The Sincerest form of Flattery

Slashdot Games recently had a story pointing to two sets of reviews for the new Famicom Mini Series 2 that just came out in Japan. Slashdot called the set from 1up "intriguing," and called the set from IGN, "stuttering," probably because the latter features an unintentional repetition of, "We review the latest NES-to-GBA games that hit the scene this May," a ridiculous eight times in a row on the main page.



The stuttering comment may as well have been referring to the extremely similar content of the reviews, though.



Consider, first, that IGN's three reviews, for Mario Bros., Balloon Fight and Clu Clu Land, are all dated June 3. The reviews for these three games on the 1up page are dated June 1 and 2; the rest are dated June 3 and later.



Then consider the following quotes (culled using "..."s to make similarities more apparent):



From 1up's take on Mario Bros.:



"...the Famicom Mini version of Mario Bros.... exists three years into the life span of the Game Boy Advance, a time in which Mario Bros. has been reprised as a free extra in not one but five other GBA titles (specifically, the four Mario Advance games and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga)."



From IGN's take on Mario Bros.:



"But Nintendo's got serious cajones expecting that Japanese gamers will front the full price for a game it's not only updated and packaged a current total of five times in the Super Mario Advance series as well as in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga"



This one's not so bad... any decent review would probably point to the endless repackaging of Mario Bros. on the GBA. I could even see them potentially using similar language to do it.



But consider as well these introductory paragraphs:



From 1up's take on Balloon Fight:



"Nintendo is a company known for its ability to create stunningly original ideas... Balloon Fight serves as a cheerful reminder that even the Big N hasn't been above the time-honored art of knicking someone else's idea wholesale. In this case, that idea was John Newcomer's arcade classic Joust."



From IGN's take on Balloon Fight:



"Let it be said that Nintendo isn't always the innovative and creative company it's always been viewed as. Case in point: Balloon Fight... In the US, we had already been playing Balloon Fight in the arcades, and on the Atari systems as Joust..."



Some thematic similarities definitely, but nothing that falls definitely outside the realm of coincidence.





But also consider the dueling reviews for Clu Clu Land:



From 1up's take on Clu Clu Land:



"The word "classic" has suffered terrible abuse over the years. For instance, some people refer to any car that's more than 25 years old as "classic." Were it still alive, my very first car (a 1981 Buick Estate Wagon) would be reaching that vaunted age in a couple of years... "Vintage," yes. "Old," definitely. But classic? The mere thought cheats the word of its integrity. So it is with video games..."



From IGN's take on Clu Clu Land:



"That doesn't matter, though, as the game has been relegated to "classic" status simply because it's an "ancient" design, at least in videogame terms...not because it's any good...



Different? Yes. Classic? Debatable."



Now, to me, this seems like a relatively unique angle to take in a review -- namely the differentiation between "old" and "classic" in terms of game design. To have two reviews of the same game use this same idea strikes me as a little odd, if not a little disturbing.



Was there any conscious or unconscious plagiarism of ideas between the 1up and IGN reviews here? It's hard to say. I certainly wouldn't definitively say there was without more evidence. But since the IGN articles are unsigned and I am going to Europe for two weeks, I will leave this one open for now. Please post your thoughts on the matter while I am gone, especially if you are the author of any of these reviews.



Also... remember all that E3 coverage I promised. Yeah, it's still coming, but it's gonna be really late (obviously). So sorry.