GTA V has sold over 200 million copies and that makes its successor a potential video game with hundreds of millions of potential players. No one expects GTA 6 to surpass its aging predecessor, but if it does it would be making history in its sector.
The reality is that fans of the Grand Theft Auto saga have been enjoying running around cities, robbing jewelry stores and becoming the gangsters they always wanted (and which in real life are not cool at all) for more than 25 years. Fans want to know.
GTA 6 and the Miami Grand Prix
And since GTA 6 is not out yet and we only know a few things about it, fans are asking questions about it: what will the expected GTA 6 look like.
One user on Reddit has asked a most interesting question… could we see the new Miami Formula 1 track in the upcoming GTA 6 that is already in development?
“We have seen Formula 1 vehicles in GTA Online with the open wheel update,” the redditor comments.
He continues “with Miami being added to the annual Grand Prix calendar in 2022, and with Miami in the present day, could we see this in a GTA 6 Vice City story mission?”.
And seeing the poster made by the Formula 1 organization itself, it is normal that many people wonder if the new Miami circuit would not have a place in the next GTA 6, which, according to all, will take place in an improved Vice City.
‘The Legend of Zelda’, which was first released as a floppy disk for the Famicom Disk System and later appeared on the NES, did not come into the world alone: its success brought with it a handful of board games that still have an absolutely unique charm to this day. .
On February 21, 1986, the world of video games changed forever. But little did Shigeru Miyamoto-san know that as he tried to create a non-linear game that would somehow be the counterpart to ‘Super Mario Bros’. ‘The Legend of Zelda’, which was first released as a floppy disk for the Famicom Disk System and later appeared on the NES, didn’t come into the world alone: its success brought with it a good handful of board games that even now still have an absolutely unique charm. Let’s take a look at them! No, you don’t need to open that chest, don’t worry.
The same year that the videogame was released, in Japan the publisher Bandai (“How cool!”, you will say if you already have gray hair) launched a more or less complex board game that recovered the essence of Nintendo‘s creation with a board that emulated the game’s map and that right now you would like to put as a poster in your house. Unpublished art, monsters, dungeons, dice (for combat) and cards: this game is everything you always dreamed of in a retro paradise.
And if you’re into collecting rare ‘Zelda’ stuff, it comes with four different colored Links, heart containers, rupees and Triforce pieces to collect to win. It is an extremely rare game that, in addition, you will not find in another language, but we would give anything to have one in our toy library.
‘The legend of Zelda’
It is much better known this 1988 game published by MB and advertised as “Join our hero Link on a path full of dangers through a maze full of monsters! Travel to six mysterious worlds, fight beasts and get hearts!”. And it was actually a bit like this, almost as is, a very simplified version of ‘The Hyrule Fantasy’.
To play, you roll the die and move as many squares as it indicates. Then, you turn the tile on which the character is, which can be magic or a monster that can only be defeated by having more power than him thanks to the swords given by the dice. Quite simple, really. Pure luck. In the end, the player with the most hearts left wins. If they licensed cereals, comics and even cartoons in the United States, all made with as little effort as possible, how could they not make a board game? It matters little that it has the same depth as rolling a die and seeing what number comes up.
‘The Legend of Zelda: Clockworm Realm’
Fast forward thirty years to the future: in 2018, Chris J Davis published online an unofficial game of the saga that, oddly enough, charmed everyone who tried it for its variety, fun, complexity… And why deny it, for how cute Link and Zelda figures are. The game is cooperative, which means that between 2 and 4 players will move and fight with different Links while trying to solve the mysteries of each dungeon.
During the game’s four levels, players must create a deck of cards to level up their heroes with weapons, items, treasure and all sorts of skill boosters to ultimately face Ganon in a unique battle in which they can save Hyrule… or let him die. The bad news? That the game is unofficial. The good? That it’s so absolutely rapturous that it even has two expansions. Nintendo, check it out.
‘Clue: The Legend of Zelda’
The Hyrule versions of mythical board games could not be missing. In this ‘Clue’ you will have to find out how to defeat Ganon. To do this you will have to find out who has the power, what object you need to beat him and where his lair is. In addition to the classic game mechanics, you will face monsters and you will be able to use the special powers of each character. Things as they are: even though it’s a real sack for fans, the little items included are cute.
