E-Mail This Article to a Friend Déjà vu all over again There's something familiar about this season's new games BY MITCH KRPATA

Everyone once in awhile, a video game is released that changes our perception of what is possible in games. From Pong to Super Mario Bros to Metal Gear Solid, fearless innovators have walked a tightrope without a net in their quest to deliver unique, revelatory gaming experiences. And unless you count Donkey Konga, the game that comes packaged with a pair of miniature bongo drums, that just isn't going to happen this year.

Yes, video game publishers have come down with a severe case of sequelitis. Not that you can really blame them. The games industry is notoriously cruel to burgeoning development companies, which tend to go down faster than the extras in Saving Private Ryan. It takes a proven name – names like Miyamoto or Kojima – to convince a publisher to commit the dollars necessary to craft a truly new way to play. Yet even those folks still find themselves returning to the franchise mill, and this holiday season sequels are all we're going to see.

Like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (for PlayStation 2; coming November 17), which could be the make-or-break title for the franchise. The original was the most groundbreaking game of the 32-bit age, a game that finally offered the thrills and production value of a Hollywood blockbuster. Sure, it was talky and convoluted, but damn, was it cool. Then with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Hideo Kojima and company not only dropped the ball, they dropped it, stepped on it, kicked it into the sewer, and gave it the finger. The decision to remove Solid Snake as a playable character only two hours into the game ranks as one of history's greatest blunders, up there with Operation Market Garden and the Trailblazers drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. It appears Kojima has rectified that mistake in the third game, but an early E3 trailer for Snake Eater depicted a shirtless Solid Snake in the jungle, pounding serpents down his throat like they were licorice ropes. So which was the fluke: Metal Gear Solid or Sons of Liberty? Let's just say I'm approaching this with the right level of cynicism.

On the other hand, I have rather high hopes for Halo 2 (Xbox; November 9). The first Halo is considered by many to be the finest first-person shooter ever created. That these people are wrong isn't the issue. Halo certainly had almost everything going for it: great graphics, tight play control, devious enemy AI, and fantastic multiplayer. It also had some of the most boring level design ever seen; just big, nondescript rooms unfurling in an endless sequence like something out of MC Escher's most mundane nightmares. Let me tell you a story: in high school, my buddy Brock and I teamed up to create a PC game we called Fox Smoking Pipe: The Game. You played as an anthropomorphic fox who smoked a pipe. He ran from left to right and jumped over gaps that were all the same size and came at regular intervals. I believe that game alone could have landed us jobs with Bungie as level designers. If the single player campaigns in Halo 2 are even slightly improved from the original, this is going to be a serious candidate for game of the year.

A game that has shockingly little to improve upon is Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Nintendo GameCube; November 15). The original Metroid Prime was just about perfect, and my hands-down pick for game of the year in 2002. No other game in history has so successfully translated a classic into the modern age. I initially balked at the idea of playing from the first-person perspective of Samus Aran, but somehow they captured the feel of the Metroid series without missing a beat. The big difference between the original and Echoes is the inclusion of a multiplayer mode. I have to ask why. Metroid has never been about combat. The series' epic boss battles are more tactical than instinctual, and the true brilliance of the series has been its evocation of fully realized alien planets, complete with realistic ecosystems and logical topography. I don't think I'm being pessimistic in doubting the ability of this game to deliver a compelling deathmatch experience. But my biggest fear about Echoes is that the developer, Retro Studios, will spend too much time on multiplayer and not enough on single player. That could torpedo a promising title, but Retro remains innocent until proven guilty.

You're also innocent until proven guilty in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PlayStation 2; October 25), at least until you boost your first ride. Grand Theft Auto III was a huge leap forward for video games, in that it finally fulfilled the hope to go anywhere and do anything that gamers had been harboring since Pitfall debuted sidescrolling. It also ignited the biggest gaming controversy since Night Trap by embracing mob life, car jacking, mugging, prostitution, and stone cold murder. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was more of the same, and, frankly, by the time that came out I was sick of the whole idea. How many times can you pull a guy out of a car, whack him with a baseball bat, and then drive off with the fuzz on your tail before it gets tiresome? (By my count, a couple thousand times, actually.) San Andreas offers even more in the way of realism and interactivity – your character, CJ, can buy new outfits and get haircuts – but fundamentally, people are still going to play this game with the sole intention of paying hookers for sex and then beating a refund out of them. It appears Rockstar Games is shooting for the moon on this title, and they'll need to hit a bull's eye if they don't want to disappoint.

Other big releases this fall include third entries in the Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter series, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Viewtiful Joe 2, Gran Turismo 4, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door… hang on, I'm starting to hyperventilate. Many of these games could be good to great. Certainly they're starting from almost uniformly great sources. But unless you desperately want to hit some bongos along with Donkey Kong, don't prepare for anything you haven't seen before this holiday season. Like the adage goes: "If it ain't broke, just keep running it into the ground until it breaks and people hate you."