"Failed" sequels.

[Noone From Nowhere]

Duke Nukem Forever. How do you beat a sequel that managed to bankrupt the developer and never got released?
Semi-seriously though, I have to say that it's a toss-up between God of War 2 and ManHunt 2.
GoW2 not only didn't bring anything significant to the series, it trilogized a story that was already complete rather than just focus on a new God of War from another religion's pantheon (say, Ogun or Odin?).
Manhunt 2 took Rockstar's opportunity to either prove that the series wasn't just a snuff film simulator with shallow social commentary to make pretense at being more substantial than it was or to push the envelope in terms of what one can do in videogames but it failed on both counts, not even delivering the graphic violence that fans of the original wanted to see in addition to its story not really having a point.

 

[The Madman]

With all the hate for Dawn of War 2 in this topic, I feel the urge to stick up for it and say that I for one find it to be an incredible experience that was a huge improvement over the original games generic-rts style play. I love the frantic fast pace of the multiplayer, the incredibly destructive powers of the units, the tight focus on units and micromanagement over base-building and resources. The music is amazing, the visuals stunning, and it's just damn fun watch in action! I love it!

Mind you I was never particularly interested in the campaign to start with and so didn't particularly care when I found it somewhat boring, although it certainly had its moments. The Chaos expansion campaign is supposed to be extremely good though, although I've yet to have picked it up myself.

Anyway, as for sequel I thought 'failed'? Well.... I wouldn't say it was a 'failure', because it wasn't, not by any means. It was in fact a massive success that bolstered a once obscure developer into fame. And yet I just can't help but find is disappointing. I had such high hopes, and yet within a week I was bored of the game and have barely touched it since.

Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
*fixed*

I just didn't like it. The story was... blarg. The environments, although visually stunning at the time, were... blarg. The characters pure blarg! Everything about it was BLARG! And I'd been so damn excited for it too; Morrowind was at the time one of my favorite games. I played that game endlessly, explored every last cave and forest, read the books, gathered the loot! Countless hours invested into Morrowinds rich and exotic setting.

And yet I was bored of Oblivion within a week. *sigh*

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Elder Scrolls 3: Oblivion

You might want to fix that.
OT: Race Driver: GRID. No, don't get me wrong, it's a very good game, but it absolutely murdered the series I loved so much, throwing out real championships and the storyline in favour of more NFS-oriented racing. What a shame.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

All of them.

Even Half Life 2, Uncharted 2, and the possible Starcraft 2?

No sequel will be as good as the original game.

Let me see:
- Saints Row 2
- Toca Race Driver 2
- Army Of Two - the 40th Day
- Killzone 2
- Gears Of War 2
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
- Just Cause 2
All just by looking at my shelf of games, which makes me conclude that you're really misinformed.

 

[LastCelt1989]

I would say that a good ammount of the 4th sequels kinda sucked.

Die Hard 4
Indy4
MGS4
GTA4

Awww come on, MGS4?

I know its not a great game but if you look at it as just a treat for the fans its pretty awesome and is one hell of a nostalgia trip especially later on. I guess you could say that it set out as huge fan service to end the series and in that vein I suppose its a success.

What about silent hill 4 and homecoming? Not many people have a good thing to say about 4 and 5 was just a clone of a game that came out what 5 years ago? In 2009? Only gameplay mechanics that they changed diddnt really improve the game and I felt compelled to go and play 3 again after it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I would say that a good ammount of the 4th sequels kinda sucked.

Die Hard 4
Indy4
MGS4
GTA4

Awww come on, MGS4?

I know its not a great game but if you look at it as just a treat for the fans its pretty awesome and is one hell of a nostalgia trip especially later on. I guess you could say that it set out as huge fan service to end the series and in that vein I suppose its a success.

That was my problem with it; it choose fanservice over substance. I don't mind a little fanservice, but if that's all they're going to give me then I feel a cheated. But yes, the 4th chapter was nostalgic is hell and definately pulled a few heart strings.

But my biggest problem with the game was that it kept jumping around from place to place. What I loved about MGS1 and MGS3 was that it took place in a large overarcing environment that opend up the more you progressed. It created a sense of learing to get a feel for the lay of the land and using it to deal with enemy encounters. But in MGS4 the minute you got use to one of the environments you got whisked away to somewhere else. I hated that.

 

[ethaninja]

Well my following list of failed sequals is bad games pre-much

Doom 3
Deus Ex 2 (This is probably the only one that was good (not as good as the first, no sir)
Assassins Creed 2 (While I haven't played it, I've heard many bad things about it)
Duke Nukem: Manhatten Project
There were some others but as of this moment I am far too tired to think of them.

 

[SomeBoredGuy]

Anyone who mentions KOTOR 2 gets their throat slit by me.

Sadly someone will still say it, and I will just sit here and keep enjoying KOTOR 2 regardless.

Seriously it may be people's opinion, but I don't understand how people keep praising only the first one when the second one had far better and improved gameplay as well as a much deeper story and universe.

Eh. To me, KOTOR 2 was unfinished. I agree with you that no matter what people say, the story and gameplay were mostly plenty superior to the original. However, it was simply an unfinished game. At the time I played it, I played plenty of mods for that and the original and found the ending levels of the game remarkably similar to player created content. It's very well known among KOTOR 2 players and modders especially that loads of content was cut from the original release. Most of it being unfinished versions of what could have made the more annoying parts (I'm looking at you, rebuilding HK-47) into a much more fun experience. Not to mention the bugs.

Hell, I've just realised how much I have to say about that game. I guess this means you can expect a user review coming soon from me. But yeah, overall KOTOR 2 tried to do what Mass Effect 2 did, but only failed due to LucasArts throwing a tantrum and yelling "I WANT IT NAO, NAO, NAO!!!!". Not to say the game was bad, just that it could have been so much more.

