NBPM 11: Objection!

After my fake legal troubles yesterday I've started playing the second Phoenix Wright game. It's pretty much the same as it's predecessor, but with one change to the main game. I would have no problems in recommending it to anyone but I would advise said person to play the first game first.

By the end of the first chapter of the first case it already refers to cases in the first game. In the second case a character shows up who keeps talking about the earlier case you met her on. So if you play the second game cold you're going to have fun, but you aren't going to understand a lot.

It's the same with Serenity/Firefly. Whilst I could imagine that if I watched Serenity without having seen it's predecessor Firefly I would have enjoyed it, it does make a lot more sense watching the TV series first. And then the comic as well.

It got me thinking, what videogames and films could you play a sequel without having played/seen it's earlier version and not having any loss of enjoyment. The easy option would be Burnout or any other car racing game. Or FIFA and Pro Evo. But I'm talking about those games with plots, obv.

I think you could get away with playing Halo 2 before Halo, but I reckon it would help if you played the first Halo first. Only because the plot in Halo 2 is so rubbish that by having played Halo 1 you will have enough goodwill from that to make you keep playing Halo 2 to the end without giving up in annoyance.

In films, as with anything, my choice would be the Evil Dead films. You can watch them in any order. Mostly because each film remakes the earlier films in the first fifteen minutes. Also because each film is in a totally different style to the other films. Evil Dead I? Out and out horror. Evil Dead II? Horror/Comedy. Army of Darkness? Action/Adventure.

The only game I can think of that has changed it's style to such a similar effect is Resident Evil, whose fourth game (in terms of numbers) has changed from survival horror to action horror. I'm sure there's other ones I can think of, but I'm tired and need to sleep.

Cheerio!