Game sequels that didn't improve...

What games do you feel didn't improve??

For me, Round 3 is the best Fight Night to date... graphics improved on Fight Night Round 4 but the game didn't excite me as much. The training and general gameplay on FN3 was much better in my opinion.

Another is Pro Evolution Soccer 7... up until Pro 6 I was an avid fan of the game and on the other side of the classic argument between Fifa-Pro - until I played Fifa 08 (which amazes me that people still argue about it today, Fifa have gone clear) it completely blew away Pro.

Pro 7 wasn't much of an improvement and only just improved the graphics (a recurring theme and only good thing about games that backslide) but Fifa really upped their gameplay.

These are the only games I can think of for now, over to you....

Chucky Egg 2 was not as good as its predecessor - same with Jet Set Willy.

I havent played it yet but I dont believe that REsident Evil 5 was seen as a forward step in the franchise either.

I wont comment on EA's ever increasing catalog of sports games they churn out en mass each year as the improvements are minimal if any other than superficial ones.

Tomb Raider - Anything since the reboot in 2006 has been terrible in comparison to whats came before.

Bioshock - If you consider it to be the spiritual successor to System Shock II (EA got to keep the System Shock name) then while a good game is nowhere as good as System shock II.

Deus Ex (either sequel) - Nothing has yet to compare to the original including the much vaunted Human Revolution.

Super Mario 2 - A re-skinned different game given the Mario name due to the original Japanese game being deemed to hard for Euro and US audiences.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - Could have been a better game than the original if only Lucasarts (publisher) had allowed Obsidian (developer) to finish the game, it didn't happen and we got a good game with a disjointed story.

Metal Gear Solid II - A game that while it played as well as the original in nearly ever aspect they forgot to add the story in before suddenly remembering near the end and reintroducing it out of nowhere.

Double Dragon 1 was amazing, Double Dragon 2 was dodgy because they messed the controls up, Double Dragon 3 was terrible.

Super Mario world 1 was classic, but 2 was a bit odd, though 3 was brilliant!

If were going the other way, then Street Fighter was rubbish, but Street fighter 2 was legend.

I loved Metal Gear Solid 2!

Pr4wn wrote:I loved Metal Gear Solid 2!

It was a great game in terms of the actual game play mechanics where it feel short for me was a poor story that often got to bogged down in lengthy philosophical issues, I like a bit of philosophy but much like a Terry Goodkind novel this wasn't the good kind ( pun intended) that fits the material at hand.

Plus you had Raiden who replaced Solid Snake for much of the story, it would be like the upcoming "Batman: Arkham City" game making that camp 60's version of Robin their new lead character and ousting Batman to the sidelines for spectator duty.

I enjoyed the philosophy and the cut scenes. The graphics were also superb.

Pr4wn wrote:I enjoyed the philosophy and the cut scenes. The graphics were also superb.

Its a personal thing I suppose and while I still think the sequel was a very good game in its own right it falls short in comparison to the original which in itself is nothing to be ashamed about. Your always going to find contradicting opinions on games, I'm sure many will disagree with my stance on Bioshock (another great game) being inferior to its spiritual predecessor but I'd be surprised if many though Metal Gear II was superior to its first incarnation.

I'll also state I don't take graphics into account much when looking at games unless they are ridiculous or stupendously bad that I have no other choice, I feel its unfair to earlier games to have reviews or scores heavily skewed by graphical differences that make no difference to the quality of the gaming experience for the most part. There are so many other more important factors in a games creation that far out weigh the importance that graphics tend to play in modern reviewing.

Agree with any Tomb Raider after number 3. When they inexplicably started messing with the game mechanic, and giving you on-screen hints - which I hate in any game.

Final Fantasy X-2 was an abomination and easily the worst sequel I've ever played.

Maybe slightly controversial but I would say any Sonic game after Sonic 2

Dass wrote:I wont comment on EA's ever increasing catalog of sports games they churn out en mass each year as the improvements are minimal if any other than superficial ones.

Tomb Raider - Anything since the reboot in 2006 has been terrible in comparison to whats came before.

