Stop Going Backwards
By adamazing 12 Comments
Have you ever played a game and thought it was absolutely fantastic? There was so much that you loved about it. Maybe it even had features or elements not seen in any other game. You felt that it was a huge step forward and were happy to be a fan of it... happy to talk to people about it... happy to spread the love and get others to check it out...
And then they make a sequel and take out features. Take out features?!?
Why would anyone take out things that made the previous version so unique and interesting? I can list example upon example of this, but the most recent would be Red Faction: Armageddon. I loved Red Faction: Guerilla. It had so many aspects that kept me playing and playing and even having a hard time deciding whether to continue with the campaign or level up in multiplayer. Here is a list of things I enjoyed so much about it:
- Not over the shoulder third person view
- Sandbox environment on a planet we all know and love
- Jetpacks
- Human vs. human conflict (A government/civil type war)
- Hammer time
- Competitive multiplayer
- Messing around with friends in competitive multiplayer creating funny situations using the physics engine and weapons
- Basically doing that for hours in all different ways... You know, not even really doing the objectives... just messing around having a super blast.
That is just a handful of things that I had so much fun doing. I literally spent hours just messing around in the world. Obviously, that is part of the whole sandbox environment. Now let's get to things that were changed for the sequel, Red Faction: Armageddon:
- Everything
Yes, the shooter/sci-fi genre is already very saturated, but Red Faction: Guerilla was something fresh. It did so many things to stand out. Now with Armageddon, it's basically an uninspired Gears of War copy. They are going backwards by trying to cash in on a game that came out five years ago, but this time they aren't even bothering adding anything to it.
I downloaded the demo yesterday, played it, and then deleted it. The original demo for Guerilla, I put hours into just messing around. Now I'm stuck in a tunnel with only one way to go. There is no room for destruction. What is the point of having such a fantastic physics engine if there is no room to use it? The scale of Guerilla was perfect. There are large buildings that could be completely demolished. Now, I can shoot a barrel or knock over some stairs. That's going backwards!
There was an interview in EGM where one of the producers said again and again, "We listened to the fans. They didn't like this, so we changed it. They didn't like that, so we changed it." It was all stuff that fans I know ENJOYED. I sent them a Twitter message about that. They said, "We didn't change everything. Just a few small things." That statement is half right. They did change a few small things, but they also changed everything around those small things... which would be, everything.
Oh, and another game I loved that kept taking stuff out? Burnout. In the first one, you could edit and create videos of all your crashes. In the second one, you could just watch replays (but not save them). In the third, nothing... There were other things as well. Leaderboards had best at everything; longest jump, longest drift, most flips, etc. Now it's just fastest time. Also, they took out the world renowned Crash mode (where you had to cause the most destruction).
12 Comments