The best new IPs of the seventh generation

[Emperor Megas]

I was wondering what you all think the best new licenses were from the past generation?

For me it was Dead Space and Gears of War. I think these are the only new series that I played every installment of. Dead Space was definitely my favorite new series.

I really only played the 360 this past generation. I haven't really played any PS3 games except for Resistence: Fall of Man (I just use my PS3 for PS2 games), and I didn't really play any original titles on the Wii either; just established series like Mario Kart. Anyway, which series (or single titles) original to this past gen did you guys like best?

NOTE: I didn't search for a similar topic before I started typing this and probably should have. So apologies if this has been asked already, or asked already to death even.

[Tanooki]

I'll agree with you on Dead Space. It to me was finally the first true survival horror game, albeit a third person shooting one. The atmosphere is a true mind screw and your loss of sanity and the loss of the station as time goes along just gets unsettling and the story keeps compelling you to do more. It's a shame the 2nd one sucked, and with that I never touched the third. Maybe someday on steam or gog there will be a three pack if that third hit PC (did it?) Another multi platform to throw out there since it changed well enough to be a unique game despite the name, Civilization Revolution for PS3/PC/360 was just amazingly good fun, and it is a new IP that's growing as a sequel is out there now at least on tablets/phones so far.

Uncharted I think was the huge one. The storywriting in that one and the set pieces to back it up where downright incredible, nothing to match it at all. The amazing pathing you follow along with the story pathing and all the great twists and things just made it amazing. I have no doubt it helped inspire bringing Lara Croft out of the joke bin/toilet as they really upped the game on that one to be like Uncharted. I can only imagine where they'll take that one with the 4th next year on PS4 and I'll be there day one as it's a rare case of no doubt it won't suck.

I suppose if it counts as semi-new, all credit to the lowly Wii for Mario Galaxy and the sequel as they really upped Mario's A game even if it wasn't the first 3D outing.

[ZeroCool]

Bioshock. Although the last one was such a huge disappointment.

[Emperor Megas]

I thought that the second Dead Space was awesome. It wasn't as scary as the first one to me (and the first one TERRIFIED me), since you weren't in deep space (at first), but I played through all three and was REALLY immersed in the experience. Probably more so than any other game besides Silent Hill.

I need to revisit Bioshock. I love the whole art deco atmosphere, but something about the game just didn't suck me in. I WANT to love it, but I ended up being more frustrated than anything. I only played it for a few hours. I got to a part where you were fighting some guy and you were in knee deep water, in some basement like area and could get electrocuted. It was really frustrating and I shelved it. I purchased the sequel though, so I have to revisit. I can't move to a sequel without playing through the previous installment (unless I'm first introduced to a series partway in).

I'm really looking forward to playing Uncharted. I have all three, I believe. I'm going to give the first one a try after I finish Mass Effect, which I only just started playing recently. It's a really slow starter (for me), but they seem to have packed a ton of content into this game. The world is so well fleshed out, I find myself spending hours and hours just talking to people and exploring the Citadel. I waste to much time doing mundane shit that I don't even realize how many hours I'm wasting.

Another past gen game I REALLY enjoyed was Nier. the music in that game is amazing, and the atmosphere is fantastic. Honestly, my two biggest complaints about the game were that the protagonist was one of the ugliest characters I've EVER seen, and that pretty much all of the weapons in the game were garbage. I used one particular weapon that I crafted pretty early on through out the entire game. It was ridiculously over powered, or rather, all of the others were ridiculously UNDER powered. There was really no point trying to acquire any of them other than the fun of collecting.

I don't know how I forgot the series I've spent more hours playing than all of the other past gen games I've played combined (excluding Mario Kart), and that's Left4Dead. My wife and I must have spend a thousand hours playing this shit on the couch in local multiplayer. It was like when my friends and I would play Golden Eye back in the day on the weekends. Golden Eye is probably the reason I never finished college. :(

[Nebagram]

There's only one obvious choice for me, and that's Mass Effect. The entire trilogy, taken as a whole, is nothing short of a masterpiece.

[kupomogli]

Best new IPs that are successful and spawned multiple games or best new IPs?

-Payday
-The Saboteur. EA's GTA. While the story isn't as good as the most recent GTAs and the music is 1940s themed, the gameplay is better than GTAs or most of its clones. This is an amazing game that was pretty much ignored.
-Mirror's Edge.
-Uncharted
-The Last of Us
-Little Big Planet
-Infamous
-Dead Space
-Dragon's Crown
-Demon's Souls (Didn't think about it until reminded by Rick.)

[Daria]

Is Dragon's Crown a new IP? I thought it was just continuation of the Princess Crown line.

[Emperor Megas]

Best new IPs that are successful and spawned multiple games or best new IPs?

