The most disappointing game sequels

[Exius Xavarus]

Resident Evil 4 was bad enough to deserve mention, that's not fair to the equally craptastic 5.

*waits for obligatory DA2 comments, despite not being on the list and despite it being a fantastic game in and of itself*

By itself, Dragon Age 2 was a great game. But just in that. I don't personally feel DA2 is much is a sequel at all. Sure, it's set in the same universe and uses a few characters from within Origins, but it doesn't continue the story. It branches off to show you the life and rise of a refugee fleeing Lothering with his family. And this is just any person who could've been killed by the darkspawn horde, but survived long enough to reach Kirkwall. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the game, and as a game it's great. It's just...in my eyes, Dragon Age 2 is no sequel.

My sequel of choice is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Did not like. It felt like it was made simply to appease the fanboys and fangirls demanding more. There were some elements placed in there that aren't at all in the first game, and we would have seen them if they were. And my biggest disappointment about it was the way they changed voice actors for a portion of the characters. Zelos was one of my favorites, and his new voice sucks. ._. And I personally don't really like the plot a whole lot. And before someone calls me out saying that what I listed does not fully explain my opinion: I am too lazy to list all of my problems with the game.

 

[Pjotr84]

Definitely Fallout 3. Other than that, Fable III, although the second installment already started the decline.

 

[nokori3byo]

World War II. Tried to pass itself off as a "darker grittier" version of the Great War, but in the end just gave us a lot off war crimes and the advent of nuclear terror. Some people thought the pacing was good, but try telling that to the guys on teh Eastern Front. Also, biggest design mistake ever: jet fighters were being developed by both sides but didn't show up till nearly the end. Where's the fun in that?

Don't even get me started on Korea...

 

[The Hero Killer]

The Force Unleashed 2. It was the worst game I ever played, which is a shame because the original is one of my favorite Star Wars games outside of KOTOR.

 

[DarkishFriend]

Age of Empires 3. Definitely DA 2, not because they changed combat mechanics and such, I actually liked that. Because of the cluster**** way it through enemies at you basically ignoring logical thinking or the positioning and strategic emphasis the first one had. In my opinion I always thought DA:O could use a bit more urgency when it came to combat. Maybe not the breakneck speed that DA2 brought.

I also couldn't stand GTA4, and by the extension RDR, because almost everything about the game was just boring; RDR even more so. Not even the online could distract me enough, and I find it ridiculous that I had more fun simply running around with friends on online than trying to do anything alone, even acting like a normal ped was more entertaining with friends than going on rampages in GTA4 and RDR; and usually the point of the GTA series was to be a giant sandbox where you can have fun.

MGS4, after playing and loving every second MGS2 and MGS3 (guess worth noting that I started on MGS2, so I didn't have a man crush on Snake, yet.) MGS4 just came off as a collaborative effort to do way too much fan-service. Not to say I didn't have fun, but in every other installment, even the when I played the remake of the first one, I watched all cutscenes. I skipping a majority of the ones in MGS4 because they took an overly dramatic long amount of time to explain twists and curves of a story that, I felt, kinda fell apart at the start. Even worse, I was almost moved to tears with Snake killing himself to save the world, it gave him a messiah feeling to me, only to find out that he didn't and Big Boss appeared out of nowhere to explain the stuff I didn't exactly care about. I would've much Snake been the hero the world needed, but would never know about; like The Boss.

MK9, not to say I played much of the old games. The reworking of the game is actually incredibly good, and for a while, I really enjoyed it. But the online community ruins the game, most of them can't play and spam the overpowered characters and moves, and I guess it stems from how MK9's combat is. The combat isn't as focused on combos as the first, and only, fighting series I'm used is. (Blazblue) and is more focused on simply using the specials at your disposal to counter your opponent, especially because the lightning fast X-Ray attacks (where as in Blazblue, I feel it's more balanced because the game freezes the frame for the attack start up, but it doesn't actually cause the game to move, so it can only be used to punish actual mistakes, not a human's ability to react.)

And I guess I just wrote an essay on sequels, and I'm probably not close to all the ones I can think of.

