List Sequels that ruined a Game Franchise

damonposey said:
I want to say Doom3. but it was a good game in its own right. It just wasn't anything like Doom 1 or 2, so it sorta ruined the Doom gameplay for me.
Click to expand...

Nostalgia ftw :p Doom 3 is way better in every way imo. You probably played it when it was released, try again patched up with a modern rig
 
hfk said:
Nostalgia ftw :p Doom 3 is way better in every way imo. You probably played it when it was released, try again patched up with a modern rig
Click to expand...

No I played it on a radeon x1900xt I believe. it was quite smooth.

Doom 1 and 2 was about fighting hordes of demons in cool looking levels. doom3 was about coming across very few enemies, and all in the dark. it was ok, but it just wasn't like doom 1 or 2, so it was a bit of a let down.
 
Biggest letdowns to me would be...

WoW: TBC due to the fact that Blizzard caters to raiders over PvE soloers every day of the week. Blizz was even promising to add a lot more epic quests for soloers but now they're finally doing so in WotLK. About time, Blizz! (Just my humble opinion of the game, mind you)

Devil May Cry 2 (PC) - totally craptastic port with horrid resolution support & PS2 textures.

Half-Life 2 Episodes - I love HL2 & the content that came with the episodes but I would've rather that Valve had just made all 3 eps as one big expansion. For how long they're taking with Ep 3, it's quite sad. If it lives up the wait & hype, I'll be a very happy HL2 gamer. Otherwise, Valve might just piss me off as well as a ton more people.

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic - Lovely game with great gameplay & storyline but it failed in the technical department. The devs decide to trash the solid Source Engine & turn it into a hobbled undead troll of the abyss. The asshats barely supported it with patches & go about their way to make a console port of it with more stability & features. WTF?! Talk about turning your back on PC gamers who loved the game & get shafted by crashes. All of this should be fixed before moving to a fully-featured port...

I'm sure I could go on all day about sequels that took a dive in one area or another.
 
while i agree NWN 2 was epic fail on release.. its been well patched and the last expansion Mask of the Betrayer is probaly the best D&D module ive ever played you should really get it and try it out if NWN 2 made you sour when released.
 
damonposey said:
No I played it on a radeon x1900xt I believe. it was quite smooth.

Doom 1 and 2 was about fighting hordes of demons in cool looking levels. doom3 was about coming across very few enemies, and all in the dark. it was ok, but it just wasn't like doom 1 or 2, so it was a bit of a let down.
Click to expand...

hmm ok that's true
 
snowysnowcones said:
Halo 2 Vista. Terrible game. The first Halo for PC was a lot of fun.
Click to expand...

I forgot about that one... Locking it to Vista with no DX10 support and higher resolution graphics shot that one in the foot, leg, & arm all at once. Bah to MS for the blunder.
 
Star Control 3. SC2 was the best thing ever but SC3? Not the worst game ever but I had no fun with it.

UT3 I liked. Ok fine it's not much different then UT2004 but I don't think it's deserving of the poopiness it has gained.

I don't remember which one was the really bad one but Test Drive...4 or after? The last one though was pretty decent.
 
Hammer & Sickle gets my vote! I was in love with the SIlent Storm series until this junk was released.

Silent Storm 3?
 
NKDietrich said:
God I know. MOO3 was such a disappointment. A shame there arent any decent 4X games with some depth. GalCiv2 is nice but its very shallow.
Click to expand...

Give sins of a solar empire a try, its RTS/4x hybrid got 9/10+ across the board and considered best S tragedy game so far this year.
 
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic - Lovely game with great gameplay & storyline but it failed in the technical department. The devs decide to trash the solid Source Engine & turn it into a hobbled undead troll of the abyss. The asshats barely supported it with patches & go about their way to make a console port of it with more stability & features. WTF?! Talk about turning your back on PC gamers who loved the game & get shafted by crashes. All of this should be fixed before moving to a fully-featured port...
Click to expand...

Nah, you got it all wrong. Arkane (the developer) was planning on supporting the game for some more time, but Ubisoft (publisher) would have none of it. They told Arkane to terminate any further support and to not release the SDK which was 100% ready.

Ubisoft also handled the console port which was a lot worse than the PC version.
 
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I'm getting tired of the publishers who seem to never give a damn about the gaming community as a whole. They only desire to fill their coffers instead of giving proper support.
 
