Games of Myth & Legend

Games have often been based around myths and legends – from God of War’s epic storylines inspired by ancient Greece, to the recent take of an ancient Chinese story in Enslaved. These aren’t the kind of games I’m talking about here though – I’m talking of games that themselves become the stuff of myth and legend.

Games, for example, like the now-once-again-delayed Gran Turismo 5. It’s been so long coming, that it has achieved a sort of mystical air about it. It was announced in 2006, apparently after two years of development. Here we are now, four years after the announcement, six years into the development, and three weeks from release – and bang, another delay. I’m seriously beginning to wonder if this monster game will ever really arrive. Parents have been heard telling their children that if they don’t quiet down and eat their sprouts, then Gran Turismo 5 will come in the night and eat them (it works on the little ones, but the older children secretly suspect that Gran Turismo 5 will never come for them).

This new delay, fortunately, is only supposed to be a maximum of 7 weeks, as the European Playstation blog have said it will still be released before Christmas. This gave me hope, as each delay seems to be getting gradually smaller. It did put me in mind of an old maths puzzle though:

A frog sits in the middle of a circular pond. He leaps straight towards the edge, and with every leap he  jumps half the remaining distance to the edge of the pond. How many leaps does it take it to reach the edge?

The answer, of course, is that the frog never reaches the edge, as he can always only jump half the remaining distance. Replace ‘frog’ with ‘Gran Turismo 5’, ‘distance’ with ‘time’ and ‘jump’ with ‘delay’ and you’ll see my concern.

Of course, it would be madness to talk about much delayed games without talking about the Duke. If Gran Turismo 5’s epic development span seems a bit short for you, how about Duke Nukem Forever? Some people pre-ordered the game as children, and have died in the interim, after living a long and happy life. Some of them even bequeathed the preorder receipt to their grandchildren – who were recently startled to find out they might actually be able to claim on it. Duke Nukem Forever, it seems, lives. People have actually played it. People from Ready Up have played it; I never thought I’d see the day.

For a while, I was slightly worried. Gran Turismo 5 was coming out, and Duke Nukem Forever was actually going to be finished. Those made up two of the seven signs of the apocalypse, and I was worried that the End of Days was coming. If Koei had announced a radical overhaul of their Dynasty Warriors series that week, I would have been straight down the nuclear bunker, and no mistake.

Imagine what a strange world that would be, as I emerged, Fallout-style, into the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nothing would ever be the same again.

After all, Gran Turismo 5 would be out.