Bioshock - If you consider it to be the spiritual successor to System Shock II (EA got to keep the System Shock name) then while a good game is nowhere as good as System shock II.

Deus Ex (either sequel) - Nothing has yet to compare to the original including the much vaunted Human Revolution.

Super Mario 2 - A re-skinned different game given the Mario name due to the original Japanese game being deemed to hard for Euro and US audiences.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - Could have been a better game than the original if only Lucasarts (publisher) had allowed Obsidian (developer) to finish the game, it didn't happen and we got a good game with a disjointed story.

Metal Gear Solid II - A game that while it played as well as the original in nearly ever aspect they forgot to add the story in before suddenly remembering near the end and reintroducing it out of nowhere.

You won't like the main character in MGS Rising next year then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtM3PGyiQUc

Can't stand Raiden.

Also agree with you about Dues Ex. The mrs bought me it and after my initial excitedness after bout 3 hours I was bored. Actually bored

[quote="TipToes88You won't like the main character in MGS Rising next year then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtM3PGyiQUc

Can't stand Raiden.

[/quote]

Raiden was bad ass in MGS4 though. The first MGS I played was 2 so I never really understood the hate for him as I never realised it was a twist that you didn't play as snake.

With regards to the OP and FN3. It was probably the most fun out of all the fight nights but the games have advanced to make it more of a sim and less of an arcade experience. 3 was my favorate game for a long time and I spent many a hungover Saturday afternoon slugging it out with my flatmates but it's not anywhere near fightnight champions or 4 with regards to realistic gameplay and thats what EA sports strive for nowadays.

I'm suprised no ones mentioned Cod MW. Every one since hasn't been anywhere near as good IMO.

I just could'nt warm to him. And actually liked him less in mgs4 he was even more annoying than vamp. Then again I'm a Snake man all the way

And your on the mark with CoD, I've pretty much given up on it these days. Still getting the new one but got battlefield on order, CoD can wait

Electric Demon wrote:Agree with any Tomb Raider after number 3. When they inexplicably started messing with the game mechanic, and giving you on-screen hints - which I hate in any game.

Final Fantasy X-2 was an abomination and easily the worst sequel I've ever played.

I'd agree its been a decline since number Tomb Raider 3 for the reasons you mentioned, though even after that we had 3 more games in the series (Last Revalation, Chronicles & Angel of Darkness) which at the time we seemed to be seeing a decline in the quality of the stories and some of the adventure aspects. Little did we know that the next 3 games starting in 2006 would be even worse in terms of gameplay and the crappy hint mechanics that were introduced, it become less an adventure than a linear path pressing buttons when prompted and shooting things.

I personally think the utter decline of the series has been due to Eidos switching the series development from Core Design (First 6 games) to Crystal Dynamics (Last 3 games), funny thing is the last 3 games have been about as popular sales wise as the later 3 by Core Design which was the reason Core Design were replaced due to poor sales. Which is even more strange since the market is far bigger now than it ever was during Core Designs first 6 games.

BuffDaddy wrote:[quote="TipToes88You won't like the main character in MGS Rising next year then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtM3PGyiQUc

Can't stand Raiden.

Raiden was bad ass in MGS4 though. The first MGS I played was 2 so I never really understood the hate for him as I never realised it was a twist that you didn't play as snake.

With regards to the OP and FN3. It was probably the most fun out of all the fight nights but the games have advanced to make it more of a sim and less of an arcade experience. 3 was my favorate game for a long time and I spent many a hungover Saturday afternoon slugging it out with my flatmates but it's not anywhere near fightnight champions or 4 with regards to realistic gameplay and thats what EA sports strive for nowadays.

I'm suprised no ones mentioned Cod MW. Every one since hasn't been anywhere near as good IMO.[/quote]

I suppose if you didn't play the original then it doesn't effect you so much but once you go Solid Snake you don't go anything else, aside from my Batman example it would be like making the Vampire guy from Twilight the new star of "Escape from New York" its just a no no.

