Let’s face facts people: when it comes to many original games on the market you have found yourself wishing that they would get a sequel, incorporate aspects of another title, or any other of thousands of ideas that you feel would end up (theoretically at least) making a better product out of what you had just played. I’m no stranger to this and before I discovered that writing was my calling in life I had desires to join the gaming industry in a more focused capacity as a designer or programmer. Two years into it though I realized something: a) I’m not good at drawing and b) I just can’t wrap my head around proper C++ code. That didn’t stop me from dreaming up ideas for games that I felt would be well received if done properly and so over the years I’ve kept most of them bottled up within me while simultaneously asking myself rhetorical questions as to why X game idea hasn’t been done.
Though I have no doubt that the design ideas presented to you below will most likely never be done I still feel that they need to be discussed. So without further ado I give you Hooked Gamers’ list of game concepts that will (probably) never happen.
Click to read the full article
G.I. Joe Returns
The Concept: Classic G.I. Joe franchise from the 1980s revitalized using modern concepts and made into a first person shooter using DICE’s Frostbite engine.
The Pitch: G.I. Joe and video games is pretty much the chocolate and peanut butter concoction the industry’s confectioners never really took advantage of. Only a handful of titles were ever produced based on the series and even then the license jumped from developer and publisher to the next in the early 90s before disappearing entirely for over a decade. Last year the franchise was revived when Hasbro and Paramount Pictures got together and released a live action film that, to be frank, was one of the worst of 2009. As a G.I. Joe fan since childhood I was disgusted by both the direction of the remake, the extremely weak plot, downright dumb film design (seriously, ice FLOATS in water), and a disastrous utilization of a collection great character archetypes especially considering a decent set of actors were taken on to the film! What was even worse than the move though was the concept for the game, a license tie-in that we here at Hooked Gamers actually refused to even bother reviewing. It was even more troubling that the game’s development was relegated by EA to Double Helix Games, a studio whose singular previous endeavor was Silent Hill: Homecoming.
So why hasn’t G.I. Joe been given the proper video game treatment? The question still weighs on my mind, especially so given that Hasbro has seen tremendous success over the past few years with the revitalization of the Transformers franchise. The 90s iterations varied from an excellent Contra-esque sidescrolling shooter to a coin-op 2.5D arcade game. What is clear though is that the formula for creating a proper G.I. Joe game wasn’t ready for consoles or arcades at the time and was only beginning to see its potential on the PC: the first person shooter. And what better way for EA to compliment a franchise with such potential than to team them up with one of the most beloved shooter developers out there than DICE?
Immediately it is apparent that the developers of the Battlefield series are the proper team to work on such a beloved franchise given their pedigree for human and vehicular combat. With them hard at work on Battlefield 3 and a strong gameplay engine almost perfected at this point it is hard to not ask why DICE would be a good choice for developing a G.I. Joe game. With DICE still exploring what they can do with a singleplayer experience the Joe series would be an especially good basis for source material given an almost excessively large meta-universe of stories to work with from both the cartoons as well as the comics, not to mention the humungous cast of characters present throughout it. Singleplayer stories can be developed off of any number of plots from the cartoons alone, the M.A.S.S. Device and Weather Dominator miniseries in particular being more than enough to encourage full on DLC expansions to such a game. The only really good product to come out of last year’s Joe debacle, G.I. Joe Resolute, would provide an excellent basis for updating the franchise to modern standards and giving the series a proper video game.
With almost every single shooter title on the market now nigh compelled to create a multiplayer experience for their game G.I. Joe serves the basis for an excellent competitive team-based experience. Utilizing the Battlefield gameplay formula alone would more than serve to being fitting to the series but it is in the existing foundation of the characters and their unique abilities in which a Call of Duty perk system could be enabled. For example your base character could be a standard Joe or Cobra soldier and as you progressively rank up you gain the ability to access different core characters like Duke, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, or Destro who would each have unique abilities. For example Scarlet could use her multi-purpose crossbow to reach hard-to-access areas while Zartan could utilize his disguise prowess to have enhanced camouflage or even appear as a member of the Joe team itself. This would provide for a unique way of utilizing the established perk system that has seen so much success in Call of Duty and, with a cast of dozens of characters, the possibilities are near endless.
In summation the G.I. Joe experience is a solid franchise that is just waiting for a proper video game experience and the proper environment for getting the maximum potential out of such a title has existed for several years now. What’s not to love in reviving a classic franchise like this one, this time properly?
Chances of this happening: Slim. Many X factors contribute to this rating, the most predominant one being the extent to which the G.I. Joe license remains in EA’s hands. While EA produced last year’s abysmal title it wasn’t clear in any of the press releases whether the license granted by Hasbro was for just that particular title or if it was for a certain amount of time. Given that another G.I. Joe film is in production right now there’s no doubt in my mind that a game is being developed. However, given that this past year’s surprisingly good Transformers title War for Cybertron was produced by Activision I’m not betting the house on an EA published title.
