Worst Sequels (you killed the franchise I liked!)

[thejunglegod]

There wss this little known game called Restaurant Empire. A restaurant management game real eased somewhere in 2000 or possibly before. Loved it. Fans bombarded the makers for a sequel. Came out last year. Same graphics, same engine. Nothing changed except a few skins. Totally totally disappointed.


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[Craig234]

There wss this little known game called Restaurant Empire. A restaurant management game real eased somewhere in 2000 or possibly before. Loved it. Fans bombarded the makers for a sequel. Came out last year. Same graphics, same engine. Nothing changed except a few skins. Totally totally disappointed.

Original got great reviews, I got it but haven't played it.

Sequel did get 'not a lot of improvements' reviews, but doesn't sound like a terrible one.

Among other things, didn't they increase the type of restaurants to six?

And add a lot of items? Did you hate it?

 

[Grooveriding]

Groove man I'm not trying to bust balls, I like to understand this stuff. Didn't the super colorful world set alarms off that something may be amiss? Did you feel something might be wrong but ignored it because it's Diablo? I'm wondering

I never took issue with the concept art or teasers that showed more bright areas before the game released. Diablo 2 had Act 2 and parts of Act 5 that were quite bright, it just didn't come through as strongly because it was an ancient game using sprites without actual properly done lighting. Also in the beta you only saw fairly dingy areas of the game.

I do agree it is as a whole far too bright and not near grim enough in the 'shipped' product we received.

It's the core gameplay that is raw feces though. It has none of the intricacy of Diablo 2 in items or character building. It's also built around, and meant to foster, the use of the horrible RMAH. Which further helped to kill the game.

Game is just plain bad. I should of known it was doomed due to it being made not by the actual designers/creators of the Diablo games, 1,2 & LOD, but by almost totally new faces and many of them from WoW.

Diablo 3 is a console port done in reverse. They made a dumbed down crap-pile on the PC knowing it would have to be pushed to consoles down the road.

 

[Craig234]

To be fair, actual Diablo people made Hellgate: London and that wasn't received very well.

 

[greenhawk]

- Dragon's Age II (I haven't played it much but based on a lot of feedback)

- MOO 3 (same)

The first I would agree with. I tried the demo and was put off. Though I did not really want a sequel so might be unable to vote on that one

as to moo3, it was a bit of a killer, but then I think that had more to do with the expected hype from the developers vs what was delivered. It was the last time I closly followed a game in development that is for sure.

Games I would add was syndicate / syndicate wars. Great games, but the new make just took the name, went single player (instead of overview squad) and basically copied dues ex.

Far Cry 2 would be on my list for sure.

I can not count Civ5 as I personally found Civ 4 to be the killer of the series as it went way to heavly into mico management, 5 was a step back to the simplier civ 3.

Diablo 3 was not a killer, but it was just online only which upset my liking of it as much as ealier versions.

 

[leper84]

I would say Far Cry 2 just for the never ending check point respawn... but Far Cry 3 made up for it.

Crysis 2 definitely. Completely took away everything that made the first awesome and completely changed the atmosphere away from what made the first fun. I haven't played the third cause I'm not paying full price for a quarter-assed sp campaign.

Doom 3 I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned. Once I finally got an actual graphics card and played it years ago it was my first real pc gaming let down. It was like a new Metallica album. It seemed familiar, I wanted to like it, but it was just a cheesy, half-thought, money-grab substitute for the older stuff.

 

[Arg Clin]

Has been said but; Dragon Age II

Worst sequel ever to best game ever. Nothing even comes close to this epic failure to produce a worthy sequel.

And Dragon Age Origins was not a classic hack-and-slash routine with tank warriors, healer mages, etc? Fair point about battle areas feeling somewhat small in comparison to DA: O.

I don't think "consolization" was really a problem for DA II. The control scheme was much the same as DA: O, just without pulling back to isometric view -- which I think was a poor decision for the game's design on all fronts. Why not add the isometric view to the console versions?

I agree partially. The biggest problem of DA2 was the poor story/character writing and excessive recycling of areas - not combat and control scheme.

