Bottom of the Barrel...

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

The entire range of cutesy 3D platformers... Where have the likes of Croc, Glover, Kao, Gex, Kingsly, Spyro, Crash, Sly, Banjo, Tak, 40 winks and Ape Escape...?

Seems that the genre now doesn't focus on what made those games fun, but just adding vehicles, OTT levels, too big levels, or missing the point of the light hearted humour! :S

The only games that stick to the original format have Mario in the title... but Mario is a bit boring...

Even Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank don't measure up to those that came before!

EDIT: On top of that... the same goes with side scrolling platformers! Anyone remember Tomba? Flipping awesome game!

 

[bafrali]

snip

First of all you seem to be assuming too much. Stop it.

I didn't attack neither platform nor the protagonist if you read my post. Different protagonist you say? No that would be somewhat creative. His sprites are ripped off from Megaman X IOS game (even saying the name makes me feel dirty) as well as several enemies which reeks of laziness. As we all know laziness is lethal to a creative medium at least from artistic standpoint. Also maybe you weren't up to the news (which would explain your wide eyed optimism i truly admire) but last few years was full of canceled games (three to be exact) shameless cameos and overpriced merchandises (Look up 25th universary music collection) in the franchise which i am sure you would agree doesn't inspire any kind of optimism on the side of fans. Maybe capcom but lets face it they are delusional.

Also i would like to thank you fo contributing to the thread. I would like to but you didn't do anything but build a strawman and tore it down in the name of justice. Time well spent sir.

 

[Saregon]

Half Life. The first one was fantastic, the second was ... meh, and I think Valve is finding that the support isn't there for a third. (Yes, I'm aware that there is a rabid fanbase for it. I'm also aware it's a SMALL rabid fanbase. Sorry guys... it's over. Let it go.)

I don't see how you got there. A quick google search (which for some reason yielded a top result from feb. 2011) provided sales figures for HL2 at 12 million units, by feb. 2011, which is to say, probably more by now.
Now, while I enjoyed the first game, and loved HL2, I've never played episode 1 and 2, and I'm not at all one of the "rabid fanbase", but I really don't see why they wouldn't continue a series that sells that well.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0228/technology-gabe-newell-videogames-valve-online-mayhem.html

Oh, and on topic, the Super Mario franchise.

One of my favorite games ever, which I still enjoy greatly to this day, Super Mario 64, was awesome. Sunshine, interesting, but not even close to the top of my list. Still commendable for trying something new. Same with Paper Mario, which I really enjoyed. And Galaxy, which was great fun. After that though, I feel like it's just been rehashes and remakes of the old stuff, and the old guy doesn't deserve that. The quality is still Nintendo, which is good, but it's still just the same old stuff with new graphics.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Star Wars.
Star.
Wars.
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I guess that can't be considered as "dead". But I saw it killed dead and the Frankenstein Monster that is The Old Republic is a bastardized version of what Star Wars was originally about.

In fact, yeah, they killed Star Wars and then skinned it; now a mediocre genre about battlecasters is walking around wearing Star Wars' face. It's very creepy...

Actually, TOR provided me with what I consider to be one of the first interesting Star Wars stories to have come out in years (coming from someone who only watches the movies and plays the games).

The Imperial Agent storyline is a fresh look at the universe from the eyes of the people who actually run the Empire and have to clean up after the Sith and their tantrums. I loved it. It's great to finally see a Star Wars story that centers around people who aren't Jedi or Sith (or smugglers or bounty hunters).

 

[Pebkio]

Actually, TOR provided me with what I consider to be one of the first interesting Star Wars stories to have come out in years (coming from someone who only watches the movies and plays the games).

The Imperial Agent storyline is a fresh look at the universe from the eyes of the people who actually run the Empire and have to clean up after the Sith and their tantrums. I loved it. It's great to finally see a Star Wars story that centers around people who aren't Jedi or Sith (or smugglers or bounty hunters).

...set thousands of years in the past but still has all the recent technology. This is the result of my point. TOR is a decent story about a society who worships space knights. But it's so far removed from the original Star Wars that if they didn't use all the iconic technology it'd be hard to tell that it was Star Wars. And that's what I mean...

Y'know, they had written a story about the rediscovery of the Sith by two clueless siblings. They ran off with their unregistered flight plan in a ship that couldn't hold a candle to a damned T-Wing and nearly died of hunger. I appreciate that they had to kill-off several of the established stories so as to make an MMO but THAT'S THE POINT.

