Nothing is Ever New: An Old and New Comparison

There has been a lot of back and forth on the forums lately about ripoffs, and of course a lot of people are of the opinion that everything should be new and innovative. Now, I argue that you can ask for one, or the other but not both. The very concept of innovation requires a pre-existing idea before it can be innovated upon, whereas something completely fresh and original, is new and cannot be innovated upon in any way.

The cover mechanic that people loved so much, re-introduced in Gears of War to much critical acclaim was in fact used in an almost identical fashion years previous on the Nintendo 64 (although the game did not get a release in Europe, I don't know about the rest of the world) and later re-released on the Playstation 2. Operation Winback features a cover system that is almost identical, the only difference aside from the obvious difference in quality, is that you cannot move along a piece of cover, nor jump over a piece of low cover.

Now, this might seem like a controversial choice but there is logic behind it. Browse any forum that has a videogame section and you will soon realise that whenever the topic of movie franchise tie ins comes up, you will get a few pages of hate, and some foolhardy reminiscing. It seems all too often people will imply, if not flat out state that "Things were better in the olden days", "Before publishers were all about money" and other misinformed comments. Well, i'll have you know that movie tie-ins have been around since the dawn of the videogame industry, and more often than not they've been terrible, just like nowadays. 

Again, this might seem like a fairly obvious or inane choice, but a lot of people forget how enourmously popular online gaming was, even before the internet as we know it today existed. And I don't mean two guys playing chess on a tight-rope.

This is the only game specific example on this list, but again, it's to prove the overall point. Dead Space is one of my favorite games of this generation, and one i've had many hours of enjoyment out of (played it twice in the past four days alone) however, upon completing the game for the first time, I noted several similarities in both gameplay, enemy and weapon design, plot, and mechanics to a game I had played many years prior.

There has been a lot of back and forth on the forums lately about ripoffs, and of course a lot of people are of the opinion that everything should be new and innovative. Now, I argue that you can ask for one, or the other but not both. The very concept of innovation requires a pre-existing idea before it can be innovated upon, whereas something completely fresh and original, is new and cannot be innovated upon in any way.

The cover mechanic that people loved so much, re-introduced in Gears of War to much critical acclaim was in fact used in an almost identical fashion years previous on the Nintendo 64 (although the game did not get a release in Europe, I don't know about the rest of the world) and later re-released on the Playstation 2. Operation Winback features a cover system that is almost identical, the only difference aside from the obvious difference in quality, is that you cannot move along a piece of cover, nor jump over a piece of low cover.

Now, this might seem like a controversial choice but there is logic behind it. Browse any forum that has a videogame section and you will soon realise that whenever the topic of movie franchise tie ins comes up, you will get a few pages of hate, and some foolhardy reminiscing. It seems all too often people will imply, if not flat out state that "Things were better in the olden days", "Before publishers were all about money" and other misinformed comments. Well, i'll have you know that movie tie-ins have been around since the dawn of the videogame industry, and more often than not they've been terrible, just like nowadays. 

Again, this might seem like a fairly obvious or inane choice, but a lot of people forget how enourmously popular online gaming was, even before the internet as we know it today existed. And I don't mean two guys playing chess on a tight-rope.

This is the only game specific example on this list, but again, it's to prove the overall point. Dead Space is one of my favorite games of this generation, and one i've had many hours of enjoyment out of (played it twice in the past four days alone) however, upon completing the game for the first time, I noted several similarities in both gameplay, enemy and weapon design, plot, and mechanics to a game I had played many years prior.

Yeah originality is great but it shouldn't be a crutch to excuse good gameplay, nor should lack of originality be used to discount good gameplay.

I dont think anyone really complains about games using certain mechanics or features, just that they do them well, as was the case with Dead Space.  Gears innovated upon the third person shooter, and RE5 didn't want to follow and suffered for it.  The rip-offs are those which are blatantly just using the features to sell, not to actually make the game better.

Honestly, I don't care if a game rips ideas straight from another game or relies heavily upon functions inherent to its particular genre, so long as the game does them well and involves me in its world.  Two perfect examples right now that I'm playing are Devil Survivor and Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume for the DS.  Neither game really brings a whole lot that's new or innovative to the table, but both are downright solid and immensely fun with stories interesting enough to keep me entertained.  I'm not interested in "new" for the sake of innovation.  All a game needs to be is fun, even if it feels familiar.

I never played Doom over a LAN connection. I have two reasons for that:

1. Doom sucks.
2. I hate death match.

Whats wrong with a rip off or two. Its like Gears of War, it takes the idea of a cover system and makes a great game out of it. Even if they took the idea from Kill Switch, Kill Switch wasn't a good game. For people to say that a new third-person shooter takes the control scheme/cover system straight from RE 4 and Gears, well that is how all third-person shooters are made today and that is the standard for each game.

well call me silly but ive always thought that if a game inspires you as a developer, you should mention that game in your game. that would make ignorant gamers know the truth that they're supposed to know as gamers, but they dont cuz theyre ignorant ..

You must go nuts when people use the word new to describe things.  I don't see
what your point is.  In order for a game to be great, the whole of the game must
be greater than its individual parts.  Not many games can do that.

I played Madworld this week and the art style sucked me in.  After about 2 hrs the gameplay felt like a really old mediocre ps2 beat um up.  Bad camera controls and repetetiveness made me stop playing.  This seemingly fresh game on the wii looked different enough to give a try but the actual core of the game really does nothing to impress if not keep you playing the game.  It was just enough to do so and i do love my beat um ups.  Oh and on a yakuza 3.....please come to the states

Even Mirror's Edge, which was hailed as being innovative, was apparently done before by a game called Breakdown(although being an original XBox exclusive, you'll have to ask the 5 people who played it).
Bioshock's plot was basically SS2 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.
Dark Messiah was basically an upgraded, polished, more interactive, and overall better(but still somewhat similar) sequel to Arx Fatalis. Same developers and everything.

" @PureRok: Don't let me take away your right to be opinionated, but 'Doom sucks' is a gross misrepresentation of your opinion. You don't like it, it does not suck. "