The Most Mishandled IPs/Franchises in Gaming?

[wadark]

Mmm, SW:Battlefront is a great one, I LOVED 2, and wanted more, but the only sequel was on the PSP.

Uncharted 3 crossed my mind as well. While I do love the series, and did enjoy 3 very much, the completely unnecessary (not to mention obnoxiously long) cruise ship sequence was evidence of their stated process of developing set pieces before story, which doesn't work very often. Also, there was a lot of deep plot there that was left unexplored in favor of the pointless set pieces. Namely, the romance between Elena and Nate, which we saw was most certainly rocky and not "fairy tale" which could have added tons of depth. Also, the revelation that Nate has been hiding his checkered past behind a mask also could have added depth but only occupied a three minute cutscene and nothing more. Here's hoping for Uncharted 4, I suppose.

 

[Tiger Sora]

I think Command and Conquer wins this contest (or should that be looses?)

Going from one of the genre-defining real time strategy games to what it is now, a Multiplayer centered, free2play, e-sports wannabe.

AH Westwood, how did it come to this?

Westwood was captured, killed, and replaced with a robot.
But Kane lives my child, he will return and will lead the faithful left behind to salvation.

So many good suggestions on what went wrong.

I'm gona toss my hat this time to Pokemon. It's not for a case of screw up, but a lack of ideas. Once you get to Diamond, most Pokemon just look terrible.
I can not touch Diamond or B & W 1-2 due to this.
Also it's the same formula every time. You live in small starter town, move along, collect, train Pokemon, beat all 8 gyms, defeat evil organization, Pokemon league.
I know it's a tried and true formula, but after 14 years? It's staler than that condensed bread that comes in IMP packets (Canadian military field rations).
I think Nintendo has the financial savings to maybe try something new for a formula to one of the most popular rpg's ever. Neckbeards may rage, but they'll get over it.
Many of you may disagree, but as I said this isn't a case of screw up, it's letting it sit and go stale.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Ultima, though I will say it started with Ultima VIII. They had one of the great early RPGs, then EA came in and added platforming that did not function, and enough bugs to devour an elephant. Overall, the game was simply unplayable.

Honestly, whenever this topic comes up, I am perplexed as to how anyone -in light of the failures like Ultima- could actually say that an unreleased game could be the downfall of a series. . . you have not played it yet, so stop whining about DmC and Silent Hill: Book of Memories.

 

[shrekfan246]

Any game that Activision gets their grubby mitts on.

They drove Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk into the ground by releasing sequel after sequel every single year, or in the case of GH expansion packs and DLC songs every six months, and they're trying their hardest to do the same with Call of Duty. Then they had a perfectly good IP in Prototype, and what did they do with it? Axed the developer before the PC version was even released, leaving it with quite literally game-breaking bugs that will now never be fixed.

They've also miraculously never managed to recapture the magic of web-swinging from Spider-Man 2, and they have Cabela's Dangerous Hunts, which have gotten astoundingly worse and worse since they decided it would be a brilliant idea to make the games story-focused.

And let's not forget what Activision did to Troika, the guys who were working on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Though I guess to be fair, they were about as bloody incompetent as 3D Realms during the development of Duke Nukem Forever and they fucked themselves over by trying to use Half-Life 2's Source Engine while Valve was still developing it.

Oh, and anybody else remember Star Trek: Armada II, Elite Force, or Starfleet Command 3? No, just me? Well, Activision thought it would be a great idea to just abandon those franchises as well. And I'm just waiting to see how they'll destroy High Moon's third Transformers game.

 

[DirigibleHate]

Crash Bandicoot, after Naughty Dog moved to Jak and Daxter. Apparently the more recent games have improved, but the quality took a dive with Crash Bash and stayed there for some time.