‘Monopoly: The Legend of Zelda’
Forget the classic Monopoly pieces: here you can play with a triforce, a shield, a bow or an ocarina to free Hyrule… from the high taxes Ganondorf is imposing. Look, finding an excuse to bring these games out isn’t always easy, okay? If setting up hotels and houses in the Gerudo Desert doesn’t break your illusion of playing in Hyrule, maybe it will let you know that they haven’t even changed the “Free Parking” or the go-to-jail box. For collectors with a lot of space at home.
Of course, there are also versions of ‘Yahtzee’ or ‘Uno’ with references to the game, but so far no proper modern ‘The Legend of Zelda’ game has appeared. With examples such as ‘God of war’ or ‘This war of mine’, why is Nintendo still resisting? Well, okay, we only need to look at that MB disaster to answer ourselves.
The titles that were programmed for CD-i are considered some of the worst ever. And yet, there are still people who try to resurrect them by any means.
There are three letters that make all video game fans sweat and laugh at the same time: CD-i. The strange Philips format that allowed 744 MB of data to be stored in 1990 promised to revolutionize everything years before PlayStation: games were now on disc, opening a door full of opportunities that Nintendo couldn’t say no to. Sadly: the titles that were programmed for CD-i are considered some of the worst in history. And yet, there are still people who try to resurrect them any way they can.
Most of the video games that came out for the hybrid between console and multimedia station from Philips did not go beyond mere curiosity: versions of ‘Sink the Fleet’ and ‘Connect 4’ were mixed in the catalog with children’s games or chess, licenses such as ‘Sesame Street’ or ‘Golgo 13’ and three very strange Nintendo adaptations: ‘Hotel Mario’, ‘Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon’ and ‘Link: The faces of evil’.
One of the supposed advantages of this new format was that it allowed the inclusion of animated scenes in a more or less natural way: the two Zelda games that were released became especially notable (and laughable) because of them, the histrionic voice actors and the strange style of their designs. Obviously, none of these ended up being canon and have become more of a point of no return for Nintendo, who understood that they couldn’t just give away their franchises to anyone.
Because of this catastrophic result, the release of the third game in the series for CD-i, ‘Zelda’s Adventure’, only took place in Europe, where critics shamelessly trashed it: not only was it unplayable because it could take up to ten seconds to change screens and its CGI characters were impossible to control. Moreover, during gameplay, the cutscenes were recorded by real people instead of using animation, and the plot was bizarre to say the least. In it, Link had been kidnapped by Ganon in the kingdom of Tolemac and Zelda had to gather the seven celestial symbols to rescue him.
Dusting off the Game Boy
And the thing is, despite the video cutscenes, the game had a lot more to do with ‘The legend of Zelda’ or ‘Link’s awakening’ than the other Philips console versions. There were dungeons, similar level design and even the characters looked more stylish. However, not many were able to try it: in 1996, when the game was released, CD-i was already being paid off and Philips had accepted the failure, so it had the few sales you can imagine.
But now it has a second life in the hands of John Lay, a game developer who has de-maked ‘Zelda’s Adventure’ as a Game Boy game… improving it dramatically in the process and making it surprisingly fluid: by going backwards, it has gone forwards. The game is available on itch.io and shares the style of ‘Link’s Awakening’.
Ah, you can also buy the cartridge in case you feel like dusting off your old Game Boy and discovering the true power of the CD-i, the one that nobody wanted to check out in the early 90’s (with good reason). What better way to prepare for ‘Tears of the kingdom’?
This new installment of the Square saga is giving people something to talk about because it promises to be a game for adults in which we will find drugs, scenes of torture, sex, prostitution, and hate crimes.
There’s a month and a half to go until the release of ‘Final Fantasy XVI’ and, apart from repeating the cycle of every Final Fantasy (fans saying that the previous one was the good one and this one isn’t), this new instalment of Square’s saga is really getting people talking because it promises to be a game for adults in which we’ll find drugs, torture scenes, sex, prostitution and hate crimes. It’s like a crossover between Final Fantasy and ‘GTA‘. However, there is one country that has gone beyond “for adults”: it has erased it from existence.
