Riding Yoshi is a rite of passage to playing more high-quality games.
I don’t understand why some people in the community are up in arms over Super Mario Galaxy 2. The original game garnered critical acclaim from a variety of outlets—bloggers, journalists, and enthusiasts alike. Now, with the same premise of a cartoony galaxy odyssey with more power-ups and brand new planets to explore, people are in an uproar. It sounds too much like the first Galaxy and not enough like a new experience, they say. But the fact of the matter is that the industry needs intermediary games like Galaxy 2 to stay in the black.
For better or worse, video games is a business. It is an art, sure, but a business first. This is especially true for those who push the products. Now I love my hobby; it is a form of recreation, enjoyment, and pleasure for me. But I am not distracted by the illusion. Money makes the industry stay sound. What better way to meet this goal than to produce so-called unnecessary sequels?
Titles like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Obsidian’s upcoming role-playing title, Fallout: New Vegas, are essential to promote creativity and financial stability in this industry. I know some of you wondering about the merits of these games’ creativity. For that I turn back to SMG 2. In this case, Nintendo added in loads of new levels and power-ups, not to mention Yoshi and Luigi, and upped the difficulty. When developers stick to what works and advance the game by adding new tweaks to the game play everyone benefits.
This allows them to keep the experience fresh while simultaneously filling their money coffers. New ideas, whether akin to Rock Mario in SMG 2 or a complete overhaul of the plasmid system in Bioshock 2, explore different concepts to possibly include future iterations. Once the economy picks up steam, the developers can take the money and design concepts they amassed and include this knowledge when making brand-new IPs.
Don’t bash seemingly unnecessary games. They are necessary for the industry’s future. The community needs to think long-term on matters like this one, not just their next fix. Pointing your criticism reticle at potentially great games without thinking of the ramifications is very unnecessary.
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