Thundercrap!

Like most rational kids of the 90’s, I enjoyed the Thundercats. Whatever random adventures the fiery redheaded anthropomorphic lion thing who was somehow aged by traveling really fast (it actually works the opposite way, 80’s animators) were always a source of afternoon excitement. Requiescat in pace, Toonami.

You can imagine my response when they decided to bring the series back with all the trimmings of modern cartoons.
“Holy shit, why didn’t you guys do that in the first place?”

It’s one of those things that should be brought back by virtue of the fact that there was room for improvement. For one, the original art style was, for lack of a better word, gay. The lead guy, Lion-O, would not have looked out of place in a pride parade and some of the episodes (like the one with the speak and spell voiced robot bears) were just annoying. This series would benefit from modern aesthetics.

So what does this have to do with gaming? Well aside from a potential tie-in game if the series gets popular again (I imagine it should), it’s another indication of Western media production at the moment. Movies are retreading old ground from the 80’s, television likewise and games are doing the same with the 90’s. Remember me bitching about Deus Ex: Human Revolutions being better off by not being called a Deus Ex game? Goddamn Eidos just won’t let these franchises stay dead. All of the games they’re trying to modernize (Thief, Hitman, Lara Croft) killed themselves of their own accord with poor sequels. As an advocate for games as art, this bulllshit needs to stop. How the hell can new things be given a chance when there are high profile names being tossed around the proposal table? Playing on the nostalgia of critics such as myself is not going to endear, it’s going to disenchant.

Then again, change is something most humans are deathly afraid of. But I suppose getting brown, drippy lightning to strike (danke, Herr Croshaw) is better than no lightning at all. Yes, I’m talking about Epic Games. The original Gears of War was great; it was gritty, had some genuine tones of brotherhood and brought forward the innovative cover system that is second only to zombies in being overdone. Gears 2 should have been the sign that the series was only really good as a one-off. Now you might be saying “but they did Bulletstorm, an original IP!”

Bulletstorm was a colossal mess in terms of sales and actually living up to its predecessor’s (Painkiller) standards. It didn’t do the Thundercats thing of improving flaws. It was ok for a few lulz, but not only did it fail to grasp that FPS’ need competitive multiplayer, (another thing Painkiller understood and was recognized for by professional gaming) but it was too short, the gun upgrade system was just padding for an already short game, murdering a bunch of guys means there should be a bunch of guys that are reasonable to murder and the story should have just been completely retarded fun.

That’s another thing, the writing. Developers, stop hiring people from other fields to do the jobs you’re not capable of.
Build the trade.

R.A. Salvatore and that fantasy game nobody cares about, Karen Travers and Gears 3 and that British jackass nobody’s ever heard of that insulted Halo’s immaculate storytelling and did Crysis 2.

All examples of getting novelists to chart the plot and characterization for an interactive experience. Writing for games is very different from writing for anything else. Instead, we are often treated to gaudy cinematics that add very little to the actual game and serve to underscore how crap the game's real time graphics are (here's looking at you, SC2).

Remember kids, ability is never the deciding measure of production. It’s how much time you’ve spent knowing the right people.