Is success worth disregarding good ideas?
I've been tied up playing three games this week. Resident Evil 6, Borderlands 2 and E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy. It occurred to me that these games represent the developmental extremes I've been seeing of late.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. I love Resident Evil. Let me correct that. I loved Resident Evil. I didn't buy this game. My roommate did. God help me he bought two copies for us to play. I didn't realize someone could hate me that much. It's awful. So far removed from what made Resident Evil popular that myself and many others are forced to ask: Why in the hell is this called Resident Evil? It's literally a quicktime event action brawler with Zombies though it's worth noting at this point in the campaign my roommate and I are in an underground temple fighting..mummies? Like I said, it's not Resident Evil.
Resident Evil 6 is the great experiment in trying to please EVERYONE! - Gary Oldman. It has everything. Puzzles, Shooting, Brawling, Leveling and a monstrious amount of quicktime events. Co-op quicktime events. I long ago lost count of how many times we had to complete an action together at just the right time. It's fun with a friend but I'd never play it by myself. It's not very interesting or even exciting really. Just a co-op rhythm game with zombies. Strike that. Monsters. Zombies have been downplayed in this one. Too niche.
Borderlands 2 has really refined everything from the original. Smoother, prettier, co-opier. So why don't I really like it? Well honestly it's kinda boring. Accept sometimes charming sometimes campy quest, shoot things, collect guns, sort guns, complete quest, rinse, repeat.
The gameplay is so simplistic I can not bring myself to play it by myself. I can't even play with other people for long stretches. It's just not that enticing. It's addictive, but not really any more so than grinding out your life in an MMO. The bigger badder plot of this one is lost on me. It really doesn't feel like it's grown any since the first. I feel like they were really afraid to take any risks with this one. Gearbox seems like they had their hands full making solid gameplay and any ideas for a broader story had to be edited for time. I suspect By the time I finish BL2 I'll have forgotten most of it and hopefully have forgotten how much I paid for it.
EYE is a weird broken little mess and has really managed to grow on me. EYE is everything that borderlands and RE6 are not. It's a game about strategy and choices. there's no hand holding. In fact the game is kind of dickish in that sense. Missing objectives I thought were bugs were actually just the game making you get off your mental ass and go figure it out. Why would a quest to find something have a map marker?(I'm looking at you borderlands.)
To put the complexity of choice in perspective borderlands has a screen of about 3-6 stat perks to choose from. When you gain a level you get "1" point to place in one of those stat perks. The choice is so negligible you might as well flip a coin and move on. There's a "ballizion guns", but in my most recent play last night as I'm moving through quest after quest I just flipped through whatever guns I picked up. The gimmick of managing guns gets old fast after your 4500th pick up. It's almost demeaning like Gearbox has turned us all into cart pushing gun hobos.
In EYE you have three stats screens. A character screen where you apply points you gain at each level mark to 8 or so stats that affect your character like strength and endurance. A cybernetics screen where you use money to upgrade the titanium plates around your skull, add a firewall to your cerebellum, install a plated ribcage and a plethora of other crazy crap. The last upgrade screen involves paying scientists to investigate technology upgrades for you based on items you find in the field. This happens realtime as you are completing missions. I recently acquired strength enhancing finger couplers for example another was a cyberbrain template for keeping my mental balance from breaking down in extreme firefights.
The problem with EYE is that it's made by a bunch of nobodies with nothing to lose. They put together a game with so much complexity it's like wading through mud figuring it all out. There's bugs too. Infinitely spawning enemies and other weirdness. It's a tough game. the learning curve is almost too deep.
Resident Evil 6 and Borderlands 2 are selling great based on the success of their predecessors and their extreme fear of doing anything detrimental to the brand. In trying to please their demographics they didn't try a single new thing. Each in it's own way put the previous game in a bag, shook it up and put it right back on the shelf. It's a shame they chose the safe way to ensure the investors get paid. I wish EYE had a budget and a team to give it the fine touches of the other two, but to get that it would have had to give up all the complexity that keeps me trudging past the bugs and the shear engine age of the game.
I can't speak for Borderlands 2 but there's a whole lot of "never again" buzz going around in-regards to Resident Evil 6. I suspect they've finally pushed past the patience and forgiving nature of survival horror fans.
*EYE is getting a full review hopefully by Monday. Damn thing is taking a while to finish. I'd review Resident Evil 6 and Borderlands 2 in depth, but that would require depth.
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