Games that died with their successors...

[Bourne Endeavor]

Mass Effect. #2 is just such a fucking disappointment that I am considering not even bothering with #3. I am just praying that #2 does turn out to be the mediocre middle child but its disgrace is lessened by having awesome brothers.

Oh yeah, totally this. They fumbled so badly with Mass Effect 2. Before it, all Bioware games were immediate pre-order but now, especially after seeing all the horribly disappointing changes they're making to Dragon Age, I'm going to take their products with a serious grain of salt.

Just out of curiosity, because I thought that on the whole ME2 was an improvement, what did you guys dislike about it?

As for me, I really disliked Metroid Prime 3. There was a lot more combat than the first 2, and I didn't enjoy the controls for the combat so I just gave up on the game.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed ME2 and will likely replay it a legion of times. My major gripes are akin to what has been mentioned. Aspects of the game people complained about saw complete removal in comparison to a necessary fix. The Mako is a prime example, alongside the Inventory. The former would benefit from a less ragdoll-esque mechanic design and the game itself would use a larger degree of surprise combat in said Mako. Offer mild customization upgrades, reduce the damage to accommodate vehicle combat and we would be in business. Likewise, a speed scroll option and slight reduction in weaponry would have done wonders for the inventory.

Another qualm derived from the kid friendly customization, wherein everything is essentially done for you to maintain simplicity. I would fancy an overhaul that would allow us to embrace customization, not stifle it. An example would be the option to boost the shotgun's power, ammo capacity or equip a scope on it. You have one, and never see the others again.

The lack of continuality was disappointing primarily because of the constant hyping Bioware has done. Your decisions amounted to essentially nothing more than five second conversations and cheap emails. The strong probability Garrus and co may be regulated to cameos only further bolsters concerns. Toss this along with practically no squad banter or "... in the middle of some calibrations" and ME2 certainly has large amounts of space for improvement.

 

[MrShowerHead]

Ahem.... Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising.... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Sion Lenton..... just....why?

 

[williagr]

No, I think that L4D2 has far better gameplay mechanics that draws the crowds in droves. The problem is not one of those people recognize that L4D2 is a shallow piece of trash and nothing like the original. Seriously, what got me to instantly love L4D was the genuine feel of a zombie survival horror movie. L4D2 is just a zombie slaughterfest that has the protagonists laughing at the wanton destruction of all the infected people around them.

How does this make sense? If it's got better gameplay mechanics then how is it worse than the first one?

I've seen this argument before, is it just the setting that makes people feel the first one was much better? Anyone who thinks the first one had a more serious tone wasn't listening closely enough, the first L4D had it's tongue planted as firmly in its cheek as the second L4D.

I love both games, and while L4D2 eats most of my time now, I find myself slapping in the first one once or twice a week.

 

[Neverhoodian]

For me, the Command and Conquer series died when Generals was released. I adored Red Alert 2 and Renegade was decent, but Generals threw everything I liked about CnC games out the window.

Now I hear that they've ruined the Red Alert series with RA3, and Tiberium fans are ready to kill someone over how badly Tiberium Twilight turned out.

Damn you EA for killing Westwood. Damn you to hell.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

Tribes, with Vengeance...not because it was a bad game, but because Vivendi refused to fund any sort of support for it...pretty much killing it outright. Sucks too, because it is one of the more original FPS IPs out there.

 

[Signa]

No, I think that L4D2 has far better gameplay mechanics that draws the crowds in droves. The problem is not one of those people recognize that L4D2 is a shallow piece of trash and nothing like the original. Seriously, what got me to instantly love L4D was the genuine feel of a zombie survival horror movie. L4D2 is just a zombie slaughterfest that has the protagonists laughing at the wanton destruction of all the infected people around them.

How does this make sense? If it's got better gameplay mechanics then how is it worse than the first one?

I've seen this argument before, is it just the setting that makes people feel the first one was much better? Anyone who thinks the first one had a more serious tone wasn't listening closely enough, the first L4D had it's tongue planted as firmly in its cheek as the second L4D.

I love both games, and while L4D2 eats most of my time now, I find myself slapping in the first one once or twice a week.

There is a lot more to a game than options and gameplay mechanics. My favorite game ever is Morrowind, yet I don't like it because of the combat system or the voice acting. I love it because of the whole package it offers. L4D2 has some well designed components to the game, but as a full package, it's lacking in some areas that its predecessor excelled at. I don't think that L4D2 is a bad game, but I liked L4D because of the feelings it gave me. I just don't have any of those from L4D2. It's like a zombie version of TF2: cheap, fun, and quick to dive into gameplay.

