Back before Eidos was purchased by Square Enix, it was doing a lot of interesting things. I say interesting, but I actually mean strange. During the PS2 era, it published a lot of bizarre, poorly-received games such as 25 to Life, Rogue Trooper, Total Overdose and Reservoir Dogs. The company had a few good titles under its belt as well, but this was an era when Eidos wasn’t afraid to make some weird choices, for better or worse. One of those decisions was establishing the Fresh Games label in 2002, a short-lived subsection of games that Eidos localized from Japan. It represented the kind of off-brand strategies you rarely (if ever) see from big publishers these days, and it’s something that I miss.
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Far Cry 3 was an utterly ridiculous game, filled to the brim with plenty of opportunities to cause chaos. It felt like the perfect direction to take the series, and a great culmination of everything that worked about the previous two games. After finding success with it, Ubisoft decided to do something a bit different. Instead of new DLC, it wanted to release a standalone spinoff to give people a chance to experience Far Cry 3 in a completely different setting.
Embracing everything that was ludicrous about the main game and making it even more so, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is one of the craziest examples of how to create something new with something old while wearing your inspirations plainly on your sleeves. READ MORE
Imagine you’re playing a game in a series you particularly like. In the middle of it, you stop and think, “What if this game was actually something entirely different?” I run into those moments countless times, and yet when I actually stop to consider how that would turn, out I can’t help but become obsessed with this nonexistent game. Developers and publishers love to graft the ideas and design philosophies of certain series onto the core of different genres, either for the potential to expand the series’ audience or perhaps to simply try something different. Some of these ideas seem like obvious choices, but others might leave you scratching your head.
Regardless of the results and the potential backlash from fans, I love to see developers try new things with franchises. What’s the harm in a little experimentation?
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In From Pixels to Polygons, we examine classic game franchises that have survived the long transition from the 8- or 16-bit era to the current console generation.
The Metal Gear series has seen a lot of changes over its 26-year history, and yet it remains one of the most widely discussed and loved franchises in gaming. While the core fundamentals of the series (such as stealth) have remained more or less the same, the transformation from 8-bit MSX game to the current juggernaut it is today has been fascinating. And with the recent announcement of Metal Gear Solid V, it’s time to take a look at Hideo Kojima’s ever-growing series.
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After a long wait, the third game from the Operation Rainfall fan campaign has been released in North America, thanks to XSEED Games. Pandora’s Tower, easily the strangest of the three titles, was considered by many to be the unessential game of the group. While it has a few promising aspects and a premise worth paying attention to, the early word on this bizarre action-RPG was not entirely inaccurate. READ MORE
