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Games that outdid the games that inspired them

Haven't played SotC, but am currently going through BG&E now. To say that it has no inspiration from Zelda is just wrong.
 
Rolf NB said:
Nonsense. They are extremely similar. The traversal mechanics are all the same. Hanging from ledges, pulling up, dropping down, shimmying, free-climb walls, poles, rope swings.

Sharing a few game mechanics doesn't necessarily make two games comparable.

In Zelda, you can lock onto enemies, hit them with your sword, and shoot them with projectiles. You can also explore places, find secrets, and solve puzzles.

In Devil May Cry, you can lock onto enemies, hit them with your sword, and shoot them with projectiles. You can also explore places, find secrets, and solve puzzles.

Clearly, they are the same genre.

Recent Tomb Raider games even ramp up the combat way damn hard as you continue further. Puzzles are at like a 5% at most proportion of the whole Tomb Raider experience now. Pushing blocks and throwing boxes through gates is not fundamentally different from the two or three puzzles you solve in an Uncharted campaign.

So you're using Underworld, which came out after Uncharted, as representative of the Tomb Raider series as a whole? And just ignoring the, what, eight games that came before it?

In the first few Tomb Raider games, you rarely got into fights, and only a handful of those encounters involved other humans. Most of the danger came from traps. Most of the challenge came from puzzles and exploration.

Linearity is the same. Uncharted has hub structures too, where you go get a thing and come back to a place and pass through a new exit. Same deal.

No. Following a linear path that happens to pass through the same room more than once is not the same thing as having an open area to explore.


I just don't think Naughty Dog was influenced by Tomb Raider when they made Uncharted. I think they were influenced by Indiana Jones for the story and setting, they were influenced by Gears of War for the combat, and they were influenced by the likes of Prince of Persia for the traversal. I don't think they looked at Tomb Raider, said, "Yes, we want to make a game like that," and ended up with Uncharted.

I'll repeat myself: if they didn't share the same Indiana Jones-inspired pulp adventure theme, nobody would be comparing the two. If absolutely everything about Uncharted's gameplay stayed the same, but they changed the story so Drake was a gruff military guy fighting aliens, people would be calling it Gears of War with a jump button, and no comparisons to Tomb Raider would ever be made.
 
ShortBus said:
WipEout > F-Zero

I'd like to engage in a serious conversation about this one.

Now, I haven't played every F-Zero game. I've spent a couple minutes with some GBA ones and the N64 one, owned and loved the original, still own, play and love GX.

Haven't touched a single Wipeout game. I have an opinion about them that I think is valid from only watching a few videos: the tracks seem smooth, and by that I mean, lacking in ridiculous top speed hairpins and blind 90 degree chicanes. I can totally get into that, just doesn't give me the same feel as F-Zero.

So, question, which is the very best wipeout game? I feel I owe it to myself to try one.
 
Earl Cazone said:
no zelda style game ever outdid zelda. never.

and i am not the biggest zelda fan.

I disagree completely. Darksiders proved that Zelda is just another game, not this special one of a kind gift.
 
Bayonetta...Devil May Cry
Powerslave aka Exhumed...Doom and other FPSs

Relaxed Muscle said:
Castlevania:SOTN > Super Metroid
Well now...that there's what we call a tough call son. I think I would substitute "outdid" with "did different" here.
 
Deadstar said:
No one has mentioned Half Life? They took a genre that was all about gore and blasting mutha's and created an fps with one of the best campaign's ever to grace the genre.

System Shock 2 > Half Life

...
















System Shock > Half Life

Bloodlines > Deus Ex
 
This thread is somewhat unfair because many of the games that were outdid were the original pioneers or set the foundation for their succeeding games to build upon.
 
Bloodlines > Deus Ex
level design is ass, it stopped me from playing the game, and so are the quests. There's not enough customization either. Though it is a VERY cool game.

maybe I didn't invest enough in the game? does it getter after first few hours?
nothing outdoes resident evil 4
the dialogues, THOSE DIALOGUES!!! and story...
Beside that, amazing game, the closest thing to a fps that I could play using pads, controls were really good.

Though, I bought SotC when I was middle in RE4, I didn't put RE4 disk back in until I beat the last colossus.
 
RockmanWhore said:
Uncharted is so awesome that it both outtombraidered Tomb Raider and outgearsofwared Gears of War. Why would you outgame only one game and you can outgame two games at the same time. But Naughty Dog didn't stop there, they Naughty Doged themselves after with Uncharted 2 that outuncharteded Uncharted.

If we were talking about combat, sure, only no game was inspired by TRs combat. If we are talking about things that tomb raider is actually known for like puzzles, level design and exploration then lulz because Uncharted pretty much has none of those things. Only level that was close to anything TR was the first level. St Francis' Folly > anything Uncharted will ever do in terms of puzzles and exploration. Everything else in uncharted is pretty much a line from one cinematic set piece to the next. Uncharted does that very well and I enjoy the games for those reasons.
 
KevinCow said:
I'll repeat myself: if they didn't share the same Indiana Jones-inspired pulp adventure theme, nobody would be comparing the two. If absolutely everything about Uncharted's gameplay stayed the same, but they changed the story so Drake was a gruff military guy fighting aliens, people would be calling it Gears of War with a jump button, and no comparisons to Tomb Raider would ever be made.


This should be posted in every TR vs UC thread, its by far the most intelligent response. It should also be noted that Underworld have been in development pretty much after Legend was released and when it came out in 2008, Uncharted had not even been out a year, and was certainly not considered a hit franchise until 2 dropped. In any event it was released far too late to have any influence, good or bad, on Underworld.
 
