"Should game studios stick to what they know? Can you think of more failure or success stories where a studio has tried to head in a new direction?"

Yes, I can think of 2 video game developers right off the top of my head that went in a totally different directions and succeeded: Naughty Dog and Insomniac.

Before this generation, Insomniac had pretty much only made games that were aimed at a younger audience, but with Resistance, they succeeded greatly and I think that they did pretty darn good with their first First Person Shooter series.

And then there's Naughty Dog. Before the PS3, Naughty Dog had made games that weren't so realistic and detailed, but they REALLY delivered with Uncharted. However, I could tell that Naughty Dog was starting to get their feet wet with the hardcore crowd whenever Jak 2 was rated Teen and Jak 3 as well. Uncharted was a big step outside of what Naughty Dog was used to developing and they made an awesome game.

Another developer I can think of that has went in a totally different direction is Sucker Punch because they were highly known for the Sly Cooper series and the game appealed mainly to a younger audience and was cartoony, but with InFamous, they are going in a whole new direction like Insomniac and Naughty Dog with realistic graphics and appealing to the hardcore gamer. InFamous looks pretty good so far. I can't say whether or not the game is a success or not yet because it hasn't been released yet, however, Sucker Punch has a good track record and I think that they'll deliver.

I do think that developers should try to branch out more because if not, we'll be seeing nothing but sequels this entire generation.

Going from FPS to real time tactics, to rts, to 3rd person adventure then fps again.

Look at Mirror's Edge . .It's clear that younger gamers just don't "get it" with the game. Many complaining in their reviews or scores that the game doesn't have a decent "combat system" that there aren't many Guns, That it's too short, repetitve and that it's very blank visually.

The graphics on it are nothing short of excellent with the city and skyline often looking almost real especially with water reactions, visuals walls floors etc etc.

The era of the game is set in a world much like the movie The Island, where ppl do not wander around the city, where everything almost has a sterile atmosphere and everything is "controlled" much like a controlled "lab" . . because that is what it is.

Combat when being a runner is NO what the game IS about. If you stop to fight, you die, simple as that, so why give the player huge amounts of "combat combos" when all that is needed is a few disarm movements and quickly move on to do the task. If you stop to deal with one Blue (cop), then the others WILL come and they WILL kill you. No 5-6 shots before you die, 1 or 2 and you're dead. Fight one, and you end up fighting 2-6 and they do not take turns like they do in say Fable II or other combat games, it's all on or nothing.

SO would you really want to hang around if you knew they all were going to pumble you to death . . not me.

The game can't be LONG, as it's about you getting from one side of the world to the other, so it can't be a sandbox game, which is the latest craze and does NOT suit most games anyhow. Sandbox Forza, Sandbox Mirror's Edge, Sandbox, COD4/5 - come on, a game does what it needs to do, yes you do have to follow paths, that's the idea.

See just HOW fast you can do the course

Does your gym instructor let you run around the whole gym just so you can play sandbox and see what the whole gym looks like, or get you focused on getting the job done as fast and as efficent as possible. The latter, not the former, that's for sure.

While gathering images for Mirror's edge and reading many reviews, there's a clear deliniation of gamers, those that are in the last few generations do not like it that much due to above reasons, then there are those giving it 8-9.5's because of those reason, those are older gamers willing to give new styles and games a go, not right them off because of something that might not work first off.

i agree, devs should stick to what they know and what they are good at, instead of trying other things that will be uniform and the same old boring things as others,

Yes and No, A company will never know if it can do something better if they don't try, take Insomniac for instance they made Ratchet and Clank and it was great then they made Resistance and it was also great same with Naughty Dog with cash, Jak, and Uncharted and Dave Jaffe from Twisted Metal To God of War.

I am amazed at many gamers these days.

