New developers

Sometimes I start a blog post but then either forget about it or put it to the side for an extended period. Back in March of this year I started a gaming related post but never got far with it, however my post on completion in gaming (found here) reminded me that I still had this incomplete post sitting around. I didn’t get to work on finishing it right away, but I moved the Word file onto my desktop as a reminder, and today I am pleased to finally publish it. Hopefully it was worth the wait.

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It’s an interesting thought experiment to ponder what certain things would be like if they were made by someone other than their original creator. In terms of video games, from time to time I’ve thought over which developer studios could be qualified to take a stab at making a sequel or reboot to games series that haven’t had a new entry in a few years. Below are the results of some of my brain storming, with four games series and my suggestions for a successor studio.

Game Series: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Suggested Studio: Sony Santa Monica (God of War team)

The Force Unleashed games were largely fun, but could have used a little work in the gameplay department. Both games in the series feel God of War-esque, (to the point of them sometimes being called “Jedi of War”) so I think a perfect team to take a crack at either a sequel or a reboot to The Force Unleashed series would be Sony Santa Monica’s God of War team. Sony Santa Monica has proven through the mainline God of War games that they know how to create fantastic gameplay and I’m confident they could translate their talents into the Star Wars universe. Any game they make would also be incredibly good looking, as it seems they set a new bar for visual excellence each time they release a game. Granted, I might opt for someone outside the team to write the story for the new The Force Unleashed game, as the storylines in the God of War games have been hit-and-miss, but the actual game itself would be great.

Game Series: X-Men Legends

Suggested Studio: Blizzard Entertainment

The two X-Men Legends games on PS2 were some of the most fun I had in my college years, as I and three other friends would join up as our favorite X-Men and save the world from the forces of evil. The X-Men Legends games were succeeded by the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, which were also fun, but for whatever reason I didn’t enjoy them quite as much. Given the choice, would rather a sequel or reboot to the X-Men Legends games, and when I think of cooperative multiplayer games, one of the studios that comes to mind is Blizzard Entertainment with their work on the World of Warcraft and Diablo series of games. While it is true that you could have played the X-Men Legends games by yourself, they were truly meant for four people the join up and put the beat down on the bad guys. Blizzard Entertainment clearly knows exactly how to make fun games like this, so I think they would be a natural fit for creating a new X-Men Legends game. My only request would be that they keep couch coop, an increasingly rare feature in today’s multiplayer games.

Game Series: Prince of Persia

Suggested Studio: Ninja Theory

To be clear, I am specifically referring to the 2008 Prince of Persia game, which is my personal favorite. It’s important that I state this because there are enough differences between the various games in the Prince of Persia series that the suggestion for a new developer could vary dramatically, depending on which one you’re talking about. For a sequel to the 2009 Prince of Persia, my personal pick is the studio Ninja Theory. The reason for this is that when I think about bright, colorful worlds, like the one in 2008’s Prince of Persia, some of the first games that come to mind are the ones that Ninja Theory has put out. 2008’s Prince of Persia had a unique aesthetic and Ninja Theory is a developer that I think could match it, or maybe even make it better. There’s nothing overly complex about the gameplay from 2008’s Prince of Persia, so in that sense there’s a wide range of developers who could make a sequel to it, but Ninja Theory is one of the few that can nail the look of the game. Oh, and hopefully they could make the prince less of jerk towards Elika.

Game Series: Resistance

Suggested Studio: Treyarch

For a number of years Treyarch was viewed as the poor cousin of the studios that made the Call of Duty games. Treyarch, however, with the previous two Black Ops games, have shown that they can create shooters just as well as anyone else, and I think they could make a great sequel or reboot to the Resistance series. In Black Ops 2, Treyarch made an outstanding shooter with futuristic technology, so I don’t think it would be that big of a jump for them to create a Resistance game with Resistance’s alien-based weapons. Though the Resistance games have been more focused on the singleplayer campaign with multiplayer as a secondary feature, whereas with Call of Duty it has normally been the reverse, I’m confident, based on Treyarch’s previous games, that they would be able to make a very strong singleplayer campaign, and while they’re at it they could bring their multiplayer talents to give Resistance a much more robust multiplayer offering. I know many Resistance fans would recoil at the thought of anything Call of Duty touching the Resistance games, but Treyarch is one of the studios that I think could do a sequel or reboot right.