According to ESRB, the US rating system, the voices saying it’s too edgy aren’t lying: there will be moaning in a hotel room, dialogue like “I’d be happy to show you… if you can afford it”, half-exposed asses and breasts, and words like “fuck” and “shit”. OK, yes, we don’t think it’s anything to shout about either, but it was enough to give it an M rating, i.e. recommending that children under 17 stay away from it. PEGI, for its part, has also rated it for 18+.
Of course, the essentials of the game are still there: orcs, magic, swords, fireballs, that sort of thing. After all, it’s still ‘Final Fantasy‘, even if there are suddenly scenes written by a fifteen year old. However, in Saudi Arabia, the company in charge of rating the game has refused to do so and, consequently, the game will not be released and will remain unreleased in the country.
The reason is that Square has steadfastly refused to censor the game and make the necessary modifications to make it look good, so the hardcore fans out there may already be preparing “alternative ways” to get it. Wink, wink. The ratings body hasn’t said exactly what it is that’s been bothering them, but rumour has it that it’s a homosexual couple. Frankly, good for Square. There’s money to be made that isn’t worth stooping for.
This is not the first game to be censored in Saudi Arabia, which has a long tradition of banning experiences for the most bizarre reasons. For example, ‘The last of us II’ had a homosexual couple, ‘Dead rising 2’ had gambling and nudity, ‘God of war’ had religious and sexual content and ‘Spec Ops: The Line’ had a fictional representation of Dubai. There are many others, including ‘Roblox‘ or ‘Injustice: Gods Among Us’, and ‘Final Fantasy XVI’ is just one more on the list.
Not least because Saudi Arabian laws apparently don’t follow censorship enforcement and games end up appearing in shops without anything happening, so fans of Japanese RPGs in the country will probably be able to get their hands on it anyway. The censorship issue is a curious one: for example, no games were banned in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, except for one, with the idea of protecting the younger generation from a bad influence. You’re thinking of ‘Manhunt 2’ or ‘Carmageddon’, right? Well, it was PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. What you have to see.
Yes, of course I don’t mind if you sell me the game halfway. No, of course, an unpublished story, a map and a dress. Of course I want to pay even more. Just missing.
Imagine that tomorrow you go to buy bread and the baker, who has always given you the classic loaf, this time gives you a crust without crumb and tells you that this is a new sales strategy: if you want the crumb you have to pay for it separately. It’s not necessary to enjoy the food, right? Well, that’s basically what we gamers have assumed with DLC. Yeah, of course I don’t mind if you sell me the game half-assed. No, sure, an unreleased story, a map and a dress. Of course I want to pay even more. That’s all it would take.
It’s said that the game that started the DLC ban (even though PC gamers already knew what it was like to have half-baked games with Expansion Packs) was ‘Total Annihilation’ in 1997 with free updates and new maps. Obviously, that wasn’t going to last forever. Soon, even the Nintendo DS would have downloadable levels for ‘Professor Layton’ or ‘Picross’. And now we live in a world where we are perfectly aware that paying 60 euros for a game is really just the beginning.
That video game companies see us as mere cows to be milked for all our milk is clear. That we have accepted as a positive symptom systems to do it to us as the Season Pass is like to ask ourselves things. Mainly, why all this content is not directly in the game? For example, ‘Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’ on Switch. Yes, of course I appreciate having 48 additional tracks to those I already had on Wii U: what I do not know is why they were not already included as standard.
At least Mario and his friends get quality content. Imagine being a big fan of ‘Oblivion’ and ending up paying for the famous horse armor (which cost two and a half euros, no less), or being the best at playing ‘Madden 2010’ and paying to get a new difficulty level. If you are one of those who pay money to get new skins, don’t you remember that in ‘Street Fighter III: Third Strike’ they made you take out your wallet to be able to… change the color of your character’s clothes? If they do this kind of thing it’s because it works: no matter how much fans complain, the people responsible for ‘Asura’s Wrath’ will probably end up making gold with the idea of taking out the end of the game separately after giving them 7 euros. True Ending’, they called it. It takes a lot of guts.
Not just DLC
Downloadable content and Season Passes have become part of our lives so quickly that it seems we gamers even thank the companies for squeezing as much money out of us as they can. Yes, sure, a DLC for ‘Horizon’ or ‘The Witcher 3’ in which new areas of the map open up to us and the story gets bigger is not the same as a pack of lamps for ‘The Sims 3’, but the feeling is the same.
