I've done some reading on the state of the "Hardcore" scene on the Wii, and have for the most part come to zero conclusions.
A couple of games keep coming up as poor sellers, and examples of how there isn't a market for core games.
I'm referring to three games mainly. The House of the Dead Overkill, Resident Evil the Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction.
It's too bad that these games are being used as fodder as fan boys and misguided executives to bash the Wii, as they are all very good, with just one huge shortfall that units them all.
I'm not much of a rail shooter guy. I got Virtua cop as part of a 3-1 deal on the Saturn, and I bought House of the Dead 2 for the Dreamcast, and that's it.
But let me tell you the trifecta are fantastic.
Overkill is by far the most traditional of the group and feels the most like an arcade game. What makes this game is the fast arcade action and the over the top feel.
Dead Space Extraction is the most story driven of the three and techincally I think is the most robust. There were at points in this game that I forgot it was a rail shooter.
The Darkside Chronicles, while not a full blown RE game, is a must for fans, it is the most diverse with three distinct games covered and is a nice melding of the previous two.
All have made huge strides in gameplay, and story from the arcade days, and I think the genre has shown more growth that most other.
A couple of things bug me though: Why aren't these games selling? I don't mean blockbuster sales, I mean respectable sales.
RE has done the best of the bunch, with roughly a 500k in sales in 14 weeks.
Overkill sits at 600k in sales after a year.
And Dead Space was DOA with just 215k in 22 weeks.
And more to the point, why do companies think a game in this niche genre was going to be huge? (I specifically look at EA here).Has there ever been a big hit?
My final thought was the biggest flaw that ties the games together. Length. Dead Space is about 8 hours long. I got through Darkside in about 10 hours and Overkill comes in at like 4 hours. Why don't companies put more length into these things? Why not a full blown 20hour+ game? How about some actual branching paths with different set pieces? Or different enemies and paths on different difficulty settings? If you really are committed to the genre or the "core" market, why not go all out? There really isn't any reason not to.
I picked up RE at full price, the other two at half price, and am happy with the value I got. I'd really like to see more from each series though doubt I will and would love to hear your thoughts on any or all of the games.