Just what you guys would consider the best original IPs released to the past console generation. Either one shots or series. I'm sort of trying to do a round up of the some of the best new things introduced this past generation. I guess I'm looking for a highlights lists of what original things were brought to the table.

[Emperor Megas]

-The Saboteur. EA's GTA. While the story isn't as good as the most recent GTAs and the music is 1940s themed, the gameplay is better than GTAs or most of its clones. This is an amazing game that was pretty much ignored.Interesting. I've NEVER really heard anyone say anything about this game before. Granted, I don't really follow game related media much anymore, but I do hear this and that about big name releases and such. I've always seen this game on shelves (for cheap), but never knew anything about it. So it's like an open world, sandbox sort of crime sim type game, or is the theme different? The thing is, from my limited experience with the GTA series I really don't care for it. I don't like anything about being a violent criminal in an modern urban setting, so for me it's sort of an off putting experience. Is Saboteur any less crime-centric or are you basically a common street thug doing evil shit the whole game like (my impression of) GTA?

[Tupin]

- LittleBigPlanet
- Bioshock
- Dead Space
- Infamous
- Uncharted

Those immediately come to mind.

[kupomogli]

Interesting. I've NEVER really heard anyone say anything about this game before. Granted, I don't really follow game related media much anymore, but I do hear this and that about big name releases and such. I've always seen this game on shelves (for cheap), but never knew anything about it. So it's like an open world, sandbox sort of crime sim type game, or is the theme different? The thing is, from my limited experience with the GTA series I really don't care for it. I don't like anything about being a violent criminal in an modern urban setting, so for me it's sort of an off putting experience. Is Saboteur any less crime-centric or are you basically a common street thug doing evil shit the whole game like (my impression of) GTA?

The game is set around the 1940s in Paris where shortly after the game starts, Nazi's occupy the city. They go for a unique graphical style where everything is black and white and the only color visible in a Nazi controlled area is red. Whenever one of the areas are set free, it's back to having color again, looks pretty cool. You're an irish race car driver who ends up joining the rebels to take back the city from the Nazis.

The game has a snap to cover system that works incredibly well and the aiming system is very fluid, unlike even the most recent GTA games. It initially uses the auto aim mechanic, but I like to use free aim since it works so well. You upgrade your weapons to different types of weapons, silenced pistols, silenced machine guns, sniper rifles, etc, but you can only equip two at a time. Grenades are set to a single button, you have dynamite, and later on you get remote C4. You can plant dynamite and remote C4 in any vehicle you're driving, jump out of the vehicle and it'll explode or you can detonate it.

There is a stealth/level system that's like GTAs star system. If you're running around in a Nazi occupied location it's okay, nothing is going to happen. If you're a civilian in a restricted area and you're in someones line of site, then they'll become suspicious and if the suspicion meter gets full you'll get a level one alarm. If you kill a Nazi with melee or stealth takedown you can wear their clothes and you'll be able to walk in restricted zones. If you get too close though they'll start getting suspicious and you either need to hurry up get out of range to let the suspicion meter reduce or they'll sound the alarm and you'll lose the disguise.

Finally the game has a sort of slower version of Uncharted like platforming. It's not like Assassin's Creed where your character can climb in an instant to the top of any building in the game and it's not as quick as Uncharted either. It doesn't break the game, but allows for more exploration of the city since in the game there are around 2000 different Nazi Propaganda objects to be destroyed. Somewhat like Just Cause 2 where you destroy propaganda and you get money.

The games biggest flaw would be that it's one of those games that don't allow you to change the button config. The button config is set pretty well except driving forces you to use L2/R2 and no option to change it to classic X/Square.

Here's a gameplay video shortly after a spoiler so you can see a bit of the gameplay a few missions in where it starts making use of the gameplay features. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jxEB8iW4fa4#t=319


Is Dragon's Crown a new IP? I thought it was just continuation of the Princess Crown line.

It's country and Princess Crown's country aren't referenced. The only similarities would be having Crown in the name or the gameplay similarities and that isn't even very similar.

[Emperor Megas]

Awesome. Thanks for the overview, kupomogli. Saboteur sounds really interesting. I'm going grab a cheap copy next time I come across one.

[Tanooki]

I think I could get into that Saboteur game, but my only choice is a never going to happen choice -- using EA's origin drm system. Shame as despite it looking kind of GTA like which is unfortunate, it looks fun.

[Gamevet]

The Last of Us was such an amazing gaming experience. This game truly felt like a great representation of game as art. The character development was pretty much perfect and the ending was much better than most of the blockbuster films I've seen in the past decade. I highly recommend it.

