Through out my gaming life I have come across the good, the bad and the damn right stupid when it comes to games. Weather it is a gaming gem that is worth treasuring for years to come, or an abomination that should hit the bottom of the bargain bin before you can say Street Fighter the movie.
But then there is that time in any game companies life where they like to test the water, most game companies sooner or later will try and merge two genres of game into one, some of these mergers can be perfect, others…well lets just say that they are not in existence anymore for a good reason.
So here are some examples of some good genre mergers, basically if two genres made the worlds most awesome offspring, this is what you would get:
Fallout 3
I said to myself once, the day a First Person Shooter RPG comes on the gaming market will be the day I die happy. *checks pulse* well it appears I am still alive, but seriously if you have a passion for FPS games like me, or a passion for RPG games, hell even both then this game will have you drilled to your TV for what may seem like several lifetimes.
So what makes this game nail the genre meld between First Person Shooter and Role Playing Game? Well for me the setting is perfect, now everyone who reads Plus XP pretty much knows that I love my futuristic shooters and in my honest opinion the setting for Fallout 3 would be awesome for an FPS game alone, surviving against the odds after a nuclear war against mutants, deranged humans and all sorts. But what really adds the icing on th cake is, yep you have guessed it, the RPG side of the game, The leveling up, weapon upgrades, the ability to make your character from scratch and make him/her into a mutant slaying uber machine. It just adds to the sheer gaming genius that is Fallout 3. A perfect example of Genre melding at its best in my opinion. Would be interesting to get my mitts on Borderlands to see if its worthy of being crowned the new FPSRPG undisputed champion.
Soul Calibur III
Right I know what you are thinking here. Your thinking, ‘what is he on about Soul Calibur is a straight up fighting game blah blah blah.’ and your right it is, for the most part. In Soul Calibur III there was a game mode called Chronicles Of The Sword. This brought in a story mode, this story mode threw you onto a map, much like a strategy map you would see from the likes of Fire Emblem, This game mode combined both strategy and fighting into one great and very enjoyable game, you would move your characters, then fight them in true Soul Calibur fashion. So this game was a worthy example of combining the strategy genre and the fighting genre into a nice hybrid. It gave you chance to think, then button mash, then think again.
Now those were two good examples of games combining genres, but now we have to turn to the dark side because this type of game experimentation isn’t always sunshine and lollipops. So here are some bad examples that you maybe should try for at least 2 seconds to get a feel of how bad it is.
WWE Crush Hour
Yes back in the day I was a bit of a wrestling fan (take note that this is the only time I will be admitting such a thing) I played the games and they were good fun for what they were, well all except this one. Now put it this way wrestling and driving two reasonably good genres but put them together and you are cooking up a recipe for disaster. The story was about as epic and exciting as the current world-wide demand for underwater hair dryers. The story goes, the head of the WWE has taken control of all TV broadcasting and has demanded the wrestlers go on every single programme possible. Please join me now as we take one hand and smack it on our foreheads in a gamer united facepalm. Do I even need to go into game play? Just no, it pains me.
Too Human
The very idea of a 3rd person action RPG would get any gamer’s juices going really, I mean the idea of unleashing cool combos with variety of weapons and building up your character to get even more cool combos sounds awesome. But for Too Human, it was badly executed, the game play which could have been second to none was mediocre to fail, it was limited with moves to unlock, the leveling up didnt really feel like leveling up at all and the gameplay really lacked. The story wasn’t too bad, but then again you could probably say the same thing for Enter The Matrix.
So if you plan to make a game that combines genres, then take it from me, it’s not all about good story and dont be too outlandish with the genres you choose, because quite frankly would a flight simulator platform FPS RPG work? Well a shiny donkey to anyone who can get game of the year with that genre meld in the next five years.
Garv.
