What if the Godzilla Game Had Been Good?

Yahtzee Croshaw

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What if the Godzilla Game Had Been Good?

Yahtzee goes down the road of what a Godzilla game might be like if it were actually designed from the ground up to be about a massive stompy Kaiju.

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Covarr

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Or, they could just make a 3D Rampage game. That franchise already has a clear idea how to make it fun to destroy everything as a giant monster, but they haven't really tried it in 3D. I think it could work.

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Neurotic Void Melody

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This has me an idea. If anyone has ever played Octodad or its' sequel where you have to do your best to blend in by not flailing into every loose object, then imagine perhaps instead of trying to blend in, you have ole Godzy attempting to fend off monsters (and evil PMCs cos why not?) while minimising damage to civilians and buildings. Consuming monsters could grant powers and physical growth. You could even implement a sort of...now don't kill me for saying this or else i shall return stronger than ever before!! ...but a moral choice system where you can aid in the creature's destruction or protect those scrawny humans.
There could even be some underwater egg cave that hatches a new, hungry baby Godzilla to add a rogue-like element. However, i know nothing of the canon, so perhaps Godzi does not reproduce.
If the budget and hardware allows, perhaps we could include different playable creatures, a human faction (with mechs of course!) and a civilian survival horror mode too. Oh i'm getting too far ahead here, need some down time for brain labour on this.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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I still think they should do a 1st person MechWarrior type game based off Pacific Rim. That'd be so awesome!
 

Ragsnstitches

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We've seen games do the "Kaiju" thing before to different degrees of success. Rampage did it pretty well for an Arcade style beat-em-up (though it was more King Kong sizes then Godzilla sizes). Godzilla has a had a few serviceable fighting games. However, the only way to properly emulate the size of Godzilla is to put the player in the perspective of something smaller. This is why Shadow of the Colossus is so effective. It's not just big thing next to small thing, but how the player perceives that big thing as a small thing.

God of War and the titan encounters are similar. Even with the camera zoomed out to take in the entire scene, because we play as Kratos and know how Kratos works, the impact the titans have is significant. They feel massive. If you ever played any space sims with massive capital ships, the thing that best conveys their size is flying up along side one in a smaller vessel, particularly during a firefight. See also Homeworld (2 does this really well). Zoom up to a strike craft as it's navigating a battle and the Capital ships look and feel massive. This are all emphasised with the little touches, like bass heavy battle sounds next to pew pew sounds from strike craft, as well as battle damage sending out fragments larger then said strike craft.

In order to do this with Godzilla, we must first accept that the player can't BE Godzilla. The concept would work well in a different type of game, but people want to be Godzilla too much.

How would I do it if I could? Make it a game where you are reacting to Godzilla and co's shenanigans. Like an RTS where the objective isn't to win battles but to minimize losses... the game could even evolve like the old shows where you have to support Godzilla or other friendly Kaijus, or even deploy your own Kaiju countermeasures (like Mecha Godzilla). At certain points it might even become like conventional RTS games, where you have to fight rogue military elements or alien invaders or whatever... Godzilla has a lot of shit to work with.

Maybe even a city simulator where you build defenses and countermeasures and the objective is to hold out as long as possible while you manage evacuations. When Zilla and co. invades it switches to a tower defense style game, where your earlier preparations are put to work. Then when the battle is done and the Kaijus leave, you have to restore the city and research new tech to prepare for future encounters. The game could employ a time lapse feature, which would emphasis how long it takes to rebuild after a kaiju disaster.

There are loads of ideas that can work, but Godzilla has always been some variant of a beat-em-up... and it's never been better then its competitors. I'd love to see a Godzilla game that does something other then this.
 

Jorpho

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Covarr said:
Or, they could just make a 3D Rampage game. That franchise already has a clear idea how to make it fun to destroy everything as a giant monster, but they haven't really tried it in 3D. I think it could work.
I think they did, and it didn't work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage:_Total_Destruction

And now, obligatory King of the Monsters link:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kingofthemonsters/kingofthemonsters.htm
 

dwharmon

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Actually, I think a Godzilla game would work better if it followed the formula of the movies: a person or group of people get caught up in an event (alien invasion, shipwrecked, monster swarm, etc...) and have to fend for themselves in a sandbox environment for a while. About halfway through the game, [insert kaiju name here] appears and starts wrecking havoc on the city, creating an environmental obstacle that players have to survive in addition to the foes they've been facing up to this point. Shortly thereafter, Godzilla appears, upping the danger and destruction as both monsters fight it out. Maybe you hop aboard MechaGodzilla and drive away the victorious Godzilla in the end or aid Godzilla in the battle. By positioning the player as a human, you preserve the scale of the experience and allow the players faster-paced and potentially more enjoyable gameplay.
 

The Enquirer

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There was the old ps2 "War of the Monsters" title where they actually did have humans running around, unlike destroying a building, they didn't do anything. If you took down a building you were rewarded with items you could throw or hit other Monsters with, which would increase your energy.

So I think humans would have been fine, if, like the recent Godzilla movie showed, they weren't the direct target unless they were actually attacking the creatures or in the way.
 

donssword

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If they just did an HD remake of Destroy All Monsters with everything from Save the Earth, with updated destruction physics and the same gameplay, that is all we would need.

