By Stevie Smith Dec 17, 2007, 10:10 GMT
While there is no denying the ever-evolving nature of the videogame industry, modern day software releases are still reliant on gameplay inspiration provided by retro offerings from years gone by.
Did SEGA's Phantasy Star do the legwork for BioWare's Mass Effect? Credit: SEGA/Wikipedia
That’s the belief of a report published in the Village Voice, which offers that the current technological advances being enjoyed by enthusiastic gamers are built upon "unmistakably familiar" foundations set down decades ago.
For example, BioWare’s Mass Effect, which is an epic sci-fi RPG spanning galaxies, is apparently beholden to SEGA’s original Phantasy Star, which arrived in 1988 and "stunned us" with its 3D dungeon level design and alien worlds. With PlayStation 3 fans lapping up the quality adventure on offer in Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the report reminds us that quests to find "a powerful artefact" have been spawned from the original Tomb Raider, which first arrived on the PC and PlayStation in 1996.
Other 2007 titles re-treading well-worn paths, according to the Village Voice, include Super Mario Galaxy, which lifts its gravity-based puzzles "right out of… a side-scrolling shill called M.C. Kids" which itself aped Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1992 but integrated gravity-shifting gameplay into the mix.
Then there’s Konami's Contra 4 (Nintendo DS), which lends from Robotron: 2084 (1982), and Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which would never have come to pass if not for Capcom’s top-down shooter Commando (1986). Amazingly, the report even suggests that music and rhythm games such as Rock Band owe their development to Milton Bradley’s 1978 standalone musical toy Simon (Says).
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