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When someone operates outside of these sorts of clichés and decides to model a game after their own conception of fun we sometimes end up with renowned, genre defining titles like Resident Evil, Virtua Fighter and the Command & Conquer series. Yet all of these titles are perched at the top of a long list of cascading clones and spin-off genres that quickly turn their originality into annoying regulars.
While Resident Evil was not the first of it’s kind, through marketing and appealing game play it became the standard and encouraged the birth of crappy copies like Carrier and inventive titles like Silent Hill. In the case of Silent Hill, the clichés were taken, acknowledged, manipulated and splintered into a respectfully inspired product. On the other hand, what “Doom” was to the “Halo” - a bastardization of all that made the original as notable as it was.
In recent times titles like Final Fantasy X and Grand Theft Auto III have reformed, to some extent, what we expect from a game for better or worse. Grand Theft Auto III has all but ruined me for urban action/driving titles that lack the same scope of freedom and elbowroom. Accordingly, Final Fantasy X has driven the commercial stake that much deeper into the heart of the genre (and gaming as a whole) and formed something less like an RPG and more like an interactive blockbuster film with an extreme emphasis on graphics and a healthy helping of everything we already seen before - giving the people what they seem to want.
Ultimately the industry benefits from the progression caused by these evolving games but far too often good games capable of dissolving clichés are largely overlooked and never revisited because of their lack of profit. It’s a shame to see games like Out of this World (SNES), Fade to Black (PS) and about 1/3 of the late Dreamcast’s line up being so disregarded but my favorite example is Shadowrun for SNES. It took a gritty, futuristic street setting and turned it into a strategy/RPG/action game that involved infiltrating corporations, local gangs and complex computer systems. Based on a story from the popular Shadowrun sci-fi technology series it had a novel storyline and an interesting concept akin to movies like the Matrix or Blade Runner. It would be great to see more cliché breaking titles of this sort on the new generation of hardware but content is seemingly being buried underneath the glamorous graphics of the times.
In these times of such commercialism it’s hard to say who has the leading influence on the gaming industry’s direction - the gamers, the marketers, individual developers or the community of developers as a whole. Considering this, it’s clear that the entire system works like a web with each segment in some way manipulating another - we want to play the games we like but where do you draw the line. If developers are so concerned about us when they create games aren’t we bound to play the same thing over and over simply because we keep buying it? Does a development team ever get to realize their own vision and nix the proven clichés if their spectators are looking over their shoulder and into their minds while they’re working? Can creativity ever prevail if their minds are on their money and their money’s on their minds?
Yes. We sit on our couches and armchairs at the threshold of what is hopefully a new era of gaming. Along with new hardware capabilities should come the unbridled potential for new gaming concepts. Hopefully as more independent developers get their wings and the market stream widens to fit three major consoles, the competitive spirit of the days before Playstation will return somewhat. In such a crowded market, you can’t possibly sustain an upwardly moving economy with careless uniformity of concepts and design - original content becomes the ace up the corporate sleeve. With that said, let’s hope these are the bloodiest console wars since the advent of gaming.
That Is the longest post I have ever typed, please read as I have spent a lot of time creating this. Thank you.
Sam41
> members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3zbch/clichearticle.html
>
> Or does removing a paragraph or three make it your own?
Give Happy a GAD for this detective work, sheer class
If you write stuff on here regularly then your general standard of English and your spelling will improve. You will find yourself writing better essays at school and if you can write good essays then you've made a massive step towards getting good GCSE and A-level grades.
Copying things doesn't help anyone. Sure you may make it through chemistry and your English essays from one of the numerous essay sites might get good marks but when it comes to doing things for yourself you will be stuck in the same place you are now. And you always have to stand on your own two feet at some point in life.
Better to start doing your own work now rather than discover that all the time you thought you'd saved was actually wasted.
Or does removing a paragraph or three make it your own?
HAHA... :X hey... WAIT A MINUTE! Ido that all the time!....thats not good...
Well if you read it, I am complimented that you feel a proffesional journalist wrote this article, just because I am a newbie does'nt mean I didn't type this, It just means i don't post every second of my spare time away.
Thanks anyway
Sam41
> That Is the longest post I have ever typed, please read as I have
> spent a lot of time creating this. Thank you.
Gosh.
Round of applause everyone.
Sam's spent the last hour laboriously highlighting an *entire* article, and then - wait for it - copying and pasting it into the post new topic box. Then to top it all off, he's truly created something special by deleting the odd title and word to arrive at a piece as breath-taking in its audacity as it is beautiful in its prose.
Wow. Quite staggering.
Give the guy a GAD.