Recently I was hit with the nostalgia bug, suddenly wanting to play all my old games, watch old shows etc. Pokemon was a big contender, along with MDK and Future Cop LAPD for PC.
Thing is, while these games were good, I always wonder... Just where did the companies who made them go?
MDK 2 was an okay sequel, but it had nothing on the original. While the humour, the weapons and the level design was there, there's just something so charming about the original that makes me come back to it. The graphics really were amazing for a game of the time, utilising full 3D for the levels and enemies while using a pre-rendered image for the player character, Kurt.
This full 3D allowed for the implementation of this game's incredibly unique sniper rifle. It can be loaded with eight different kinds of ammunition, along with the ability to send off an airship to bomb drop an area you aim at, it has three cameras which show you where your ammo has hit or landed, and it has an incredible zoom mode, the first boss in particular utilising its 100x zoom.
Outside of the sniper malarkey, Kurt's main weapon is a hand-mounted chain gun which is described in the manual as having infinite ammunition "by sheer fluke". This can receive limited ammo upgrades to do more damage, and Kurt has all sorts of other items at his disposal such as grenades, blow up dolls with a crudely drawn image of himself on it to distract the enemy, and my favourite weapon of all, The World's Smallest Nuke, a weapon so non-lethal that its only purpose is to be a way of unlocking doors.
Before each level you receive a mission briefing which generally consists of about three very short lines of text. At the end, you are likely to receive a funny comment. First level again, if you complete it, but take too much time, you are told that "Millions died in Laguna Beach!... Oh well." and then on with the next mission.
Then there's Future Cop LAPD, a game I played way to much when I was young. I collected every hidden weapon without cheats or passwords, completed every level, owned the shit out of Sky Captain... Despite this game's simplistic approach to Mechs (A friend has said he prefers Mechwarrior 3 simply because it's got so many controls... And is an entirely different game in a very different genre... And he has nostalgia goggles for that slightly) it does a good job of using its controls for complex platforming parts, especially if players want to take shortcuts into the enemy bases.
There is so much about this game I hate, like the confusing level design, overly difficult enemies and unbalanced weapons, but for some reason this is one of the few games I don't call out for such things. I can play this game all the way through without getting angry, which is a major first for me, with how shouty I can get when I start failing miserably.
The game itself again utilises full 3D, although this was a middle life PS1 release so that's expected, and provides the player with a large bipedal robot, somewhat combining the sleek workings of eastern mechs with the large, bulky design of western imagination, armed with a number of guns to mow through the enemy. The player must choose their selection of weapons before the level, choosing from a selection of Standard, Heavy and Special weapons. Standard weapons are your basic guns. You know, a minigun, electric gun, gatling gun or a flamethrower. Heavy weapons contain various forms of missiles, and Special weapons consist of a mortar launcher, a shockwave generator and a mine layer.
Now the major problem with this weapon selection is in multiplayer. All you need to choose is the electric gun, the Concussion Beam (The only non-missile based heavy weapon which can stop the opponent's missile-based heavy weapon in its tracks) and the shockwave generator, since it attacks from all sides at a quite lengthy close range, and I believe also stops enemy turrets from being a major problem. Along with being the fastest firing and most powerful weapons, they completely slaughter all others because of their missile stopping capabilities and range. It was especially funny getting friends to pick other ones, convincing them my weapons were the worst so I could get a couple of rounds in where I was completely overpowered.
Okay, so I've explained and ranted about two of my favourite old games now, so I'm assuming you want to know why. Too many times I hear people complaining that games aren't like they used to be, a select few wanting their precious old games to be the benchmark in terms of gameplay to make games of today be similar.
Genres develop. At the time, there weren't many over the shoulder third person shooters when MDK came out, and the top down shooter format of Future Cop was pretty much dying at the time. The thing is, it's very unlikely that such games will ever get any form of sequel or spiritual sequel, simply because their genres have developed. From MDK and other TPSs of the time I would eventually get Gears of War and Mass Effect, while Future Cop... I don't know really, like I said, top down shooters were already done with, being a genre from some of the oldest of home consoles.
Nostalgia is the only thing that's keeping old franchises in production. The Mario and Sonic series continue to be stretched further and further out with meaningless updates to the original format (Sonic more than Mario with just how ridiculously hard Sonic Team are trying to make Sonic good again with soundtracks and story, not realising that it's the crap gameplay that's causing Sonic's slow demise.)
The other big problem is the fans of these old games who want their old games remade. If a developer takes on the challenge and makes it basically the same game, many will hate it for it because it's too similar. There's no line between the other side either, being that if ANYTHING is changed, fans of the old get narky over the slightest of differences between their beloved old game.
Fans of Modern Warfare who are waiting for Modern Warfare 2 will be pleased to know one of the levels in MDK has Kurt snowmobiling down a long winding path while shooting other snowmobiling aliens. It's good to ruin people's knowledge of 'uniqueness'.
And at least I know playing that bit in MW2 will be a rather nostalgic experience for me.
