One of the little silly things that kinda bugs me about games like the Metroid sequels (and Metroid certainly isn’t the only kind of game that does this it’s just the biggest title off the top of my head that is the most blatant at it) is that there is enough history with the character that when we show up in the new world in the new game that we know that the first thing that is going to happen is that our character will get hit in the head and we will lose all of the great skills we picked up last game.
Maybe this isn’t so bad if it happens once… but by the fourth or fifth time, you’d think that there’d start to be brain damage.
Now, seriously, when you think about it, there is a very good reason to design things like this: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. People loved the game the last time, they played the heck out of it, they beat it and they sighed and they googled when the sequel was coming out. Because you demanded it, here is more of the same!
And, to be sure, more of the same has all kinds of things going for it when you feel like comparing it to those guys who stray too far off the beaten path (see, for example, Shadowrun for the 360… actually, don’t).
(Aside: There was a movie that came out in 2005 called A History of Violence
John Hurt sets up an assassination of Viggo and, of course, it goes awry. John Hurt then asks the only assassin to survive the assassination attempt “HOW DO YOU (mess) THAT UP???” (Watch the scene here, if you’re inclined… Warning: it’s not only pretty violent it uses swear words so you won’t want to watch it at work.)
Back to the point, when you see a video game sequel stray too far from the established formula that works, you just want to start yelling “HOW DO YOU (mess) THAT UP???”
(X-Com Apocalypse is probably the best example of an “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull” out there. Seriously. You’ve got the first game right there. Just do *THAT*. How do you (mess) that up?)
Which brings us to Batman: Arkham City
Arkham Asylum was probably the best Superhero game since Superman for the Atari 2600 and a sequel that takes the formula that made that game work and tweak it only a little before giving us Arkham Asylum + Sandbox is reason to dance in the streets rather than think about poor Bruce Wayne being kicked in the head (which, seriously, happens in the first scene).
I’m already looking forward to Arkham America.
The league has a well established tradition of censoring the f-word. How do you Fish that up?
There are too many hoary cliche’s that I am attached to and far too many Biblical references for me to adopt that one for myself.
“You can give a man a fish…”
I think you’ve got basically three plausible ways to handle this.
1. Your characters never accumulate gear/powers (Super Mario Bros.) so there’s nothing to retain from game to game.
2. Every sequel is a different story about different people (Final Fantasy) so there’s no need.
3. Every sequel is another iteration of a timeless story that’s just repeated in different times/worlds (The Legend of Zelda).
The “they have all of these skills… what they don’t have is access to their arsenal” thing kinda works for me too.
It’s weird. The difference between *THIS* 10-second intro speech and *THAT* 10-second intro speech can be the difference between being excited and having a bad taste left in one’s mouth… for two identical gaming experiences.
It’s not weird at all! If video games are an aesthetic experience, then the intros must be very important.
“Concussions!” sees Russell.
“Aha!” he thinks, “maybe I will be able to contribute something useful to the conversation!”
Sadly, no.
Hrm. Maybe I could get something sports sciency out of Batman?
Have you ever done work with Olympic athletes?
As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, I have.
They’re all crazy, right?
The one actual Olympic athlete I had seemed OK, though she was always, always injured. (I punted her to sports medicine most of the time, since I don’t want to be the schmuck who derailed her career with bad advice.)
The nigh-unto-Olympic athlete I saw more recently was totally gonzo.
Huh… now that I’m thinking about it, the number one thing that Batman would have wrong with him would probably be his knees and his shoulders?
Well, concussions would be right up there.
So he’d likely have Parkinson’s at this point?
(This is one of those things that they do kind of try to address from time to time… they kill him and then drop him in one of the Lazarus pits or discuss the mystical healing skills of some of his doctors that allow him to heal things that most people can’t at a rate that even those who can’t would never achieve.)
He seems to get into a lot of nasty chemicals to. What with Poison Ivy (nature based pheremones and poisons); Joker (Industrial chemicals and neurotoxins); Scarecrow (psychodellics and hallucinogens); Mr. Freeze (Aresoles); Penduin (Hair pomade) and Cat Woman (cat Dander natch) you’d think the Bat’d have some serious environmental illness issues. My Coke Zero addiction has nothing on him.
Maybe that’s the explanation for Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman.
Doctor Saunders, I submit that a mock-up report of what you found when you gave Bruce Wayne a physical and an MRI would totally be the most awesome post *EVER*.
> Doctor Saunders, I submit that a mock-up
> report of what you found when you gave
> Bruce Wayne a physical and an MRI would
> totally be the most awesome post *EVER*.
You could do this weekly.
This week’s faux patient, John McClane from Die Hard.
This weeks’ faux patient, Narrator (Ed Norton) from Fight Club.
Doctor Saunders, I submit that a mock-up report of what you found when you gave Bruce Wayne a physical and an MRI would totally be the most awesome post *EVER*.
Consider it, if not yet done, than at the top of my list of post ideas.
What do you mean by “crazy”? Crazy in that Olympic-class athletes routinely push themselves beyond a point at which the rest of us would have long ago quit? Crazy in that the slightest ache sends them running for the doctor? Or something else entirely?
“I should not date this person. I should start running. I don’t mean, like, marathon kinda running but away kinda running.”