[Scotterpop]

I think Borderlands is a great example of one of the best games the last gen had to offer. Such an incredibly fun game to play. Irreverent, hilarious and hugely addictive. It really gave the modern FPS a much needed shot in the arm. And the second game bettered the first in almost every way, a rarity in modern games. Other new IPs I really enjoyed this last console cycle were Bioshock, Alan Wake, Dead Space (I think that one will be on almost everyone's list!), Uncharted (especially the second game... truly a perfectly crafted gaming experience), Crackdown (although the second one totally sucked), Mirror's Edge and Fear. I particularly like survival horror so this last generation of consoles really had some great new experiences for me.

[PizzaKat]

Alan Wake was an interesting game. Hope they make a sequel to it. I also enjoyed Deadly Premonition. It had its flaws but it made me keep coming back.

[Rickstilwell1]

Would the Demon's/Dark Souls series apply here? I haven't seen those mentioned yet.

[Tanooki]

The Last of Us was such an amazing gaming experience. This game truly felt like a great representation of game as art. The character development was pretty much perfect and the ending was much better than most of the blockbuster films I've seen in the past decade. I highly recommend it.

I actually have that one arriving in the mail today for PS4. I tried to play it on the pS3 but there's a documented bug where it's unplayable on certain PS3 systems (my luck I have that one.) I never could see it beyond the opening scene with the suv and burning home as the bug was a glitch in auto/save load and it would crash and reload the drive infinitely without switching the pS3 off. I've wanted to play it a long time because the Uncharted crew made it and I know they know their stuff with gameplay and story.

[kupomogli]

Would the Demon's/Dark Souls series apply here? I haven't seen those mentioned yet.

Even if most don't consider Dark Souls(it's a new IP, completely different series from the same developer that plays almost exactly the same) Demon's Souls is its own game. I'm going to edit mine and add Demon's Souls. I'll leave off Dark Souls because it was clear where the devs were going with the name.

[celerystalker]

I won't rehash what everyone else already put up, but a few others I personally enjoyed:

Wartech
Crackdown
Fortune Street (old series, but new to the US)
DeathSmiles

One of my friends swears by Valkyria Chronicles. I picked it up, but haven't really played it much yet.

[Emperor Megas]

I can't believe that I forgot to mention it but I thought Dante's Inferno was REALLY amazing. I was always a fan of The Divine Comedy, and I thought that they did an amazing job adapting it. I really have no idea why this game performed poorly, or so I'm told. I guess we'll never see a sequel.

You know, this past generation is one of the only (if not THE only) that the majority of my favorite titles weren't from Japanese developers.

[kupomogli]

I can't believe that I forgot to mention it but I thought Dante's Inferno was REALLY amazing. I was always a fan of The Divine Comedy, and I thought that they did an amazing job adapting it. I really have no idea why this game performed poorly, or so I'm told. I guess we'll never see a sequel.

You know, this past generation is one of the only (if not THE only) that the majority of my favorite titles weren't from Japanese developers.

This too. So many amazing games came from EA this gen. I'm one of those people who defend EA because they do things wrong but people don't see the things they do right. What about the millions of things other devs screw up on and gamers just brush it off you know?

As for Dante's Inferno, the game is like God of War, but gameplay and story both are far better. I still wouldn't put it above DmC Devil May Cry, DMC3, or the Lords of Shadow games, but it's up there. Lords of Shadow should also be considered a new IP but Konami wanted to label it Castlevania to try and get more sales. It backfired though, because everyone hated the game simply because it was labeled Castlevania. Lords of Shadow, Mirror of Fate, and Lords of Shadow 2 are all great games imo.

[Emperor Megas]

I've heard the comparison made, but I've never played God of War. It's weird, because I own about 6 God of War titles, and I love the action genre, but for some reason or another I've never gotten to checking the series out.

[Gentlegamer]

Off the top of my head:

Demon's/Dark Souls - new old school fantasy action rpg, just amazing
Batman Arkham series - amazing new take on Batman, big surprise from Rocksteady
Darksiders - synthesis of Zelda and God of War, and a bit of Diablo with the sequel
Assassin's Creed - specifically the 'Ezio Trilogy,' though the series is run into the ground now
Portal - first person puzzle game, perfect mix of challenge and Valve humor

[Gamevet]

I actually have that one arriving in the mail today for PS4. I tried to play it on the pS3 but there's a documented bug where it's unplayable on certain PS3 systems (my luck I have that one.) I never could see it beyond the opening scene with the suv and burning home as the bug was a glitch in auto/save load and it would crash and reload the drive infinitely without switching the pS3 off. I've wanted to play it a long time because the Uncharted crew made it and I know they know their stuff with gameplay and story.

It worked fine on my 60 GB PS3.

My wife told me I was getting a PS4 for Christmas, so I went ahead and bought the game for $34 from Target. The PS4 is what this game was really meant to be played on. It really is pushing the PS3 hardware beyond any other title I've played on the console and there were moments where the frame-rate would dip into the single digits when the action got too intense.

