Sequelitis

[ysbreker]

Speaking of creative titles not being interesting for publishers:

Quake 4, X-Men 2, True Crime 2, THUG3 confirmed for Q4

Speaking to analysts, Doornink outlined Activision's plans for its third fiscal quarter, which will run from October to December 2005. "In the [fiscal] third quarter, we plan to release our strongest and most diverse lineup ever--specifically, brand-new games for Tony Hawk, Call of Duty, X-Men [Legends], True Crime, Quake, and Shrek. Each of these franchises is targeted at a different consumer."

And that's just activision :/

[Karimi]

The reason is more or less an obvious one , producers staying in the comfort zone and making money. I guess you can't really blame them though.

[Thrik]

Oh, we can.

[ysbreker]

It's the reason of exsitence of Idle Thumbs! To complain about the (deplorable) state of the games industry!

[Marek]

The reason is more or less an obvious one , producers staying in the comfort zone and making money. I guess you can't really blame them though.

Except eventually this strategy will bite back and cause them to lose money. "Comfort zone" is an illusion.

[Dingo Chavez]

I blame society and the government, just because I like blaming them on things.

I can't say I expected anything else from Activision.

[loonyboi]

Everyone hates sequels until the one they want is made.

Yeah, Tony Hawk 11 isn't going to be very exciting, but I'm geniunely looking forward to Quake 4 and X-Men Legends II.

[loonyboi]

Sequels to liscensed games are worse than sequels to original creations.

Except that isn't true. The latest Shrek game might suck as much as the first one, but why would the sequel to X-Men Legends be bad, when the original was a solid game? If anything, the second-generation version will be better.

After the excellent Riddick, I'd love to see the inevitable sequel.

[Jake]

It's the reason of exsitence of Idle Thumbs! To complain about the (deplorable) state of the games industry!

[Marek]

The puppy, Jake. Look at it.

[ysbreker]

jake: please pretend I added either or to my previous post.

[Guest]

Those will probably be skeptical titles though, until they make up a name that attempts to be different.

So they might end up being

X-Men Chronicles: The sequel to X-Men Legends

Tony Hawks Underground, Overground, Up in Space, Under the sea, In the air, we don't care (Shortened to Tony Hawk Everywhere, which would then be shortened to "THE", cuz it's col!)

Quake IV (Really, this won't change, cuz the tytle sez all u n00b.)

True Crime : Actual Fun (At least, that's the theory.)

Shrek: The Video Game (with special theme song from Justin Timberlake ((so as to hype up Shrek III ya know??). And as a side note, you do know that JT is in the next Shrek movie? Apparently he will play Archie (who in turn is supposed to be a little king arthur). Oh yeah and

Meh, hope this helps you Activision.

(unnnnnnn)

[Lechimp]

Yeah, all licensed games are shit (except for Blade Runner, Riddick, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Tie Fighter, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Balder's Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, Alien Versus Predator 2, Betrayal At Krondor, Tron, Sam and Max, and Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines)

[JimmyTheFish]

You are making an assuption and a stupid one at that. A license can help a game, if the game is good on its own merits. Refusing to play a game because it is licensed means you will miss out on some excellent games.

Granted most of them suck.

[Redwall]

Neither George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, nor Harrison Ford were directly involved with the making of FOA, so man, that game must be shit!

[SoccerDude28]

Except that isn't true. The latest Shrek game might suck as much as the first one, but why would the sequel to X-Men Legends be bad, when the original was a solid game? If anything, the second-generation version will be better.

Are we talking about the same X-MEN Legends? That game sucks ass. I also payed 49.99 for it because of all the "Rave" reviews Here's the game, you enter a screen, beat everything up or use a special force, move into the next one, beat everything up or use a special force, when your health goes down use a health flask, when the mana goes down use a mana flask, and then after a while you get points to spend on your characters. And then you do it, over and over and over and over... Sounds familiar? You want hack and slash, play god of war. That's a game worth every penny.

[vimes]

A few weeks ago, I would have said that sequels or not, it doesn't matter as long as the quality is there; now that I have played a certain original game *hum* I must say that, whatever sequels you take - and as you good as it might be - it can't beat the feeling you have when you're discovering a new environment, new characters, etc...

What I would be glad to see happens are 'alternate world' games, which would start from the pitch of a previous game and explore an totally different direction. That would be cool.

[Lechimp]

Are we talking about the same X-MEN Legends? That game sucks ass. I also payed 49.99 for it because of all the "Rave" reviews Here's the game, you enter a screen, beat everything up or use a special force, move into the next one, beat everything up or use a special force, when your health goes down use a health flask, when the mana goes down use a mana flask, and then after a while you get points to spend on your characters. And then you do it, over and over and over and over... Sounds familiar? You want hack and slash, play god of war. That's a game worth every penny.

So Diablo 1 and 2 are crap games as well? Because they're pretty much the same thing. I kinda liked X-men Legends, if anything it was because the coop was kinda fun. I suppose I might have liked the game more than other people since being on a team of x-men was always kind of a dream game to me. Same thing with being able to play as spiderman and swinging around a city, but spiderman 2 got pretty old after a while.

