Back near the end of last year the highly anticipated new Prince of Persia came out. It received very divided reviews, some calling it excellent and others calling it crap. Stephen Totilo instead wrote about some of the stark similarities between Prince of Persia and Shadow of the Colossus. I remember wondering how copyright laws for similar media is handled, but just shrugged it off because I thought the games were different enough. I'm guessing Team ICO and Sony did too because no one ever got sued over it.
Fast forward to a couple months ago and you'll find people making these same accusations about EA's new game Dante's Inferno. The only difference this time is the two games, the other being God of War, look incredibly similar. I'd link a video, but I'm still at Squash's house and his internet is far too painfully slow to sift through a few streaming videos for a good example. Anyway, I didn't think much of it until I got to demo Dante's Inferno at PAX. Now I think I can safely be astonished that this game has been allowed to get so far along into development.
After playing for a few minutes it was clear that the art style, while set in hell as opposed to ancient Greece still felt quite remiscent of God of War's fairly distinct style. The enemy design also looked a lot like stuff we've all fought and killed throughout the various temples in our ancient escapades. Clearly, whoever designed that fat snake looking thing has seen the Medusa type creatures rampant in Sony's game, especially the third sister in GoW2. Not to mention the main characters animation, he wields a scythe, but he swings it around leaving a nice blur of whatever and the camera slows down just as he finishes off a powerful combo to add that awesome effect for emphasis. Something we all fell in love four years ago, once again in God of War.
The combat in Dante's Inferno also uses the same QTE's and even the same little glowy ball things that the player must interact with in order to get the needed height to fight the giant monstrosities so typical of the God of War series.
In the games defense, I have no idea what the story will be. I can't imagine it could be very similar to God of War at all seeing as how it's named after a famous book about hell, while God of War is loosely based on Greek mythology. However, after watching a few trailers and playing the demo, I question how much of the source material from The Divine Comedy they used at all. It's been several years since I read Dante's Inferno, but I don't remember anyone running through with a scythe pulling off crazy Kratos-esque action in the poem I read. Still, I doubt the story will be very similar.
As I said earlier, I was left wondering with Prince of Persia where the line for copyright infringement is drawn, but shrugged it off because they were so different. Now we have one game that is very obviously ripping off another game, yet Sony still doesn't seem to care. Is this all legal or what? I'm sure both companies have a huge team of lawyers, and we hear all the time about industry giants suing the crap out of each other. I wonder if Sony is perhaps holding out to demand a share of the profits once the game is released, or they simply don't think it's worth the trouble, or maybe through some series of loopholes all this replication is actually legal? I wouldn't be surprised is there aren't any copyright laws to protect specific gameplay elements, but it is shocking to see just how similar the two are. I'm curious to see what ends up happening, if anything, when Dante's Inferno is released in the coming months. And if any of you know anything about copyright law, leave a comment.
Showing posts with label god of war 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label god of war 2. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Quicktime Events: Yay or Nay?
I just finished God of War 2 today and of course it ended with an epic quicktime event against the final boss. Just like every boss in that series, control is yanked from you right at the moment of victory and replaced with a series of timed button presses ending with a gruesome kill or more likely a frustrating few minutes where you regain your lost progress.
I’m not sure what to think about QTEs. When they first showed up in Shenmue in 2000 I thought they were a neat idea. You get to watch a cutscene and still be a little bit involved. A lot of the button presses were the same buttons required to do similar things outside of a cutscene as well so it felt more interactive. Also the end of disc three in Shenmue 2 had one of the coolest uses of the QTE in that series.
Several years later and now QTEs are everywhere. It feels like anytime a game wants to do something cool without “taking you out of the experience” it uses a QTE. We seem fairly anti QTE as a community, but we accepted them in fantastic games like Resident Evil 4 and God of War. Did they somehow do them differently than in games like Tomb Raider: Legend or Prince of Persia?
Several times in God of War 2 I was incredibly frustrated with them. Whenever the button prompts switched from presses to mashing circle it would relocate the icon on the bottom left. The delay of eyeing the change is almost always enough to require you to fail the event once before you know its coming. Also the joystick swirls seem less forgiving that it probably should be.
Despite being annoying, my most fond memories of GoW2 took place during the QTEs. Even though I couldn’t control Kratos in the usual way, the things I was vaguely responsible for him doing during the QTEs were incredibly badass. Jumping from a Pegasus onto a gryphon only to cut off its wings and throw it downward before hopping back, stealing a gatekeepers key then using the door it unlocked to smash his head in, and getting one Sister of Fate to stab another in the face only to be stabbed in the face herself by me a few seconds later are all things I’ll think of first when recalling this game. They are a trademark of the series that helps bring their signature brutality to life, but do we really want them?
I must admit that one of the God of War series biggest strengths, its clever boss fights, would be less effective to witness without the QTEs. Is that a fair trade for the amount of frustration some of these bosses acquire by using them? I don’t know, but I have a feeling QTE’s are on there way out.
I’m not sure what to think about QTEs. When they first showed up in Shenmue in 2000 I thought they were a neat idea. You get to watch a cutscene and still be a little bit involved. A lot of the button presses were the same buttons required to do similar things outside of a cutscene as well so it felt more interactive. Also the end of disc three in Shenmue 2 had one of the coolest uses of the QTE in that series.
Several years later and now QTEs are everywhere. It feels like anytime a game wants to do something cool without “taking you out of the experience” it uses a QTE. We seem fairly anti QTE as a community, but we accepted them in fantastic games like Resident Evil 4 and God of War. Did they somehow do them differently than in games like Tomb Raider: Legend or Prince of Persia?
Several times in God of War 2 I was incredibly frustrated with them. Whenever the button prompts switched from presses to mashing circle it would relocate the icon on the bottom left. The delay of eyeing the change is almost always enough to require you to fail the event once before you know its coming. Also the joystick swirls seem less forgiving that it probably should be.
Despite being annoying, my most fond memories of GoW2 took place during the QTEs. Even though I couldn’t control Kratos in the usual way, the things I was vaguely responsible for him doing during the QTEs were incredibly badass. Jumping from a Pegasus onto a gryphon only to cut off its wings and throw it downward before hopping back, stealing a gatekeepers key then using the door it unlocked to smash his head in, and getting one Sister of Fate to stab another in the face only to be stabbed in the face herself by me a few seconds later are all things I’ll think of first when recalling this game. They are a trademark of the series that helps bring their signature brutality to life, but do we really want them?
I must admit that one of the God of War series biggest strengths, its clever boss fights, would be less effective to witness without the QTEs. Is that a fair trade for the amount of frustration some of these bosses acquire by using them? I don’t know, but I have a feeling QTE’s are on there way out.
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