Seriously, come on EA, see reason and give this series the game it truly deserves! Cobra Commander demands it!
Pokémon the MMO
The Concept: Pokémon takes their role-playing gameplay concept to the next logical playspace: online.
The Pitch: Nintendo’s go-to cash cow for the past decade and a half has done nothing but succeed title after title with almost universal acclaim for every core title. Sure, offshoot titles, particularly the Nintendo 64 titles Pokémon Snap and Hey You, Pikachu, have suffered critical outcry for being more of a tribute to the franchise rather than actual games to play, let alone enjoy. So why, in the almost fifteen years since the series came onto the gaming scene, hasn’t a core title in the franchise stepped out of the handheld space for a proper console experience?
I will admit that, as a child, this author was a bit of a Pokémon addict but, being a child of the 90s, who wasn’t? I grew out of the series after the first generation of titles for it but I don’t think I could have ever conceived of how much of an impact the Pokémon series would have on the gaming scene. Though I didn’t have all that many friends as a kid who had a Gameboy the occasional kid in school like me who had Red, Blue, or Yellow editions of the game were a blast to play against and, though I lost more matches than one, I couldn’t help but continue on leveling up my creatures in preparation for the next battle. In the years following I’ve always wondered why Pokémon had always been formulated as a 1v1 experience but I always chocked it up to hardware limitations but in a day and age in which millions of people can play and compete against one another in an online space called Azeroth that is no longer an excuse to make.
Think about it! With a user install base of, conservatively speaking, bajillions, it is hard to understand why, in all the years that Nintendo has been adding on to the franchise, they have never sought to take the natural role playing and competitive gameplay elements into the online space. There have already been unofficial Pokémon games such as Pokénet, a successful fan-developed MMO before it received a cease-and-desist letter from Nintendo back in March of this year.
Massively Multiplayer Online games start out just the same way as any core Pokémon title does: you create a character, select your class (or in this case, Pokémon) and head out into the world. Along the way you explore the world, do battle with monsters in the environment and level up your character with experience points. You even do battle with other NPCs for cash and items; the comparison is uncanny!
The possibilities of a Pokémon MMO are almost limitless in scope. In the fifteen years since the series came about an entire lore has been created with new lands and regions being added on an almost constant basis leaving almost no room for the argument that there isn’t enough source material to support such an endeavor. There are now, at the count of the latest title in the series, 649 Pokémon to collect and do battle with which is a staggering number. The rate at which the series has expanded through its games, anime, manga, and even trading cards it is hard to not find a way to combine them in some way into a full multiplayer experience.
Many common gameplay elements present in online multiplayer games and MMOs could really contribute to the overall Pokémon formula and transform it into an outstanding online experience. Other than the NPCs present in the core titles Pokémon games have always felt quite desolate and lifeless when it comes to human characters. Incorporating thousands of players into the experience has the potential to create a truly lush world to build upon and allows for the possibility of entire clans (or leagues as it would be in this case) to bring players together in ways that only conventions and online forums could do before. Imagine large-scale battles between dozens of trainers taking place in a persistent 3D space, an act that could only be dreamt of by players and only ever teased in the remarkably terrible films. Throw in the ability to customize your creatures’ appearances, actions, and commands and you’ve got the grounds for which to actually steal a portion of WoW’s population away from Blizzard. What’s not to love?
Chances of this happening: next to none, at least for this console generation. Nintendo has done their best to keep core Pokémon titles simple and there’s no sign of them changing their approach anytime soon. Nintendo’s attempts to enter the online space have, as I’ve said many times in the past, been abysmal in execution, bordering on half-assed. As long as the Friends Code system is still in place there is almost no room for innovation on the Wii’s online space outside of games that completely abandon the system like Call of Duty Black Ops and as such, since there is no core Nintendo title that has not used the Friend Code system, a Pokémon MMO is nigh impossible. Nintendo has never even expressed interest in developing titles outside of their own hardware so a PC-oriented project is almost out of the question. Kotaku even addressed this with Pokemon franchise director Junichi Masuda last year who was quoted as saying:
"At this point, we're not thinking of going in that direction… Trading is a core concept of Pokémon. So when you're trading, you meet with a friend and decide which one you want and which one they want. I would like to emphasize real-world communication. You don't see each other online."
Perhaps five years from now we could see something like this approach a Wii 2 with an enhanced online service that hopefully comes close to Xbox Live 1.0 but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed. Nintendo, admit it, you want to show us your Pokemans; just get it over with already!