They all spout and go on how developers are NOT trying new ideas, or not taking risks, venturing out with new technical innovative ideas . . Yet soon as they do, and it will not always 'cut the mustard' as they say, simply because new ideas take time to 'work out properly'. They (gamers - certain generations of gamers btw) then condemn that very same developer for dare changing the old tried-and-true method they have become used to (the gamer that is). "what the hell are you doing developer, you moved the buttons and I have to get used to new one Fk"

Jesus-marrie . . .get a grip.

So on one hand we have gamers screaming for new innovative ideas, they are hammering Oh no, not another sequel or run on franchise" etc, then going on about how dare that studio change the style of game or the innovation the studio has tried works, but not 100%, so therefore it is crap . .

Come on ppl, you can NOT have your cake and eat it to. There has to be give and take in all things. In order for things to move forward there HAS to be mistakes, as mistakes lead to improvements. Not every car that runs off the production line was the same car that was built several years beforehand, and is an advancement of it's previous self.

Games are no exception to this.

You want change and new games rather than rehashed sequel after sequel, then give the developers half a chance and actually put some effort into seeing what they are doing and give games half a chance, rather than righting them off after the first hour because the controls are different to what YOU are used to.

If that was the case, we'd still be playing Pong.

Anyone that has played Black knows justhow innovative Criterion got with that game. Some declared it a tech demo, as they did with Crysis . .well DAHH hello world, of course it's a tech demo of sorts. It's trying out new ideas.

Did you know that Black had almost 60% destructible environment in a 1st-gen Xbox title, yet when the 360 was launched a few months later, COD 2 could not even show a bullet mark in the ground, break any window, go through a door or wall or had decent physics, on a Next-Gen Platform.

Yet in Black, I could snipper out a window as far off in the distance, not only that, but if I hit the window in the corner, the glass broke according to the physics of that glass, hit it in the centre and it shattered as it would normally. NOT in big flat chunks like in say Left For Dead. Shot a wall and "splinters" came flying off, Shot at the ground and it left holes in the dirt that were there when you came back.
The game was said to be way too short, 8 hrs Well yes, if you played it on easy and ran through it from one end to the other without doing anything. If you've never played it, DLoad it from Xbox Originals and give it a try. You'll swear that you are playing a This-Gen title.

If played right, it gave around 13 hrs of gameplay. A decent amount of gameplay for any game. You could wander around to a certain degree, the environ was interactive, the damage modeling was fierce to say the least, and it DID have a solid storyline. If you bothered to follow it at all, then you'd actually "get" the ending.

SO Criterion cops a flogging for putting out a short game, yet highly innovatine, and they shelve 2 sequels based on the story, and YOU as a gamer miss out on two following titles that would have only grown on what was originally delivered . .So who's to blame, the developer or the end user.

In this case, and many, it's the fussy end user who is only interested in "Instant gratification" not long term results. Which is killing the industry as a whole, and spewing out rubbish item after rubbish item so you get your usual fair of average games.

Mirror's Edge might suffer the same fate, as may well Assassin's Creed . . all because a certain level of gamers now insist that games ALL have a score in excess of 8 - 8.5 to be a valid game. One developer just ditched 2 yrs worth of work on an excellent title, simply because they knew from studies their first game would only (ONLY) average a 8.2 Metacritic score . . That's just INSANE.

Anyone else have some games that were crap or great made by a studio that tried something different to their successful norm?

1 is the groups of people who piss and moan about an IP that holds it's course and doesn't differ too far from the original concept.

2 is the group of people that piss and moan when an IP moves too far away from it's original concept

And generally, these groups have the same people in them. I agree that if a dev finds a sweet spot they should make the most of it, but seriously, some people just enjoy whinging for the heck of it...

Well we won't talk about SParks Two adventures down forgetable lane will we. There are developers who should not stray from what they know best, but there are some, that with the right input from publishers and who TAKE direction, will and can make a difference.

Well I guess Sony's Team Soho went from the Getaway (which they seem to have dropped) to Eye Toy and Singstar....lol. Is that a success?