chess

Happy Friday...please forgive the wall o' text.

So it occurs to me today that 2 of the games I'm most interested in right now are literally mix-tapes of other great games, but I think both are done in tasteful ways. I'm thinking of Borderlands and Darksiders.

Borderlands is pretty much Fallout 3 without all the dreariness and story and with a solid shooting engine. The setting and the enemies are familiar, but I get more of a tribute vibe than a "trying to capitalize on somebody else's success" vibe. It also borrows some conceits from loot-whore games like Diablo and it has some great references to Half-Life as well. Borderlands basically took the most fun elements of a great game and then put their own twist on it. It helped tremendously that they didn't take the game seriously AT ALL and just had fun with it. It also helps that the game has some of the best video-game characters in years.

Darksiders is a more serious game, which doesn't help it any, and it would be easy to dismiss as "Zelda with God of War combat", but there's more to it than that. By "more", I don't mean that it does other new and original things, but rather that it pays tribute to many more games. Just in the demo, I saw plenty of Zelda, GoW, Half-Life, and Devil May Cry amongst others, and Vigil didn't seem to be going out of their way to disguise it. Rather, they seem to really be taking parts of games they cherish and trying to blend them together in a way that comes off as an homage. I can't wait to play this game all the way through, as I think it might be made by folks who love many of the same games that I do!

Now that I'm in a stream of consciousness, wasn't the best thing about Burnout Paradise the fact that it was basically GTA with a better driving engine and none of the story/dreariness to bog it down? It was very similar to Borderlands that way IMO. It took all of the fun and none of the seriousness.

Finally, I contrast this with the obvious ripoff: Dante's Inferno. I'll probably play this game at some point, but it literally IS God of War 2...to the point that it's almost embarrassing, and it doesn't help that it came out mere weeks before God of War 3. It seems like a competently put together game, but I felt dirty just playing the demo.

Anyway, I think this is becoming a trend, and I'm interested in what you guys think...or feel free to ignore!

Michael Corvin

Heavenly Sword was also basically God of War. I loved every minute of it though.

pinata242

Granted I haven't played very much of Fallout 3 to have a valid opinion, but I've never really understood the comparison to Borderlands. Sure they're set in barren environments and they are both technically FPSes and have varying amounts of RPGness to it, but that's about all I see.

Borderlands is frantic and cooperative. FO3 felt tame and isolated. I say tame in the fact that you could pause the action with VATS and set up some serious tactics.

Again, I do fully admit to being naive on everything FO3 will have to offer (I'll get to it eventually), but I'm just always surprised at the sheer amount of comparison I see to the two. I just can't help but think people liken the two primarily on the environment and not the gameplay.

Hell, if I threw Mass Effect into the mix, I'd say the scale was something like this in similarity: FO3 > ME1 > ME2 > BL. So, in my mind, there's a lot of space between the two.

Again, Fallout 3 noob

chess

The similarity to FO3 with Borderlands is largely the environment, but also in the enemies (raiders/bandits, skags/dogs, spiderants/radscorpions/fireants, zombies/ghouls, crimson lance/enclave etc.) and in the way the the side missions are compartmentalized into small stories (not unique to FO3, but you understand). You're also spending a lot of time picking up loot/guns/ammo in both, but with a twist in Borderlands where it's simplified yet more varied, which is a nice trick.

I just think its cool when a game I really like but maybe find overwhelming is distilled down to the elements that are the most "fun" which was the case with Borderlands and Burnout Paradise (for me anyway). I'd love a "Borderlands" version of Oblivion.

chuckd21

Everything is basically a ripoff of everything else. It just depends on the developer's particular "take" on it.

chess

Sure, everything has been done.

I'm just getting a vibe lately of games paying tribute to other games. Two other examples that come to mind:

Nathan Drake making reference to the elevator scene in Half-Life 2 (Borderlands does this as well)
Braid had many Mario references

chess

Oh, there's also a control scheme in Borderlands called "nuked" which is the one I use due to its similarity to Fallout 3's controls.

Groucho

I consider Borderlands to be more of a homage/ripoff/tribute of Diablo than it is of Fallout 3.

chuckd21

Well we've gotten to a point where video game characters are believable enough to have existed in a world where there are video games, and it's credible that say Nathan Drake had played Half Life 2 at some point in his life.

wlj

Almost every game released rips off some other game. It is pretty much impossible for each new game to be completely different than everything before. There are hundreds of great games that are rip offs in one way or another.