Spaxspore said:
Give sins of a solar empire a try, its RTS/4x hybrid got 9/10+ across the board and considered best S tragedy game so far this year.
Click to expand...

I have it. It's great, but it too has a pretty shallow 4X aspect. I like it as an RTS though.
 
Ghost Recon 2. Way to change a PC franchise into a Console exclusive.

Star Wars Rogue Leader. We start to see the shift away from cross platform.

exyxxx said:
Rainbow Six Lockdown was a Letdown. Rainbow Six Vegas is a good game for consoles but the multiplayer for PC never worked well enough to get the old R6 fans playing together. Vegas 2 didn't fix that issue. There's more people playing Raven Shield's multiplayer than these 3 sequels (PC) combined.
Click to expand...

I second that, Lockdown was the gutshot that has been slowly and painfully killing the series.

Grentz said:
About the 10-40th NFS games, the first ones were awesome then they started to just pump them out like nothing else.
Click to expand...

I would have to say NFS Underground is the one that really killed the spirit of the game. Although the series started to die at NFS Hot Pursuit.
 
dajet24 said:
while i agree NWN 2 was epic fail on release.. its been well patched and the last expansion Mask of the Betrayer is probaly the best D&D module ive ever played you should really get it and try it out if NWN 2 made you sour when released.
Click to expand...

the janky camera modes and poor performance still keep the failboat under sail. even patched it still stinks.
 
That's_Corporate said:
You can't ruin a franchise if it sucked from the beginning.
There's nothing to 'ruin'.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say the Halo franchise was ruined considering Halo 2 supposedly had a terrible ending and Halo 3 broke pre-order records. The ports from console were lackluster but most people wouldn't say the Halo franchise is completely ruined because of those.
 
Hammer and Sickle was very bad

MOO3 was even worse, I was on the boards for the game during the development and just turned out so bad, quicksilver just did a sucky job on that one.
 
Dan_D said:
Tribes 2 wasn't so bad but Tribes Vengeance was shit.
Click to expand...

Yeah Tribes 2 was good but the problem is nothing could have lived up to the original, I don't think. And yeah T:V was a horrid disaster.
 
phobic said:
I wouldn't say the Halo franchise was ruined considering Halo 2 supposedly had a terrible ending and Halo 3 broke pre-order records. The ports from console were lackluster but most people wouldn't say the Halo franchise is completely ruined because of those.
Click to expand...

Well, I'd have to disagree.
I've always hated Halo and never understood the appeal.

Plus, it's been proven that the majority of society is stupid :p
 
That's_Corporate said:
Well, I'd have to disagree.
I've always hated Halo and never understood the appeal.

Plus, it's been proven that the majority of society is stupid :p
Click to expand...

I loved Halo for PC. I couldn't stand playing it on the Xbox. I tried Halo 2 for PC but it wasn't as well done as Halo for PC was. I never played the third game.
 
C&C Tiberian Sun - 3rd person cutscenes, ambient music, slow gameplay and Nod art direction really ruined it for me.
C&C Red Alert 2 - the whole over the top cheesy un-serious humour destroyed any interest in the story for me. Not enough quality maps for mp compared to RA1 and most of them are way too small.
Emperor: Battle for Dune - Terrible AI instead of scripted missions ruined the campaign and mp is utterly terrible thanks to the worst game (un)balance I've ever seen.
Dues Ex 2: Invisible War - I'd just be repeating what everyone else says about it. Ugh.
Need For Speed 2 - Shallow arcade game with no cops and all circuit tracks. No Porsche or Lamborghini. TNFS was way better.
Need For Speed 6 and beyond - HP2 was pretty lame physics wise and police dropping annoying bouncing barrels from helicopters ...All the ricing killed it for me following that.
Contract JACK - Not really a sequel, but a terrible expansion to the excellent NOLF2.
C&C Tiberium Wars - Taking many things I dislike about other RTS games and sticking it in my C&C and further running the series into the ground while bastardizing canon.
C&C Red Alert 3 - Not looking good going by the beta thus far.
Neverwinter Nights 2 - Lacking UI and awful performance, disappointing and unpolished OC.
Red Faction 2 - Not sure exactly what the game had to do with the original. Seemed unrelated but set in the same universe. Very crappy all around.
 
Now that's a thorough rundown of games, Ankle. I agree with a lot of your "judgements". :)
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
Biggest letdowns to me would be...