Hey! There's another game to add to the list: Oblivion. While saying it "died" with that game is quite a stretch, I think it did mark the moment that Bethesda went in a direction I wasn't really happy to follow. I never played Fallout 3 because of Oblivion, and the speculation that TES V is going to still be in Cyrodiil makes me feel really bad. There is so much awesome lore and settings in the Elderscrolls universe, but Cyrodiil is probably the "safest" for mass consumption, so that's probably all we will ever see now.

 

[Signa]

People will LOL at this but World of warcraft as this makes warcraft 4 a lot less likly.

Actually, that is a great one to point out. It didn't kill itself like many of these games for being bad, but for being too popular. I really enjoyed the story in Warcraft 1-3, but WoW has taken over to the point where I don't think I'll be able to keep up with or care about much of the lore. Also, it seems like some things are being done to the universe for the sake of making a MMO interesting and not having a well developed game universe. What bits I've heard, it's turning into a lame soap opera, just to keep people interested with petty details.

 

[Thaliur]

Anything by Peter Molyneux (sp?). Oh no wait, that's just a dream of mine. Personally, any credit he had about the quality of the games he "creates" died long ago...

Aww, this made me sad. I like Peter and the games he has made. I'm only upset that he hasn't made a new Black & White since the second was a bit of a let down.

And the Fable games, in my opinion, have gotten better with each new iteration.

True, his games aren't bad as such, they're just not quite as awesome as people expected from the marketing. He's like the opposite of Montgomery Scott, who promises far lower performance than he knows he can deliver, and is considered a genius when he does better. Maybe PM will get the hang of that too some time.

For a long time, I thought Monkey Island 4 pretty much killed the series. The transition to 3D was far too early, especially considering the new control scheme which was horribly uncomfortable at best. But then Tales Of Monkey Island was published, also 3D, and while it still has a slightly awkward way of walking somewhere, the graphics engine finally managed to deliver the expected Monkey Island look. And Point&Click came back!

Also Super Mario 64 with its fiddly controls and bad viewport. This, too, wasn't true, though (luckily, New Super Mario Bros is great )

Actual series killers are the new Mega Man games in my opinion. Apparently, the character and story design was handed over to the Final Fantasy people at some point in development, and the difficulty level was lowered significantly. The bosses are still pretty tough (although easily killed with that new sword thing), but in the earlier Mega Man games, it was already an accomplishment to actually get to the boss while the only times when the actual levels get difficult in Megaman ZX are those when some arbitrary event kills you unless you know it's happening (thus continuing the Japanese gaming trend of having to study for games until you know all levels almost pixel by pixel. Also happens in Yoshi's Island DS, although not quite as obvious)

Mechwarrior 4 was a kind of series killer for me, too, mostly because of the vastly lowered possibilities for mech customization when compared to MW3, and even more when compared to MW2. The bright colours and weird weapon behaviour did the rest. Gaussian cannons shot a big metal ball in MW2. In MW3 it got a green trail, which looked slightly weird, had no physical explanation, but at least made the ball a bit more visible. Then, in MW4, gauss shots were bright blue lasers which caused an enormous electrical-looking burst on impact, which absolutely doesn't fit the books. Also, the PPC suddenly changed from basically a plasma ray to something ballistic with a parabolic trajectory. It might not have been a bad game, but if they use the names of the weapons mentioned in the books, where you can also find pretty detailed explanations of everything, they should at least behave like they are said to behave.

 

[Tsaba]

Wow, not one mention of Halo 2 thus far! Amazing! And awesome!

Because, it doesn't need to be said.

I'm going to go with FEAR. FEAR itself was awesome, all the FEAR titles after the first.... not so much.

 

[FinalHeart95]

I actually quite enjoyed Other M and FFXIII, which I know are two games that will take a lot of shit in this thread.
For me, it's either Spyro or Crash Bandicoot. Those games just started being utter garbage at a certain point (for Spyro it was after the 3rd one I think, and Crash it was after Wrath of Cortex). Shame too, Crash 3 is one of the best games ever.

 

[Twad]

Anything by Peter Molyneux (sp?). Oh no wait, that's just a dream of mine. Personally, any credit he had about the quality of the games he "creates" died long ago...

He did one good game that i know so far; Magic carpet. (maybe the sequel too, im not sure)
THey are a lot of fun, and i still play the sequel.

 

[Icon57]

Medal of Honor. What a leatdown.

I dont get the Medal Of Honor is a letdown train people have jumped on.

I think that the latest MOH may have been a fairly acceptable entry into the series, but ignoring that, realistically there hasn't really been a good MOH since Allied Assault.

My suggestion for game killed by its successor? Max Payne. MP2 was an unfortunate retread of the majority of the first game. While the engine update and the gameplay were both upgraded and meant more fun, at least initially, the story wasn't nearly as compelling and ultimately was far more forgettable than the first. And now MP3 will pretty much forget everything that made Max appealing -- the gritty noir drama, urban locations, and a tight crime story.