KOTOR serves as proof; Epic game but with horrible combat and control scheme (IMO). Story writing and execution more than makes up for it.

Some consolization did impact it as well though in DA2 - there were no ninjas dropping from the sky and similar nonsense in DA:O.

 

[Grooveriding]

To be fair, actual Diablo people made Hellgate: London and that wasn't received very well.

That's true, but that was only some members of the Blizzard North team, not the totality of it. Let's also not forget that they ran out of money and went to EA for funding, who then made them rush the product to market completely unready and it failed miserably.

I think it's a case of a team being the sum of its parts, and the team that made the real Diablo games did that very well. You have to remember they actually created this world and had the idea of how the games would play. There was really no way the WoW developers could of reproduced it.

The sum total of the Diablo 3 team isn't fit for a mop job.

 

[EDUSAN]

Not sure at what point the franchise went down...

but i used to like Command & Conquer so much when the 1st one was released...

not sure if it was with tiberian sun, or with generals, or with the latest one... but somewhere there it went dooooooooooown

dragon age 2

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Oh, let's not forget the RPG series final entries - Ultima 9, Might and Magic 9... Wizardry 8 seems a bit better.

Wizardry 8 was great, at least IMO. I wish someone would bring back party based RPGs. And no, Legend of Grimrock doesn't count. Its much more of a puzzle game than it is an RPG.

As for sequels that ruined a franchise, has anyone mentioned Dungeon Siege 3 yet?

 

[darkewaffle]

Without reading this thread I predict almost every post says ME3, D3, or DA2. Maybe a few BF3 and Civ V

Personally NWN2. It wasn't a bad game but it just focused on all the wrong things for the way my friends and I played NWN1, plus it wasn't ready for release at well... release. FFXIV potentially as well, I want it to work out and I'm really hoping they manage to re-capture the magic that FFXI has, but it could go either way.

 

[Goothry]

Diablo 3 is by far the worst sequel and the worst game I've ever played in my life. I was such a huge fan of Diablo, and especially of Diablo 2. Everything about Diablo 3 was a complete bastardization of the series I once loved, and I do mean EVERY SINGLE ASPECT. I could write a dissertation on how it's such an epic fail, but I'll leave it at that.

Honorable mentions:

James Bond
Every James bond game after Goldeneye. I bought the next one after Goldeneye and it was horrible. I think it was "Die another Day."

Perfect Dark (xbox 360)
Didn't do the original justice. Maybe it would have turned out different if Rare Ltd had been able to work on it. :-/

Oblivion
Yeah, I said it! Compared to Morrowind this game is lack luster. Now, don't get me wrong, it was an okay game, however it failed to draw me into the world like Morrowind. I couldn't stand all of the hand holding that had been introduced into the series. That said, it wasn't a killer of the franchise, just a really big let down. Skyrim was slightly better, but still had that hand holding element that Oblivion introduced. I feel that Bethesda just needs to incorporate a, "Hardcore," mode, meaning that things like waypoints and fast travel are eliminated or severely used sparsely.

 

[motsm]

Fallout 3 might be the biggest one for me, since it was changed so drastically and yet still met (generally) with praise. Fallout is now known as a first person shooter to more gamers than anything else, so not only did I hate the game, but it took the IP with it as well.

Others like Deus Ex: Invisible War, Human Revolution, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, and Gothic 4 took their franchises down the wrong path, but at least they stuck close enough or weren't met with enough success to destroy the IP's they were associated with.

 

[_Rick_]

Need for Speed...Underground.
And then Shift.

I did enjoy the insanely hard Most Wanted challenge mode though.

But the money grab that was Underground was....not Need for Speed.
And Shift - I have no idea what they were thinking.
And there are some, that are rumored to be so bad, that I've never even looked into them.

Even though it started out so well. NFS was good, NFS 2 was arguably -the- 90s racing game, NFS 3 and 4 were decent games, NFS 5/Porsche was fun, especially with the nice damage modeling, and the occasional race car thrown in. And then it went full retard.
Most Wanted was partial redemption (but still too arcady and tune-y), but from there own, it completely spiraled out of control.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Day of Defeat: Source

Day of Defeat was da-best

 

[BladeVenom]

Microsoft Flight. Bad enough that Microsoft abandoned PC gaming, and shutdown ACES Studio since flight sims don't work on consoles. Not content to let MS Flight Simulator, their longest running software title, rest in peace, they dug up its corpse and desecrated it. MS Flight was so bad, I'm still not sure if it was suppose to be a legitimate try at making another PC game, or if it was meant as an insult to PC gamers.

