If you’ve been keeping up with either SciFi Japan or the Giant Monster Blog, you’ll have probably already read about Atari’s proposed “Monster Vote” for the upcoming Godzilla: Unleashed game. IGN has set up an online poll wherein you, the intended consumer, can cast a vote for one of four original creations designed by Pipeworks conceptual artists. The monster with the most votes will appear as a playable character in the finished release.
Color me disappointed.
In my earlier blog entry about Godzilla: Unleashed, I mentioned my distaste for when earlier Godzilla games would feature multiple versions of a given character. This decision to use an invented creature in the lineup of playable monsters is simply a different flavor of the same problem: it makes for one less Toho creation that could’ve potentially appeared in the game.
These original monsters aren’t horrible in and of themselves, but I just don’t feel that any of them are a particularly decent aesthetic “fit”. If you were to showcase a handful of Japanese daikaiju and included one of these new creatures in the group, it would stick out like a sore thumb. These designs would almost seem more at home adorning the cover of an old Marvel monster comic book, comparably.
If Pipeworks were to release an independent giant monster game that featured a menagerie of their own made-up beasts, that’s fine (in fact, I’m all for it)- but I’m buying a Godzilla game to see Godzilla characters. Please don’t give me “Lightning Bug” when I could be playing King Caesar.
If you’ve been keeping up with either SciFi Japan or the Giant Monster Blog, you’ll have probably already read about Atari’s proposed “Monster Vote” for the upcoming Godzilla: Unleashed game. IGN has set up an online poll wherein you, the intended consumer, can cast a vote for one of four original creations designed by Pipeworks conceptual artists. The monster with the most votes will appear as a playable character in the finished release.
3 comments:
"If you were to showcase a handful of Japanese daikaiju and included one of these new creatures in the group, it would stick out like a sore thumb."
I absolutely agree. It's glaringly obvious that these things wouldn't work in a Godzilla movie. Imagine them as rubber suits:
Magmouth and Firelion might work, though I wonder what they'd use to make that magma flow and the fire light.
But The Visitor and Lightning Bug would be a complete mess. The flopppy mouth of the Visitor (and really, unless they had some serious animatronics, the arms wouldn't work either) and the Bug would be falling backwards with that huge ass and skinny waist of his.
I think it's a neat concept, but the designers should have thought more about Godzilla movies. They should have thought about creatures built around a human frame.
Oh well.
I hadn't thought much about the taking a space from a Toho character. That's kind of sad (especially when Firelion is King Sesar.)
Yeah, this whole maneuver by Pipeworks has really left a bad taste in my mouth. If wouldn't even have minded if they had brought in some Toho monsters from non-Godzilla films, like the Gargantua brothers or Death Ghidorah from the first spin-off Mothra movie. All they're doing now is adding a character to the lineup that nobody will want to play.
I could not figure out how else to email you, so I am posting this "off topic" request here. I have added a link to Giant Monsters Attack to my Japanese kaiju-related blog called "Omni-Monster!!! (Kaiju Utopia)" at http://omni-monster.blogspot.com/
If you like Omni-Monster!!! (Kaiju Utopia), please add a link on Giant Monsters Attack.
Thanks!
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