I'm gona toss my hat this time to Pokemon. It's not for a case of screw up, but a lack of ideas. Once you get to Diamond, most Pokemon just look terrible.
I can not touch Diamond or B & W 1-2 due to this.
Also it's the same formula every time. You live in small starter town, move along, collect, train Pokemon, beat all 8 gyms, defeat evil organization, Pokemon league.
I know it's a tried and true formula, but after 14 years? It's staler than that condensed bread that comes in IMP packets (Canadian military field rations).
I think Nintendo has the financial savings to maybe try something new for a formula to one of the most popular rpg's ever. Neckbeards may rage, but they'll get over it.
Many of you may disagree, but as I said this isn't a case of screw up, it's letting it sit and go stale.

I won't argue with you that the formula's a bit stale, but invariably the best Pokemon are from the game you first played. Every person I know prefers the first gen or the first and second gens, but one guy didn't start playing until gen 3, and he maintains that gen 3 is the best. Presumably when looking at the later games and we say "weird" or "running out of ideas", someone who's just getting into Pokemon would call gen 1 Pokemon "boring" or "uninspired".

 

[Apollo45]

I think Command and Conquer wins this contest (or should that be looses?)

Going from one of the genre-defining real time strategy games to what it is now, a Multiplayer centered, free2play, e-sports wannabe.

AH Westwood, how did it come to this?

It came to be because EA.

I agree with this though. Went from genre-defining to something I could create in the spare time I have while on the shitter.

 

[Vigormortis]

I can think of quite a few, but I'll keep the list short. (Plus, some are too obvious.)

Starcraft - The first one was fantastic. While certainly not the deepest RTS experience, it was still amazingly fun and, for me, quite formative. The sequel, however, is terrible. The back-end of the game is alright, but the front-end (and the shit campaign) just ruin it. For me, anyway.

Metroid - The series was "mostly" immaculate up until Metroid Prime 3. However, the moment they handed the property to Team Ninja, they just destroyed what quality it had left.

Wipeout - Psygnosis had one of the best futuristic-themed racing series the industry had ever seen. However, their exclusivity to Sony, and gradual reduction of their staff, ground the series into the ground. Shame they're no longer around.

Prince of Persia - I know I'll get flack for this from someone, but I honestly feel like this series has progressively gone down-hill since Sands of Time. Culminating in the worst entry, the PoP reboot.

Day of Defeat - This series had the potential to be one of the best, most-balanced, team-based World War II-themed online shooters out there. DoD:Source was great, but needed more depth. Sadly, Valve has pretty much abandoned it.

Half-Life: Wasted potential. Valve could have reached AAA status had they made this game more multiplayer focused and released sequels every year or two. Instead we're still waiting for a third sequel. Seriously...

Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall was great, then Morrowind was meh, Oblivion was phenomenal...but then Skyrim. What the fuck went wrong? They could have made this epic monster of a game, but instead we got a boring "Every dungeon looks the same" style game.

Ooph. I detect so much sarcasm emanating from this post it's practically drowning in it. (at least, I'm hoping it's sarcasm)

Good show sir. I needed a good laugh this evening. Thank you.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

[HEADING=2]STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT[/HEADING]

The games were amazing, the sales figures were amazing, and then they just dropped it to make fucking Force Unleashed.

Lucas Arts lost so much money. It's insane.

You fucking prick. You just had to remind me of that, didn't you? How one of my favorite franchises got royally fucked without anyone outside of LA having a clue why. WHY, LUCASARTS? WHYYYY???????? *breaks out into tears and runs away*

 

[shrekfan246]

Half-Life: Wasted potential. Valve could have reached AAA status had they made this game more multiplayer focused and released sequels every year or two. Instead we're still waiting for a third sequel. Seriously...

Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall was great, then Morrowind was meh, Oblivion was phenomenal...but then Skyrim. What the fuck went wrong? They could have made this epic monster of a game, but instead we got a boring "Every dungeon looks the same" style game.

