If you could head a project to revitalize an old abondoned game franchise which one would it be?
My pick would be Earthworm Jim. EWJ3D was such a disappointment gameplaywise... I don't think the series should end on that note(and I truly miss it's funky art direction and sense of humor).
I'm glad that in general EWJ3D was designed as a platformer(even though it was a bad one) but weapons are an important part of EWJ and really should be thought out better if such an effort is made again. Recent "edgy" platformers have made great strides in creating a wepon managment system, but unfortunatly so much so that the level design has been changed to the point where they're less of a platformer and more of a 3rd-person shooter(see the Rachet and Clank games). I think that while a guns can be an interesting gameplay feature, they should not take precidence over the exploration factor.
I think that if an EWJ game were to be made, a balance would would have to be struck between gunplay and straight-up platforming; A balance that R&C and, to a lesser extent, the Jak series have tried for and not quite hit.
More thoughts on this later maybe. Anyway, what series would you pick?
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Ultima. I still can't believe how poorly that ended. 7 was great and established what I thought was a fantastic and gripping story. The thematic possibilities alone were tremendous, and it was the perfect direction for the series. 8 was pretty bad, but it furthered the story and ended with a cool cliffhanger.
And then came 9, the last one.
It was supposed to be a climactic ending to a great adventure. Instead, there isn't a single accurate reference to a previous game. There are tons of references, but none of them are accurate - and I'm not talking about little details that fanboys whine about. I don't know how they managed that, seeing as they created the first 8 games. What story there was barely made sense unto itself, and was trite and boring. It was completely linear, whereas past Ultima games boosted more freedom than any RPG I've ever played. The battle system involved clicking the mouse button as fast as you could and pressing the heal button one in a while.
The game was so rushed that when it was released it didn't even run. It took over a month before they released a patch, and another before the final 2. And the game still crashes constantly. You can see fragments of gameplay functionality that they didn't have time to include and chunks of levels they never finished.
The gameplay is horrible, the level design was dissonant, and everything (including programming) starts breaking down 3/4 of the way through. I swear there were buttons in the last dungeon that didn't do anything.
The graphics, or course, were gorgeous.
It should have been one of the greatest RPGs of all time. In reality, I'd be very surprised if Shadow the Hedgehog was even close to as bad. If someone remade this game - completely, with nothing in common with the original but the title - I'd buy a new computer just to play it.
And then came 9, the last one.
It was supposed to be a climactic ending to a great adventure. Instead, there isn't a single accurate reference to a previous game. There are tons of references, but none of them are accurate - and I'm not talking about little details that fanboys whine about. I don't know how they managed that, seeing as they created the first 8 games. What story there was barely made sense unto itself, and was trite and boring. It was completely linear, whereas past Ultima games boosted more freedom than any RPG I've ever played. The battle system involved clicking the mouse button as fast as you could and pressing the heal button one in a while.
The game was so rushed that when it was released it didn't even run. It took over a month before they released a patch, and another before the final 2. And the game still crashes constantly. You can see fragments of gameplay functionality that they didn't have time to include and chunks of levels they never finished.
The gameplay is horrible, the level design was dissonant, and everything (including programming) starts breaking down 3/4 of the way through. I swear there were buttons in the last dungeon that didn't do anything.
The graphics, or course, were gorgeous.
It should have been one of the greatest RPGs of all time. In reality, I'd be very surprised if Shadow the Hedgehog was even close to as bad. If someone remade this game - completely, with nothing in common with the original but the title - I'd buy a new computer just to play it.
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