But on the other hand, if we jump through the hoops of microtransactions in mobile games, we can swallow in everything. “Pay to not wait”, “Pay to get more lives”, “Pay to spin the roulette”, “Pay to get new weapons”. Pay, like this, in general. Until we have reached the zen coexistence of ‘Marvel Snap’, in which leaving money is really only a possibility for the very eager, we have had to eat thousands of ‘Candy Crush’. Even Duolingo is sold as a game with microtransactions! Want to learn Italian? Then you have to pay the cashier.
The early access, the betas that you can play after you checkout, the skins and clothing packs… Game developers seem to have forgotten about creating complete experiences: why, if we are going to pay for them later? Let’s not forget that titles like ‘Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War’ have so much DLC that it is literally a bottomless pit that also differentiates between people who can afford the best weapon and those who cannot. Pay to be the best.
True, it feels good to be able to test a game before its official release, and to know that when you finish it there will be more adventures – even to be able to differentiate yourself from the rest in online mode with a costume you’ve paid for, or to use a card not yet released to the rest that destabilizes the game! And yet, there is something deeply wrong with all this, as if we were aware that not so long ago this would be considered selling an incomplete game or cheating. It’s the world of gaming today. Get your wallet out. We’ll talk later.
Although ‘Wario Ware’ keeps going from time to time to the comfort of all of us who enjoy two-second minigames, there is another one that was lost in the limbo of the sagas: What happened to ‘Wario Land’
Neither Franklin from ‘GTA V’, nor Kid Icarus, nor Bayonetta, nor anything like that: the most unlikely hero in video games eats garlic for breakfast, farts, is overweight and likes money more than a politician. Wario is the second most important antagonist in the ‘Super Mario Bros’ saga and the only one to have had not one, but two sagas of his own. And although ‘Wario Ware’ continues every so often to the delight of all of us who enjoy two-second mini-games, there is another one that got lost in the limbo of the sagas: What became of ‘Wario Land’?
The first appearance of Wario, with a physical appearance that some say comes from Spike, the character from ‘Wrecking Crew’ who in Japan was known as Blackie (not anymore, whatever), was as the final bad guy of the wonderful ‘Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins’, one of the best games in the history of Game Boy 30 years ago. But the funny thing is that first came the name (a joke between Mario’s own name and the Japanese word “warui”, that is, “bad”) and then everything else. First came the puns, as it should be.
The funny thing is that in the guide of that cartridge his relationship with the hero of the red cap even had an inside story: Mario and Wario were childhood friends who parted ways. It’s also true that it was indicated that his favorite food was pancakes instead of garlic, so it may not have been too well thought out. The third part of ‘Mario Land’ wanted to break away from everything and, to do so, completely forgot about the plumber to focus on the novel powers of this character who wanted to get rich at all costs.
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3′ is possibly the most fun of this strange trilogy for Game Boy: where Mario jumped and ran, Wario used powers and investigated every place in search of a secret location, giving a new layer to the screens. A myth had been born… That was on the verge of dying the following year. And it was the biggest failure in the history of the Big N: does the Virtual Boy ring any bells?
Virtual boy
The story is well known: with PlayStation and Sega Saturn about to come out, Nintendo couldn’t afford to get stuck with the SNES. It needed something more, and the Nintendo 64 wasn’t ready yet. Unfortunately (seen in perspective), Gunpei Yokoi had a little toy called Virtual Boy that, who knows, could be a hit: it allowed you to play in three dimensions… in exchange for wearing strange glasses that were impossible to hold and being willing to see only in red.
As you can imagine, it was no match for Sony and Sega: although Nintendo spent 25 million on promoting it, it only sold 770,000 units and by the end of its life it had released 22 games (8 exclusive to Japan and 3 to the United States). And among the list of ignonimia was, exactly: ‘Virtual Boy Wario Land’, which in spite of everything was considered the best title of the console. The shock was not big enough for the Game Boy Color in 1998 not to celebrate the first real sequel of the saga: ‘Wario Land II’, which had the novelty of not being able to die… because what matters is to keep going at all costs.
