Sequel Indused Nostalgia

There's a rarely discussed phenomenon in the gaming community that I'm going to call Sequel Induced Nostalgia (SIN). The main symptom being a strong urge to re-play an old game, the cause... sequels.

I recently watched the trailer for InFamous 2 and was suitably impressed but as I peered at the new (poster boy) Cole, grinding along power cables, I felt a twang of impulse that demanded I dig out my copy of InFamous and finish the second play through I left hanging for some reason all those months ago. Well a good few hours later here I am 1 trophy away from platinum, almost completely satisfied and all because of one 3 minute trailer.

We all get a feeling of nostalgia when we're reminded of things in our past that we deemed to have been good experiences, for example looking at holiday photos. These feelings create an urge to re-live said past events (the reason for this being beyond my knowledge of Psychology); however with gaming it seems to me that it is the most followed-through of all the nostalgia induced whims I can think of. My first thought drove me to reason that this is only because games are very accessible but the more I though the more I wondered if it was down to something more.

I came to the (probably biased) conclusion that gamer’s sheer passion for games makes them more susceptible to SIN. I do hear/read the odd person saying/tweeting that they were reminded of a movie and now have an urge to watch it but I don't believe many of these people actually go out of their way to appease their impulse as a gamer might.

Whatever the psychological reasoning it's clear that the gaming community is largely effected by SIN. I would go as far as to say sales of SIN impulse games probably rise dramatically shortly after the revealing of a sequel/tie-in. What do you think of SIN and have you ever replayed an old game because of an upcoming sequel?

Thanks for reading my first N4G blog.