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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne If there is one thing that I hate about video games these days it is the enormous amount of clones out on the market. If you don't know what I mean by cloning a game (and there are some people who don't) it's basically when a company takes a popular game, copies it, and hopes that their version of the game will be better. The sad thing is, the clone is almost never better than the original. Some perfect examples of this would be Doom, Command and Conquer, and Super Mario 64. Time and time again these games have been copied by game developers who have nothing better to do than shamelessly re-hash a game that took years for a talented company to devise. These people get away with it, too. The last time I walked into the computer game section of a store, I saw about 45% of the shelf filled with first-person shooters, 45% of the shelf filled with real-time strategy games, and the other 10% littered with educational games. No wonder most gamers don't think "blockbuster games" when they hear the word "computer" (with the exception being my fellow Contributing Writer Peter Hassett). And why would we when PC games are composed mostly of re-hash after re-hash of the same tired game genres? The same thing applies to consoles, and to a much greater extent. It seems like whenever a big game is released, every developer and their dog tries to figure out a way to copy it somehow. I hate it when games like Spyro the Dragon are given so much credit for being new and exciting when they are obviously rip-offs of games that came before them. I like to think that this is kind of like recycling a piece of paper. The first piece of paper is perfect. Then when you're done using it you recycle it. The recycled piece of paper isn't as new and perfect-looking as the original, but it's still useable. The more and more you recycle the paper, the more ugly and unuseable it gets. Finally the paper can't be recycled anymore. The same thing applies with games. The more and more you re-hash a game, the worse it gets until no one likes that type of game anymore. This is sad because games can copy off of other games and still turn out to be awesome. The problem is that game developers are so busy copying other games, they often don't take the time to think, "Hey, how could we make this better instead of just mindlessly copying it?" Instead they're thinking, "Hurry! The sooner we finish this game, the sooner we get paid!" The video game industry would make a lot of people happy if it focused on making new and diverse games instead of dwelling on a small group of popular games and copying them to a bloody pulp. Just imagine going to Babbage's and NOT seeing 12 different racing games lined up next to each other. I hope that more developers follow the example set by games like Zelda 64. If they do, the video game industry will be a lot better off in the long run.
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com