The Battles of Gaming - Part 2

Resident Evil vs Silent Hill

Now this is an interesting battle. both of these games date back to the 90s and the Playstation. During this period, scaring the shit out of people seemed to be the name of the game and these two franchises did it in spades. Resident Evil was set in a normal US city which had been affected by a man made virus, while Silent Hill was in a messed up alternative dimension. Both were very good and had huge fan bases. Most people I knew played them both and would be very positive about them. But something happened and both these games seems to have lost the war. Resident Evil has become an empty vessel of what it once was. There is very little of the original game left. Silent Hill seems to have gone too crazy and lost most of its audience after the fourth in the series. But although these two once giant games have all but died a horrible and painful death, there are signs of others taking over. Dead Space was the latest to really make a big impression with three solid titles. But coming into the next generation there are two more coming which look very promising. Outlast is proper survival horror as you have no weapons in what appears to be a lunatic asylum gone wild and there is also ‘The Evil Within’. The Evil Within is actually designed by the guy who did the first Resident Evil game and that series return to some sort of form in Resident Evil 4. This is not to say that it will be the new Resident Evil but there are plenty of people hoping it will be. This genre is currently the undead. It is waking to be cured and there is an audience for the right game.



Virtua Tennis vs Top Spin

Virtua Tennis as a franchise has been around a long time. It was certainly a Dreamcast game and was probably the first tennis simulation on the games consoles (It also did okay in arcades). Graphically always sound and technically pretty solid it did some good numbers. Top Spin came along in the Xbox days and seemed to perfect the Virtua Tennis model taking it a little further towards realism. Now I am a tennis player and I played Top Spin as I felt the way it played was more like the real sport. Virtua Tennis for me was a little bit simple but more accessible and the mini games made it feel like an arcade game. Now both did ok. Both had good reviews and both have gone on for a few years. but suddenly both of these games seem to have disappeared. We even now have EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis which did well as it was unopposed in the market. Now tennis games are not huge profit drivers and so I can see why they are not coming out frequently but there is a market for the right game. It would be interesting to see what would be crowned champ if all three came out at the same time. I would put my money on 2K and Top Spin as if you look at EA vs 2K then EA are looking vulnerable (Just look at NBA Live!)



Guitar Hero vs Rock Band

Yet again this was EA vs Activision, Goliath vs Goliath…. And both failed!

The issue here was not that the games were poor as they were both almost identical and both had the same controls and similar music etc etc. The issue was that the makers put too many out too quickly. Within about 3 years we had nearly 20 games!! Guitar Hero 1,2, 3, 5, World Tour, Aerosmith, Smash hits, Van Halen, Metallica, Warriors of Rock and then we move on to Rock Band 1, 2, 3, The Beatles, AC/DC and Green Day. there was also Lego Rock Band and Band Hero….. the market was just saturated and the problem was that you could not import songs between games. It just got to the point where nobody could be bothered anymore. It is a shame as I still like breaking out the guitar, mic and drums and having a band night murdering Queen in my cats screwing voice! They tried DJ Hero in the hope that that would take off but that fell flat too. I think that if you released a disc with just songs on from the other games that it would sell. Maybe not huge huge numbers but enough to make a decent profit. The fun is there just not at £30-£40 a pop every few weeks.