It's a given that all the best-selling games out there are the ones everyone's heard of, that have been going for years and have a million sequels. I'm talking about games like CoD, Legend of Zelda, Mario, Assassin's Creed, Fifa, Pokemon, and others. It's great that they're popular and all but rarely do they bring anything really new to the table aside from petty gimmicks that make the game just a little different from the previous one so they can bump the price tag back up to max. Mario games, the real ones that aren't spinoffs, are still all the same, the only differences between New Super Mario Brothers WiiU and the original on the Gameboy is a multiplayer feature, better graphics and some new powerups.
It holds true for most games that have five or more games in a series, does it never get old? look at the new Assassin's Creed game, what is it now, Pirates? Get real, Pirates have little to do with Assassins, but anything to get another installment for fanboys to fawn over. The you could release a hospital sim game with the CoD label on it and it'd still be outselling some of the best one-off games out there.
 |
| You can tell something's gone horribly wrong when your boss tells you the next target is a f****** WHALE. |
What I'm saying is that it's fine for developers to continue a story, sure, but they need to know when to consider something a different game, even if it seems similar. If you saw my little bit on Bioshock Infinite a few weeks ago you will know I don't consider it to be a Bioshock game at all and they should have just called it 'Infinite', just the fact it has Bioshock in the title is what will generate half of it's sales. I find it pitiful for both parties to be honest: It's pitiful for the gamers which inevitably follow the herd and agree that popular games are good even though they could be crap, and great games lose out on much deserved and wanted sequels because, oh, it's been a week since we released CoD BO2? Better port it, change a bit and make a sequel.
Only difference? Different boxes
But it's not all doom and gloom, at least some games are shaking it up a little. I am of course talking about the new Tomb Raider, which has taken a step away from it's usual... tomb raiding, and has transitioned beautifully into a survival game, and it's brilliant. I couldn't care less whether this game gets half of it's sales from the name, because it's not just the same old Tomb Raider, this is new and deserves all the popularity it can get, just like every unique game out there (You know, except the really terrible ones a 12-year-olds made in a basement).
 |
| It's new, unique and brilliant. Lara hasn't heard those words since some American made 'Womb Raider' |