My brother in Christ, you made the sandwich
The Sims isn’t even as silly as The Sims anymore. Busted out Sims 1 a few months ago, that shit is fucking bonkers. Absolutely nuts. It had a daring whimsey that games just don’t really have anymore.
I’ve been replaying old PS2 platformer classics like Jak & Daxter, Tak, Sly Cooper etc.
Tak has pretty funny humor, if a little childish at times. And it may have not aged well in general (all white people voicing possible island tribespeople that practice a magic/religion called Juju), but it’s still fun and was pretty inventive back then with the cartoon proportions and interactivity with the animals throughout.
Everyone still loves Jak, and a lot of it is due to the art style. Everything in those games is so alien and yet also kind of familiar, but the way they mix the mystical with the sci-fi always intrigued me. It’s kinda like Shadowrun imo.
Playing Sly, I realized there was an abundance of anthro characters in the early 2000s. But the games took inspiration from cartoons and comics and leaned into those aspects and aesthetics heavily. There’s always a sound effect and sound bubble that pops up when you knock out a bad guy, the colors are vibrant and over the top and the stories are too. They live in a weird magical retro-futuristic world with laser guns, jetpacks, super-geniuses able to create mutant monstrosities, immortal cyborg owls that run on pure hate whose body parts can then be repurposed into a multitude of uses (hypnotization, perpetual engines, etc), and so on.
Video games used to be about fun.
Video games used to be about fun.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
All the weird, off the wall, “who cares, we hope it makes money, but we’re doing it anyway” feel is gone. Get a bit from the indie space, but a lot of gaming feels like “what can we put out that’ll get us literally all the money?”It’s why the story is so flimsy across all those old popular platforming series, they took a “gameplay first” approach.
Look at the story for the Jak games. It’s all convoluted as hell, and there are tons of plotholes and such, but it’s probably one of the best series-lomg stories of those classics. Sly 1 had a clear story, and then when it sold so well that there were actual fans wanting a sequel, they had to come up with a story to justify it. Same goes for Tak, Ty, Ratchet & Clank, and so on.
Going from old Ratchet & Clank games to the new ones will give you tonal backlash
Then why did you direct it that way?
because they also wanted a realistic direction, so it was about balancing the two and realism meant sacrificing some silliness despite it also being wanted.
Realistic graphics with cartoon absurdity would still work, IMO. Though you’re gonna have to really lean into the Uncanny Valley to drive home the weirdness.
One of things mentioned is that the people wear towels when showering because pixelating looked too revealing still. Ok… Why not use big black censor bars or even emojis as is done in Saint’s Row’s reboot? It would cover things up better and be whimsical at the same time.
