Email: Rayman Origins

Hello, good sir. I’ve been reading your blogs, and they make a lot more sense than most, if not, all the nonsense you read from gaming forums, even the ones about Nintendo’s decline, and I’ve been thinking about you say about how to make a good video game. Anyway, praising you aside, I want you to look at this game:

I know you’ve seen footage of this game from one of your previous blogs that involved the Playstation Vita, but I want to know if this game can sell. This is just me, but when I see this game, I think of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, or “Super Mario Bros. 5” as you like to call it. (Heck, the two teensies remind me of the two generic Toads that the third and fourth players play.) I also think of how NSMB Wii became successful, despite the cries of the gaming media and its followers of Nintendo being lazy. Now, to me, it looks like it has arcade values (simple to learn but difficult to defeat), and the plot was simple from what I read. However, I heard that it has some puzzles and scavenger hunts. So, Mr. Malstrom, can Rayman Origins sell and compete with the likes of NSMB Wii, and if so, which version would sell more?

It’s not going to sell well at all. This is a remake of a game. The universe has no cohesion. The developer(s) think their art style and ‘creativity’ is full of wit (it’s actually repugnant). Rayman has no arms and looks like a turd (making him similar to a Mii). Even the video above sounds like a trailer for a movie.Still, I’d much rather play this game than Super Mario 3d Land. But no one, these days, is interested in making an actual 2d platformer. We get all this artsy fartsy crap as seen in the trailer above. Gamers can only digest the game, they cannot digest ‘artsy’. Where is the game? Where is the beef?