 

[LastCelt1989]

I would say that a good ammount of the 4th sequels kinda sucked.

Die Hard 4
Indy4
MGS4
GTA4

Awww come on, MGS4?

I know its not a great game but if you look at it as just a treat for the fans its pretty awesome and is one hell of a nostalgia trip especially later on. I guess you could say that it set out as huge fan service to end the series and in that vein I suppose its a success.

That was my problem with it; it choose fanservice over substance. I don't mind a little fanservice, but if that's all they're going to give me then I feel a cheated. But yes, the 4th chapter was nostalgic is hell and definately pulled a few heart strings.

But my biggest problem with the game was that it kept jumping around from place to place. What I loved about MGS1 and MGS3 was that it took place in a large overarcing environment that opend up the more you progressed. It created a sense of learing to get a feel for the lay of the land and using it to deal with enemy encounters. But in MGS4 the minute you got use to one of the environments you got whisked away to somewhere else. I hated that.

Yeah thats all a fair point but do you think that it could have worked in that form without getting slated for being unoriginal and derivitive? I think they were trying a similar formula to splinter cell but in a way where each individual level is something much bigger than a single building. In that respect, I agree it was a little jarring but I enjoyed it much more than MGS3 endless jungle which got real old real fast.

 

[Random Argument Man]

I'm a bit disapointed with Ace attorney: Justice for all.

The charms of the first game wasn't present in this one. That, and there was only 2 good cases with 2 bad ones.

 

[EverLastingHate]

ok seeing as how no one else is gona say it fable II was a failed sequal it took all the great things of the first game and spred it so thin that it sucked it had too many side things first of all the whole job thing was dumb as fuck and as for the whole end with no boss fight it was so stupid so i maintain that fable 2 had is good parts and as for the combat i liked the first ones style the upgradeing style and the guns the worst thing you could have done so all in all epic fail

 

[iyaerP]

Dues Ex 2 was a pile of fail.

It was made even more painful since the original was basically the best game ever made.

 

[Gincairn]

Blood Omen 2 - the change of style and the general raping of the original plot killed that title for me, having said that they brought it back with defiance.

Monkey Island 4 - Proof that you shouldn't screw with a tried and tested formula.

Lemmings 2 - It took the good bits from the first lemmings and threw them away in favour of new (and mostly pointless) skills.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

I'm going to risk flame here and say that I consider Dawn Of War 2 to be a failed sequel. That's not to say it's a bad game, but for someone like me who enjoyed the original for its epic and bombastic battles and its all around over the topness, having the second game get lodged awkwardly between Company Of Heroes squad tactics, the original games setting and a strange RPG like system just makes it inferior. They lost the best thing about Dawn Of War, the sense of scale and the ferocity of a huge battle.

Obviously, opinions vary, but that's mine.

Agreed, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying both games on their own merits. If DOW2 was simply renamed Warhammer 40000, Kill Team, or something along those lines, you would treat it as its own game, rather than a sequel.

But as it is, I still enjoy both games, even if I have yet to buy Chaos Rising.

I leave the work to the modders to bring back the massive scale battles of the first. Just give'em a little time.

They have that; WH40K Squad Command for the DS.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Gears of War Two was supperrior to Gears One in all aspects except one: Atmosphere. In Gears One, I felt helpless, like nobody was comming to save me if the Locust gained the upper hand; it made me fight twice as hard, cause the calvary was gone, they had all died years ago.

However, at the start of Gears two, we open to a nice cutscene of hundreds of Gears and COG armor. And honnestly, all I could say was "Where the hell were these guys in the last game, when we needed them?!?"

In short great game, but the atmosphere wasn't there.

 

[Sardonac]

KotOR 2 for sure. Yes, I know there was already a discussion about this earlier but it certainly deserves to be listed amongst the list of game sequels that fell short of not merely expectations but most par standards. Yes, much of the game is awesome and definitely followed well from the first game while granting little gameplay improvements that players obviously wanted. That said, lots of things fell through the cracks quite disastrously:

(most of these still apply, even after extensive modding to restore content)

- the ending
-- the ending was shot to bits. Absolutely terrible.
- the beginning
-- Poorly crafted level design that didn't get edited down into the sleeker game that most of the rest of the game was
- it's attitude towards war
-- The story can't decide whether or not it's a post-Vietnam vengeance piece, post-Vietnam drama, post-Vietnam self-actualization and coming of age piece, or any of the other hodgepodge of things thrown in there to give weight whilst still trying to keep things light enough to be Star Wars.
- character development
-- Though, thankfully, women had roles that weren't as aggressively offensive to gender equality as the first game it really pushed my buttons that everyone became a Jedi. I get it, the Exile jump-starts the Jedi order, but the development of it all was just ludicrous.

 

[Banana Phone Man]

I'm going to say FEAR 2 was worse than the first one. Firstly I never completed the first one but I did complete the second one mainly because the first one scared the shit ot of me, so for me the fear factor was lost in most parts of the sequel.
Secondly, there was noting new. Usually sequels add something different but I don't think that there was anything new in that game.

 

[Tarquinius Superbus]

Banjo-Tooie.

Way to mess up a good game Rare.

Seriously Sega and Rare should combine to make even more mediocre furry games.

 

[Nirvash typeZERO]

Over 5 pages in a thread about failed sequels and not a single mention of Chrono Cross. Tsk, tsk.

Well, I've said it. Chrono Cross, my personal emperor of failed sequels, how disappointed in thee thou hast left me.

 

[Aptspire]

Blazing Angels 2...seriously, NOT worth it, compared to the greatness of the 1st