If you haven’t noticed the ever-growing amount of sequels of popular games in the industry and the decrease of the new, original games, you are blind (this is not an insult to blind people, but an insult to a blind brain). The reason for this phenom is our constant clamoring for them. Most sequels turn out too similar to the original and bring nothing new to the table, and some are innovative enough to keep refreshing the franchise at a healthy rate. I like those ones. I have seen a lot of fanboys whine about new ideas and changes added to “their beloved series” especially whining about the lighting changes in Diablo 3, the gameplay differences in Fallout 3 and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. This is something called evolution. It hasn’t been proven, but it is vital for a good sequel to posses it.

Let’s begin the brainstorm with what needs to be done with gameplay, the core foundation of what makes the game fun and interesting. Imagine that we have a turn-based RPG like Final Fantasy and then make it an action RPG which is what changed for FF in number twelve. For Final Fantasy, this was huge and it made people want to play it more because it was a good change of pace and something that was unseen in a Final Fantasy game. Of course there will be the fanboys that are purists to the original ideas that disagree with the changes, but would they really be happy if developers made no attempt to evolve their game and bring it up to date? In most cases, the game stays the same anyway and there is always a group that is pissed off about it staying the same. Make up your minds and deal with what you got because it’s what you asked for, isn’t it? I encourage the fine men and women that are making these to switch things up a little bit. We’ve already been there and done that.

The element that definitely needs to change is the story, even though some say that they play a game not to be impressed by a story. First of all, why was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic such a good game? Its story. The gameplay wasn’t revolutionary, but it told a great narrative. I guess what I’m trying to get here is that JRPG’s have a knack to have the same spiky-haired protagonist, First-Person Shooters give you the same tough guy trying to save the country or the world, and goal of almost every fantasy game is to get some random item with unknown power out of the wrong hands. Have we completely lost our creativity in creating stories that evolve or have different premises? I haven’t seen a whole lot yet, but I’m sure that the talent is out there to fix this issue up.

With stuff like Banjo and Fallout, the future of sequels is looking bright and if the fanboys open there eyes and minds a little bit, we just might start a gaming revolution; not to be preachy or anything like that, I just think it would be cool to see a cell-shaded Gears of War.

It all started on November 14, 2007. Between then and now has produced a lot of change in the game journalism business, but I will not talk about the past because this is now. Giant Bomb is finally here and it's freakin' awesome! I now have the ability to correct the major and minor changes to the Knights of the Old Republic page, blog, and break people down all in the same site.

This is a dream community. (Mostly) intelligent people are coming from Gamespot, 1UP, IGN, Kotaku, and more to get themselves a Giant Bomb profile. There going like hotcakes!

Anyway, gotta get back to editing some game pages.