[SoccerDude28]

So Diablo 1 and 2 are crap games as well? Because they're pretty much the same thing. I kinda liked X-men Legends, if anything it was because the coop was kinda fun. I suppose I might have liked the game more than other people since being on a team of x-men was always kind of a dream game to me. Same thing with being able to play as spiderman and swinging around a city, but spiderman 2 got pretty old after a while.

I knew someone was going to come out and say what about Diablo??? See unlike X-Men Legends, Diablo was fun to play, and the game was made 8 years ago. The world of Diablo was much more addictive than the one X-Men Legends came up with. If Diablo was released in this day and age, I'll doubt that it would have the impact it had back then. X-Men legends is a lame excuse of putting X-Men skins on any generic hack n slash game. Even the graphics are pathetic. And then of course there is the infamous co-op. If a game has co-op, it's instantaneous good fun with your buddy?? Uhhh no sorry. If you remove the skins, you end up with "Enter a generic hack n slash game in the blank".

I mean can you compare God of war to X-Men legends? And they sell for the same price. You want a fun Comic book game? Pick up Freedom force and give it a try. That game is 10 dollars cheaper, and a gazillion times more fun.

[Lechimp]

EDIT: This is a reference to Soccer's post

Well... I'm not sure how to argue if a game was fun or not. It's not like it's something you can scientifically prove. I thought it was fun to beat up guys as x-men, and some people seemed to agree as well. I guess that's really all I could say about that. But I really have no idea what Diablo's age has to do with X-men legends being fun. I was just comparing the two because they're alike in some ways. Both are action rpgs that aren't as stat heavy as most rpgs. X-Men Legends really isn't the most generic action rpg ever. It's definately more reflex based and actually feels kinda like Double Dragon with stats. I mean you beat the crap out of some guys, go to the next area, beat the crap out of more guys, go to next area, fight a boss, and repeat. And I never said that Coop is instant fun, but it sure helps. I thought that it was cool that you and a group of friends could play as the x-men and fight evil mutants like magneto and stuff. And do I really have to compare every comic book game EVER to freedom force? Sure Freedom Force was really good, but they really aren't alike at all. Freedom Force was a tactical rpg while X-Men Legends is an action rpg and they had completely different characters and story. It's like refusing to buy a fps ever since Doom came out because Doom was pretty good and I don't need to buy Far Cry since they must be the same thing since it's the same genre.

And there's no way I could compare God of War to X-Men Legends since I don't even have God of War and I bought X-Men legends before God of War came out. God of War doesn't even look anything like X-Men legends. Sure both of them have fighting in it, but God of War looks like an action platformer game like Prince of Persia while X-Men Legends is an action rpg where you control four people at once and doesn't take place during ancient greek (or roman, whatever) times.

EDIT: Synthetic, I'll agree that original stuff is better, but your arguement still sucks. X-Men Legends is a bad game just because you don't like X-Men? What the hell, that's just being really close minded.

And your arguement about creator intervention in games being the only way that a licensed game can be good doesn't work either. Like I already pointed out before, there's a shit load of games that are good and didn't have the creator working on them. (A ton of D&D games and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis) And there were tons of crap before 1995, remember during the 80s when half the games to come out were rip offs of other games? (Like asteroids clones with different graphics) Sure that still happens, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was back then. It only seems like games back then were 1000x better because we only remember the good ones.

[ysbreker]

One licensed game that's actually good?

Tony hawk's pro skater. (any game from the series)

Or if you really want it to be a licence from a movie I'd have to say that chronicles of riddick is rather nice. a very decent FPS.

Granted, there isn't much innovation in licensed games but they're not all crap.

[Lechimp]

Ehh...it's starting to turn into a "let's agree to disagree" type of thing now. I don't mind licenses when they're just a world to put your game in. I only hate licenses when they are just used to make some easy money and no attention is paid to the gameplay at all. Sometimes licenses can make a world more interesting because they have a huge world and history that can be explored. KOTOR is a really good example of using a license's world to base the game off of, and not the actual movies/books/whatever itself.

I wouldn't buy a Britney Spears dance game even if it was good, but that's because I hate dance games (which is a genre preference, not license preference) But if there was a game with Britney Spears in it that was as innovative and fun as Katmari Damacy, then I would buy it.

[SoccerDude28]

In reply to LeChimp

I know the game got good reviews. That's why I bought it myself (I didn't have a demo to try out). But I've played so many games just like it, and it really didn't have anything new to offer. In place of spells, you have super powers, and in place of slashing people with swords, you do it with your fists. Maybe Co-op but games like Baldur's gate (on the PS2/XBOX) have co-op in them.

Even the presentation is very dated. The graphics look like something from the late 90's. You mentioned Far Cry vs Doom. In Far Cry, the graphics are breath taking, the AI is amazing, and you have vehicles. It even has stealth in it.

I was just giving Freedom force as an example of a super-hero game that does it right. It is funny, witty, very original, and fun to play. Would you have loved the game if you were impartial to the X-Men and not as big of a fan?

[Chris]

I hate to agree with gerbil on this but deep down I do.

[Trithemius]

Isn't anyone sick of superheroes yet?

If the Watchmen film sucks, then I will be?

On somewhat related note: does anyone know why we haven't seen a Hellboy game? Or is the creator jealously (sensibly?) guarding his IP in this regard?

(Okay, so there are not actually a lot of super-people in Watchmen...)