Untapped Potential
I didn’t buy Call of Duty World At War, and do you know why? Because I’d already played Call of Duty 4…
It was 3am in the morning and I couldn’t get to sleep on the leather sofa I’d been accommodated with. Running through my arrangements for the next couple of months to pass the time, as you do, I remembered the Eurogamer Expo in London. I began to ponder which titles would be available at one of the UK s biggest game exhibitions this year. Days go by and we’re drawing close to the event and the list of titles that developers are itching to show off like eager beavers is pretty robust. Mass Effect 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Lost Planet 2, Army of Two…Two. Noticing a trend? Of course not every title being thrown at the event is a ‘sequel to the best selling’ but nevertheless it’s hard to really pick out anything that truly breaks the mold. Big developers are holding onto their first borns for dear life, why have another child when you could raise the first one to greatness? He could be captain of the football team and everything. They know they can score big successes with their blockbuster sequels each year, even if many are essentially just slight repackages of previous installments. I definitely wont be forking out for the new Modern Warfare title since the prospect of ‘new perks and weapon modifications for multiplayer!’ isn’t one that really tickles my fancy. Why would I want new perks anyway? I’ll stick with my silencer, UAV Jammer, Dead Silence and my copy of Modern Warfare 1, thanks.
EA took a bit of a risk last year and stepped into the unknown when they birthed a new franchise in Mirror’s Edge, but the free-running first person adventure game wasn’t quite the hit that many hoped. Whilst it was highly innovative in how the player interacted with the character and environment many either felt that the game could not stand up as a classic on such innovations alone or they plainly didn’t get why you couldn’t pick up a rocket launcher and some grenades to frag your way to the finish. Receiving acceptable review scores, though in some cases being panned as mediocre, there’s no doubt in my mind that Faith’s parkour lifestyle was greatly under appreciated.
So how many similarly awe inspiring games are being brought to the table this year? Well, Eurogamer is certainly lacking in that elusive genre going by the current preview list. Even Tim Schafer’s awesome looking Brutal Legend can’t really be said to be bringing a new level of greatness to the action/adventure genre; though a roadie sucked into the world of album art armed with only a magical guitar is still undoubtedly going to be one hell of an entertaining experience which I will buy and very much enjoy. Dark Void offers up the usual humanity versus aliens scenario but caught my eye when I read the words ‘vertical cover’ and saw the emphasis on seamlessly linking the x and y axes. Jetpacks and air combat are always fun, but is it all really anything new?
So I’m sat here on my tod on this god awful sofa, dreaming up something new where developers could express some real creative tendencies instead of treading over old ground and falling into the trap of making the same game as last year. A few things spring to the forefront of my thoughts. Rebellion’s Sniper Elite, a detailed and compelling simulation set in a time which I previously thought had been done to death. So good old reliable Nazi slaying can still feel fresh and exciting? Infinity Ward should make a wartime, sim-esque free roaming title set in the north of France where you play an assassin hired by the resistance to loosen the grip of German occupation by forcibly removing Wehrmacht officers with a bullet to the grey matter.
If only the wealthiest of developers felt the sudden rush of curiosity to take some steps into lesser known, unchartered lands and put out a game that wouldn’t necessarily yield the instant big bucks. Exciting and fresh ideas could be done with the justice that many smaller teams simply couldn’t muster due to funding limitations. Any Nintendo fans will remember Game and Watch. Some of those mini games were highly addictive and many of them dealt with ideas nobody has ever thought to raise since. Remember the one where you had to catch food in a frying pan so that the mice didn’t steal it if you dropped it? Isn’t it about time that Relic put some time aside to develop a real time strategy management game where you’re charged with the noble task of running and maintaining your own restaurant? “Get those peas out of their green skins!” “We live to serve!”
Categories: Gaming
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