, platforming, rpg, puzzles, there is a bit of everything. The market atm is just really focused on the jack-of-all-trades sequels... So yeah, lack of faith in most publishers and their reasons behind sequels (unless they were planned to begin with) probably forces this sort of view on the issue.
T'is a shame tbh.
