Gaming Where has the Innovation dissapeared to?

[PWNED]

Everyone knows what the title means; Game Companies are so frightened of having a flop on their hands that they will create a Carbon Copy of an established game without adding anything to it. Even the greatest games have done it such as the ones used as examples below.


Tekken 5- The so called Pinnacle of fighting games not only removed any innovation from Tekken 4, They actually took Virtua Fighter 4s Kumite mode and made tiny differences to it and named it Arcade mode. Even down to the Ranking system in it.

The GTAs- Every Grand Theft Auto (Besides the First one) has just made a minor change to the previous game in the series, whether it be improved graphics, more guns, more vehicals or a combination of the lot. The only real innovation was the jump from 2D to 3D with 3.

Halo 2- Okay, I'll say it here.... I hated Halo 2 although it wasn't nessecarily a bad game. I hated it because it felt very cut and paste with the best parts of established shooting games given a terrible story. It didn't feel innovative in the face of competion like Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike.

The Madden series- I know that you can only innovate so much stuff in a sports game but this is ridiculus. The ESPN NFL games had a fresh feel every single year before the NFL lisence was purchased by EA. Could this mean that the Madden series would return better than ever?

Oh hell no. Think of this as the biggest sidestep of a move you have ever seen in a videogame. Nothing new besides the QB vision add-on (Which can be turned off which indicates how much faith EA had in it) and the lackluster Superstar mode. Is this innovation? I think not.


Its not a huge pile of crap however, A few games have been so unexpectedly unique that you'll have faith in the gaming world again. Just take a look at somethign like Viewtiful Joe 2 and you'll see what I mean.
Feel free to argue with or against m; or if need be, ***** about my choices that I listed.

[TheShinje]

[color=crimson] well, the GTA series has got to the point where all it really can do is add more stuff, polish up the graphics, and lengthen the game time, so there really isn't any room for innovation other than making the experience bigger and sleeker.

They did that with San Andres where we got the inproved car physics, the ovewrhauled GUI and the much, much bigge rmap with the nifty addition of swimming etc etc...

There won't be as big an innovation as there was jumping form 2D to 3D for a while. Dare I say it, the next big 'innovation' will be the franchise's move into real-time graphics, or the PS3 version will the next big jump as was their PS2 move.[/color]

[DeadSeraphim]

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[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]You forgot the ending that makes the story a complete tragedy. You know, when the recycled games finally flop after people get sick of them, and the game companies die in poverty.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be snuggling with my DS and Revolution. :animesmil[/color]

[PWNED]

[QUOTE=Desbreko][color=#4B0082]You forgot the ending that makes the story a complete tragedy. You know, when the recycled games finally flop after people get sick of them, and the game companies die in poverty.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be snuggling with my DS and Revolution. :animesmil[/color][/QUOTE]


Oh yes; The REV looks like it can do anything while the DS is quite impressive, although it has a lack of games which take full advantage of it.

[2010DigitalBoy]

Well, well, well, never seen this before...

Anyway, yes it's true that a lot of games lack innovation. Halo 2, GTA and Madden are good examples.

BUT, there are just as many innovative games out there which just catch less attention. This is less the company's fault than the people who buy the games who aren't giving the innovative games a chance.

The complaint should not be with the company, but with the braindead populace of gamers.

If you want innovative games, stop complaining and buy or make them. Complianing gets you nowhere.

..........................

Examples of innovative games:

Katamari Damaci
Viewtiful Joe
Guitar Hero
Makai Kingdom
Lost In Blue
Under The Knife
Pheonix Right: Ace Attourney
Mario Baseball

And many more...

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Interesting, most interesting.[/SIZE]

[quote name='DeadSeraphim][center][URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/277/dumb3wh.gif[/IMG'][/URL][/quote]

[SIZE=1]That really does sum things up as well as they can be summed up. In terms of innovation, I think the main problems is that many smaller third party developers simply can't afford to risk money on innovative games, as they run the risk that they'll flop and take out the whole company with them. It's simply easier to copy the innovations of other larger developers and implement/copy them, take "bullet time" for instance, easily the most copied function of recent videogaming.

Really it's only very successful companies like Nintendo who can afford to get really innovative with their stuff, because should worst come to worst they can afford a few flops in the name of development. Simply said the burden of innovation shouldn't fall on smaller developers, but large gaming corporations who have the funding to be able to make a few bad decisions in the name of innovation. [/SIZE]

[PWNED]

[quote name='? Nomad Tical ?']Well, well, well, never seen this before...[/quote]
Is that sarcasm? I think that's sarcasm.


[quote name='? Nomad Tical ?']BUT, there are just as many innovative games out there which just catch less attention. This is less the company's fault than the people who buy the games who aren't giving the innovative games a chance. [/quote]


You know what? I wholelly agree with you. The more innovative games just don't get attention paid to them because they are not part of a massive franchise. For Example, I gave Viewtiful Joe a chance because it had that classic old school platformer look to it. I'm a big fan of Old School and the game not only felt said-school, it felt like everything in it was thought out carefully.



[QUOTE=? Nomad Tical ?]If you want innovative games, stop complaining and buy or make them. Complianing gets you nowhere. /QUOTE]

Believe me; i have been buying innovative games and been attempting an RPG which is ....different to say the least. Shamefully; You can only get so far with RPG Maker 2k3.
..........................

[QUOTE=? Nomad Tical ?]Examples of innovative games:

Katamari Damaci
Viewtiful Joe
Guitar Hero
Makai Kingdom
Lost In Blue
Under The Knife
Pheonix Right: Ace Attourney
Mario Baseball
[/QUOTE]


I, unfortunatly, have only been able to play Viewtiful Joe out of those listed. Australia is very limited beyond the huge name games.

[Lv.12Wizard]

I've had the pleasure to play Pheonix Wright(don't forget the mission after the credits) and would really like to play Under the Knife, among others on the list.

As for the matter of innovation(or lack thereof) this year has been said by some industry experts to be "the year of the indie game". This is mainly because big-name companies like Microsoft can afford to release more innovative titles through their downloadable game services(god, i wish i had anything better than 56k AOL :animeangr ), and the Revolution will probably have similar titles to go along with it's Virtual System(the temporary name for it's network/ability to download/play older games.

And don't forget that there are a lot of great, innovative games for every taste for PC. I reccommend Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. You can get a demo for it [URL=http://shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_worlds/6.htm][U]here.[/U][/URL]

[Hittokiri Zero]

Don't hold me to this but another reason why innovation has suffered is because of the fact that many game companies can't afford to fail. The costs of creating new games is staggering and with so many smaller companies dividing the market unless your a big name company such as Square-Enix or Nintendo then failure is not a option.