Such is the opinion of Rob Cooper, the man in charge of Ubisoft UK following the debut of Assassin's Creed at the top of the UK charts. The ambitious "hitman in sandles" game became the third-fastest selling Xbox 360 game ever, something Ubisoft sees as confirmation that not everyone wants more lousy licensed games and sub-par sequels. "I think the success worldwide of Assassin's Creed absolutely proves that new IP can live and prosper within the sequel and licensed based competition," said Cooper, speaking to MCV. "The industry is crying out for new and compelling content and we're delighted that AC has lived up to its expectations."
November has been a good month for new IP's with Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune all making big splashes in their respective debuts. Common sense dictates no entertainment industry can sustain long term growth without a constant influx of new properties. Even the best franchises can only sustain sequels for so long before they eventually whither and die. It is exciting to see three new franchises of such high quality arrive on the scene in quick succession. If publishers give developers greater opportunities to capitalize on out-of-the-box thinking -- including spending the marketing dollars necessary to cement new properties in the public consciousness -- we might end up with more classics and less trash.
Totally off topic here, but I see you're playing Mass Effect. What are your thoughts so far? How is the game's pacing and difficulty? I'm heading out today to buy a game and I'm in the mood for an RPG. I usually like the fantasy world RPG's like Eternal Sonata.. so Im wondering if Mass Effect will be my thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be posting a full review for Mass Effect on Monday. In the meantime there is a lot of good and only a little bad with the game.
ReplyDeleteThe bad is mostly technical stuff like unoptimized frame rates and such. It's nothing horrible and never seems to affect the combat, but it can be annoying from time to time. Conversations are incredibly well done -- you have a wealth of options for everything you do and the different tactics you can use to sway people to your view are very well implemented. The choices also allow for deep character personalization. Wanna be an asshole? You can. You can also be a righteous hero or anything in between.
Combat is handled well overall although it could be better. The cover system works but is a little clunky. The use of Mass Effect abilities are nicely balanced.
The story is probably the best ever told in a game...it is well written and paced. Overall, it is a very deep and satisfying game so far. I'm about 20 hours into it.
Well I bought Mass Effect yesterday, I'll start giving it a go tonight, still need to wrap up Mario Galaxy first.
ReplyDelete