Sequels That Didn't Live Up To Their Predecessors

[MercurySteam]

There's no doubt that we've all played one or two of them before; the games that didn't quite live up to their predecessors. I've been thinking about this for a few days and two games really suck out in my mind:

Bioshock 2
While still an excellent shooter on its own merits though it wasn't able to employ the same creepy underwater atmosphere that the first game did, plus making the main character an unstoppable killing machine as opposed to just another man did take some spark out of the game which was coupled with a lacklustre story. Regardless, all can be forgiven if you remember that Bioshock 2 wasn't even developed by Irrational and that they're releasing a new game that puts you in the thrilling city of Columbia - Bioshock: Infinite.

Red Faction: Armageddon
Volition has proved time and again that they know how to make a great sandbox (Saints Row 1+2, Red Faction: Guerrilla) so when they decide to take a suburb sandbox game with endless fun supplied by demolishing buildings out in the open world and stick the it underground and make it a linear shooter, well they're essentially taking one step forward and two steps back. It's almost heartbreaking to see that everything that made the last game a suburb box of fun has been stripped away and replaced with a dark, linear alienfest. Yes, the Magnet Gun and destruction are great fun but it doesn't nearly make up for the sad excuse for a game that Armageddon is. At least, not compared to Guerrilla anyway.

So back to my original point: Which games just didn't surpass their predecessors?

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Duke Nukem Forever
*Looks around the site*
Do I really have to repeat why?

 

[LookingGlass]

Well there are tons of them, but the most recent one I played was Crysis 2.

Where's my sandbox?

 

[LostCrusader]

force unleashed 2..... no other game has ever reached that level of disappointment for me.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Crackdown 2.
Inferior in every way to the original, which was and still is an awesome game.
The worst thing about it though was the fact that it was set in the same damn city, with hardly any new areas to explore.

 

[DJDarque]

Bioshock 2
While still an excellent shooter on its own merits though it wasn't able to employ the same creepy underwater atmosphere that the first game did, plus making the main character an unstoppable killing machine as opposed to just another man did take some spark out of the game which was coupled with a lacklustre story. Regardless, all can be forgiven if you remember that Bioshock 2 wasn't even developed by Irrational and that they're releasing a new game that puts you in the thrilling city of Columbia - Bioshock: Infinite.

I completely agree with you about Bioshock 2 except for those two points. I died way more times as a Big Daddy than I ever did s the guy in the first game. It was overall a lot harder than the first, in my opinion, at least.

I also really liked the story. In my opinion, it's what saved the game from just being a generic sequel to a somewhat decent game.

 

[StapleNinja]

Dragon Age II.

...and for that matter ME2, for the same reasons, just a consolified game, less depth, more action. Thanks EA.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Duke Nukem Forever

...aaaaaaand /thread.

My avatar compels me to bring up Star Control 3, as this is one of the rare occasions where I'm even allowed to acknowledge that it exists, instead of the usual pretending that there is no such thing. StarCon2 was (and still is) a great game (although some parts of it have aged better than others), but that...thing just sucked all the life out of it. Every few years the original developers pop up again and talk about it a bit, and rumors surface about a true sequel, but I think I'll just be thankful for what I already have and leave it at that.

 

[MercurySteam]

I also really liked the story. In my opinion, it's what saved the game from just being a generic sequel to a somewhat decent game.

The DLC Minerva's Den was great though and had an intriguing story with a twist that the main story was missing.

 

[MercurySteam]

Assassins Creed 2.

Sure, it was amazing the first time, but so hard to reply. I've gone through AC1 about 4 times, AC2 twice.

I knew I wasn't the only one. Ass Creed 2 just didn't feel as exciting the second time round and the two DLCs were a huge waste of money. That said I didn't even finish AC1 even once.

 

[Canadish]

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon - post PS1
The original developers left and so did all the charm. I can't remember why now, but I just remember the gut feeling of not having fun.

Dragon Age 2
How do you follow up a game that was one of the most in depth RPG experience in years, PC focused, with a great cast of characters in a low fantasy setting, that got rave reviews all around and was so good that despite being a "niche" market it went on to be your number 1 selling product of all time?
Well, apparently you give your team just over a year and a half, scrap the depth and RPG side of things, focus on consoles and gimp the PC version to save you time, make half the cast insufferable Final Fantasy rejects, make 6 areas and copy-paste to save more time, make your Lead Designer rage quit and put the guy who made your shakiest title thus far in charge, insult your fans directly, make a connection between the button and "awesome", include a awful sequel bait ending, have the battle that took place go right into anime territory silliness and then finally, proceed to have it sell under half what your original title did.
At least according to Bioware...

I expected this game to annoy me due to it cutting the depth out, but I was pleased that it was gonna be better on my console and hell...it was BIOWARE. Mass Effect 2 was still great after all.
But no, turns out this game annoyed me just for being awful on it's own merits, on top of it being an insult to the first game.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Not all that bad, but it lost the freshness the first game had, the story was trying to hard to be awesome and lacked the soul of the first, the kill streaks got way to over the top and the twelve year old's decided COD was cooler then Halo and jumped ship (online community killed off).

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
Again, a bit of stretch because this was still a fantastic game.
But why. WHY. Why did they remove the music that played to your actions in combat!?
That was the most awesome idea a Zelda game added since it went 3D with Ocarina and made Wind Wakers' sword fights way more awesome then they should have been, being all cute lookin...
It really felt noticeably stiffer once it was gone.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

Fallout 3 (/ducks)

No seriously - I can see why folks like the game, but it was a little cruel twisting the knife that has already been stuck into the hardcore crpg players by taking their most beloved franchise and turning into a more casual FPS-rpg. I'm NOT trying to insult fans of the more casual Bioware/Bethesda crpgs, and I completely accept that they make up the majority of the gaming market at present. But it was still a little cruel to take a franchise beloved by one community and make it into 'yet another Bethesda game', especially when there's almost nothing out there in the isometric/tactical crpg style these days (aside from the continuing indie scene, like the fabulous Geneforge series by Spiderweb Software, and hopefully the upcoming Age of Decadence by Iron Tower).