WoW: TBC due to the fact that Blizzard caters to raiders over PvE soloers every day of the week. Blizz was even promising to add a lot more epic quests for soloers but now they're finally doing so in WotLK. About time, Blizz! (Just my humble opinion of the game, mind you)
Click to expand...

I gotta say. While I feel they did a lot of things wrong for TBC it was actually in the interest of catering to soloists and casuals like yourself. I have nothing against you wanting solo quests that are epic in feel and story but most of the changes were not catering to raiders.

40 man to 25 man was pretty hard on a real pre-BC raiding guild. It did howevr, make it so someone like yourself doesnt have to join a huge guild. You just have to join a small one that's smart and you too can raid.

Badge gear is ridiculous and easy to get which is again for casual/soloists with no guild.

Arena and battlegrounds introduced easy gear on par with PVE gear. (granted you said you don't pvp)

I would say if you are truly disappointed in playing a mmo from a solo standpoint then you should maybe look into joining a guild.

All in all I would say TBC ruined a franchise.

I would say Phantasy Star Universe. I didn't like it as much as PSO and I guess we will never see classic turnbased like the Sega Genesis days.
 
SOF 3
Starcontrol 3
Redfaction 2
KOTOR 2
Wing Commander 4 & 5
Privateer 2
sequels to POP: sands of time
BF: Vietnam
UT 3
Unreal 2
Quake 4
Jedi Knight Academy
 
Asheron's Call 2 was such a dismal failure in so many ways. A MMORPG that you could travel all around the world... and see four people. I really like AC1 back in the day. I spent several years there but AC2, wow. I really, REALLY wanted to like it because the graphics were beautiful, and a lot of the ideas were cutting edge at the time but it was so poorly implemented in so many ways. Buggy as hell, unbelievable lag, unbalanced from the start and then just got worse, you couldn't even enter buildings in the towns-they were just props. Crafting system...... completely, incredibly useless unless you were crafting some twink armor for another character. You would never craft anything you would want to use at normal play.

To get an idea of the pace of the game, one of the most powerful characters was the Tactician. He set up immovable turrets that shot at enemies, and put up walls to protect himself. He couldn't move because his turrets had a 30 min reset timer! Can you imagine another MMORPG with quests that could use a character that will be rooted for 30 mins?

Whew! Been meaning to get that off my chest for years now, thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent! :D
 
Dan_D said:
I loved Halo for PC. I couldn't stand playing it on the Xbox. I tried Halo 2 for PC but it wasn't as well done as Halo for PC was. I never played the third game.
Click to expand...

When Halo 1 came out on PC it didn't feel nearly as dated as Halo 2 felt when it came out. And yeah, H1 was just better period.
 
In the Medal of Honor series, Pacific Assault! OMG was that a let down, and everything since!
 
Ankle said:
Dues Ex 2: Invisible War - I'd just be repeating what everyone else says about it. Ugh.
Need For Speed 6 and beyond - HP2 was pretty lame physics wise and police dropping annoying bouncing barrels from helicopters ...All the ricing killed it for me following that.
Red Faction 2 - Not sure exactly what the game had to do with the original. Seemed unrelated but set in the same universe. Very crappy all around.
Click to expand...

You know, Hot pursuit 2 was actually a very fun game, until the helicopter came out and completely ruined every race. The barrels really didnt bother me that much, but the MISSLE.... WHAT the fuck? A MISSLE?! Who the fuck thought that one up? In a RACING game. GTFO...

No need to say anything about Invisible War..... haha. wow. I thought I hated Daikatana...

Finally, the entire Red Faction universe is the biggest crap I have ever played. Man does that game suck. I cannot believe Volition is milking that crud and completely ignoring the fact that people want FREESPACE 3.

Cool thread.
 
Ankle said:
C&C Tiberian Sun - 3rd person cutscenes, ambient music, slow gameplay and Nod art direction really ruined it for me.
C&C Red Alert 2 - the whole over the top cheesy un-serious humour destroyed any interest in the story for me. Not enough quality maps for mp compared to RA1 and most of them are way too small.
C&C Tiberium Wars - Taking many things I dislike about other RTS games and sticking it in my C&C and further running the series into the ground while bastardizing canon.
C&C Red Alert 3 - Not looking good going by the beta thus far.
Click to expand...

Protip: C&C isn't about the story or "canon".
 
