I've previously talked about how games need to take a step into the deep end and throw away the floaties in order to continue to thrive in the industry without us getting bored of their concepts. I've spoken about these games being great before, but now's the inevitable time to discuss the ones that bombed big enough to [CENSORED TERRORISM METAPHOR], for example.
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| Here lies Little Big Planet Kart |
So let's return to looking at the Sonic franchise, because they've tried a lot of different things (they've copied Mario a lot too), and some of them, admittedly haven't been so good, two games in particular: The infamous Sonic '06, and Sonic Unleashed. I love the sonic series so much, so I would be biased, but that doesn't stop me knowing they're bad games. starting with sonic, '06, I mean, it's not different to the usual sonic I guess, but they did change something odd and that was the look of Dr. Eggman, and including a horrible 'Save the princess' theme, and that's without considering all the glitches and bugs in the game, but the point is, the new Eggman looked horrible, and though I didn't have the patience to play through the whole game, I dread to think of the relationship between Sonic and Princess what's-her-face developed into, the RSPCA probably wouldn't have been too happy. the bad one in trying something new though is definitely Unleashed. It's definitely fine to say the regular sonic aspects of that game are great, but turn the clock to Midnight and you can immediately see the darker side of what initially looks like a good game. The Werehog stages are murderous, they take the world's fastest hedgehog and slow him down to the worlds most average hedgehog at best, and the controls are less responsive than my great great great grand pappy. With flailing arms. they're also boring and samey, walk onto round platform, 'x' number of enemies spawn. Kill by mashing buttons or flailing arms if you're on the wii. And the arms. The way they stretch. It will give you nightmares.
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| My arms! They won't go back! |
And... that's all I've got. seriously, it's not that every game that deviates from the system is utter turd or complete brilliance, the reality is a lot of them are only average. They're only made as a quirky little addition to the series for the fans to enjoy, Pokemon spin off games are a good example. Pokemon pinball is a fun little title, they play well and can be a bit repetitive, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with them, even Mario Party (though the recent ones are questionable) aren't bad games, they're aimed at families and it's families that play them. Hell, even the 'sounds like a stupid idea' Mortal Kombat puzzle game was half decent and had it's moments. The point of note here is that games that slide away from the norm for the series tend to be okay for their purpose, made as safe bets by the developers, but when they're bad, something has seriously gone wrong.
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| Yes, I don't understand it either |