If they could just get the basics right to start with, we could worry about online later--no one played Save the Earth online anyhow--the community was tiny even from launch, and it never grew to any significance.
 

Bindal

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Didn't they already make a good Godzilla game? Twice? On PS2 and the original XBox?
Pretty sure they did. Mostly because they DIDN'T go with "Godzilla goes around and destroys things" but instead made them 3D Fighting games, where destroying the city was just a nice bonus that happened while two giant monster beat in each others head.
Because, let's face it: The whole "Monster goes around to destroy the city" would be rather boring to play as you're not supposed to die against the 'puny' humans - that's why you're a giant monster. Only thing worthy of a threat of any kind would be ANOTHER giant monster. Might as well focus on the only part that would be interesting. Like the previously mentioned games.
 

Darth_Payn

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dwharmon said:
Actually, I think a Godzilla game would work better if it followed the formula of the movies: a person or group of people get caught up in an event (alien invasion, shipwrecked, monster swarm, etc...) and have to fend for themselves in a sandbox environment for a while. About halfway through the game, [insert kaiju name here] appears and starts wrecking havoc on the city, creating an environmental obstacle that players have to survive in addition to the foes they've been facing up to this point. Shortly thereafter, Godzilla appears, upping the danger and destruction as both monsters fight it out. Maybe you hop aboard MechaGodzilla and drive away the victorious Godzilla in the end or aid Godzilla in the battle. By positioning the player as a human, you preserve the scale of the experience and allow the players faster-paced and potentially more enjoyable gameplay.
That sounds like adapting the recent Godzilla movie, only better.

OT:I watched Yahtzee's ZP again and when he mentioned the Queen knighting every British (and sometimes American) celebrity, I think that was Yahtzee's way of saying "Give me a knighthood."
 

ZZoMBiE13

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All they had to do with this latest Godzilla game was copy this:

Those games were a blast. A new version of those with some shiny "next gen" graphics and BOOM, a game I'd be happy to own and even play online.
Or, alternatively, just remake War of the Monsters from the PS2.

This is a concept that has been done well in the past. And then whoever made this new one decided to be a dong and screw it up with shoulder button navigation and a focus on destroying stupid generators. Pathetic.
 

Covarr

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Jorpho said:
Covarr said:
Or, they could just make a 3D Rampage game. That franchise already has a clear idea how to make it fun to destroy everything as a giant monster, but they haven't really tried it in 3D. I think it could work.
I think they did, and it didn't work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage:_Total_Destruction
Nah, Total Destruction was barely 3D; it was a weird hybrid that used multiple layers, but still essentially played in 2D. It was terrible, but most of its problems were not because it was in 3D, but in the really bizarre way they implemented 3D, as well as awful controls.

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immortalfrieza

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I agree with Yahtzee. A fully 3D sandbox game where you play as Godzilla (being the monster is the entire point) running around destroying things and fighting off enemies, both other monsters and the human military is what a Godzilla game should be. The fact that most previous games have been fighting games is a big problem in that it's just any random fighting game that we've seen a hundred times with a Godzilla skin and it misses creating that feeling of being the monster (again, the entire point of a Godzilla game) entirely.

A story is needed, because that's what keep somebody playing a sandbox game after they've spent the last 2 hours doing the same thing 50 times, however, the story needs to focus on Godzilla and it's primal interests, finding food, fending off other monsters, protecting it's territory, breeding, protecting it's young, etc. that makes us give a rat's ass about the creature, likely with reporter scenes and newspapers showing the reaction of humanity to Godzilla's actions at regular intervals. What it does NOT need to do is what has always been the weakest part of even the successful movies, which is that they have a bunch of unlikable badly written and ridiculously corny human characters that hog most of the story and scenes away from the Big G and result in him barely even featuring, when the movie is in actuality supposed to be about the creature and only the creature.
 

Extra-Ordinary

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Silentpony said:
I still think they should do a 1st person MechWarrior type game based off Pacific Rim. That'd be so awesome!
With Co-op, takes two to pilot a Jager.
And thinking about it, it might be some seriously broken Co-op, but it might be hilarious, which is good enough for me.
 

FPLOON

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Jokes on you... My fat grandma only has one tit! Oh wait...

Other than that, how about instead of having Godzilla move/control slowly, just have everything else move twice as fast as Godzilla?
 

Varis

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I think they could've gone on the route of Truck Simulator or the like and just make it a game about you smashing stuff that don't really pose a threat as Godzilla until you get tired of the whole thing, thus making all the homicidal little kiddies because of whom aussies get silly regulations on games chill out and think that maybe killing everyone isn't the answer to life's great problems. Heheehe. Heheehehee.

CAPTCHA: it's over
yeah, the joke is wearing flat on me even as I'm writing this.
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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All this talk about the mechanics of how a game should make you feel big and not a single reference to Giants: Citizen Kabuto? That game should be the Gold Standard for how playing gigantic monsters should feel like. Not only did Kabuto start out small and got progressively bigger as you ate your way through the local wildlife, you always felt that you were the top of the food chain and had some great mobility despite your size.
 

gold5

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The EPYX Movie Monster game from 1986 was everything this new game should have been. It even had Staypuft Man from Ghostbusters! They just needed to update the graphics. Ahhh, EPYX, what a great company. I liked their little kidney shaped red colored joysticks which had those delicate dual fire triggers, and the clicky red stickball on top..