Sonic rips off Mario
Banjo Kazooie rips of Mario 64
Rock Band rips off Guitar Hero
All FPS games rip off Wolfenstein 3D
All fighting games rip off Street Fighter
All RPGs rip off Zelda
All Bioware games rip off previous Bioware games
Perfect Dark rips off Goldeneye
Bayonetta rips off Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden
Dante's Inferno rips off God of War
All sandbox games rip off GTA

etc... I could go on for hours.

murray731

I think in a lot of situations, it's less of a homage/rip-off and more of the developer saying "I really liked this mechanic from Game X, wouldn't it be cool if we could incorporate that somehow?". Of course, if the game is done well and gets decent reviews, it's usually called an "homage". If it's poorly reviewed, it's a "rip-off".

nickdawgy

Oh God, Heavenly Sword was awful.

RichC2

Derivative is a term I reserve for a game that tries to duplicate a better game but fails. In this case, Dante's Inferno is derivative of God of War. Similarly, Heavenly Sword, and IMO, the Dark Cloud series (tho its fans would disagree) felt highly derivative.

A rip-off injects enough of its own identity to stand on its own (Darksiders)

Borderlands isn't a homage or derivation, despite some occasional homage to other games and movies -- though it is unique in its own right. The setting isn't hugely unique, but it's been a pretty typical setting for some time.

UncleGramps

I don't mind games that are derivative. Just do it with style and add some touches of your own to give it some identity outside of the game(s) that you are imitating. I loved how Darksiders combined various gameplay elements from a number of games but did so in a cohesive way, but couldn't stand the Dante's Inferno demo, which felt like God of War - Greek myths + epic poem.

WMAangel

That doesn't make any sense since they were both made by the same company....IMO, that is almost like saying Super Mario World rips off Super Mario 3...
In my mind, Rock Band 1 is the true "sequel/continuation of the series" to Guitar Hero 2 anyway, since Harmonix kept the engine and Activision had to completely rebuild from the ground up....RB is probably what GH3 would have been if not for the divergent sale of the companies involved and the loss of the name & characters by HMX....

Michael Corvin

awfully awesome!

Seriously, I played it back to back with the first God of War and it was a better GoW than GoW itself. I have no problem being in the minority with that sentiment, but the game is far from awful regardless of how derivative it may be. Also the production values of that game were unrivaled until Uncharted 2 came out.

chess

I think the simple fact that it combines mechanics from two very different games makes it stand on it's own.

Borderlands is pure distilled fun, but it is absolutely derivative...but so was the game it's derived from.

This is awesome!

RichC2

What game was it derived from? The closest I can think of is Fallout 3, which it really is nothing like at all.

Drexl

I thought this was going to be about 3D Dot Game Heroes. I have to assume that's a tribute to Zelda, based on how blatant it is.

Tscott

Borderlands is a FPS with a few RPG elements thrown in. It's fairly linear with some optional side quests. You're limited to 4 character types. Its focus is on fast paced action and muliplayer co-op. Gameplay is standard point and shoot. Quests are standard go out and kill fare, with no optional ways to solve them. The main game can be completed with all quests in about 24 total hours. (I know, I started a second character last weekend and soloed the game with 24 hours and 17 minutes of gameplay logged for that character)

Fallout 3 is a RPG with first person or 3rd person perspective. It's open world- everything is optional, the main quest can pretty much be ignored and you still can see most the game. Quests can be roll played and there's a moral system. VATS is an innovative combat system that takes into account the characters stats. The player character can look and be developed in countless different ways. It's single player only. And the game is HUGE. I've finished the game 3 times (twice "vanilla" and once with all the DLC installed)- each time I played for over 60 hours. And I still haven't done every sidequest, or visited every single place of interest.

The way I see it the games aren't comparable. Unless you're comparing them by saying they're both lots of fun to play, then I'd have to agree.

chess

I'm not saying that Borderlands is a FO3 ripoff, but rather that it borrows a few elements. As I mentioned above, the similarity of enemies is obvious:

bandits = raiders
skags = dogs/molerats
spiderants = radscorpions/fireants
zombies = ghouls
crimson lance = enclave
brutes = supermutants

And, of course, there's the environment. Yes, the core game is very very different, but there's some inspiration there somewhere. Also, I love both games.

Really, I wasn't looking to get into a "per-game" debate so much as address something that I see as a bit of a trend. I actually think it's great, and the only game mentioned so far that rubs me the wrong way is Dante's Inferno.

And yes, 3D Dot Game Heroes is another great example.

flashburn

Sorry, Borderlands is definitely a "ripoff" of Diablo. It is primarily a loot-based Action/RPG game. The other real difference is the setting and the fact that it is FPS-influenced as well.

PopcornTreeCt

I loved Heavenly Sword too.

chess

The game that never goes on sale. I'd probably buy Heavenly Sword for $15.

Michael Corvin

Supposedly Heavenly Sword is $20 at Wal-Mart these days. YMMV.