It’s often said that people are smart, but crowds are stupid. Now that the Olympics have finished, the largest crowd I can think of is the games industry. Ergo, the games industry must be almost as stupid as your average Olympic crowd. Which is very stupid indeed, I think we can all agree. I saw them applauding the Spice Girls.
Sadly, the games industry makes all of the games. We see that dumb crowd mentality all of the time, as they all clamour to copy Call of Duty, or World of Warcraft, or attempt to shove superfluous motion controls into any franchises left unattended for more than five minutes. They’re like children flocking on a playground, desperately trying to copy the cool kids, or the rich kids, or just anyone who seems to have even a dash of an original idea.
Thankfully, as always, I have all the answers. Behold the games that the games industry needs to be explicitly told to make because it would never figure them out on its own.
5. A violent Star Wars lightsaber game
You can’t chop people up with a lightsaber in Star Wars games. It just sort of bounces off them. Jedi Knight II occasionally had someone’s arm fly off but that’s about it. There are only two plausible reasons for this restriction. The first is that the technology doesn’t exist to accurately render all of the bits flying through the air. Hmmmmmm.
The second possiblity is that they don’t want their game to get too high a certificate, because it might affect sales, or offend George Lucas’ beard. If that’s the case, then why are we getting this gritty, dark, violent 1313 thing? We get Kinect Star Wars, then apparently Uncharted Star Wars, before they make a lightsaber game that’s actually any good because nobody has made a violent lightsaber game for LucasArts to copy yet.
4. A new Power Stone
The truly great thing about Power Stone is the same thing that’s great about Super Smash Brothers – everyone can see what everyone else is doing. If you unleash a special attack, everyone sees it. If you’re running off and hiding constantly, everyone knows it. The ensuing bedlam is a truly shared experience, like an orgy on a bouncy castle.
However, in these days of online multiplayer, that sort of game is few and far between. Sure, some titles here and there have some similarities, like Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. There’s a hole in the market for something with Power Stone‘s deceptive depth though, and no-one seems to want to fill it. Someone should sheathe up and fill that hole forthwith.
3. A good Jurassic Park game
Undeniably, people will still gladly make Jurassic Park games. They’re seemingly rather more reluctant to make good ones though.
It doesn’t even have to be good though. Just a little better than average. That’s all we ask. The best Jurassic Park game I’ve ever played is the one that came out on the SNES 259 years ago that featured a battle with the T-Rex where you shot it in the knees, making it moonwalk comically, until it got bored. That game was bloody awful.
Not as bad as Trespasser though, which is still worth playing to this day because the physics need to be seen to be believed. You can kill yourself by tripping over the baseball bat you’re carrying.
That said, Dreamworks had the right idea with Trespasser. What we really want from a Jurassic Park game is to be right in the thick of the jungle, surrounded by dinosaurs with only our wits to protect us. We want to explore, hunt, observe and get electrocuted by fences.
2. A proper side-scrolling Beat ’em up
Remember these? You roam the streets, beating up henchmen until there are no more henchmen left to beat up. Then you beat up their boss, who is usually monikered “Garth” or “Drew” or somesuch. Then it’s on to the next level to do it all again. The only tactics you have to worry about are which enemies to club first with the iron pipe you just picked up. Think Final Fight, Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. Where are they now? If there’s room for a thousand miserable attempts to release a playable Sonic game, there’s room for someone to spend that money giving me a photo-realistic nunchuck to smack upside some virtual cronies’ heads.
Those games were from a simpler time, when an Xbox was just a box that wasn’t used anymore, but their appeal has not diminished. The Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game was well-received and certainly understood what made those games so compelling, so someone get on it for crying out loud.
1. Half Life 3
You can follow Simon (@MrCuddleswick) on Twitter here and also slowly by car if you want.
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