Platform Erasure

by Darren Lee Taylor - 2008/05/21 8:58am

With each and every new console release since the fifth generation, games have become more and more realistic. What we once perceived as bright, bouncy and blistering with infectious theme music, we now hopelessly find ourselves forever lost in a sea of graphical spectacle and physical dynamics. With titles like Metal Gear Solid 4, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Grand Theft Auto IV and Elder Scrolls, we have become accustomed to an era of self-realism, where the player is now very closely intertwined with that of their human code. What we encounter and envisage in real life, we now take with us on our epic discoveries online, across the multitude of galaxies that have been mapped before us. Various developers have become apart of this new found mechanic from the simple introduction of next generation engine technology, and through the rapid growth of our modern times, and as such, we are busy alienating ourselves continually from the bypasses of videogame lore. What was once so simple and divine, has now become saturated with the unpleasant necessities of ascertaining the new gamer, the gamer that accepts only the most prevalent and graphically immersive, most pleasurable, most gritty, grainy universes that tackle our main longings for realism and satisfaction. We no longer play those games that used to make us smile with their cutesy, colourful worlds and collect-em-up scenarios; we no longer play host to such wondrous and epic adventures as that of Tombi, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Ape Escape, Dragon Quest or even Final Fantasy. We most certainly strafe away from the 2D roots of classic old school re-imaginings, with Sonic The Hedgehog, Super Metroid, Mario and Dynamite Headdy a thing of the past.

Taking a close look at most of the games in development for the Playstation 3 for 2008 and beyond, it is most discerning that nearly all of them are realistic shooters, RPG’s, fighters or sports titles. There are several individualised exceptions and puzzle entries, but the one genre that is no longer catered for is the platform adventure game. With a few rare gems slipping through the net so far in the consoles lifetime, we have yet to see any developer take on this massively unpopular task of coding and designing a brand new IP for a colourful, spectacular quest spanning countless hours of gripping storylines and aesthetical pleasantries, or a brand new 2D side-scrolling shooter or platformer. It is also most alarming to see nearly all of the charts in the UK and the US catered for by Nintendo and its entourage of Wii and DS titles, poling positions with their family gamer approaches and sequel bound franchises that are making the most of the controller and units sold. It looks from the offset that the days of new IP’s in adventure titles could well and truly be over, or so it seems.

With the release of Halo 3 and GTA IV all surpassing the three million mark within a week in all territories, this type of game is franchising the marketplace with outstanding gameplay features and implementations that are seen as both groundbreaking, and technologically impressive. The outstanding achievements set by both, with our own review of GTA IV hailing it as the greatest game to be released in years, sees a continuing trend in the way we are tackling and absorbing these titles as they are hyped and subsequently released. The machine that is cultural warfare has seen many a gamer change the way they adopt their style of play in recent years, and as such, we are hungry for more of the same. A relentless barrage of new tricks and design choices however are seeing developer products fly off the shelves in enormous amounts since the rise of the big three consoles last year, and since that time, a boom in the videogame marketplace in terms of both sales and product awareness.

So with the rise of these new, immersive and graphically immeasurable releases, will we ever see the platformer reclaim the throne? Sega’s Sonic Rush Studio are trying to achieve it with the upcoming Sonic Unleashed, with its colourful 2D-3D on rails adventure through multiple missions, and so is Square Enix with some of its more recent DS releases. But it seems the only company that are truly adopting the 80’s, 90’s belief in simple gameplay and rainbow induced flavours in their titles is Nintendo. They too however are skirting around the issue of brand new 2D gameplay, but have since realised that this marketplace cannot be forgotten. After all it’s in the roots of all game history, apart of its heritage as much as me and you. This is why there Wii Ware service is looking to tackle this issue, with the drip feed release of several brand new IP’s and 2D games available for download. Microsoft are also hoping that Rare come up with the goods with both Viva Piñata 2 and Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, both set for a winter release, and several multiplatform developers such as Capcom, Retro Studios and Treasure developing secret titles for undisclosed formats for 2008-2009, it seems Sony is falling way behind in the adventure genre for its powerhouse console. Its online service, the Playstation Network, is severely lacking in any unique or original titles, especially of the platform genre; combine this with the fact that there retail releases are also far from acceptable, and we have a problem. So what is the way forward? With such a boom in the influx of sales for these superfluous titles of the high definition era, is there a market for the cutesy, 2D game anymore? Especially when Sony have touted their console as the next biggest power brick for the hardcore gamer. And with Metal Gear Solid 4 proving to be such a goldmine in its preorder campaign with its groundbreaking Blu-Ray desires and achievements set in stone by the mastermind that is Kojima, it only goes to prove a point. If developers and publishers were that focused on ascertaining the needs and requirements of all the gamers out there, then surely there would be a market for the 2D enthusiast. Even SNK have continued with their Metal Slug franchise in order to capture some of this grey area, and with a bit more leniency to the way we envisage and encourage our productivities and spenditure between online sales and retail titles, it can only be a matter of time before we witness a rise in the 1987-1993 platform adventure title that we were once so very proud to be apart of.

Waffle: Not a single mention of Little Big Planet?

PStars: Thanks mate, appreciate it loads.

Dave: Great article Darren!