Blockbusters don't become blockbusters by innovating, the become blockbusters by giving people what they want, which is usually something they've already played. Iron Man the movie isn't innovative, it's a very safe and predictable super hero movie. Gears of war didn't innovate anything. It just did what had been done very well.
Blockbusters become blockbusters by taking something that was once innovative and repackaging it over and over again. The original Metal Gear on MSX, and eventually NES was something very innovative. During a time when everything was about blasting the crap out of everything that moves, Kojima envisioned a game where shooting everything leads to your certain doom. Patience, and a steady hand led to victory rather than quick reflexes and an itchy trigger finger. It was very different for it's time. Metal Gear Solid made it popular for a new generation, and added a level of cinematics not previously seen. It was a blockbuster building on it's own previous innovation. MGS4 is a huge budget blockbuster that promises more of the same. A nice safe predictable stealth game that re-uses what already has been proven to work. Though I wouldn't call MGS trite, it does try to be more artistic than most, but it's still a nice safe bet of a game.
Games like Halo, and the more recent Zelda's aren't big because they innovative, they are big because they do exactly what's been done before but bigger. Now Zelda certainly innovated in the past, on more than one occasion, but "Twilight Princess" just took what people liked and made it into a nice safe predictable package, that was highly polished and fun. That's the blockbuster way.
You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.