Simcity Societies- Man, was that ever a regression in the Simcity franchise. I do understand that Simcity 4 went a bit over the top with micro-management and traffic, but jeez, Societies was just too easy.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 - If you wanted to pinpoint where everything went wrong in the NFS franchise then look at no further sequel than this game. The graphics were slightly improved over its older brother, Porsche Unleashed but the underlying physics were changed from 'realistic for its time' to an arcadey 'crash into a wall and still have a perfectly drivable car'. IIRC this was also the first NFS to host 'EA Trax' (called somthing else now I think). Beforehand, most (if not all) of the music was done in house in the previous sequels with an Electronica sort of theme or timbre, which IMO set the mood for these games. When playing this game and hearing "Uncle Kracker"... well, it's just not the same :(.

Mechwarrior 4 (with any ex. pack)- Never played it, but I did hear that it was rubbish compared to the 3rd sequel.

Battlefield Vietnam/2/2142- It's really hard to pinpoint where everything went wrong in this franchise. BFV had some interesting gimmicks in it (e.g. airlifting cargo/jeeps/tanks) but it had too many faults to list-- many of which drove most of the community back to BF1942 and its mods. Battlefield 2 came along and fixed a lot of problems that plagued Vietnam and introduced plently of new and interesting features, not to mention a major upgrade to the game's engine (Refactor3, I think). However many problems surfaced in BF2 and many involved balancing among the vehicles, soldiers, and weapons. The earliest issue I can recall from BF2 was how a squad in a fully loaded Blackhawk could become ridiculously over-powered, especially since it had a high number of hit points and very few (and tiny) vulnerable areas. That was fixed in the first patch, which then introduced a shitstorm of problems including a memory leak. There was also an issue with too many players 'bunny-hopping', 'dolphin-diving' and stat-padding. The first two were eventually remedied with another patch but the latter was still an issue (as it is with many multiplayer games). I finally left the Battlefield franchise after trying a demo for BF2142. Not only was I unimpressed with the minor graphical advantages, but the fact that I was required an online account to play the game and constantly kicked off the central server every 5 minutes made me conclude that this game wasn't going to be any better than its predecessor.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent- My personal favorite gaming franchise until Ubisoft fucked it up in the latest iteration.:mad: Before DA, the games started out good, then better with Pandora Tomorrow, then best with Chaos Theory. The latter version had all sorts of gameplay, gadgets, maps, etc. and you could play it any way you wished. Want to play SP with a friend? Coop mode was the way to go. Want to play it as stealthily or as gung-ho as possible? Custom loadouts, my pal. Want to know the best looking game was available for the 1st Xbox? SC:CT. And surely, Ubisoft saw this winning combination and kept it for their next game?

No.
Wrong.
Fail.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little bit too harsh on DA. I do know that Ubi Montreal was behind the last gen/Wii versions and decided that leaving in a lot of what made Chaos Theory great made these games somewhat more enjoyable. However, the current-gen/PC versions were developed by a different division of Ubisoft which in turn many things were changed and many things were left out. The co-op mode was watered down into a stupid merc bots vs. spies mode of the multiplayer section of this game, there were too many gadgets (how many different types of wall mines do you need in inventory), too many bugs (I feel for you PC users), too many HQ missions, too FEW missions in general, the story was rather poor, and for a game that supposedly had several different outcomes it felt too restrictive and linear. It was a shame, because the game did have its moments e.g. interactive cutscenes, beautiful graphics, and a beautifully recreated Shanghai in one of the missions.


*Whew!* I was going to go on about how Medal of Honor has been in deep shit ever since Pacific Assault and how "Halo Wars" is going to be a big flop but I think I'm well over my quota for ranting this year. Have a nice day :)!
 
Looks like SOF3 is getting strong support for all time Franchise killer

ut3 i must admit looks like a strong franchise killer.... remember that days when UT mattered? those days are over...thanks UT3

I didnt play Deus EX 2... due to i heard it was horrible and i didnt want to damage my memory of one of the all time great games DEUS EX

Ghost Recon 2 killed that franchise to me

Unreal 2 killed that portion of the franchise... is anyone looking foward to UNREAL 3?

Tribes 3 obliterated the Franchise... I liked Tribes 2

I predict that Half Life 3 will kill that franchise... how can u top the first 2. plus it looks like Gordon Freeman hasnt done a thing in 4 years
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top