Naughty Dog

[Menegrothx]

I love the Crash games on PS1 and I'm a fan of Jak and Daxter too so I'm no Naughty Dog hater, but have you guys noticed how they seem to be doing what ever is popular at the moment?

Dream Zone=Quite unique
Keef the Thief, Rings of Power=Unremarkable RPGs with some unique elements
Way of the Warrior=Mortal Kombat was popular at the time, the game is a horrible Mortal Kombat rip off
Crash Bandicoot=Now, the gameplay of Crash 1 was very unique. Very few platformers have ever tried to copy the gameplay style of the original Crash games.
But the character was part of the platformer mascot craze, and was according to Andy Gavin, designed with Japanese audience in mind so it would sell better.
Animals with attitude were in at the time, and while Gex was probably more edgy than Crash before him (not to mention Conker, though that was released in 2001), this is an overload of '90s 'tude

The only pre-Conker cover art that compares is Gex 3 with the Stone Cold Steve Austin parody.

Moving on, Crash Team Racing. Best kart racer of it's day, but it's obvious that they cashed in on the kart racer boom of the PS1-generation.

Jak and Daxter: A collectathon, not much to say about this
Jak 2: GTA 3 was super popular right when Jak 1 was released, and when the sequel came in 2003, suddenly our happy go lucky pair of platforming mascots were in a (relatively) dark dystopian city, swearing, shooting people, collecting dark energy to turn into a super saiyan type monster, jacking cars and trying their hardest to be as edgy as possible while still being marketable for kids.
Andy Gavin has admitted on a Q&A on his site that the reason they changed the direction of the series was because of the popularity of GTA 3 at the time.

Jak X: Did the same thing as CTR. I wouldn't really call this a shameless cash in though

Uncharted-series: To my knowledge, an innovator on the whole "cinematic Indiana Jones wanna be epic action adventure game-genre", but it has cover based shooting, because you guessed it, that has been a popular gameplay mechanic during this console generation.

The Last of Us: Zombies are popular in mainstream culture? Make a zombie game. Copy gameplay mechanics from all the other games that are popular right now.

So basically what I'm saying is that Naughty Dog is a bunch of money hungry, artistically bankrupt whores

[Violent By Design]

Well, it would make sense to make things that are trendy.

I think you're stretching it with the Zombie thing though. Zombies might be more relevant in pop culture than in the past, but I'm pretty sure its peaked or already lost its novelty same as Vampires.


Uncharted isn't popular for its cover based shooting either.

[dogman91]

The main owners left (and with it the initial creative force for Naughty Dog) so I wouldn't hope for a good return to the old platformers or anything new/exciting too. I have to give credit to Insomniac Games with sticking with the Ratchet and Clank series as well as other new franchises while Naughty Dog dumped Jak and Daxter. I also think Spyro is a hell of a lot better than Crash, but both are very enjoyable.

On a somewhat related note, weird thing is I actually enjoyed Gex: Enter the Gecko. It's really not as bad as people say! The first two levels are turn-offs for sure but a lot of the game is fun enough IMO once you get over the camera.

[KalessinDB]

So basically what I'm saying is that Naughty Dog is a bunch of money hungry, artistically bankrupt whores

I love that you end off a relatively in-depth analysis of these games with that. Oh I'm having a great laugh right now.

[Pulsar_t]

Naught Dog were never trend-setters, but what they do they're usually good at. I'm not really crazy about any of their franchises but they can be entertaining. TLoU was received quite positively so why not?

[BoneSnapDeez]

I like most of their stuff.

Uncharted and The Last of Us are snoozefests.

[dsheinem]

I think Gamerforlife and I both A) post too much and B) have been here too long, because this is like the 5th thread today where I am reminded of a previous debate we had. Anyway, here it is:

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 70#p709170

and

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 38#p709438

and then onto the next few pages

[samsonlonghair]

Art does not exit in a vacuum. Every video game (and for that matter every movie, painting, book, song, etcetera) was inspired by something else. There is nothing new under the sun.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Naughty Dog's only good games were Keef the Thief and Rings of Power........

Here is my take on it. Naughty Dog has always performed well in their games. They tend to be well made and very solid in terms of the gameplay and mechanics. I feel that storytelling is their weak suit. Sure they may be following the trends of video games, but most companies seem to do that. I have overall enjoyed their games (still gotta play Last of Us though), but you are right, the spark of originality is missing.

[dsheinem]

I feel that storytelling is their weak suit.

Really? The Uncharted games and The Last of Us have been roundly praised because of their storytelling...