The Most Mishandled IPs/Franchises in Gaming?

[shrekfan246]

Adding on to kingdom hearts: Final fucking mixes.
I mean why would Europe want extra content in the game? Nah let's just keep it as a JP only release..

Not just Europe. Australia/North America as well. Remember, Japan-only means Japan-only. And I agree. The saddest part is that they already had English voice-acting, and something like 90-95% of the entire game had already been translated and localized because of the original game.

Well....okay, you got me there. You have a point.

I guess I just find it hard to believe that someone actively supports the idea of turning such a story-driven shooter into a "rinse-and-repeat", twice a year online frag fest. I know die-hard Call of Duty dude-bros who would think that's a dumb idea.

And then to lambast two of (what many consider) to be the best entries in The Elder Scrolls series, when in reality they are all very similar (and would result in either liking them all to some degree or disliking them all)...

It just sounded like a joke.

Oh, I know. I know...

OT: Every space-sim ever made. Where the fuck did they go, and why are only shitty rip-offs of old ones the only things being released anymore? What happened to Freespace, StarLancer/Freelancer, Wing Commander (Well, okay, I know the answer to that one: EA happened), X-Wing, Starfleet Academy, et al? About the only one I can think still under active development as a franchise is X, notoriously known for being one of the most user-unfriendly series' in existence.

 

[cerebus23]

Shadowrun. The abomination that was created for the 360 and pc just dumps all over the RPG.

heh i still recall how angry i was when MS touted a new SR game after years of doing jack all with the IP, then i found out it was a fps i went ballistic.

you can add mechwarrior to that all the ips that MS took over from that studio got a few old school good games then got sat on till smith & tinker got the rights back.

 

[Pink Gregory]

DJ Hero... yes yes I know its a "X-Hero" game so I shouldnt have got my hopes up, plus activision plus it had two games but... I dunno it felt like after that they just wanted to sweep it under the rug and say "oh that? we didnt make that"

When I adored it, was something refreshing in the music game scene and the controler (once you got the hang of it) was really fun to use, a little more support is what I wanted I guess, more DLC tracks n stuff instead of just dropping it like a stone because it lacked broad appeal that guitar hero had and (if my knowledge is right) didnt sell too well

I guess I should take comfort in that it didnt get beaten to death like the guitar hero series

How Guitar Hero had a broader appeal than DJ Hero I have no idea, considering the music.

Then again, there's something to be said about guitar music/videogames demographics...

I agree, I've played DJ hero twice, and I LOVED it. It took what guitar hero had, flipped it on it's head in a really compelling way.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Supreme commander was one of my all time favourite strategy games. From the thundering sound of a battleship cannon to the hours it took marshalling troops for an uncertain battle, the game was amazing.

Then they made supreme commander 2... Bastards.

 

[Manji187]

Pick any franchise and there's a good chance that you can argue that, eventually, they all became "mishandled".

I still can't believe how utterly Crash Bandicoot went to shit after its PSX days.

 

[wadark]

Silent Hill
Fatal Frame
Silent Hill
Dragon Age
Silent Hill
F.E.A.R. (major fuck up)
Silent Hill
Tony Hawk
Silent Hill
Guitar Hero

Oh, and I forgot to mention Silent Hill

why is guitar hero on there? I mean I see how you can think they the IP were misshandled, but where can you take a plastic guitar once you added the ability to add your own songs then what can be done now?

Eventually there is no more potential left to mishandle. I get that people dont like repeated launches, but what the heck else were they supposed to do? the same thing they did now just spread it out?

Is there an untapped potential I am not seeing?

Well, the thread isn't solely about untapped potential. As the title mentions, its about mishandled properties. While there may not be much that Activision could do to innovate or tap some hidden potential, I would definitely agree that they mishandled the series by flooding the market. All of the single-band games, sequel after sequel after sequel.

Granted, had they not done that, the genre still would have likely fallen out of favor, but thanks to GH, it happened much faster.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

You people make me feel incredibly old.

I was going to say Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot.

 

[FalloutJack]

Wormy

They could do with some software and programming updates.

*Holds up Worms: Open Warfare 2*

Failures in game physics in which the movement of an object or worm do not work as they're suppose to, glitching in favor of the AI team when it has clearly failed to (INSERT PHYSICAL FEAT HERE) and the computer forces a success, and the insstant replay sometimes doesn't match the action hat just took place.

OT: Many cases, people are a little hard on games. Some complaints are legit. Others are just quibbling. I'm gonna hit one that was fairly close to my heart way back when.

Oddworld.

Poor Oddworld. Waaay back in the first game, you boasted a quintology. And given your success with Abe (for two games himself), it may have stood a chance. It was funny, it was different, and it required you to think. Then, look what happened. The promise of Microsoft's support for exclusive rights turned you away from other doors that could've remained open, and you worked on Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath...neither of which panned out to anything good. I certainly never saw any of it. It wasn't for Playstation, so I said screw 'em...and they were screwed.

Now, they want to make a remake, another pithy attempt to say "We're still relevant!". No. It's too late. You missed the boat. Oddworld will never have the same impact you had before. The series is over and you are still lost under a ton of Exclusive paperwork. You have failed.

 

[guitarsniper]

Jade Empire because it didn't get the sequel it deserved
Mirror's Edge because it didn't get the sequel it deserved
Call of Duty. Seriously guys we can play the same multiplayer shooter for more than a year. Seriously.