 

[Spud of Doom]

I'm really not clear on why the TC was banned for this...

At any rate, the one game that really comes to mind for me is Mercenaries 2. I absolutely loved the first one (Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction) when I played it on Xbox but the sequel somehow managed to be very near greatness and a failure at the same time. The gameplay was still there but there were so many glitches (objectives dying when you hadn't discovered them yet, some achievements unlocking seemingly unrelated to their conditions) and other problems (excessive abundance of money and air strikes comes to mind) that it didn't really come close to the magic of the original.

 

[AroLombardi]

I didn't like Assassin's Creed 2 compared to AC1.

But other than that, Bioshock 2 was a disappointment. There wasn't a big twist like in Bioshock. The scene with the golf club is probably my one of me favorite cutscenes in a game.

 

[the spud]

I don't understand why he got banned...it wasn't offensive at all unless he slipped something under my nose...

OT: ActRaiser 2 was shit compared to the original.

 

[DarkishFriend]

Am I missing something here, or was the OP banned for seemingly no reason at all?

OT: I have never actually been disappointed by any sequel, ever. Apathetic? Yes. Disappointed? Never.

I consider you lucky then sir. Good for you lol (not actually being sarcastic)

 

[Kenbo Slice]

Does Halo ODST count as a sequel? It wasn't very good. I love Halo but god damn, that game sucked.

 

[RaphaelsRedemption]

Supreme Commander 2
That one really hurt my feelings.

It's just so... dumbed down. I can't stand it, yet I love SupCom1 and it's expansion to bits.

 

[Zeh Don]

Oh my, where to start?

Final Fantasy VIII.
After VII rocked my socks, I'll admit my expectations for VIII were probably never going to be met. However, the game just too damn long to get anything done. Every little "walk to the other side of town" moment was plaqued with dialogue and moments of utter stupidity.
Going off mission, risking the lives of your friends, and leaving the fate of the world blowing in the wind... to apologise to someone for being mean? Yeah. Ruined.

Call of Duty - Any title after Modern Warfare.
Call of Duty was a revelation; cinematic action heavy gameplay, that still knew how to give you those heart-in-throat moments. COD2 wasn't as good, COD3 was a piece of shit, but COD4 knocked it out of the park. And every game since then has gotten worse, dumber and less fun. Remember when Call of Duty used to attempt to be semi-realistic?

Resident Evil 5.
Depsite any claims to the contrary, Resident Evil 4 still remains the best in the series. 1 and 2 were terrific - and still are - but nostalgia blinds, and tank controls with a fixed perspective aren't much fun any more. Resident Evil 5 decided to become Gears of War, without anything that made Gears of War actually fun. I had no fun, at any moment, playing this game, and it remains a candidate for the worst game of this generation.
Real Time inventory? Co-op focus... in a survival horror game? The second worst companion A.I. in a hyped game (Hi, Daikatana!) of all time? A confusing menu system that treats you as inferior if you're playing single player?

Crysis 2.
If Crysis 2 had of been called anything other than a Crysis game, I'd slap a big 4 star banner on that baby and recommend it to my friends. However, it did stick a Crysis sticker on the box, and unfortunately this is possible the worst shooter sequel since Farcry 2. Gone is... everything from Crysis. In its place is a console centric menu system, console centric multiplayer, console centric graphics engine, and a story that is actually worse if you've played the original game. Flying ice testicle monsters? Gone. Alien grunts that look and act like very Military Shooter bad-guy since Modern Warfare? Check. How did they fuck this up? Seriously.

Supreme Commander 2.
The worst RTS sequel of all time. That includes Command & Conquer 4. Let that sink in for a moment. The single player campaign was somehow even worse than the shit the first game gave us! But the worst thing that ever happened was to the gameplay. Gone was the scale of the first game - because fuck people who like your games, right? Everything that was good about the first game was removed, in favour a poor selling Xbox 360 version that left the developer in such a bad state financially they had to sell off one of their own I.P.s to keep the company afloat. Consoles have destroyed a lot of series - this is one of the few I'll never forget. I play the original. It's literally better in every single aspect. No exceptions. None.

