Ideas and Thoughts: Two Become One

9-Sep-98

Sorry, but I couldn't think of any other catchy name for this, so you'll have to live with it...

Ever since talk of Banjo-Tooie somehow working with Banjo-Kazooie started, one of the talked-of possibilities has been a lock-on cart, as Sonic & Knuckles was on the Genesis, or similar to how Game Shark is today.  In fact, I've thought lock-on carts have been a cool idea for a long time.  Even pre-Sonic & Knuckles I wondered why Capcom didn't just make add-ons to SFII on the SNES instead of releasing so many similar games. :) Oh, one last thing. How might these ideas work for non-cart systems? Well, I'd suppose the game would have some certain mode where it would ask you to put in the other game it's compatible with, let you choose what you wanted, then put the original game back in. If they were on disk, the stuff could even be temporarily written to the other game. Otherwise you'd just have to rely on plenty o' RAM. I'll just go straight into the examples now.

Mixing Licenses

Here's a great example.  THQ currently has the rights to WCW games.  They'll soon be losing those rights, but will be gaining the WWF rights.  This, even though I'm no wrestling fan, I still think would be one of the coolest ideas!  I mean, taking 2 different games of the same genre, based on 2 different yet similar real life franchises, and allowing you to put them together to make one big crossover game would be just nifty!

Or Rare's first-person shooters.  Just imagine if Perfect Dark was able to grab the characters from Goldeneye?  For multiplayer use, anyway.  Or the possibility of a 2-player co-op Bond/Dark combo sounds ultra-groovy as well!

Basically, with proper use of the lock-on, companies can... how to put this... take advantage of games they've already done, even without still having the rights to make games with those characters.

Other neat potential ideas... well, what if, say, Factor 5 got the rights to make a Star Trek game.  Imagine the possibilities when you mix that in with Rogue Squadron?  Or... Turok 2 and South Park will be using the same game engine, eh?  Though for that last idea, it's so soon to release for those games they probably couldn't get it in now even if they wanted to.  Well, without delays of course...

I seem to have forgot one obvious choice of similar games... sports games! I dunno, this way you could play the '98 team against the 2000 team or something. Or if there was a very similar game made by the same company (such as Wayne Gretzky 3D and Olympic Hockey... this is considering you're nuts enough to buy both), you'd just have a bigger selection of teams/players...

Mixing Not-So-Similar Licenses

This is an idea that... well, it wouldn't be near as actually fun or useful as the above, but as you may have noticed, I'm for options of all kinds, as useless as they may seem.  Here I'm thinking of things like sports games.  Imagine sharing the characters between them?  EA could do this especially, since they've got so many.  Use some football players in NBA Live, or use the Cubs in Madden.  Sure, they wouldn't be the greatest of players on the other sports necessarily, but their proper height stats, uniform textures, possibly face textures, etc. could be used... hey, it's either this, or end up with some probably pitiful attempt at creating another character in a Create-a-Player mode...

Or what if Pokemon could work with other games, using the 64GB Pak?  This could do well, at least in Japan... anything with Pokemon does!  But really, it wouldn't even have to LOOK like the characters necessarily, but just using the data in some way... imagine Perfect Dark, but you've been building up your character in Pokemon, so now you're faster.  :)  You're opponent is using a character with a slower, tougher monster posessing it.  Fwfawfa!

Sharing Stuff in General

(That sub-title brought to you by the letters H and I)

Well, let's say Nintendo wanted you to be able to use F-Zero X characters in Mario Kart 64 and vice-versa.  How hard would it really be to implement?  Not very, I'd think... at least if kept basic.  I mean, in Mario Kart 64 the characters are just sprites, with pictures from various different angles.  Pics from similar angles could be construed from the F-Zero X vehicles.  Then you just throw them in as a replacement character in Mario Kart, up their speed a bunch, and voila...

Or even imagine sharing tracks?  Music?  How 'bout using Conker & Berry in Banjo-Kazooie, or all of them in Donkey Kong Country 64?  Etc.?  In the end, use of lock-on technology increases replay value and fun factor.  And it could even convince you to buy other games from the company that you normally wouldn't have...

Joshua Slone wonders if the N64 controller could be a make-shift Batarang for Bruce Wayne.

• some MIDI*

Locke on!