After recently hearing about and becoming interested in a game from 1996 called HyperBlade, I started casting my mind back over the older ideas in gaming and it struck me just how more stale the gaming environment has become despite technological innovation.
HyperBlade was a future sports game revolving around the titular sport. The premise was thus:
In the future, medical science has evolved to the extent that death and serious injury is simply a minor inconvenience. This lead to ever more brutal sports to entertain the masses, eventually culminating in the most popular, HyperBlade.
Armour clad players skate around a huge halfpipe arena (known as the "drome"). The ball is known as the "rok". Each player has a large blade mounted on their right arm, known as the "jak". The jak is used both to hold and propel the ball, and also to stab and slash at players on the opposing team.
The arena itself is littered with powerups and traps. One which electrifies the ball, making it a dangerous weapon, while laser grids and spiked pillars make navigation hazardous.
Points are scored for goals, with one goal at each end of the halfpipe. However, slower and nastier teams can make up for their lack of finesse by killing or seriously hurting everyone on the opposing team - this also counts as a win.
Another interesting twist - if a player is decapitated at any point in the match, their head becomes the new "rok". This means that someone can be about to score when their teammate is killed, suddenly rendering the ball they're holding useless and giving possession to the other team.
To lighten up this rather oppressive atmosphere a little, the players all have their own backstories (many of which are both interesting and funny). The sponsors of the game are the most amusing however, with lashings of dark humour. "The Vine Institute" for example, announces that "Money doesn't grow on trees, but our limbs do!".
Simply - wow! Exciting gameplay, a fresh concept and the setting for the game itself is intriguing. What would such a dehumanised society be like? How would day to day life be? The game only gives the smallest hints, but it's a really interesting world to think about.
All this from a few images, a bit of text and a cold, futuristic soundtrack.
Then look at today's games. The only one I can think with anywhere near the same kind of interesting setting is perhaps Bioshock, which was an exception. Even that got a generic sequel.
Then there's Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3...urgh. As much as BF can be great, it'd be so nice I think to see the return or remake of older, more novel ideas.
Syndicate, Speedball, HyperBlade, Flashback...they may not have been graphically amazing, but they were so much more compelling in concept and execution. So much fresher, so much more unique.
Syndicate, in fact, is getting a remake. From the sound of it you will play a rogue Eurocorp Agent who turns to being "good". Where's the fun in that? It sounds formulaic and boring.
The original was fantastic because you were an immoral, faceless Executive. You ordered your mindless killing machines around dystopian futuristic cities, conducting assassinations, brainwashing people you needed influence over, all the while slowly spreading your Corporation across the globe.
The cyberpunk setting was gritty and intriguing, with floating cities on murky water. Amazing stuff! Now it's all traded in for a generic "hero story".
It's sad to think that in the decades of progress we've made in terms of graphics, we seem to have taken 10 steps back with the things that make games special.