Portal >¹²³¹²³¹²³¹²³¹²³¹ Narbacular Drop

Portal 2 >¹²³¹²³¹¹²¹²¹² Tag, the power of Paint

=3
 
BertramCooper said:
If by "raised the bar," you mean "watered it down to an absurd degree," then yes, I agree.

I don't know - if anything, Okami just imitated the most watered-down Zelda (Wind Waker) too closely. It didn't do worse anything Wind Waker didn't already do bad. They're both great games though (when they're not busy being stupid).
 
My God I cant take this thread anymore, ugh.

lockebailout.gif
 
Battletoads > Ninja Turtles
Streets of Rage > Final Fight
Daytona > Every racing game that preceeded it
Time Crisis > Virtua Cop
1080 > Coolboarders
Wipeout > F Zero
 
Laughing Banana said:
Okami > Zelda...?

..............Dead Space > Resident Evil 4....???

........

Oh I get it--those guys are just joking around.
Or they are just really bad with relational operators.
 
ViolentP said:
I disagree completely. Darksiders proved that Zelda is just another game, not this special one of a kind gift.

What? Darksiders is completely derivative, devoid of any original ideas and has incredibly generic graphics and art. It has more in common with Soul Reaver than Zelda or GoW anyway, even then Soul Reaver shits on this atrocity.

This thread has to be the worst thread I have ever read on Gaf. Splinter Cell> MGS, Shadow Complex> Super Metroid, Dead Space>RE4 etc. If you believe any of these can you please ensure that you never become a video game developer.
 
Randomizer said:
What? Darksiders is completely derivative, devoid of any original ideas and has incredibly generic graphics and art. It has more in common with Soul Reaver than Zelda or GoW anyway, even then Soul Reaver shits on this atrocity.

Zelda has become boring to me. Darksiders had what I used to love about Zelda and none of bored me. 2 decades worth of rehashing.
 
God of War > Onimusha
Starcraft > Dune/Red Alert.
Modern Warfare > Halo? Both two weapons, regenerative shield games, but I feel like the first MW completely reinvented the MP of a FPS On consoles.
Mass Effect - KOTOR - I know it's by the same people, but Mass Effect is so good I felt like it had to be mentioned.
 
You know I was abit cautious about going into Alpha Protocol but I took the plunge based on some recommendation from here and a few other places, and would say that for me it outdoes Mass Effect by quite a fair margin. It does have some rough edges but for me so far it really comes off as Bioware went the Shooter first/RPG second route, where as Alpha seems to go the RPG first/ Shooter second route.

The plot is far better, the characters for the most part are more interesting, the "Morality" and character interaction is much more dynamic, and overall I would say Alpha is an overall deeper experience then Mass Effect from where i'm at. I wish I had not let reviews of the game sway me from this when it came out because unless the ending is bogus I would have loved a sequel to it.

People give them alot of crap but the more Obsidian games I play the more i have a much greater appreciation of them. They really seem to still care about making RPGs, going to have to pick up DS3 next I think.
 
sn00zer said:
Just finished up Dead Space and am well into Dead Space 2. At the same time I just finished RE5 and all I could think was "damn....Visceral out Resident Evil'd Resident Evil"...everything about Dead Space is RE4 and 5...but better. Better story, better characters, scarier gameplay, no cheesiness (outside of
betrayal scenes
), and (much) better setting. Its like they took the RE formula and just made the best horror game possible and topped everything that was laid out by Capcom.

Some other games I can think of that did this was Okami...in that it out Zelda'd Zelda... and Vanquish in out Gears of Waring Gears of War so any other games out there that while they may not be original gameplay-wise took a formula and just went crazy with it out doing the games that inspired them?

(And Capcom if your all about outsourcing games a Visceral Resident Evil may just be the best thing ever)

EDIT: Thinking of doing a LTTP on Dead Space...it is one of the most forward thinking games I've played in terms of streamlining design without lowering the challenge or fun
>Deadspace
>RE5
 
actual shooting mechanics in Uncharted were heavily influenced by Gears of War, but i enjoyed Uncharted more; more responsive, fluent and ultimately fun.
 
Rolf NB said:
Nonsense. They are extremely similar. The traversal mechanics are all the same. Hanging from ledges, pulling up, dropping down, shimmying, free-climb walls, poles, rope swings. Recent Tomb Raider games even ramp up the combat way damn hard as you continue further. Puzzles are at like a 5% at most proportion of the whole Tomb Raider experience now. Pushing blocks and throwing boxes through gates is not fundamentally different from the two or three puzzles you solve in an Uncharted campaign. Linearity is the same. Uncharted has hub structures too, where you go get a thing and come back to a place and pass through a new exit. Same deal.

5%? Really? I think you have your percentages mixed up there. The majority of Tomb Raider consists of traversal and puzzle-solving. Those two things comprise at least 70% of the total experience. Conversely, 70% of Uncharted consists of shooting, with the remaining 30% dedicated to platforming and puzzle-solving. In regards to the latter, Uncharted is definitely outclassed, as Tomb Raider has deeper traversal mechanics and more complex puzzles.

Out of curiosity, how much have you actually played of the last three Tomb Raider games? If you played only a few levels of Legend, I can see where you got your conclusion from. However, if you've played Legend, Anniversary and Underworld all the way through, I really don't see how you can claim that they focus on combat more than traversal and puzzle-solving.
 
Randomizer said:
Splinter Cell> MGS, Shadow Complex> Super Metroid, Dead Space>RE4 etc. If you believe any of these can you please ensure that you never become a video game developer.

Yeah fuck people with different perspectives! I hope they never get jobs doing what they love and try and bring their ideas to the table!
 
How about Serious Sam outdoing Duke Nukem?

It's in question format because I've never actually played a Duke Nukem game; I'm just going on what I've heard. I love me some Serious Sam though.
 
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