This is the best game Naughty Dog has released to date, IMO.

[Tanooki]

Interesting. I haven't warmed up to it much yet as I seem to be having a struggle with the gunplay a bit, feel like I'm being shot through walls at times due to perspective. I've got up to Ellie, the rain storm, and then my partner showing back up to advance the game further and saved it there. Considering all the ads I've seen since it popped up, she doesn't have long for the world I'm sure.

I think the story and sets are nice, just afraid the wonky combat controls will infuriate me into stopping sooner or later as it's not as smooth as Uncharted.

[Gamevet]

The first couple of hours are pretty average. Once you get newer weapons, the ability to use bombs/smoke bombs and an improved hearing ability, the way you'll handle the enemies becomes more strategic.

[Dr. BaconStein]

Batman: Arkham Asylum and Blur were great.

[kupomogli]

Batman: Arkham Asylum and Blur were great.

Another amazing game I didn't think of. Well, I thought of it, but it being "Batman" I didn't think of it being a new IP, but I agree it should be considered a new IP because it's not just Batman but it's the "Arkham" series.

[Tanooki]

Gamevet I hope you're right. I just did yesterday that part with the clickers and a few runners inside what is like an old subway depot or whatever before going outdoors into an area with a semi and 3 hearers in a building. I'm really having problems fighting with the controls, they're just not very intuitive, clumsy really which shocks me as it's just not fluid like Uncharted is at all. The lack of an ability to do controlled jumping or the type of active cover mechanics of Uncharted bugs me. The atmosphere is great though and I'm closing in on the capitol at this point. The best item I have at this rate at least is the molotov cocktail, used 3 of those to clear the clickers underground because they kept killing me which made no sense. I'd be taking a board to them and they'd do a one bite clamp on the neck, and it was random too which was crap.

[Gamevet]

Gamevet I hope you're right. I just did yesterday that part with the clickers and a few runners inside what is like an old subway depot or whatever before going outdoors into an area with a semi and 3 hearers in a building. I'm really having problems fighting with the controls, they're just not very intuitive, clumsy really which shocks me as it's just not fluid like Uncharted is at all. The lack of an ability to do controlled jumping or the type of active cover mechanics of Uncharted bugs me. The atmosphere is great though and I'm closing in on the capitol at this point. The best item I have at this rate at least is the molotov cocktail, used 3 of those to clear the clickers underground because they kept killing me which made no sense. I'd be taking a board to them and they'd do a one bite clamp on the neck, and it was random too which was crap.

The idea with the Clickers is to not be heard by them. It's a good idea to get one of them alone and do a sneak attack with a shiv.

I haven't tried the PS4 version yet, because the network is down. I just got my PS4 today.

[Tanooki]

I saw no way to do that as there were four if them in ear shot distance. I may or may not me meant to play the game as I can never survive in these illogical nonsense 'stealth' games as the makers have these dopey ideas of what being stealth is and then you get the canned youre dead response from it despite beating the crap out of something. The only stealth gameI ever survived was MGS1 integral on PC, barely, and I used a lot of ammo. If this is just some big stealth game I am screwed.

I almost flipped my shit in the building they first show up where you drop into a room of 4 since it wont let you shoot from above. I kept getting surrounded and eaten, eventually got lucky with a brick and a pipe as the gun was too slow. Im struggling playing it on normal difficulty.

[otaku]

mass effect
dragon age
gears of war

[CDiablo]

Gears Of War
Batman 3D
Uncharted
Portal

everyone is copying these games.

Honerable mention to the souls series cause I love them.

[kupomogli]

Adding two games. Heavy Rain and Hotline Miami. If it counts, also The Walking Dead from Tell Tale games.

I listed The Last of Us as one of the best new IPs last gen because I've only watched it being played and like a lot of other people that was my assumption. I've finally started playing it since I got it on the PS4 and have been playing on survivor difficulty, only recently reaching the first gameplay video we saw at one of the E3s. A decent way in not sure how far though.

I guess I shouldn't have assumed The Last of Us was such a great game until I've played it myself, although from what I have played I will still say that I believe it still is one of the best new IPs of the gen. I'll also agree with Tanooki though that the game is ridiculously overrated. I don't mind the functionality of the controls, just how well they respond. The controls just feel super janky and uncomfortable especially when your retarded allies are immovable walls. The stealth in the game seems alright as well, but only the humans really, the stealth during the clicker sections is just really slow and boring.

I think The Last of Us has received its overly high ratings because Naughty Dog developed it and it's had some of the best graphics on last gen consoles. When it comes to the overall game though, it could definitely use some polish.

[Emperor Megas]

I finished Mass Effect and I really enjoyed it. It's on my list now of best new 7th gen IPs. I believe it's also my first Bioware game. I'll have to play a few more now.