Nathan Boyes – The Repetition of Secondary Concepts

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6147-Old-Man-Mario

 

What's the latest new game title you can think of? I'm not talking about sequels or prequels I mean never before seen crazy new age video game titles! Finding it difficult on the spot? Hmm... I wander why that could be, let's go take a look at this here list of games for the Xbox 360 http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-CA/Games/Xbox360Games . Alright, I'm seeing a lot of 2's and 3's... some secondary names... Ah here we go Omerta. There is a total of one new title within the first 30 games on the list.

A lot of ideas have gone by, some successful others not so successful. I can see why a developer would want to recreate a game with the same mechanics and a different story. It would appear to guarantee the success of the game knowing it fallows the rules of its predecessor. Often times that is great, it does what the producer intended! People know what to expect in the game they purchased for 60 $'s thus won't be disappointed. One must be careful, however, to avoid Stagnation of their product, while keeping that core element of game play. Mario is by far the best example of both an excellent recreation of core concepts and stagnation of a game series.

Mario is commonly known as the man who-a started it all-a. In the past each of his games featured a steady core concept, while introducing new secondary concepts that completely changed the game play! Super Mario bros 1-3 focussed on perfecting the core concept, Super Mario World introduced Yoshi as well as the improved game engine, super Mario 64 Gave you a 3d Environment and super Mario Galaxy blew that up to astronomical proportions. The introduction of the new super Mario bros subseries was an amazing blast to the past! Seeing the old enemies and themes in a game engine built with today's technological advances gave a thrilling experience. I brought the older generation back to their childhood, and gave the younger generation something new in an old way. New Super Mario Bros, however, took Mario down a dark path.

Mario grew addicted to his old mechanics; he wanted to feel young again. Little did he know, Mario's lust would drive him to be older than ever. First it became New Super Mario Bros wii. This was a legitimately new idea, sticking with the "New" art style they added multiplayer action! Things quickly fell out of hand; New Super Mario Bros 2 was released. The majority of the assets where reused from other New super Mario Bros and their where no new concepts. At its core, it is still Mario, but it lost that "New" shine he's always had when they forget to mix things up. New Super Mario Bros Wii U suffers the same fate. That makes a grand total of 4 New Super Mario Bros games, all being released fairly close together. You can automatically pick up a sense of stagnation in the air.

I'm sure we all hope Mario will get over his terrible addiction of his younger self and go back to the old fun loving grandpa of a game character we used to know. I have high hopes with this year being titled "The year of Luigi" by Nintendo, as with a new character being the star they might bring in some new ideas.