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The Sandbox: Blockbusteritis, continued
By Nick Schager
on 04/10/2009
"Killzone 2" flexes bigger muscle in its sequel, but less actual brawn. Guerrilla Games, 2009
Even more than with films, where CGI gains grant franchise installments ever-greater capabilities to craft extravagant sound and fury, game sequels benefit tremendously from being able to use each new hardware cycle’s exponentially superior technology. Yet “Killzone 2” still stands as the latest case study in the diminished returns of the bigger-stronger-faster approach. There’s next to nothing novel about the game, from its level construction to its controls to its inconsequential raid-an-alien-planet story. For me, it provided a momentary thrill and then quickly vanished from memory, a fate that also characterized my time with the newest “Halo,” “Gears of War” and “Resident Evil,” all of them visually impressive but derivative and forgettable, their budgets employed primarily in the service of flash and sizzle instead of adventurous creativity.
Despite recurring claims that the video game industry is recession-proof, with the economy unlikely to quickly right itself and with layoffs becoming more and more common (most notably, EA Games announcing the elimination of 1,000 jobs late last year), Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will naturally continue to keep to the safe, pragmatic sequels-are-good strategy. The question remains, however -- if the industry’s giants continues to be stricken with “sequelitis,” where will true innovation come from? Recent success stories like “Fallout 3” prove that expensive follow-ups needn't be just repeats but can expand, in terms of aesthetics and mechanics, on their forerunners’ templates. And quirky titles like “Little Big Planet” -- a platformer that encourages online community-building through users making game levels, and which was just feted at last month’s Game Developers Choice Awards for Best Game Design, Best Technology, Best Debut and Innovation -- as well as Nintendo’s raft of unique motion-control Wii titles (like exercise blockbuster “Wii Fit”), confirm that originality and ingenuity are commercially viable options for game designers to embrace.
Still, it's clear that if video games are intent on mimicking their summer spectacular cinematic brethren, then there's also got to be room for a complementary “indie” model that affords an economically feasible avenue for taking real risks. Gambles, for example, like critical darling “Braid,” a download-only game that cost independent creator Jonathan Blow $200,000 to produce, and wound up as one of 2008’s most hotly debated titles for its use of a traditional 2-D platform style for a metaphoric examination of time, longing and loss.Groundbreaking small-scale efforts like “Braid” might be a sign of a real forthcoming game revolution, one in which online distribution channels (Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network) act as an outlet for bold experimentation and explorations of niche subject matter while the latest “Killzones” and “Metal Gear Solids” kill at the cash register. It’s a future the industry, if committed to real rather than superficial progress, would be well served making a reality.
The Sandbox, a column about the intersection a film and gaming, runs biweekly.
[Additional photo: "Grand Theft Auto IV," Rockstar Games, 2008; "Braid," Microsoft Games Studio, 2008]
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