They killed off Star Wars so they could use it's skin to sell a game about space knights. The smuggler stuff is about trying to make a profit in a universe run by space knights. The agent stuff is about cleaning up the whoopsies of the space knights. The only reason it's not called "Space Knights and Friends" is because of said creepy skin.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Actually, TOR provided me with what I consider to be one of the first interesting Star Wars stories to have come out in years (coming from someone who only watches the movies and plays the games).

The Imperial Agent storyline is a fresh look at the universe from the eyes of the people who actually run the Empire and have to clean up after the Sith and their tantrums. I loved it. It's great to finally see a Star Wars story that centers around people who aren't Jedi or Sith (or smugglers or bounty hunters).

...set thousands of years in the past but still has all the recent technology. This is the result of my point. TOR is a decent story about a society who worships space knights. But it's so far removed from the original Star Wars that if they didn't use all the iconic technology it'd be hard to tell that it was Star Wars. And that's what I mean...

Y'know, they had written a story about the rediscovery of the Sith by two clueless siblings. They ran off with their unregistered flight plan in a ship that couldn't hold a candle to a damned T-Wing and nearly died of hunger. I appreciate that they had to kill-off several of the established stories so as to make an MMO but THAT'S THE POINT.

They killed off Star Wars so they could use it's skin to sell a game about space knights. The smuggler stuff is about trying to make a profit in a universe run by space knights. The agent stuff is about cleaning up the whoopsies of the space knights. The only reason it's not called "Space Knights and Friends" is because of said creepy skin.

You can't really blame TOR for the fact that it's set thousands of years in the past and has mostly the same technology as what's always been in the franchise. It's set a couple hundred years after KOTOR, which also had all the recent technology. I understand that they explain everything by saying that the ongoing war between the Jedi and the Sith prevents society from growing, which I think is fair enough.

I'm honestly not really sure what has been lost. You say "it's so far removed from the original Star Wars that if they didn't use all the iconic technology it'd be hard to tell that it was Star Wars," but what else is there? Star Wars is all about the iconic look and the space knights, and always has been. (Which is one reason why I never really liked a Star Wars story until TOR's Imperial Agent, because it actually shows the consequences of the galaxy's obsessive worship of said space knights.)

 

[Pebkio]

You can't really blame TOR for the fact that it's set thousands of years in the past and has mostly the same technology as what's always been in the franchise. It's set a couple hundred years after KOTOR, which also had all the recent technology. I understand that they explain everything by saying that the ongoing war between the Jedi and the Sith prevents society from growing, which I think is fair enough.

I'm honestly not really sure what has been lost. You say "it's so far removed from the original Star Wars that if they didn't use all the iconic technology it'd be hard to tell that it was Star Wars," but what else is there? Star Wars is all about the iconic look and the space knights, and always has been. (Which is one reason why I never really liked a Star Wars story until TOR's Imperial Agent, because it actually shows the consequences of the galaxy's obsessive worship of said space knights.)

Obvious answer: The Setting. The setting is what makes products in a franchise feel a part of that franchise. Let's take old-hat examples Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation. When TNG came out, they had an entirely different dynamic, different weapons, different uniforms, and even a different design of the ship. But even in Voyager, there was no enterprise and yet it still felt like Star Trek because the setting was there.

Back to Star Wars, I disagree that it was always about space knights. I can see how you'd be confused by the games, but space knights used to be just a small facet. A tiny facet in fact, and even explained as just "guardians" in their hayday. Yes I know they decided to change the history, but they were basically throwing away the setting.

What's a good example of what I'm talking about...

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I'll make something up: Okay, imagine if they took The Enterprise, Captain Kirk and all of their tech, and put them in a setting where there isn't any Federation of Planets. Instead, it's a universe where Space Nazis are at war with Space England, and that's it. Then you call it Star Trek because the ships look like the Enterprise or a Romulan Warbird and everyone caries those little blaster things. There are the races of Vulcan and Klingon but those are just historical facts... it's really all about the Space Nazi's and/or Space England. But there's nothing about exploring or advancing civilization or dealing with military procedure on a starship... just Space Nazis vs Space England and the adventures caused by that.

I don't think you could really call that Star Trek and that's how I feel about what they did to Star Wars.

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Here's another point:

Star Wars was about an adventuring party. There was the space-knight and his squire. The space-knight died and was replaced by the squire. The rogue and his meatshield of a buddy helped out. Along for the ride was the princess in distress and her capable helper. There was also the golden-plated comic relief. Together they struggled to right some galactic injustice.

That's why, even though the tech was nearly all different, The Phantom Menace felt like Star Wars. There was the space-knight and his squire. The space-knight died and was replaced by the squire. The young captain and his tinman of a buddy helped out. Along for the ride was a princess who was bad at politics and her capable helper. There was also the floppy-eared comic relief. Together they struggled to right some galactic injustice.

