Worst installment of your favorite series?

[Carrotslayer]

Warhammer 40000: Soulstorm. It basicly trashed the series previous accomplishments.

I rarely play Dawn of war, but the campaign was entertaining and the pop.cap system provided with some room to experiment against the AI in skirmishes.

Winter Assault introduced a new race and at least gave the Eldar an anti-vehicle infantry. Plus, the pop.cap was still intact, so the experiment part was still there.

Dark Crusade gave us two new races and a new version of the campaign (it was more like a conquest-campaign). All races received a new unit each (like Winter Assault). However, the pop.cap system was changed into a more strict version, which pretty much killed the fun experimenting. But this game is still pretty much the best one. It offers a wide selection of races and gamestyles, AND you don't need a cd to play it after you've installed it, making it perfect for a LAN-party.

Soulstorm added two new races (as usual), BUT it added such an insulting degree of restriction to all races, effectivily killing their respective play styles. AND it added flying units to all races, which removed the purpose of all maps different layouts (mountains, trees and paths) and, by my opinion, killed the gameplay.

I haven't played Dawn of War 2 though, but it looks freakin' awesome!

 

[rythter]

Farcry 2

Was not in any way like the first. I really have no idea how it got the reviews it did and even placed high in PC Gamer's top 100 list. I will be baffled about this for a long long time.

i liked it up until i ran out of pain pills, and couldn't reach new ones without dying, and had to restart, also a glitch stuck me in a door forcing another restart
after that i was so pissed i uninstalled it

 

[JoshGod]

God of war 3.the story had plot holes. also they changed kartos's character. it didn't work for me.

ratchet and clank tools of destruction. the weapons were not that fun/good/crazy.

 

[equalplatinum]

Farcry 2

Was not in any way like the first. I really have no idea how it got the reviews it did and even placed high in PC Gamer's top 100 list. I will be baffled about this for a long long time.

THANK you. Ugh, that game annoying and tedious.

 

[SimuLord]

My favorite SERIES is Total War, and I can honestly say they've never made a bad game. Some folks slagged on Empire and Napoleon, but I've put a combined 200+ hours into those games (156 on Empire, 47 on Napoleon according to Steam) so I'm not going to be one of those folks. Medieval 2 was for my money the weakest effort, but that's because the game was merely very good and not great.

But as for a series that has a very obvious "weak sister": Civilization 3. It was a massive backslide after Alpha Centauri (aka "Civ 2 1/2"). Mind you, that's probably suffering the weight of expectations after what was at the time the greatest game ever made (now second to Rome: Total War, see complaint about Medieval 2 above), but I really thought Civ3 was very poor by the series' standard.

 

[Xerosch]

Silent Hill: Homecoming.
The only reason I've played it a lot is because it's the only Silent Hill on the 360, and that's the only thing I like about it. The characters are cliche'd, Pyramid Head shouldn't be there, the twist was comically predictable, and the gameplay was too easy. It's Silent Hill, you're supposed to feel overpowered and helpless. In SH:H you can kill most enemies easily. In all the GOOD Silent Hill games, combat is difficult and not worth it. You aren't a supersoldier or a soldier who can kill people like a supersoldier (Alex). You're a writer, a depressed widowed man, a teenage girl, or a photographer who can only say "What the hell?". You are desprately ticking away at the lives of your enemies with a wooden plank while they try to slaughter you and hang you from the wall.
Although, Origins sucked just as much, so I guess both of those.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I've been feeling in the last installments. I even like 'The Room' but Origins and Homecoming are just such aweful, aweful games I couldn't even finish Homecoming. Shattered Memories' gameplay found its way back to feeling helpless though the game itself was very boring.

And the trailer for the new one? Just terrible. Guys, get rid of soldiers and prisoners with a great combo system, throw out the fucking jump scares and get some books about how psychological horror works!

 

[Hazy]

Sons of Liberty was really, really bad compared to the rest of the Metal Gear Solid games.