Deus Ex: Invisible War.
It's as bad as you've read. It destroyed Deus Ex, and nearly left the series completely abandoned. Luckily, Human Revolution came along and revived the series by basically ignoring this title. Every thing it does is an item to ensure you never do with a sequel.

Grand Theft Auto IV.
We were promised a gritty, dirty tale - a new direction for the series, that focused on realism and consequence. What we got was 15 hours of fetch quests, side missions that were even more mindless than the single player campaign, and a broken multiplayer system. At least the city was cool. For about an hour.

Starcraft II.
Industry leading production values. The worst story, characters, plot and dialogue I've seen in a game that takes itself seriously since Ultima IX. The Terran-focused balance system means if you're not playing Terran, you're doing it wrong. The lack of a meaningful single player campaign means the game is utterly worthless. Blizzard finally made a bad game. And burnt whatever good will they had left.

Diablo III.
Real Money Auction House. What else do you need to know? Prepare for the great shit storm of our time.

 

[putowtin]

fable 2 and 3
the force unleashed 2

that is all

 

[Casual Shinji]

MGS4 just came off as a collaborative effort to do way too much fan-service.

That's basically all MGS4 is; expensive fanservice.

Not that I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy when Snake returns to Shadow Moses and you hear that mourful song swell up, but this game was a huge clusterfuck.

For me, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee.

 

[rohansoldier]

I never played Invisible War but I thought that Human Revolution was utter garbage. I couldn't bring myself to continue playing beyond the first level because I hated it so much. Maybe I am too used to action games where you are playing a hard nut but I hated the fact that three shots saw you dead even on normal.

Also GTA IV. I enjoyed the game but Rockstar in a way lost the spirit of the game by making it too serious. That and the targeting system was horrible. Make the game again with the improved targeting of Red Dead Redemption and you might tempt me back.

Finally, Bioshock 2. You are supposed to be playing a genetically engineered superman, but you can't handle a bunch of measly splicers without snuffing it? Seriously? I mean, I want a challenge in my gaming, but going into every fight at a disadvantage seems to be a bit too far in the opposite direction (at least when playing on normal difficulty!).

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Psychonauts 2... cause it hasn't been made :/

Oooooh, nice one!

I'm going for Shadow Hearts: From The New World.
Except for the fact that they still had Yoshitaka Hirota handling a big chunk of the soundtrack, this one really hurt me.

- In Covenant, the horror-aspect was severely toned down, but here it's just GONE.
- Only 5 fusions as opposed to the 23 from Covenant. What?!
- Hardly any (worthwhile) connection with the previous two games.
- The Stellar magic system is far less interesting than the Key of Solomon magic system.
- Where's Koudelka? We saw her going to America at the end of the original Shadow Hearts - now where is she?!
- Uninteresting cast with a story not up to par with the rest of the series.
- Is it just me, or is the game graphically worse than its predecessor?
- None of the CG-movies are as impressive as those from Covenant.
- Am I the only one where the game crashes when Natan is used in a battle?

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Crackdown 2.
Nothing about it was in any way superior to the first.
NOTHING AT ALL.
And the city was the exact same one from the first Crackdown as well.

 

[weirdsoup]

Star Control 3. Poor interface, buggy game mechanics, the ignoring of large chunks of what was established in 2 followed by rehashing large amounts of sc2 dialogue. The fact you can end up dead ended if something fails to happen at the right time and then the game becomes unwinnable.

All in all, it took everything that was great in SC2 and threw it out the window.

 

[smartengine]

Every heroes of might and magic after 3(haven't seen much of new one yet, so it doesn't count. But it looks like 4)

and

Dreamfall the longest journey. First half of why it's so disappointing is because the first one was an awesome point and click adventure, but this one was more and action game. And the second part is because it was planned to be sold in 2 parts, but guess what they weren't happy with the sales of the first one, so they canned it. And now I remember a good story on a cliffhanger with exactly half of it told. I mean they introduced a new playable character so near the end. And he was kinda cool.

 

[Violator[xL]]

Masters of Orion 3