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"Game Stereotypes - Look what they've done to our industry."

Remember the 16bit days of the Snes and Megadrive.
Some people argued over which one was better but I don't think that there was any name calling.

Now, the 3 major systems all have their own stereotypes.
Xbox - a bug filled, mini PC for geeks.
Gamecube - A colourful toy for kids.
PS2 - Nothing new. Just a sequel to the machine of sequels.

And apart from being funny, it also messes up the industry.

Why?

Because most devellopers try to live up to them!!

Devellopers release anything on the PS2 because they think that the owners are idiots who'll buy anything.
So many people owned a PS1 after 3 years that this was the case - that anything sold on it!
Because of this, billions of poor quality 3rd party releases have appeared on the PS2 (backed by some decent games too) and these idiots who released them have learned the hard way that only hardcore PS2 fans wanted to pay £300 for the new machine.

Look what Stereotyping did to Nintendo.
Before the N64, no one ever thought of the Snes as babyish.

Then some adult games appeared on the Playstation and most people thought they'd grown out of platformers.
Hence the N64 got it's kiddie image.

NOM went by this stereotype and aimed it's magazine at 9 year olds (I think that everyone can agree with me here)

In an early issue, they previewed Mortal Kombat Trillogy with the comment:
"You'd better hide this from you mama..."

Sheesh!

But then there's always some who like to laugh at, and ridicule these stereotypes. Take Rare.

They decided to produce a cute cartoony platformer about little kids who go around and shoot giant Ant's.
Giant Ant's that burst with limbs, heads, guts and blood flying everywhere.
Jet Force Gemini was it's name.

Nintendo didn't let them release a game with little kids commiting violence and demanded that Rare make the characters more grown up. Rare did what they said... this time.

But they weren't done yet. They decided to take the peak of the kiddie image - a little cute squirrel with big bubbly eyes.
And turned him into a a foul mouthed obnoxious character who did all the things that a platformer did but added in violence and explicit humour.


Gameplay wise, it was no more mature than say Mario 64.

Yes everyone called it an adult game. A "grown up" platformer.

Rare must be laughing at their shallow audiences!

Mario Tenis is not a sequel of the mario platform games, but there has been Mario Tennis games on previous systems, I have the first version for the gameboy, making it a sequel.

Bonus wrote:
> All sequels are new games with old characters, that stands to
> reason, for me anyway, the only exception has been the Final Fantasy
> and Resident Evil series, which have'nt used the same characters in
> ever game. so if you use your logic that Final Fantasy 10 is merely
> a sequel,

I didn't, but the fact that it had a number in it's name certainly gives the impression it's a sequel.
In each Mario game he's doing something different.
From Mario 64 to Mario Tennis.

It's obvious that they're not the same game.


Final Fantasy and Resident Evil might use different characters, settings and storylines everytime but the gameplay is identical.
There's nothing wrong with this as they're still great games but it does stop them from being revolutionary.

The game that successes Mario 64 (the next Mario platformer on the Gamecube) is garaunteed to have a brand new twist to the gameplay and the games style.
It's not simply an old game with a new background, story and character.

Now I didn't start this topic for console wars.
I said that ALL three systems had stereotypes and they were ALL EQUALLY stupid.

Get it now?

Bonus wrote:
> Exactly, but obviously someone will be more than willing to argue
> with these points;

1) Nintendo are innovative


Well if you look at the original ideas PS2 games have come up with (possibly Fantavision being the only completely original title)
and compare them to the amount of ideas that Gamecube games have produced:

Luigi's Mansion - ghostbusting around a mansion. Never been a game like it.

Pikmin - No it's not a simple RTS. It's got a lot more to it than that.

Monkey Ball - So Nintendo didn't make it, but Sony haven't hardly any of the PS2's original games so seeing as Monkey Ball is Gamecube exclusive at the moment, I can use it as an example!

There's also Rare's Kameo game where you take over monsters and while Smash Brothers Melee might be a sequel, the first one was incredibly original and together they're only 2 of a kind rather than one of a billion FPS or F1 games.

Do you see?

All sequels are new games with old characters, that stands to reason, for me anyway, the only exception has been the Final Fantasy and Resident Evil series, which have'nt used the same characters in ever game. so if you use your logic that Final Fantasy 10 is merely a sequel, not a brand new game with brand new characters, and a brand new story then all of the Nintendo sequels which have old franchises in their names, are also, merely sequels.

Firstly, half the sequels you mentioned for the Gamecube weren't sequels.
They are new games with old characters.

The other games you mention (on Xbox too) have had atleast a 2 year gap since the original and more often then not, is the first sequel in the series.

The PS2 launch had the likes of Tekken 4 and Ridge Racer 5 as main titles. Some PS2 titles are getting sequels soon (within a year of it's launch.)
The name itself suggests that the console it a sequel.
The 3 main hyped games (Final Fantasy 10, Metal Gear Solid 2 and GT3) are all sequels.

WE know, US the HARDCORE gamers know that the PS2 has plenty of original titles as well.
The same way that we all know that the Gamecube isn't a babies machine.

But the way that at one point, most major releases on the Playstation were sequels. Tombraiders every year. 3 Tekkens, 4 Ridge Racers, 3 Resident Evils, 3 Final Fantasy games and a several new Fifa's and F1 games every year...

And the Playstation 2 being a sequel of the machine of sequels...

Well you can see why many people lable the Playstation 2 as a sequel station.

Exactly, but obviously someone will be more than willing to argue with these points;

1) Nintendo are innovative

2) The Xbox is, emm, big and, emm, it's an original console, so there.

Bonus wrote:
I still don't understand why people will label the PS2 the sequelstation, when the other systems have just as many.

As your list proves, there's no reason.

It's just an easy swipe to take at it.

If you rattle down the Gamecube sequels you hit;

Zelda
Star Wars
Mario
Ea sports series
Super Smash Bros.
Resident Evil
Wave Race
Star Fox
Metroid
Extreme G 3
Turok.


As for the Xbox;

Unreal
Dead or Alive
Jet Set Radio
Blood Omen
Test Drive
Star Wars
EA Sports


Although, all of the consoles also have a mssive number of original games, coming out and already released (in the case of the PS2), so I still don't understand why people will label the PS2 the sequelstation, when the other systems have just as many.

I would have to assume that this has been carried over from accusations made against the playstation for producing a vast amount of games with some sort of postfix latched on.

The list would include:
EA Sports series such as FIFA and Madden
Tomb Raider
Resident Evil
Tekken
GT one and two
Final Fantasy

And so on.

I believe the saying goes - 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'

I'm confused by all this talk of the PS2 being a sequel system. It hsa no more sequels of franchises in the pipeline than the Gamecube or the Xbox, and has some of the most original games released for a long time, so where did this stereotype come from??

Can anyone enlighten me as to why they think the way they do??