This. I still didn't mind it too much, especially when compared to some games of other series (Lookin' at you, Mega Man 7) but the sudden shift (and decline) in protagonist was pretty jarring.

This clip should speak for itself:

I haven't played the other games, but if this is the worst game, then the whole MGS series must be utterly divine. Sons of Liberty is the best story ever to be written out of any piece of literature, film or game. Everything comes together so perfectly. I can't imagine why anyone would hate it.

Read my post again, mate. I think you missed the bold text. I certainly do not hate this game.

By and large, it is the weakest MGS game I've ever played - the setting is duller, the bosses aren't nearly as cool (in my opinion,) and the story is, at times, far too convoluted.. even for a Metal Gear Solid game, but I don't hate it.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Silent Hill: Origins
Haven't played Homecoming, Shattered Memories is alright, but I just didn't like this one. I still haven't finished it, but I know my inventory must have at least 20 televisions.

Fatal Frame 4
Because Nintendo of America is a greedy bastard that won't release it Stateside. Should have stuck with Sony, Tecmo. Fucking Wii exclusives. From what I've read, I might actually enjoy it once Nintendo breaks down to the idea they might make more money and pull another RE4.

Resident Evil 5
I hated the plot. I hated Whesker. I hated what's her face the ambiguously brown Brit, and the inventory sucked. The tribal portions were ludicrous. Jill was pretty cool though.

Perfect Dark Zero

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Doublepost, sorry

 

[crobulator]

Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Horribly dumbed down and clunky as hell. Nowhere near the quality of the first game. Hopefully Human Revolution will correct things and be more like the first.

exactly this .....whoa that is weird

 

[Jupsto]

mw2

gta4

 

[SalamanderJoe]

Final Fantasy XIII. It was if the devs were doomed in terms of numbers....

 

[tharglet]

Doom 3, FEAR 2 and Deus Ex 2 are the ones that spring to mind, and I'm not the only one to be disappointed by them, judging by this thread. Another is the recent AvP game.
Doom 3 ended up being very samey for me, and far too many sections with little to no lighting. Yeah, it can add tension if there's darkness, but too much stumbling in the dark gets annoying. Shame, as I've recently been playing through the older Doom games, and I'm having more fun
Deus Ex 2 - for pretty much the same reasons everyone else is saying. The game was OK on its own, but not as good as the original.
FEAR2 ended up feeling dull for the most part, especially compared to the original for me. The end I had fun in, rest of it was fairly meh. Also when I tried to play it on my old machine (before I killed it) it wouldn't run at all, and I couldn't fix the sound-crash-bug despite trying hard to do so (wasn't even an uncommon sound chipset -.-).
The recent AvP game wasn't as fun as the older one. Also there were graphics rendering issues - the game appearance-wise wasn't anything special in the graphics department, but lagged some on my machine, whereas other games don't. That also added to make it a less exciting experience than it should have been.

 

[PauL o_O]

Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire.

I think generation 3 was the weakest of the Pokemon series.

Yea that was definitely a major weak point in the pokemon history.

 

[zhemis]

Wizardry 8 (sirtech deserved to die)

Return to Zork (I even followed walkthru after walkthru and could never fill up the trash/inventory bridge - that's dumb as shit anyway).

Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight Crap.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Star Fox. Anything since Lylat Wars.

 

[WilliamRLBaker]

God of war 3, Resident evil 4 and 5.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Lets get the obvious out of the way. Super Smash Brothers was a really fun game and SSB Melee was an amazing sequel, but Brawl was big peice of shit! I don't even know how anyone can like it with flaws like random tripping and almost turned based combat.

Completely agree there. Brawl really slowed down the pace of the game, which made it not nearly as fun.

 

[FURY_007]

Metal Slug 4. All the metal slug games are nearly impossible, but I'm pretty sure this one walks the line, plus too many boss battles. That being said, still a gorgeous, great shoot-em-up, and still play it whenever I go through withdrawals and have to binge-play all of them in a row