I'm a defender of EA in the last 4 years since the Riccitello era has come into force trying to repair the damage of the past 15yrs but there sports games while good have always been about making easy money over pushing the boundaries of the games themselves. For all the supposed improvements in terms of technical play in these game and there's always one of these for each game (great marketing tool) they still have some glaring balancing issues and their solution to increasing difficulty is reminiscent of something that SWOS used back in the mid 90's.

agree with knights of the old republic 2

hodge wrote:agree with knights of the old republic 2

Its such a shame to as I fully believe if Obsidian and Chris Avellone (big fan) as the lead designer had been given the extra year they wanted to complete the game then it would have surpassed the original game by Bioware.

There has only been 1 sequel to Modern Warfare - Modern Warfare 2 funnily enough. And I think the people that play it are as much to blame as the developers for ruining the gameplay experience.

There have been 3 more CoD's since MW. They all have used the same game engine. MW2 is the story sequel to MW but who buys CoD for the single player campaign?

Every COD game since MW1

Mario Galaxy 2

BuffDaddy wrote:There have been 3 more CoD's since MW. They all have used the same game engine. MW2 is the story sequel to MW but who buys CoD for the single player campaign?

It doesn't matter. MW2 is the only sequel. There are plenty of games out there that use similar or identical engines. It just so happens that Black Ops, World at War and the 2 Modern Warfare games also come from the same game series.

Anyway, I'm beginning to feel like a bit of a pedant debating this point, but World at War was never billed as a sequel to MW and has never been treated as such - different developers.

Furthermore, the 3rd installment of MW will be a test of what IW (or whoever they're billing themselves as) are aiming for. MW2 online was imbalanced in terms of completing objectives and getting kills/killstreaks. They have promised to redress that balance, although some of the rumours don't seem to go along with this. Proof will be in the pudding I guess.

I was talking about Call of Duty the series in general. It's you that's talking specifically about Modern Warfare. I've not claimed that W@W was the sequel to MW. It was the next CoD in the sequence though.

My original statement was that I don't think that any CoD's released since MW have been as good.

You said "I'm surprised no one has mentioned COD MW".

Thread title "Game sequels that didn't imrpove..."

There has been 1 sequel to COD MW, soon to be 2.

I'm leaving it at that.

Edit: I do agree with you though, there hasn't been a better COD since MW.

If were being pedantic then the game isn't called 'Modern Warfare'. It's called Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. The 'Modern Warfare' is only a tagline. The 4 makes it the sequel to 3 which had nothing to do with the Modern Warfare story. That means the next CoD was Call of Duty 5 (W@W) the CoD after that 6 (MW2) and finally blops was 7. MW3 will be 8.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Call-Duty-Modern-Warfare-Game/dp/B000RE3I9Y/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1315481393&sr=8-5

The Medal of honors went pretty much downhill since Rising sun, while the COD's improved after each game imo.

any fifa sice 09. they haven't got worse but have been exactly the same

Tiger Woods sequels.

Always the same chuffing courses.

Agree about TW. I liked the 04 and 05 ones that had the legends on there

Call of Juarez: The second improved upon the first, but then went drastically down hill with the third one. Seem to put everything back in from the first one that didn't work but they had removed from the second one.

Championship Manager: Loved the 01/02 version but seem to become over complicated for me following this. Sure others preferred the newer versions but for me 01/02 was awesome and so many hours went by in the blink of an eye when playing it.

Fable: The first fable was brillaint, the second was really good, and the third one was awful compared to the previous ones.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas were amazing games. GTA4 was too large a game and got sick of the whole "getting a mission, going to the other side of the map to complete the mission, going back to get a new mission only to return to the same area I completed the last mission!!!". Would of been better if the mobile phone was implemented better. Also got sick of doing the friend events like shooting pool, and going for drinks.

Fifa's: Same game every year for me. Loved the Fifa 97 version which had the 5 a side mode (don't think they implemented it since). The same could be same for every sports game NHL, Madden, Tiger Woods where the biggest change seems to be the updated rosters. But again am sure there is a large portion of the market that love each sequel every year.