 

[Chiropteran]

As mentioned, Ultima 9. 8 wasn't up to the standards of the previous games either, but it was still a playable and fun game. 9 was just, ugh.

Puzzle Quest 2 was terrible compared to the awesome original Puzzle Quest.

I think I am in the minority here, but Super Mario 64 also. Mario games are supposed to be 2d side scrollers! This game ruined the franchise for me. (Though that is not a PC game).

 

[runzwithsizorz]

Back in 1999: Drakan Order of the Flame, a PC exclusive game developped by Surreal Software published by Psygnosis. Was a lot of fun, especially the aerial dogfights on the back of a dragon. Then Sony bought it, issued the sequel exclusively for Playstation II, ruined the graphics and it pretty much flopped. This killed the game and any hope of anymore games in the series. The fan base was outraged and disappointed. Too bad, because I would have liked to have seen a good PC sequel!

 

[Canun]

Mercenaries 2.

 

[Red Storm]

Has to be Dragon Age 2 especially because of how good Dragon Age 1 was.

 

[Necc]

Mass Effect 3 - Read Sir Zenoth post.

Counter strike source & global offensive - for some reason valve can't make a decent CS since 1.6.

Diablo 3 - well read anything above.

Left 4 Dead 2 - Should have been a DLC for the original L4D.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Modern Warfare 2. I enjoyed COD : Modern Warfare, even though it got a little over the top in places... and then the developers apparently huffed all the glue in the office, went completely insane and blew everything completely out of proportion for the next game. "Hey, you know how we killed off our protagonist halfway through the game? New angle; do that every level. Twice every level! In fact, everyone dies all the time always! And one nuke? That's rookie. FORTY SEVEN NUKES. And he's jumping snowmobiles over Mt. Everest while nukes are exploding all around and the bad guys are riding on flaming Pegasi and then Shiva dropkicks your head into space!" And they've just gotten progressively stupider as time has gone on. The plots of the last few would make the writers of 24 say, "I think you're overdoing it." I get that the multiplayer is supposed to be awesome, but they completely destroyed the singleplayer in the process and it's made me hate the series.

Metal Gear Solid 2 earned its spot in hell for what it did to the MGS franchise. I know everyone loved it, but everyone is wrong. Your character is a bumbling moron, the bad guys are asinine, the story is stupid and it ends with the BS deus ex machina "It was all a dream!" nonsense. I've ranted about MGS 2 before, and if anything, I dislike it more as time goes by. What a travesty.

 

[greenhawk]

As for sequels that ruined a franchise, has anyone mentioned Dungeon Siege 3 yet?

not that I recall from reading, but DS#1 had such bad party code that DS#2 was great for that feature alone. I did not get into DS#3 though, but that was probably from the feel of console port and the character driven approach vs the previous squad arrangement

Left 4 Dead 2 - Should have been a DLC for the original L4D.

yes , but the "getting tired from swinging your weapon" was the deaths nail for me in #1. To add salt to the wound, L4D2 added in melee weapons which you could swing all day and not get tired.......

 

[clok1966]

Zenoth has the best list (on why, very well explained..even if i dont agree with some)

cant even fathom some though.. D2? it was almost exactly D1 with more classes, more levels, hell it even looked the same.. (d3 we wont mention as I agree)... BIOSHOCK.. sure your a Big Daddy so combat was purely based on skill, not dodging like a bunny, otherwise.. it was almost a copy too..

but.. eh.. we all see things different Opinions are opinions, not facts.. I loved TA kingdoms.. at least the units had actual differences then TA with its carbon copy use (but different stats to make it "seem" they where different) don't get me wrong TA was a great game..

anything after BF42 was a disgrace to the perfection that game was.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I hated Quake 2. Completely. Ruined it for me.