Everything
has its icons. Movies will have their Marilyn Monroe’s and George Lucas’. Music
has their Beethoven and Hendrix. Art has their Van Gogh’s and Banksy’s. What do
Video Games have? Elves, plumbers, and Hedgehogs. When you preview a genre from
the most popular icons, it is no wonder video games were taken as such a joke
for such an extensive amount of time. It isn’t until one really pierces through
the surface to truly understand what video games have to offer. One list by
Empire.com lists their top 50 video games icons ever. In their list they rated
Mario behind Gordon Freedmen for number 1. But what is it that makes this list
matter? It’s the experiences that are attached to every one of them. Therefore
people are attached to those experiences, not the icon itself. Players have
taken to their controllers and symbolically forced that character through a
generally harrowing adventure of a lifetime. But when it comes to game icons
their road has not been without their bumps. Constantly people are raveling in
their seats to the torture developers have bestowed upon their favorite icons.
Icons
for games are increasingly growing. I would even argue that the rate of
expansion has been exponentially faster than any of the other arts as Video
Games are relatively new and are largely at the center of pop-culture (see the
WoW episode of South Park, a show that is based entirely off pop culture.) People
will follow their icon more readily so than they are to pick up a new
franchise. With an arena growing rapidly it makes sense that there has been
nothing but sequel after sequel recently.
A franchise wants more money and will take beloved characters and place
them in entirely new directions.
Companies
like Capcom have recently decided to branch out to American developers to
handle reboot of their franchises. One example is the Resident Evil series in
which they recently gave rights to Slant 6 to develop Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. To this news many players
were apprehensive and gamers were ultimately underwhelmed by it after release.
The real question now is why people were disappointed in it. Why would
prestigious websites like Gamespot award the game with ratings of 4.5? Because
it wasn’t in the tradition of Resident
Evil.
Gamers
want their icon to live on so they can experience them again in new setting and
such. But at what point does an icon hurt a franchise? In RE:ORC players don’t assume the roles of the traditional
characters, instead they are given the chance to killer characters like Leon
and Clair. While that is appeasing it isn’t the same adventure that Capcom
could produce.
The same could
be said about companies that go in different directions for older icons.
Nintendo is extremely knowledgeable in this area. Link, Samus, Mario, Kirby, and crew have been
through so many direction changes that it’s hard to keep up with all of them.
In the most recent adaptions Nintendo has been trying to make its icons
friendlier to anyone of all ages. A perfect example is Kirby’s Epic yarn. A game where Kirby is transferred to a world of
yarn and everything is based on that gameplay mechanic. While it was a fun game
and was praised quite well, it lacked any sort of challenge. This caused a rift
between gamers who are used to the old days of vacuuming up baddies and taking
their abilities to those who wanted change of pace. Nintendo has been around in
the industry for quite some time and it makes sense that people who grew up on
their games now have children of their own and they want their children to have
an experience as they did. But is this rift worth it to the companies? With
companies like Nintendo increasingly hemorrhaging money it can only be hoped
that these drastic changes be stopped.
While many of
the above icons have been adapted either by different companies or developers,
there are several cases in which just one developer will ruin an icon for many
people. The most recent case is Mass Effect 3. Since 2007 players have building
their own story with their won Shepard in Mass Effect 1. When the conclusion in
Mass Effect 3 passed there were more than a few angry gamers. In two different
cases gamers rallied together to start up a fundraiser for the organization
Child’s Play to raise $80,000 dollars to change the ending of the game. Later
$1,000 dollars was raised to purchase 402 red, green and blue cupcakes for the
BioWare office. Finally on April 5th BioWare announced that they
would release a free DLC that wouldn’t change the ending, but would give a
cinematic cutscene that would explain more.
In a list by
IGN.com they asked viewers of the site to poll their most disappointing gaming
icons. The list included several reputable franchises like Tomb Raider and
Sonic, but it was the number one spot that was surprising: Master Chief from
Halo. Many people love Master Chief but IGN argued that he is “just a generic
action hero riding on the coat tails of a much better game.” In that case they
were referring to Gordon Freedmen, the number one listed icon on the Empire.com
list. They also state Halo’s source of popularity is mostly in its online
multiplayer and the theme song at the main menu.
With issues
in the gaming world and just the world in general, what’s a company to do to
create the best new sequel (Call of Duty 1million and 1 anyone?) And it is not
only the gamers who suffer, but also the icon that have been building their
legacy for years. It just goes to show that it is still a cutthroat business whether
it’s from the creative or a development angle. What does anyone else think? Have any of your icons been transformed into generic identities?
Top 50 Ranked source:
Top 10 Disappointments source:
http://stars.ign.com/articles/976/976353p1.html
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