Gearing for 10 years Success?
February 11th 2009 10:11
What kind of series will Gears of War become?
Gears of War writer, Joshua Ortega, announced to fanboys “(they) will not be disappointed in the next ten years” at the New York Comic Con.
Many gaming series had different ways in keeping itself fresh for fans to dig into. Final Fantasy made the effort of changing its story, characters, varied its gameplay from Active Time Battles to various ways to obtain magic and uber, magical monsters/pets (for example, FF8’s GF’s are the same to FF9’s Eidolons) while keeping a sense of consistency throughout its history, like recurring names like Biggs and Wedge, job classes, and the mentioned uber pets and enimies. Some games just didn’t have to evolve as the ground work already paved its success and loyal fanbase, i.e. Street Fighter, Tekken and Soul Calibur series.
Mario, as a platformer, didn’t have to change much of its gameplay for each title, but captivates gamers everywhere through its varied levels, monster designs and secrets tucked away, which it’s totally good at. It even established how 3D platformers should be made with Super Mario 64. Mario and his cast are arguably sitting on top of the Gaming Mountain for 2 decades without changing much of its formula.
For every Mario, there are great series that took a wrong turn, like platformers Sonic, Spyro (to a degree), and Crash Bandicoot. But a string of bad or bland titles doesn’t guarantee a one ticket to Gaming hell, series that dropped their drinking habit and got back into shape, most notably Call of Duty, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, are living proof of that. I still have my hopes up for a great Silent Hill and Need For Speed title!
As proven, inventing the “right” (because there are wrong; *cough*Werehog*cough*) type of innovation to keep a series respectable is hard, but than again, Pokemon kept on spamming the same game over and over without losing any of its market since 1996!
Another series that has its charm intact, but hasn’t brought the “wow” its former titles had is Grand Theft Auto 4. Don’t get me wrong, GTA4 was a great game, it had every feature which made its prequels an addictive bag of sandbox fun, but it doesn’t bring anything significantly new that pushes the “Awesome” button in my gaming heart.
Some series had significant facelifts in hopes of keeping the series from becoming stale while keeping the same gameplay intact: House of the Dead: Overkill, Driver and the Total War series comes to mind. Established sporting series have churned out the same, high quality games with a new pout of gameplay each year, I’m looking at you Madden, Smackdown! and Virtua Tennis.
Now back to Gears of War, their huge performances in the market ensures Microsoft will be looking forward to future iterations of the series. It has the characters, world, history, original gameplay, and memorable bad guys, but do the developers have enough noodles baking in their heads to keep on invigorating the series with something new while keeping its soul intact? Who knows, many series have fallen over its gigantic feet for one reason or another, its future is uncertain, like gaming studios at the moment. All cynicisms aside, as GoW3 emerge from the Hollow, the Locust will follow… for now.
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