Whatever you can say about the quality of TPM... at least it still felt like a Star Wars story. Even throughout the expanded universe books, they kept that same "adventure party in the future fixing a problem" feel. All that was lost in the second movie and nearly everything afterwards. You'll even noticed that they skipped ahead 14 years or so between movie 1 and 2 which makes it even more noticeable that they were removing themselves from what was originally "Star Wars". That's when they REALLY started placing the space-knights as the most important things in the universe... instead of just a small facet.

So yeah, it doesn't really feel like Star Wars. It feels like a different story but is dressed up in Star Wars skin.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

I see what you mean, but I guess I have a different take on it. I also feel like the setting is important, but I don't feel like the stories are important to the setting.

What I mean is, I feel like even if the original story for a given setting has a certain feel (like an adventuring party on the Hero's Journey in the original Star Wars movies), it doesn't mean that every story in the same universe should be the same type. I feel like there's room for all kinds of stories in any setting.

With your Star Trek example, I know a lot of people disliked Deep Space 9 for having a very different feel than the previous two series. It was dark and gritty and not particularly optimistic, and had more moral grey areas. But I liked the way it took various aspects of the setting and explored the questions that they raised, like whether the Federation could actually survive for long while continuing to stick to its principles.

I agree with you in that I dislike how the Star Wars franchise keeps ripping off its own iconic imagery in order to sell more products rather than for any real artistic purpose, but where I disagree with you is in TOR's place in the franchise. I think it fleshed out the universe in ways that hadn't happened before, and couldn't have happened outside of an MMO. Because everyone wants to buy games about Jedi, who would buy a game that focused on an imperial agent? The necessity of balance forced them to create that class, and as a result they needed to make a new story from scratch rather than relying on what had made Star Wars successful before, for the billionth time.

 

[omicron1]

love the captcha...

Maybe Age of Empires? They should have left it alone with AoE 2.

Call of Duty was a fantastic WWII shooter.

The Halo series is now about to be four games old and every one from the second on has been a sad degeneration.

Oh, and above all: WoW. It was good until the Sunwell patch, since then it's been a slow mo car crash.

AoM would like to disagree with you. And AoE3 wasn't half bad - esp. once both expansions were added to the mix.

AoE:O, though? They should have let that dead horse rot, especially considering they killed it in the first place. I have every game from the AoE series, collectors' where possible, enshrined on a shelf... and I don't even care where my AoE:O box is.


On topic: I'm going to say Dragon Age. One game was enough; by this point, unless Inquisition is revelatory, I don't care any more. Feralden (or whatever they call it) just isn't interesting enough to be worth saving again.

 

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

I would like a proper Kingdom hearts game. I haven't really touched any of the handheld ones (Chain of memories was far from fun), but I would love a proper Kingdom Hearts 3. Give me Sora, Goofy, and Donald running off to save Mickey, Riku, Kairi and all of the worlds from the Heartless. Seriously, where is this game?

It's the next game in the series coming out, actually.

 

[Souplex]

Half Life. The first one was fantastic, the second was ... meh, and I think Valve is finding that the support isn't there for a third. (Yes, I'm aware that there is a rabid fanbase for it. I'm also aware it's a SMALL rabid fanbase. Sorry guys... it's over. Let it go.)

you're nuts right? the fanbase for half life is gigantic. if they released that game tomorrow, it would sell 1 million copies in a matter of days. saying half life's fanbase is small is like saying COD's fanbase is small.

Vocal and gigantic aren't the same thing.

 

[geK0]

Megaman hasn't been getting much love from Capcom lately; I'm still somewhat butthurt from that whole Megaman Legends 3 cancellation.

 

[bafrali]

snip

Yes i agree. Fanbase is lively as ever especially with fangames. It is Capcom's attitude that makes the franchise like a dead cow in the industry. Megaman 10 you say? That shameless nostalgia cash in after the nine's success? Yeah i can see that took a lot of effort. It has been 25 years and we still have to amuse ourselves with 8-bit when games like Rayman Origins look more beatiful than an ice cream truck in a desert to sore eyes. Remember that Bass DLC people payed for? It was already in the game as hackers proved it. Capcom? On disk DLC? What nonsense right?


With three canceled games in a row, i guess it is safe to assume that Megaman isn't important in the Capcom's grand scheme which means it doesn't make any money. I would understand their hesitance in that regard (That is Capcom after all) but why dig out the corpse and shake it more money. Drop the pretense of caring about your intellectual properties and milk other franchises with half assed sequals.