Tired of this Schmidt Episode II: Attack of the Clones

The term ‘clone’ has been a hot word in the gaming industry for a long time. The process for identifying one is simple: the gamer views a newly-released game that pushes the genre forward-or possibly creates a new genre altogether, perceives later-released franchises within that same genre borrowing ideas from the originator, and then call it a clone of said originator. While I have no problems with this simple categorization, I do begin to worry when I see the community unfairly using it as a way to essentially say (from my point of view) “this title is already less than worthy of the inspiration’s praise, regardless of what other advances it may make in story, gameplay, etc.” Through the use of a few examples, I wanted to show why the negative connotation in the word ‘clone’ has, all-in-all, really become innocuous in today’s gaming world.

 Games that must be borrowing from the Uncharted series (<-implied sarcasm)

• Star Wars 1313

Certain games that caught my eye during this year’s E3 were also some games posters across the web believed had heavily invested in Uncharted’s Hollywood-imbedded formula. To name a few games, you can check out the hottest news articles for Tomb Raider (disregarding the recent rape/sexist topics) and Star Wars 1313 to see the general sentiment. With less than five minutes of actual gameplay shown, Star Wars 1313 displayed third-person cover-based shooting, a few in-game cutscenes, and platforming guided for you by the character reaching his arm out to the next scalable object (in this case, pipes on the outer hull of a ship). This was determined to be enough for some to consider it a Star Wars-themed Uncharted.

This Star Wars example wasn’t meant to demean anyone’s initial impressions of how the game looked; in fact, it’s completely legitimate to get that sort of vibe from what’s been shown. Instead, this example was meant to pull on the reins on other’s assumptions of what the final product may become (something we all slip up at from time to time). Given what little of the story has been told, the majority of this underworld on Coruscant could very well have an open-world design or even be based around hubs, amongst other possible nuances.

• Tomb Raider

Admittance: The entire Tomb Raider/Uncharted debacle that’s cropped up recently was the initial inspiration behind this blog. I’ve read certain blogs and comments in the past, on various sites, that resemble an ‘originality ouroboros’ when it comes to this debate. The reasoning behind that term comes from this cyclical, myopic thinking of how originality is determined. From my understanding, a healthy portion of the gaming community has agreed upon a vague description of how inspiration is credited to other franchises. There can be no bigger culprit of this specious argument perpetrated by the community than Uncharted. When it comes to the arrangement of puzzles and shooting within the context of searching for fabled artifacts during the start of 3-D gaming, Uncharted didn’t need to bother looking at Tomb Raider. Yet when it comes to the simple idea of a “cinematic direction” involving over-the-top disaster moments, this new Tomb Raider reboot is now indebted to the Uncharted series?

Of course, I wouldn’t ignore the elephant in the room: Indiana Jones. Stated essentially right when the first game was announced, both in documentaries and interviews with gaming sites, Naughty Dog always admitted to having their character and cinematic direction influenced by one of the most popular adventure franchises in film. With the technology in next-gen consoles (at the time), this team believed they could be the first to create a franchise that mirrored what was seen in action movies; and they eventually created something more immersive than that, in my opinion. Can it be reasonable for someone to quickly address that more influence of Uncharted was taken from Indiana Jones, and the 1930’s serials that inspired that series? Sure. But I personally stand by the idea that more credit should be given to Tomb Raider simply because of this syllogism:

“Tomb Raider, one of the first adventure franchises started in the 3-D era, took inspiration from Indiana Jones; Uncharted, released two generations later, took inspiration from Indiana Jones; therefore, Uncharted took inspiration from Tomb Raider.”

While I’m not completely discounting any future arguments that could point out ND’s direction containing qualities of avant-gardism in cinematic direction, I still can’t understand this…complete disregard (and the contumely I’ve received for pointing this out) for the vision Tomb Raider may have had in shaping gameplay and narrative pacing for later 3-D adventure titles. The main writer behind the Uncharted series, Amy Henning, has already pointed out how different video game writing is from screenwriting for movies or TV shows. With the unique facets she’s stated, would it truly be fair to state this team was more dependent on a two-hour film to create an immersive eight-hour (give or take) gaming experience? The math just doesn’t add up when comparing to past adventure titles that have delivered the same flow of narrative, puzzle-solving, and shooting around a similar running time.

• Adventurer

A recently-announced FPS title for the 360 and PC (only platforms mentioned so far) set in the 1930’s was called an ‘Uncharted rip-off’ right out of the gate from gaming websites and community members. I’m sure you already noticed the disparities between the two in regards to genres and timeline, which already makes the accusation a bit far-fetched. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped some-with surprising alacrity-to compare the bromance situation of the two main characters in the game to Drake and Sully or how similar the South American jungle in this title looks to the Pacific island (which, believe it or not, retains the same qualities you’ll find in a South American jungle) in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

Given how much we know of the game, it’s bunkum to hear this ‘one-to-one copy of Uncharted’ rhetoric that I’ve seen.

Conclusion:

I just don’t see how we’ve reached this point where no clemency is given to new franchises, or rebooted directions of older franchises, before we resort to calling them simple clones. Don’t misinterpret this; I’m not trying to belittle any possible inspiration the Uncharted series may have on these titles listed above, just annoyed by the immediacy to discount any possible nuances that could be brought to the genre. Not long ago, I was presented with a fair question asking if Tomb Raider was REALLY needed for Naughty Dog’s series to be where it is today. Now I figured it was time to turn that question on its head: since all nuanced ideas of Uncharted’s gameplay and storytelling efforts are technologically-dependent (full body motion capture, meticulous touches in camera direction and animation, Drake guiding the player to the next ledge), did this series have to exist to guide other developers in cinematic direction when technology may have lead them to that point eventually?

This may still comes off as me demeaning the series for X, Y, and Z reasons, but I’m really just after the lack of any cogent argument brought up by others revolving around this issue. I recently mentioned phrases like “Dude Raider” should be considered permissible to describe this series, but I meant that only in a POSITIVE light. You see…ahem...that phrase is what I used to explain this new franchise to my friends back in early 2007. A developer to one of my favorite series (Jak + Daxter) is now shifting more towards another adventure series that left me completely enraptured upon its fifth generation arrival? Sign me up!

Technically, the Uncharted series we have today shouldn’t even be considered ND’s “pure” creation. Do you recall an ex-designer saying their publisher (Sony) actually told them to veer from their fantasy-rooted shooter and make a series more reminiscent of the Xbox 360’s gritty shooters?

Link: http://www.nowgamer.com/new...

I suppose the crux of this blog falls back to the age old question: “What is considered original anymore?” Adventure stories about hidden treasure were around long before Indiana Jones (as another poster rightly pointed out) in many mediums, which were probably inspired by folk tales centuries before that, and so on and so on. With a community that tosses disparaging words-such as “clones”- with such effortlessness, I can’t help but feel as if we’re too quick in discounting any distinctive features these designers might create.