I can accept that FO3 was, for many people, a good game, but its strengths were completely different to those of FO1-2 and it wasn't even a 'spiritual sequel' when it comes to the tactical gameplay and mature writing of the original game (though admittedly the 'theme-park design' of FO3 was already present in FO2, which was criticised at the time for having too many pop culture references at the expense of the first game's dark mood).

FO:NV recaptured the same dark mood and writing of the original games, but still had nothing in the way of tactical combat.

 

[Bobbity]

Dragon Age 2
How do you follow up a game that was one of the most in depth RPG experience in years, PC focused, with a great cast of characters in a low fantasy setting, that got rave reviews all around and was so good that despite being a "niche" market it went on to be your number 1 selling product of all time?
Well, apparently you give your team just over a year and a half, scrap the depth and RPG side of things, focus on consoles and gimp the PC version to save you time, make half the cast insufferable Final Fantasy rejects, make 6 areas and copy-paste to save more time, make your Lead Designer rage quit and put the guy who made your shakiest title thus far in charge, insult your fans directly, make a connection between the button and "awesome", include a awful sequel bait ending, have the battle that took place go right into anime territory silliness and then finally, proceed to have it sell under half what your original title did.

Pretty much agree. I wanted so much to like that game, and I'm a die-hard Bioware fan, but I just couldn't get over the complete lack of effort...

By the way, who was this crappy new Lead Designer, and which game did he work on?

/edit
Oh, forgot to add my own.

Halo 2
Yes, it was a reasonably good game, and it was bloody fun to play, but I utterly adored the first game, and in my mind, nothing else in that series has come close.

 

[OniYouji]

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. Obnoxious and intrusive shaky cam (making clear headshots is a nightmare), random sound glitches, SHARING AMMO WITH YOUR PARTNER (seriously, why?), a poor story that weakly tried to tie in a Chekov's Gun from a previous game and felt rushed and desperate, and a soundtrack that is not as memorable. The graphics were certainly better and there was more detail to the retellings of RE2 and REC: V than UC's revisit scenarios, although some of the changes bugged me. Oh, did I already mentioned the shaky cam and the sharing ammo? Honestly, those two things killed that game for me. Umbrella Chronicles was so much simpler and so much better.

Resident Evil 5: Not quite as much hostility, and it is rather fun, but the absence of any kind of horror, the "co-op" feel to it and typical blockbuster story really didn't mesh with 4's action-horror blend that worked surprisingly well.

That's all I got for right now. Maybe I'll find something else I disliked a bit more later.

 

[OniYouji]

Woops, sorry for double-posting.

 

[Booze Zombie]

In bef-

Dragon Age II.

Dragon Age 2

God damn it!

I found Mass Effect 2 a lot less engaging that Mass Effect 1, the gunplay has improved but the RPG aspects and the overall feel of combat (shooting gallery) underwhelmed me.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon - post PS1
The original developers left and so did all the charm. I can't remember why now, but I just remember the gut feeling of not having fun.

^ This.

Fallout 3

^That

Also I would like to add Mercenaries 2.

Mercenaries 2 just felt worse than Playground of Destruction in every way, don't get me wrong there were some improvements such as vehicle variety and co-op. However the factions were less interesting, the actual characters were much more boring and were not memorable at all compared to the faction leaders from PoD.

The story in the first game was also better and much more believable, especially considering it almost happened in real and quite possibly could happen in the future. North Korea acquires many nuclear warheads, attempts to invade South Korea but is stopped by a coalition of nations. The coalition attempts to find Song and the warheads but to no avail so they put a bounty on his head which attracts the attention of various PMCs. Mercenaries 2's story was a lot more bland and was just an excuse to destroy stuff.

The world in PoD also felt more alive and seemed more like a warzone with soldiers raiding bunkers and actual firefights breaking out across streets, in WiF the only battles you see are just vehicles shooting at blockades which are quickly destroyed by a recoiless rifle, that's it.

Oh and why did they change Peng's voice actor? James Hong was so good, why replace him (don't get me wrong Jim Ward is a great voice actor he just wasn't right for Peng).

I still enjoyed it, but it just wasn't as good as Playground of Destruction.

 

[Canadish]

Dragon Age 2
How do you follow up a game that was one of the most in depth RPG experience in years, PC focused, with a great cast of characters in a low fantasy setting, that got rave reviews all around and was so good that despite being a "niche" market it went on to be your number 1 selling product of all time?
Well, apparently you give your team just over a year and a half, scrap the depth and RPG side of things, focus on consoles and gimp the PC version to save you time, make half the cast insufferable Final Fantasy rejects, make 6 areas and copy-paste to save more time, make your Lead Designer rage quit and put the guy who made your shakiest title thus far in charge, insult your fans directly, make a connection between the button and "awesome", include a awful sequel bait ending, have the battle that took place go right into anime territory silliness and then finally, proceed to have it sell under half what your original title did.

Pretty much agree. I wanted so much to like that game, and I'm a die-hard Bioware fan, but I just couldn't get over the complete lack of effort...

By the way, who was this crappy new Lead Designer, and which game did he work on?

It was Mike Laidlaw, the man behind Jade Empire.
While I never played this one myself, it was also a console and action focused RPG. While certainly not hated, it's generally agreed it was Bioware's lowest point before Dragon Age 2 rolled out.

Spoiler