Ooph. I detect so much sarcasm emanating from this post it's practically drowning in it. (at least, I'm hoping it's sarcasm)

Good show sir. I needed a good laugh this evening. Thank you.

Based on their previous posting history, I seriously doubt that it's sarcasm.

Back OT: Fucking Lord of the Rings. What the hell has Warner Bros. even been doing with it, excluding the MMO the last good game to use the license was released in 2006, and here they go shutting down a completely free and voluntarily-fanmade mod for Skryim, presumably because they wouldn't be able to make money off of it. If they HIRE that team to make a full-fledged open-world LotR RPG in the vein of Skyrim, I'll eat my words, but right now at least it seems more like a case of "This is my ball, and you can't have it!"

 

[kunymonster]

Guitar Hero, they milked that dry, at least Sonic managed to remain comercially successful if not critically.

 

[gideonkain]

Half-Life: Wasted potential. Valve could have reached AAA status had they made this game more multiplayer focused and released sequels every year or two. Instead we're still waiting for a third sequel. Seriously...

Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall was great, then Morrowind was meh, Oblivion was phenomenal...but then Skyrim. What the fuck went wrong? They could have made this epic monster of a game, but instead we got a boring "Every dungeon looks the same" style game.

Is this for real?!

Valve is a AAA developer thanks to those millions and millions of dollars they make off of Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, Steam and soon DOTA 2.

Half-life would be better as a multiplayer focused game with annual sequels?!

Oblivion's biggest complaint was that all the dungeons were the same. Morrowind was meh?! I can only see it through rose colored glasses, but that game's setting was easily one of the most unique in all of recorded fictional history.

Are you an agent from Bizzarro world?

 

[wadark]

I can definitely agree to Pokemon, as mentioned above. I don't necessarily have a problem with the creature design. But the formula is stale as heck. As mentioned it is the exact same path every time. Small Town > 8 Gyms > Team "Sci-fiish name" > Elite Four. I played Gen 1 and 2, never played Ruby/Saph. I tried to get into Diamond and Pearl but never beat the first gym because I just didnt want to go through the routine again.

Ok, I might catch a hell of a lot of flak for this, but I'm going to add in one more:
Mario. Sorry, it was a lot of fun for me in my childhood, but it just has not interested me a bit in several years. The 2D games were great and 64 came around just in time to reinvigorate the series for me. I still enjoyed Sunshine but couldn't get into either Galaxy game. While the fun little gameplay changes help, the same boring old story just makes me lose interest instantly. I'm not saying we need to go to some kind of gritty, bloody, gray-brown, realistic Mario...but just SOME change from the "Bowser kidnaps Princess, Mario collects stars for some contrived reason to save her."

Frankly, same goes to a slightly lesser degree with Zelda.

 

[AJax_21]

Nothing comes close to Konami's treatment to the Silent Hill series.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Is this for real?! Are you an agent from Bizzarro world?

I was going to ask him the same question.

Skyrim's dungeons are considerably more varied and unique compared to Oblivion's.

And Oblivion being better then Morrowind? whut?

 

[-Dragmire-]

Half-Life: Wasted potential. Valve could have reached AAA status had they made this game more multiplayer focused and released sequels every year or two. Instead we're still waiting for a third sequel. Seriously...

Like some others, I was going to ask if you were being sarcastic but then I thought about it...

16 Gordan Freemans in a free for all match in a small map with a crowbar only condition.

It be like the Benny Hill Show WITH CLONES!

 

[bafrali]

Megaman comes to mind with its less than stellar sequals with no effort or inspiration (lots and lots of sequals)

Metroid being the adopted child of Nintendo always gets the shaft. It is either outsourced to studios or outrgiht abandoned.

Devil May Cry. I understood how Capcom dropped the ball after DMC 3 where they perfected the combat system and made it balanced complex andstylish and then ignored it in 4 for the most part due to lack of enough arsenal and a new protagonist who is a watered down version of Dante. Then the reboot happened...