BIOSHOCK 2: Sea of Dreams teaser trailer!

[Arrqh]

Would you deny that MGS4 is a Kojima game? Yeah, Ryan Payton influenced it by making it control like a game instead of a carpal tunnel syndrome simulator, but the jiggling breasts and two hour cutscenes?
Given the way Levine has spoken out against cutscenes and the fact that he feels that the ending was somewhat of a failure, I think it's fair to say that Bioshock is a Ken Levine game.

A game would not be the game it is with a different project lead. And a game would not be the game it is without the same project team. It is much much more a collaborative effort then a film which is what makes your "makeup artist" analogy invalid. And I think it's a shame that you'd diminish the contribution of the very talented team that created Bioshock because you can name drop the lead.

What you can attribute to the lead is the overall direction. If the lead of Bioshock 2 understands that direction and the key talent on the team is still in place (or the new talent also understands what made the first game a success), then Bioshock 2 will likely be a good successor.

 

[firehawk12]

I'm not denying the ability of 2K Marin or 2K Boston or 2K Australia. All I'm saying is that in that like Wright or Meier or Specter or god forbid, even Garriot, Levine is one of the few American auteur designers with his own design philosophy that you can see in the games he works on.

The only analogy I can think of at the moment is 28 Days Later -> 28 Weeks Later. You have a film world established by a directing/writing team who moved on and gave the sequel to another director. Now, I haven't seen either film so I have no clue how it worked out, but I imagine the change in director had some effect on how the sequel compared to the original.

Or hell, how could I forget - The Bourne Trilogy. Liman vs Greengrass. I'm still not sure where I stand on whose direction I enjoy more - but there are people who hate Greengrass' shakycam directing.

We don't think about this in game terms because, I dunno, maybe it's still not that mature in the "West". I just imagine that when Sakaguchi was booted out of Square, there was a drastic change to how the Final Fantasy games played, for better or for worse.

 

[unimatrix7]

I just imagine that when Sakaguchi was booted out of Square, there was a drastic change to how the Final Fantasy games played, for better or for worse.

Final Fantasy XII - the first numbered entry without Sakaguchi - was as bloated and saccharine as its predecessor (FFX, that is). Aside from some necessary but ultimately daft changes to the combat system, FF12 was quite identifiably a Final Fantasy game.

Sakaguchi, meanwhile, went to Mistwalker and did Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Neither of those games carried any trace of the vision or genius Sakaguchi was often credited with as the helmsman for the Final Fantasy franchise. In fact, both were quite spectacularly mediocre.

Sakaguchi, Meir, Kojima, Miyamoto, Suzuki, Garriot, Molyneux, Levine...they're only as good as the teams they lead.

 

[Mr Light]

That's funny, I loved FF12, and I disliked the hour or two I played of Lost Odyssey.