Interesting Sequels of 2012
Tom’s already offered you a rundown of this year’s Actual New Games – the ones that are offering, in their own ways, something unique – and now here’s the slightly less glamorous look at the other side of the coin. They’re big business, these blockbuster sequels, and for all that we lament the lack of innovation it’s these big-budget series that inevitably garner the most attention and inspire the most devotion from the majority. That’s nothing to be scorned – iteration’s an important thing in games development and indeed the development of games – and a composite of evolved features designed to fulfil a particular desire, be that the needs of a sports fan or those wanting a fresh shooter fix, can be just as important to the progression of the medium as the advent of a new game mechanic or control concept. Sequels take many forms and capture our attention for many reasons. Some build their features up year by year, like FIFA and Call of Duty, and will continue to be brilliant when we encounter them later in 2012. Others build on the storytelling or world-building of games a few years past, like Gearbox’s brilliant-looking Borderlands 2 or the sure-to-be-spectacular finale to the Shepard’s tale in Mass Effect 3. And some are interesting because of their circumstances – Halo 4, for example, is another big-budget sequel on the near horizon, and with a new and as-yet unproven developer filling Bungie’s big boots, we’re just interested in that out of morbid curiosity as devotion to the series. Read more…
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