Wario must rescue his treasure in a long, fun and unique game, one of the pillars of the Japanese company’s invention to not yet retire its portable. In 2000, ‘Wario Land 3’ laid the foundations of the franchise and ‘Wario Land 4’ brought them to Game Boy Advance, with the novelty that now the character could “die” (or faint, at least). Surprisingly, its visual style is overwhelming and, undoubtedly, the best of the portable saga. From here, the turbulence begins.
Minigames and platforms
Wario became Nintendo’s default rogue character. If they needed someone to star in stupid mini-games, he was there with the fabulous ‘Wario Ware’ franchise. He raced go-karts, played golf and tennis, rolled dice on a giant board, beat everyone up in ‘Super Smash Bros Melee’. And, although we don’t like to admit it, it lost some of its identity along the way.
The next platformer tried to pick up where ‘Super Mario Land’ (for handheld) and ‘Super Mario World’ (for home console) left off: ‘Wario World’ was released for GameCube in 2003 and sold only about 390,000 units worldwide. By comparison, ‘Super Mario Sunshine’ snuck in 6.28 million and ‘Luigi’s mansion’ about 3.33. Sadly, it was no longer innovative nor did they know what to do with the character in three dimensions, resembling more of a beat-em-up than a platformer. Nintendo put the saga aside to let it breathe for four years.
In 2007 and 2008, Wario gave it all again with a last desperate attempt: on Nintendo DS, with the somewhat discouraged ‘Wario: Master of disguise’, which didn’t work at any level with a very strange story, and on Nintendo Wii with the incredible ‘Wario Land: Shake It! which had a beautiful hand-drawn art style, as if it were a cartoon: more than 2000 frames formed the actions of the character, whose plot was again focused on earning a lot of money, a return to what always worked of the same that came too late. If you can, try it! It’s hilarious despite making the entire gameplay system rely on moving the Wii Remote. That’s what it was fifteen years ago.
‘Shake It!’ sold a million or so copies worldwide, but it wasn’t enough to bring the platforming saga back to the forefront, thus condemning Wario to being locked away in ‘Wario Ware’ and being a deluxe sidekick in any Mario sports game. It looks like we won’t be seeing him jumping and getting powers again for a good period of time, though with Nintendo you never know: what if it gave him another chance on the Switch? Hey, he can’t complain either: he’s more than Waluigi ever had.
Puede que una década después de la última entrega los jugones quieran probar otras cosas.
Podemos estar esperando ‘Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’, ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’ o ‘Spider-man 2’ como agua de mayo, pero todos sabemos cuál es el juego que va a copar más titulares desde el momento en que se anuncie de forma oficial: ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’. Después de que su quinta parte vendiera 175 millones de copias dando un beneficio de 6.000 millones de dólares a Rockstar, parece que la productora está mimando cada detalle para que nadie se quede con las ganas. Y sin embargo… puede que una década después de la última entrega los jugones quieran probar otras cosas.
Dos años después de que ‘San Andreas’ revolucionara la industria, ‘Saints Row’ se lanzó a la venta como un simple clon. Una copia a mano alzada y no con papel cebolla, pero copia al fin y al cabo. Sin embargo, introducía un tema que ‘GTA’ abandonaría en sus siguientes entregas: la pertenencia a una banda. Mientras que la saga de Rockstar trataba la historia de un lobo solitario metido en un mundo criminal (por gusto o por salvar el pellejo), la de THQ tenía otro enfoque.
A partir de ‘Saints Row 3’ las cosas cambiaron sobremanera. Y es que, de repente, explotó la locura, la comedia, las situaciones inverosímiles, el ambiente más festivo. Mientras que en ‘GTA V’ veíamos una historia de crimen y venganza oscura y sin redención (que no le importó a nadie), en ‘Saints Row IV’ tu personaje, el mismo que en los juegos anteriores, conseguía superpoderes, se convertía en el presidente de los Estados Unidos y tenía que parar un ataque alien. Lo mismito, vamos.
Y por si te quedabas corto, ‘Saint Row: Gat out of hell’, su DLC, te permitía jugar con dos miembros de la banda mientras trataban de rescatar a su jefe del Infierno después de que Satán le secuestrara. Y ojo, nadie está diciendo que ‘GTA’ tenga que convertirse en un absurdo repleto de locuras dejando de lado su ADN, pero, para ser sinceros, a lo largo de ‘GTA Online’ también ha cambiado lo suficiente como para preguntarnos… Realmente, ¿qué es ‘GTA’?
