We all love our games and love to play the best in the market. However the best in the market can be a rather heated debate.
There have been many games companies go up against each other year after year for the title of best First Person Shooter, Racer, Footie Sim etc etc. Sometimes there really is not much to choose between the two, other times the gulf is massive. In this article I am going to take a look at some of the battles of old as well as the current ones.
Lets start with the first and probably the best known rivalry in console gaming.
Mario vs Sonic.
These two were the mascots of their rival systems through the 90s. As the Megadrive and the Super Nintendo went head to head so did these two. They were very similar side scrolling games but playing them was very different. Sonic was all about speed and using this to get around. Even the levels were about speed. You could complete one of the first few stages in a matter of seconds. Mario was more about abilities and moving through levels intelligently. In the early days these two sold fairly similar numbers. Look at the market today and Mario is still the lead in many games while Sonic appears as more of a bit part in Sega collection games. Is this fair on the quality of the games? I would say so. Mario adapted and created new aspects and skills that made the games change and grow. Nintendo did brilliantly in making the character feel approachable and yet challenging. Sonic just seemed to be very one dimensional. There was never really anything that changed. They attempted using other characters to add variation but they never seemed to be as accepted as Mario and his pals.
Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat (Was this an actual game? MK has gone against everything else!)
Again another 90s rivalry between two fighting houses. By the time Mortal Kombat (Why the K??) came around there was already a number of Street fighter games and these had been in arcades for years. Still it did not stop MK from being hugely popular mainly due to its gore and brutal fatalities. Again we can look through to today and see one franchise still fairly strong while the other has had to try gimmicks to try and stay in the peoples focus. Mortal Kombat has gone up against Marvel, DC, Capcom, The Carebears (Not really but they might win for a change) and not really done all that great. Street Fighter may have disappeared for a while but did come back strongly in the late 2000s with Street Fighter 4 which seemed to pick up where the old games finished off. This battle I do not think is completely over and there are some promising games coming onto the scene (Injustice). fighters are a bit of a unique market and do not always get picked up by the mass market, this may be why they seem to come and go from the market.
Mario Kart vs The World.
Here we are back again to the colourful and loved Mario. Like I said this guy is still hugely popular and to be fair it is easy to see why. I do not think there is a bad game with Mario in it, none. Mario Kart has been so dominant that any other game has always been compared to it and lost. You see a review for a karting game such as Crash Team Racing, Little Big Planet Karting, Looney Tunes Racing, Diddy Kong Racing and Sega All Stars Racing and every single one will be compared to Mario Kart. And they have all failed! The only one recently that seems have done okay was Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed as it did something different with the flying and water based sections of tracks (the less said about F1 Race Stars the better). Mario is Kart king and I cannot see that ever changing.
Call of Duty vs Battlefield (and versus Medal of Honor but that's crap)
This one started off in a weird way. Call of Duty was not always Call of Duty. It was called Medal of Honor before EA and Infinity Ward fell out and EA kept the name but Infinity went on to start up with Activision and create rival game Call of Duty. Cutting this short the battle between Medal of Honor and COD was short. Medal of Honor was rubbish, Cod was good, the end! So a few years later suddenly a new game appeared on the scene. Battlefield was born by no other than EA (who'd have thunk it!) and it was pretty popular. The games were in the same genre but even to today they are actually very different. COD out sells Battlefield most years however I think Battlefield has the better review averages. COD fans seem to buy it regardless (Not saying it is a bad game) and the two sides are very opposed. Some of the marketing campaigns for the two have been great as they take the piss out of eachother. Medal of Honor did try to come back a few years ago but they should put it to rest, it is over. It will remain a laughing stock so just leave it alone. Between BF and COD I think the battle will go on as they both sell well and have different audiences. that may of course change but at the moment it is them vs us!
Championship Manager vs Football Manager
This rivalry is very similar to that of Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. The game makers who used to make Championship Manager were fed up of having Eidos Entertainment telling them how to make their game. They decided to leave but could not take the name. So Football Manager was born. This was fairly funny as with most name changes the majority of people are not aware so a name can shift a large amount without being the same game. But when it comes to PC gaming this is completely opposite. Champ Manager failed, it failed hard and has all but disappeared. No other Soccer Management game comes close to FM in sales and quality. The battle here is won and I doubt there will be anything in the future to change it.
Part two coming soon.
MR
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