Whatever happened to originality?

Originality is a difficult thing to achieve. In a sense as we move forward it becomes harder to achieve since everything that can be done will be done at some point. Hollywood has all but given up on such a thing even existing it seems, with sequels and franchise movies dominating much of the past decade. But every so often something, like Inception, turns up which re-affirms your belief that originality is still possible and can be just as successful as yet another Transformers movie or tired re-hash of the "Girl loves Vampire, Werewolf loves Girl, I throw up thinking about it all" genre

IGN has helpfully published a list of big games due to be released in 2011, and luckily for my dinner there isn't an Emo polygonal version of Edward in sight. What this list does reveal however, is that 2011 will most certainly be the year of the sequel, with a few glimmers (no Twilight pun intended) of hope for those of you that want something original to play.

Fight Night Champion, Dragon Age 2, MLB 11 and the like are all what Activision once famously termed "Annualisable" which is no fault of theirs and certainly no indication as to the quality of the games. Fight Night has always been a very good Boxing sim, bringing something new to the table every time a new iteration is released. I have no doubt that Dragon Age 2 is an excellent game, and the MLB franchise is obviously based on a solid game or else there would be no market for a yearly release with updated rosters.

Encouragingly there are plenty of original IP's in here too. LA Noire, Bulletstorm and Homefront are all brand new games with no real history attached to them, and while they do all fit snuggly into pre-existing genre definitions they all promise to be excellent gaming experiences for lovers of Sandboxes and FPS games. LA Noire in particular impresses with it's cutting edge Mo-Cap technology and gorgeous visual fidelity.

But what about those of us that want something completely original? It's been a long time since we saw the likes of Vib Ribbon, Parappa the Rapper and Kurushi lead the way with their differing philosophys on original game play. Vib Ribbon especially gave us a whole new type of experience, where our own musical tastes informed the design of the level that we played and graphics took a firm back seat. It also helped that the Vib the Rabbit was amazingly cute for a wire frame character. Unfortunately it only released in Japan and the EU but still managed to sell well. Parappa the Rapper was an early forerunner to the now defunct Rock Band and Buitar Hero franchises where your timing was key to the continued playing of the song, it took cues from DDR no doubt, but it was a new and fun take on rhythm games as a whole. Kurushi was a truely original puzzler which had your character actually standing on the board itself. Despite it's simple game play it could keep you hooked for hours if you weren't careful.

All of these games had modest success, and spawned sequels that in some cases improved on the original, and in others killed off interest in it altogether.

History lesson over, you can relax now.

So looking at the current generation of consoles, is there evidence that the same spirit of originality is still around? Well actually yes there is. Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS is a music game, but in truth it looks nothing like one. Using the stylus you can engage in a range of mini games that allow you to create varied styles of music. Everything from the Mario theme, complete with coin and jumping sound effects, to sweeping strings, Electroplankton has it all.

Flower, available on the PSN is a beautiful game which lets you take on the role of the wind, blowing petals and pollen around fields for no apparent reason other than to pollinate the other plants around you. For a game that has seemingly no objective or goals it certainly is very addictive. Also available on the PSN, The Last Guy is a top down perspective game where you have to search the streets of Tokyo for survivors of an Other Worldly invasion. No guns, just you running around the streets in a city wide version of British Bulldog, with Aliens. It doesn't fit into any category that i can think of, but it's gloriously mad at times and keeps you on your toes much like Vib Ribbon used to.

Many current generation games manage to bring original elements to the table, even if the genre they find themselves in is overcrowded. Bioshock for example might be an FPS, but it brought us the ability to mix gun play and plasmid abilities while Deadspace did away with the traditional HUD in favour of subtle clues displayed on your armour as to how healthy you are.

Last but by no means least we have the Gods made flesh at Team ICO. This spring they will release the Team ICO collection, for the first time giving us both ICO and Shadow of the Colossus in HD. Both of these games are true masterpieces in their field, and can rival other art forms in their beauty.

SotC in particular is a true achievement in originality. There is no combat in the game save for the Colossi themselves, the rest of the story focusses on you and your horse travelling from point to point, wondering at the scenery and thinking about what you have achieved so far and what must still be done. It's a tale that raises as many questions as it answers, and in some points raises a real moral quandary. Should i really be slaying these mammoth beasts just so that i can get back the girl i apparently love? Guilt is not an emotion that you often experience in video games, but here it is an all too uncomfortable bed fellow.

In the Fall the latest game from Team ICO will hit the shelves, The Last Guardian promises to be just as good as the two that came before. Whether it strikes that balance of originality against familiarity is a question best asked when it finally arrives, but let's hope it does.

So what did happen to originality in gaming? It's still there, you just have to look a little harder for it.