¿Tiene personalidad propia ‘GTA’?
Aún poco sabemos de ‘GTA VI’, pero ante la recepción del modo historia de la quinta parte (espectacular en lo jugable, increíble en lo gráfico, decepcionante en lo narrativo), que, de hecho, ni siquiera ha lanzado un DLC, es posible que el equipo esté mirando más lo que hace la comunidad en el modo online para ajustar uno de los juegos más esperados de la década hasta el límite.
Dicho de otra manera: ni tan serio y apocado como viene siendo habitual, ni tan cómico y loco como en ‘Saints Row’. La idea de volver a jugar como un lobo solitario, teniendo la posibilidad de unirse a una banda, se hace ya repetitiva: al fin y al cabo, en el juego de Deep Silver la pertenencia a un grupo sirve para ver una evolución real y unos personajes que evolucionan juego a juego, creando conexión con el espectador. Si en un ‘GTA’ no funcionan, no hay nada que te haga volver a ellos.
Quizá no hay que abandonar la historia del criminal solitario que se enfrenta a los peces gordos, pero sí darle más profundidad, permitir que el jugador haga locuras si es lo que quiere… O darle la oportunidad de tener más contacto con otros personajes secundarios. ‘GTA’ pavimentó el camino para el triunfo de ‘Saints Row’, pero ahora puede que cambien las tornas: Rockstar ha creado dos juegos totalmente diferentes en uno mismo, y volver a la sobriedad de su historia cuando han acostumbrado al público a la sinvergonzonería del modo online puede ser una pastilla difícil de tragar.
Eh, montemos una banda
El camino que se abre delante de Rockstar no es fácil de seguir y está repleto de bifurcaciones para entender qué es realmente su saga estrella una década después de su última aparición. Incluso franquicias míticas como ‘Zelda’ se han ido adaptando poco a poco a los gustos de la gente para encontrar un nuevo ADN (de mazmorreo a mundo abierto) y la repetición constante, por muy espectacular que sea, solo va a dar lugar a, tarde o temprano, el abandono de los gamers.
Todo lo que sube no tiene por qué bajar, pero Rockstar necesita, quizá, echar un vistazo a esos mal llamados “clones” y ver si lo que proponen tiene sentido más allá de los coches, las pistolas, los tiroteos y todo lo que hace a ‘GTA’ la franquicia millonaria que es. Es un ejercicio de abandono del ego, pero puede dar lugar a aquello con lo que todos los desarrolladores de videojuegos sueñan: una nueva entrega que sepa a lo mismo de siempre pero tenga las suficientes novedades como para querer volver a pasar por caja otra vez. Y otra. Y otra más.
A decade after the last installment, gamers may want to try other things.
We may be waiting for ‘Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’, ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’ or ‘Spider-man 2’ as if we were waiting for May, but we all know which game is going to make headlines from the moment it is officially announced: ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’. After its fifth part sold 175 million copies giving a profit of 6 billion dollars to Rockstar, it seems that the producer is pampering every detail so that no one is left wanting. And yet… a decade after the last installment, gamers may want to try something else.
Two years after ‘San Andreas’ revolutionized the industry, ‘Saints Row’ was released as a simple clone. A freehand copy and not with onion paper, but a copy nonetheless. However, it introduced a theme that ‘GTA’ would abandon in its following installments: gang membership. While Rockstar’s saga dealt with the story of a lone wolf in a criminal world (for fun or to save his skin), THQ’s had another approach.
From ‘Saints Row 3’ onwards, things changed a lot. Suddenly, madness, comedy, implausible situations, and a more festive atmosphere exploded. While in ‘GTA V’ we saw a story of dark crime and revenge without redemption (which nobody cared about), in ‘Saints Row IV’ your character, the same as in the previous games, got superpowers, became the president of the United States and had to stop an alien attack. The same thing, come on.
And if that wasn’t enough, ‘Saint Row: Gat out of hell’, its DLC, allowed you to play with two members of the gang as they tried to rescue their boss from Hell after Satan kidnapped him. And mind you, no one is saying that ‘GTA’ has to become an absurdity full of craziness leaving aside its DNA, but, to be honest, over the course of ‘GTA Online‘ it has also changed enough to ask ourselves… Really, what is ‘GTA’?