 

[luke10123]

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?

Dunno wheather to argue or agree with this... C&C from 1995 - 2008 was utter genius and I loved every minute of it (I even kinda enjoyed 'Renegade'). However, everything (including and) after Red Alert 3 has fallen short, for me Kane's Wrath was the end of an era... I heard C&C4 was so terrible I never even played it! Then, I hear about a new Generals game on the Frostbite 2 engine and I think this could be a real return to from! Then I heard it won't have a single-player campaign. Fuck. That.

 

[dfb1999]

Well, Guitar Hero died under its own success. In that Activison saw that it was a success and proceeded to bury it under 3 releases a year and stupid moves like Band Hero and letting Neversoft develop it instead of buying Harmonix as well as Red Octane.

Kingdom Hearts is dying under the amount of dumb-ass spin-offs that are required to follow the stupid plot, but it looks like the 1.5 HD Remix will be the first step in clearing this up.

Although at the time I was happy as hell because No More Heroes and Madworld were Wii exclusive, in retrospect, they would have been vastly superior and sold much better as non-waggle games.

I also feel like Nintendo might be strangling the Mario franchise a little more than it should.

 

[alphamalet]

Silent Hill
Fatal Frame
Silent Hill
Dragon Age
Silent Hill
F.E.A.R. (major fuck up)
Silent Hill
Tony Hawk
Silent Hill
Guitar Hero

Oh, and I forgot to mention Silent Hill

why is guitar hero on there? I mean I see how you can think they the IP were misshandled, but where can you take a plastic guitar once you added the ability to add your own songs then what can be done now?

Eventually there is no more potential left to mishandle. I get that people dont like repeated launches, but what the heck else were they supposed to do? the same thing they did now just spread it out?

Is there an untapped potential I am not seeing?[/quote]

Well, the thread isn't solely about untapped potential. As the title mentions, its about mishandled properties. While there may not be much that Activision could do to innovate or tap some hidden potential, I would definitely agree that they mishandled the series by flooding the market. All of the single-band games, sequel after sequel after sequel.

Granted, had they not done that, the genre still would have likely fallen out of favor, but thanks to GH, it happened much faster.[/quote]

Pretty much this. The rate at which Activation saturated the market constitutes the mishandling of a property IMO.

 

[alphamalet]

Silent Hill
Fatal Frame
Silent Hill
Dragon Age
Silent Hill
F.E.A.R. (major fuck up)
Silent Hill
Tony Hawk
Silent Hill
Guitar Hero

Oh, and I forgot to mention Silent Hill

why is guitar hero on there? I mean I see how you can think they the IP were misshandled, but where can you take a plastic guitar once you added the ability to add your own songs then what can be done now?

Eventually there is no more potential left to mishandle. I get that people dont like repeated launches, but what the heck else were they supposed to do? the same thing they did now just spread it out?

Is there an untapped potential I am not seeing?

Well, the thread isn't solely about untapped potential. As the title mentions, its about mishandled properties. While there may not be much that Activision could do to innovate or tap some hidden potential, I would definitely agree that they mishandled the series by flooding the market. All of the single-band games, sequel after sequel after sequel.

Granted, had they not done that, the genre still would have likely fallen out of favor, but thanks to GH, it happened much faster.

Pretty much this. The rate at which Activation saturated the market constitutes the mishandling of a property IMO.

 

[Jaeke]

Star Wars- Do I need say more??

Dragon Age- Loved Origins, and while I liked DA 2 (/flameshield) it was a significant step in the wrong direction. BioWare falling apart from the inside doesn't help either.

Halo- I fear 343 like the plague and while I'm confident that they'll manage a sufficient campaign that lives up to the Halo expectations, I'm not going to touch the multiplayer with a 10 foot pole.

Darksiders- Now let me be clear, I loved the second and thought the first was alright, but I'm affraid the critical success of the second, and the creeping desperation of THQ will result in something... bad.

I have to agree with the Lord of the Rings comments: My favorite RTS is BFME 2 (another /flameshield) and I liked War in the North but for every good LOTR game there seems to be 3 more piles of corrosive waste. Basicly the same dilemma for Star Wars.

 

[Jaeke]

Shadowrun. The abomination that was created for the 360 and pc just dumps all over the RPG.

It does?

I liked it. I thought it was fun.

 

[Greni]

FlatOut.

Ultimate Carnage was terrific for Online play/lanfest, then the aborted fetus called FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction by Team6(?) was released and, oh boy did it suck.

Spoiler: fromwikipedia.exe

Unlike its predecessors FlatOut 3 was universally panned by video-game critics. It is only the second game in the 18 year history of Edge to receive a score of one out of ten (Kabuki Warriors was the first.).[1]

Eurogamer also gave it a one out of ten score and criticised all aspects of the game; especially the controls and the AI. It also lamented the fall from grace of the Flatout series as a whole and summed up the review by saying "You could go mad trying to rationalise Flatout 3. It is not bad in the way that a game like Boiling Point is bad, where things coalesce into a kind of awful greatness. This is a tacky and technically incompetent production with no redeeming features whatsoever, devoid of fun and an insult to the name it bears. Flatout once burned bright, but now is gone - and if there is a driving hell, this is surely it."[2]

Gamesmaster also rated the game as one out of ten and said "Some games are so bad they're good (for a laugh, at least). FlatOut 3 is just plain bad."[3]