Only The Game Is The Same

I was recently in the pub with one of my regular readers, and the decidedly non-retro game “X-Men Legends” came up, along with the sequel “X-Men Legends II” and “Marvel Ultimate Alliance”. I’m a fan of all of these – solid action-RPGs with a decent enough balance between hitting things and spending points, although the most recent is the weakest in that regard and the one that treats the player like he’s a three-year-old who doesn’t quite understand what he wants, as opposed to someone who realises that when Captain America throws his mighty goddamn shield, all those who chose to oppose that shield should motherlovin’ yield. Bitch. So we’ll be spending the bulk of our points on maxing up that bad boy, if that’s all right with you, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, you twat.

At this point in the discussion, our reader – who I should point out was horrifically bored by discussion of whether, if it was time for a fight and a duel was due, the red and the white and the blue would come through when Captain America threw the aforementioned mighty shield – emitted the scornful opinion that Marvel Ultimate Alliance was the same game again.

Which is true, obviously, but why is that a bad thing? And when did that become a bad thing?

Back in the day, Ms Pac-Man was just Pac-Man in drag, and Jet Set Willy was just Manic Miner a few rungs up the social ladder. And Jet Set Willy II remains the original ‘do the first game with extra stuff’ sequel – if you could have hopped on a motorbike and dressed up like Crockett and Tubbs, it would have been Vice City.

I was always of the opinion that if you know what you like, it seems slightly churlish to complain at being given more of it. You like Pac-Man? Here’s some different mazes. (I assume – it could just be that all they did was stick a bow on the main sprite, in which case, yes, rip-off city.) You like Jet Set Willy? We’ve made it twice as big and more difficult. You like X-Men Legends? Now you get to be Magneto and a few of the bad guys and fight your way through some tougher levels. Oh, you like that? Captain America versus Frigging Galactus. And he isn’t a pathetic cloud in this! He’s a gigantic purple twat and he’s eating the Skrull homeworld!

And if you buy an X-Box 360 you can be the Hulk.

That said, I am getting older – my disposable income is less and my desire to explore the strange and the new isn’t as all-consuming as it used to be. I drink John Smith’s, the McDonald’s of alcohol. I’d eat at McDonald’s if I could get the dirt off my hands afterwards. Dirty. So dirty. Dirty, dirty hands. Dirt! Everywhere! Dirt, dirt! The dirt won’t come off! So you can see how I’d be tempted to go for the tried and the tested when it comes to video games.

But then, everyone else is, too. There’s no massive difference between one FPS and another – one might be more graphically advanced, or have different weapons, or a different health system, or you may be looking at the main character’s back instead of seeing it through his endlessly bobbing eyes, or maybe it’s a very realistic WWII instead of a very unrealistic Space War on the planet Xxqnarrgotron Beta, but they’re all the same.

The same goes for sports sims – I mean, is there really any difference that matters between one FIFA game and another? Or those Command & Conquer style military real-time-’em-ups – maybe you’re fighting in the trenches at Ypres or maybe you’re just playing Laser Squad, but it’s all the same. It’s all a big con.

Maybe that’s why we don’t like sequels that are too obviously more of the same thing – it reminds us that every time we pick up a game, that’s what we’re getting. And occasionally, we’d like to keep our illusions.

(If you enjoyed this exploration of sequels and sameness, I’ll do it again next week, only this time with a couple of extra paragraphs about Captain America and his motherlovin’ shield.)