Does ‘GTA’ have its own personality?
We still know little about ‘GTA VI’, but given the reception of the story mode of the fifth part (spectacular in gameplay, incredible in graphics, disappointing in narrative), which, in fact, has not even released a DLC, it is possible that the team is looking more at what the community does in the online mode to adjust one of the most anticipated games of the decade to the limit.
In other words: neither as serious and demure as usual, nor as comical and crazy as in ‘Saints Row’. The idea of returning to play as a lone wolf, having the possibility of joining a gang, is already repetitive: after all, in Deep Silver’s game, belonging to a group serves to see a real evolution and characters that evolve game by game, creating a connection with the viewer. If they don’t work in a ‘GTA‘, there’s nothing to bring you back to them.
Maybe we shouldn’t abandon the story of the lone criminal taking on the big shots, but we should give it more depth, allow the player to do crazy things if that’s what he wants… Or give him the opportunity to have more contact with other secondary characters. GTA’ paved the way for the triumph of ‘Saints Row’, but now the tables may turn: Rockstar has created two totally different games in one, and returning to the sobriety of its story when they have accustomed the public to the shamelessness of the online mode can be a hard pill to swallow.
Hey, let’s start a band
The road ahead for Rockstar is not easy to follow and is full of bifurcations to understand what its flagship saga really is a decade after its last appearance. Even mythical franchises like ‘Zelda‘ have gradually adapted to people’s tastes to find a new DNA (from dungeon crawling to open world) and constant repetition, no matter how spectacular, is only going to result in, sooner or later, abandonment by gamers.
Everything that goes up doesn’t have to come down, but Rockstar needs, perhaps, to take a look at those misnamed “clones” and see if what they propose makes sense beyond the cars, guns, shootouts and everything that makes ‘GTA’ the million-dollar franchise that it is. It’s an exercise in ego abandonment, but it may lead to what all game developers dream of: a new installment that tastes like the same old thing but has enough new features to make you want to go back to checkout again. And another one. And another one.
Now, with the film about to be released in theaters in Japan, there is a character who has changed his name… Luckily
He may not be the most beloved character in the entire ‘Super Mario Bros‘ saga, but he was there from the beginning. Literally. Foreman Spike, Mario’s enemy in ‘Wrecking Crew‘ (which came out a few months before the first of the platformers) has only appeared in three games before making the jump to the Mario brothers’ movie. But now, with the film about to be released in theaters in Japan, the character has changed his name… Luckily.
Spike’s gaming life consists only of ‘Wrecking crew’, ‘Wrecking crew 98’, a sequel for SNES that never left Japan, and ‘Mobile Golf’, a game of the sport in question for Game Boy Advance starring Mario in which he was an unlockable character and that, indeed, did not leave Japan either. Perhaps that’s why, after not appearing in 21 years, his supporting role in‘Super Mario Bros: The Movie‘ has given a lot to talk about.
Among other things, because it disproves a common theory, which is that he simply became Waluigi. It is a theory that makes sense: the mustache and the nose are practically the same. This role posed another problem more important than fan theories for Nintendo: the character, who has been called Blackie in Japan since 1985, will now be renamed Spike, according to a tweet posted by Nintendo, very concise but leaving no room for doubt.
“The name in ‘Super Mario Bros: The Movie,’ which will be released on April 28, 2023, will also be ‘Spike.'” Nintendo has not provided any explanation on the matter but it doesn’t take a sharp eye to figure out that ‘Blackie’ may have racist overtones. Rather than a move to equalize marketing across countries, it seems like an attempt to watch their backs. It is no less true that the character remained forgotten in the collective memory, so it does not seem that it will cause more than a few complaints.
Of course, we will have to see what happens with the enemies that are already called Spike, born in ‘Super Mario Bros 3’ and that have already lasted until today. At the same time, the ‘Super Mario Bros’ movie has already grossed almost 900 million worldwide and does not seem to be willing to slow down the accelerator. Come on, whatever name it has, we have Nintendo for a while. Ya-hoo!
The best-selling products are remakes. Did you like this dish? Well, we are not going to give you variations of the recipe: we are going to give you exactly the same.
