I'm starting to feel like I'm the only person on earth who thought that, while not as good as UT2004, UT3 was a perfectly fine game.Demodeus said:
Cliffy B: Gamers Hate Sequels, Like Trilogies
- Thread starter John Funk
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Well I liked both Quake 2 and Gears 2 better than the originals.
Other examples are Half-Life 2, Mass Effect 2, System Shock 2 and the list goes on.
Though there are also examples of the opposite too
Fallout > Fallout 2
Call of Duty > Call of Duty 2
Halo 3 > Halo: CE > Halo 2
Other examples are Half-Life 2, Mass Effect 2, System Shock 2 and the list goes on.
Though there are also examples of the opposite too
Fallout > Fallout 2
Call of Duty > Call of Duty 2
Halo 3 > Halo: CE > Halo 2
That is questionable. Don't get me wrong, it certainly wasn't a bad sequel, but it would be a stretch to call it an improvement over the original. Personally, I didn't find some of the weapons in CoD2 to be quite as satisfying to use as their CoD counterparts and I thought the single-player campaign in the original was better and more memorable than the one in the sequel.DTWolfwood said:
Most importantly, though, CoD2 was a return to the infantry-focused action of the original CoD. While some people were pleased with it's comeback, others liked the vehicles brought in by the United Offensive expansion. As you can imagine, the community was divided on the issue. This is one of the reasons why the PC CoD community is spread across all the games available for the platform.
Call of Duty 2 was a good game, but it was essentially CoD with a graphical uplift.
I personally haven't had the chance to play Mass Effect 2, so I can't comment on the changes personally. That said, you can definitely find people who disliked the fact that many of the RPG elements from the original were either removed or simplified.
WarCraft III was an enormous departure from the conventions established by the first two games. Such moves will always result in alienating a part of the original audience, but the effects were particularly profound in WarCraft III. A significant amount of people didn't like the RPG elements (such as heroes....especially heroes) it included and it's greater focus on micromanagement.Mordwyl said:
But while multiplayer was an enormous dividing issue within the RTS community, the single-player campaign certainly was far better.
I love Half-Life 2, but I wouldn't call it superior to the original. Infact, even though they are in the same series, they generally focus on different things.I am Omega said:
That doesn't take away from the fact that Half-Life 2 was a worthy successor. But it was different than the original.
Anyway, I can understand the point Cliffy B is coming from. More often than not, sequels tend to change (or not change) in a way that either causes the fanbase to hate it or at least alienate a part of the fanbase due to a different focus. So sequels that nearly all fans would find to be superior to the original are rare.
Examples can be found, though. I can think of at least two games. WarCraft II was better than the original in every way. Same with Hearts of Iron II, although the comparison here is skewed by the fact that the original Hearts of Iron was fundamentally broken.
I really don't like games that end in cliffhangers or pull that "Sequel Baiting" gimmick.
Creating a Trilogy in the gaming world is almost a career death sentence unless you have serious financial backing and talent. Why? Because you are essentially asking to produce three games within a time span of 5-6 years. During this time:
1) You hope that your development/design team doesn't burn out.
2) You hope that your FANS don't get tired with your game.
3) You hope that your sales figures meet or exceed expectations (at least twice); if they don't, your funding will get cut or reallocated, and that's the end of your trilogy.
4) Your team also needs to keep the game looking and sounding up-to-date.
5) You also need to address gameplay balance and plot issues so that the games feel contiguous/directly related.
If you fail at ANY of those points, you lose. In fact, you might find yourself out of a job.
I'm straining to think of any contiguous gaming trilogy that was ever consistently great from start to finish.
The closest I managed to come was Baldur's Gate (the expansion is practically a full length game in itself). The runner up is Advance Wars, and the story there can barely be called "Contiguous" More like, "Episodic", where the player can jump in at any point and still enjoy what's presented.
There's also Metroid Prime, depending on how much you liked/hated Corruption.
And of course, Half Life 2, which was never intended to be a "trilogy" me-thinks.
Someone will probably mention Halo. And by sales standards, yeah. I guess you are correct.
But I would never give that series the honor of being consistently great though; it's mediocre perhaps and definitely over-hyped.
Creating a Trilogy in the gaming world is almost a career death sentence unless you have serious financial backing and talent. Why? Because you are essentially asking to produce three games within a time span of 5-6 years. During this time:
1) You hope that your development/design team doesn't burn out.
2) You hope that your FANS don't get tired with your game.
3) You hope that your sales figures meet or exceed expectations (at least twice); if they don't, your funding will get cut or reallocated, and that's the end of your trilogy.
4) Your team also needs to keep the game looking and sounding up-to-date.
5) You also need to address gameplay balance and plot issues so that the games feel contiguous/directly related.
If you fail at ANY of those points, you lose. In fact, you might find yourself out of a job.
I'm straining to think of any contiguous gaming trilogy that was ever consistently great from start to finish.
The closest I managed to come was Baldur's Gate (the expansion is practically a full length game in itself). The runner up is Advance Wars, and the story there can barely be called "Contiguous" More like, "Episodic", where the player can jump in at any point and still enjoy what's presented.
There's also Metroid Prime, depending on how much you liked/hated Corruption.
And of course, Half Life 2, which was never intended to be a "trilogy" me-thinks.
Someone will probably mention Halo. And by sales standards, yeah. I guess you are correct.
But I would never give that series the honor of being consistently great though; it's mediocre perhaps and definitely over-hyped.
Is this why Unreal Tournament 3 was renamed from UT2007? Because they were trying to cash in on the whole third game is awesome thing twice?
Cod2 MP was far and above better than the original. Campaign was more or less the same. Vehicle sections always felt tacked on for me, did not care for it. Plus COD was originally advertise as a squad based shooter, where you have allies fighting along side (fancy way of saying Cannon fodder) so getting into a tank did away with all of that.Tom Phoenix said:
If you like Mass Effect for the story and character development not so much for the inventory management, you'll LOVE Mass Effect 2. Must play! Wait for it to go cheap if you have to but definitely a game one should own if you even remotely liked Mass Effect.
I would say a large part of why people "like" trilogies is because of expectations. The first one was amazing, so you have high expectations of the second. The second usually doesn't live to it's expectations and gamers get upset. When the third game comes around, there usually is lower expectations on how good the game will be, thus setting it up to look better in comparison and being viewed more favorably.
Gamers complain about everything. Cliff better not expect a ton of love for Gears 3. At least not more than for the last two.
In fact, I prefered Gears 2 to Gears 1. Funny.
In fact, I prefered Gears 2 to Gears 1. Funny.