 

[Irridium]

Mass Effect. #2 is just such a fucking disappointment that I am considering not even bothering with #3. I am just praying that #2 does turn out to be the mediocre middle child but its disgrace is lessened by having awesome brothers.

Oh yeah, totally this. They fumbled so badly with Mass Effect 2. Before it, all Bioware games were immediate pre-order but now, especially after seeing all the horribly disappointing changes they're making to Dragon Age, I'm going to take their products with a serious grain of salt.

I'm gonna have to agree as well.

Mass Effect 2 just dropped the ball story-wise. I didn't mind the changes to the RPG systems or inventory as much, its just the story was just so much worse then the firsts its sad.

The Council is dumber then before, your forced to work for Cerberus for stupid reasons. The Council won't help you because your working for Cerberus. Your forced to work with Cerberus because the Council won't help you. See the circle?

Cerberus itself is full of idiots who seem to be more adept at killing humans then enslaving them. The Illusive Man is an idiot who can't seem to keep everyone else in line. EDI says he keeps a personal stake in each and every cell, yet considering how many manage to go rouge and do things he's not aware of, its just ridiculous.

The Collectors are a poor substitute for an actual antagonist.

At the end Shepard just says something so monumentally stupid when you decide to go against Cerberus its insane. "I won't let fear compromise who I am." Then why the hell are you even working for Cerberus, a terrorist organization known for doing awful things? Why didn't you just say that at the beginning?

Its like ME2 just invoked the Rule of Cool and rode it out throughout the entire game.

But despite all those issues, I found it to be pretty fun. I just hate how much worse the story is. Probably a result of moving more writers to The Old Republic.

Now they seem to be going the same route with Dragon Age. They release a new game thats billed as an RPG. Then the sequel scraps the RPG stuff for more action stuff. I think I see a pattern forming...

 

[repeating integers]

Wow, not one mention of Halo 2 thus far! Amazing! And awesome!

Because, it doesn't need to be said.

I'm going to go with FEAR. FEAR itself was awesome, all the FEAR titles after the first.... not so much.

Doesn't need to be said because... what? Because Halo 2 and the games that come after were damn good games (which they were IMO)? Or because something's obvious?

 

[Tsaba]

Wow, not one mention of Halo 2 thus far! Amazing! And awesome!

Because, it doesn't need to be said.

I'm going to go with FEAR. FEAR itself was awesome, all the FEAR titles after the first.... not so much.

Doesn't need to be said because... what? Because Halo 2 and the games that come after were damn good games (which they were IMO)? Or because something's obvious?

In case you missed it Halo 2 & 3 sucked, they've only recently redeemed themselves with Reach and ODST.

There I said it, I only got re-interested when they got rid of master chief.

EDIT. Now that "opinions" are out the way, we don't need to make this a halo/cod flame thread.

 

[repeating integers]

Wow, not one mention of Halo 2 thus far! Amazing! And awesome!

Because, it doesn't need to be said.

I'm going to go with FEAR. FEAR itself was awesome, all the FEAR titles after the first.... not so much.

Doesn't need to be said because... what? Because Halo 2 and the games that come after were damn good games (which they were IMO)? Or because something's obvious?

In case you missed it Halo 2 & 3 sucked, they've only recently redeemed themselves with Reach and ODST.

Looks like I did "miss it", I thought 2 and 3 were awesome. I just recently finished my 6th playthrough of 3, in fact.

Mind you, I haven't played CE. I want to (SO MUCH) and will when I get the chance, which will hopefully be sometime soon (Hint: It's not that I haven't got the game). But I doubt it'll change my opinion of t hose two games.

ODST and Reach were damn good as well, though.

EDIT: Edit fasta! I agree. Let's continue this over PM, if at all.

 

[Pyroguekenesis]

Medal of Honor. What a leatdown.

I dont get the Medal Of Honor is a letdown train people have jumped on.

I think that the latest MOH may have been a fairly acceptable entry into the series, but ignoring that, realistically there hasn't really been a good MOH since Allied Assault.

What exactly do you mean by realistically?
In comparison (Although i haven't got it, I'm judging from everything I see and read) to Call of Duty series, the new MOH is actually far more realistic than the latter. The CoD franchise only have military consultants for guns, operations and terminology. While MOH is actually based on real-war Afghanistan at the moment...they consulted with real Tier 1 operators and the guy Deuce or was it Rabbit? (Maybe just his codename) was actually a real person and some of the events did happen and how the ending is actually real. He did die.

Or do you mean by sales comparison? If that, its hard to release a game that would try and knock off the CoD games off the shelves -that is being realistic. Both are entirely different in gameplay and storyline,MOH being slightly more realistic while CoD tends to dramatise the series. And the market trend for games nowadays is more about graphics/gameplay or multipplayer, sadly, not storyline as much....