You’ve noticed it too. No matter how hard you try to avoid the feeling of deja vu, you live in a continuous creative Groundhog Day: not only do video games, books and popular movies increasingly resemble each other, leaving the way open for algorithms to create what the public apparently wants to consume and using the human hand only as an executor… but also, the best-selling products are remakes. Did you like this dish? Well, we’re not going to give you variations of the recipe: we’re going to give you the exact same thing. Over and over again. And what’s better: you’ll end up asking for more.
The social networks were recently full of praise for ‘Resident Evil 4‘, the new version of the 2005 game that lengthened and changed the plot enough (but without great follies) giving one more reason to come back to that zombified Spain. The graphics are impressive, the gameplay has been improved, but, in the end, it is still the fourth installment of ‘Resident Evil’ again, a saga accustomed to that every few years their games are re-released on as many consoles as possible.
After all, a remake of ‘Resident Evil 4’ is preferable to suffer the continuous Groundhog Day with which, for years, Nintendo threatened us: Or don’t we remember the fiasco of ‘Mario 3D All-Stars’ that left the games as they came out on Nintendo 64 or GameCube and charged them at the price of novelty? Luckily, the big N learns from its mistakes (sometimes): ‘Metroid Prime Remastered’ or ‘Kirby’s Return to Dreamland’ are two of the best games of the year, partly because they were already two of the best games of 2002 and 2011, respectively.
The examples can be counted by dozens: ‘Dead Space’, ‘Lollipop Chainsaw’, ‘Bayonetta’, ‘The Witcher’ or ‘Max Payne’ have already appeared or will do so in the coming months. There are three main reasons for these unexpected returns. The first, it serves as a metadrone for the fan in the face of the morbid slowness of current developments, which mean that a game can be created for more than a decade. The second is useful to check the public’s interest in forgotten sagas with a view to launching a new installment. The third and most important, they give a lot of money with an effort that sometimes borders on the absolute minimum. The important thing is the important thing.
It is also true that this has been happening since the beginning of consoles: the very same ‘Mario Bros’, in its arcade version, had a remake with improved gameplay and graphics for NES in 1988 and the NES ‘Dragon Quest’ appeared seven years later on SNES with some of its mechanics improved. The remake is part of the DNA of video games, but we can’t deny that some of these are frankly ridiculous… And that in recent years the production has increased twenty-fold: How many consoles can we play ‘Skyrim‘ on right now?
The same thing, again, everywhere
Of course there are useful remakes, which serve to introduce classic games to a new generation, touching just enough to keep them feeling original but without leaving aside the retro touch. Monkey Island‘, for example, or the future ‘Alone in the dark’, are perfect examples of how modern gameplay and retouched graphics can help to recover jewels of the past. However, not all of them need to be recovered.
Did ‘Life is Strange’ need a remake in 2023? The game is from 2015! Was it necessary for PlayStation 5 to have its ‘The last of us, part I’ when the original is still fresh? All the remakes that are developed (from the remastered version of ‘Alan Wake’ to the already usual versions of ‘Pokémon‘) is time stolen from other more original productions, sequels capable of innovating and telling a new story: they accommodate the player in a continuous state of lethargy and nostalgia that does no one any good.
It’s one thing for a new game to take inspiration from a previous one and reimagine it for a new audience, as happened in 2009 with the fabulous ‘A boy and his blob’ or that alternate history that was ‘Dead Rising 2: Off the record’. It makes sense, it’s creative, it makes you want to see what has been created out of love. A remake, no matter how much it improves facial expressions and changes some dialogues, will never be as interesting as a new game.
We live in a world with access to everything. Literally. There isn’t a game we can’t play, from the classic ‘Arkanoid’ to the more modern ‘Dead Island 2’. And sure, sometimes you feel like going back to ‘Resident Evil 4’ or ‘Goldeneye 007‘, but it’s inevitable that, as gamers, we feel like we’re the cow that they’ll never stop squeezing over and over again by giving us exactly what they already know works.
And this is something that only happens in the world of games. How would we feel if tomorrow they remade ‘Iron Man 3’ or rewrote ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’? Would we like a remake of ‘Friends’ with more modern jokes? So why is it so accepted in video games to live the same experience over and over again? Let’s think about it: Is this really the future we want for an industry in the middle of a bubble -at first sight- with no signs of bursting? Let’s hope not.
