Trilogy-itis

[BlumiereBleck]

Star Wars Episode III was the best in the series...I'll give you that one but how about Halloween III the one without Michael Myers?

I've never seen any of the Halloween movies. =x How was there a movie without Myers, though?

Just one because of a new director, he decided to make a 3rd Halloween relating to a witch.

 

[putowtin]

1. Fair enough.

2. Most review sites are bogus and seemingly have developers paying them for good reviews. I rarely trust review scores as many horrid games. (ME2, Final Fantasy 13, Call of Duty, etc.)

3. As said ME2 killed all interest I had in the franchise. I will not get 3 as such it matters not how bad it is. Besides from the news it looks like the combat has gone to the point of making it kinda a Gears clone. That does not impress me. As for the story and if there will be lots of retcons obviously I won't know of them until the game is released but it matters not as the combat being horrid will keep me away. Had I knwon ahead of time Mass Effect 2 had gone down the road it did with the combat I would not have gotten it.
Besides even if it had been a good game the recent BS pulled by EA (SOPA support, Orgin, unfair Orgin bans) have made me boycott them and I will not buy any of there products ever again. And this is coming from someone who was playing the Mass Effect games on console and thereby would not have to deal with Orgin myself. Despite not having to use it I find it so appalling I just can not in good faith give them my money.

4. In the end I have to give Mass Effect 2 credit for 1 good thing it did. It taught me to never ever ever ever preorder a game. I since then and forever more will wait a few weeks to a couple months to hear all about the game's mechanics and story summary before determining if I should buy it.

Yeah, all game reviewers lie about mass Effect 2. In fact all fans of the series who think Mass Effect 2 is better are paid to say good things about it. There's not one single person alive who actually likes Mass Effect 2.

Thank you, your reply has the correct amount of sarcasm for my country, as such I name you a Honouree Brit (unless you?re already British, in which case, stiff upper lip dear boy)

Oh and The7Sins, stop typing in red, it?s really annoying and not necessary to get your point across.

 

[Byere]

If it adds to the topic at hand, the Broken Sword series is a part-way on the two styles. The first was brilliant, the second amazing... and 3 and 4 were just utter shit...

Maybe we can expect the same from Megaman Legends?

 

[Yopaz]

Yeah, all game reviewers lie about mass Effect 2. In fact all fans of the series who think Mass Effect 2 is better are paid to say good things about it. There's not one single person alive who actually likes Mass Effect 2.

Thank you, your reply has the correct amount of sarcasm for my country, as such I name you a Honouree Brit (unless you?re already British, in which case, stiff upper lip dear boy)

Oh and The7Sins, stop typing in red, it?s really annoying and not necessary to get your point across.

I thank you for the honour and I agree with your annoyance of the red text. That pisses me off almost as much as the bogus the text is saying.

 

[DementedSheep]

Yeah come to think of it that is often true.
I suppose it makes sense. The 2nd game often has a bigger budget and is more refined; things that were missing from the 1st get added. The 3rd is when the concept is starting to stretch thin, made to ride on the popularity of the first too or they start adding gimmicky crap to try and add something new. (obliviously I?m generalising and this is not the case for many games.)

 

[LittleJoeRambler]

I liked Age of Empires 3 more than 2, but only just. I think it mostly has to do with the time period, I'm a sucker for Napoleonic-era conflict.

I thought Mass Effect 1 was better than 2, I never seemed to be able to get into the story in 2 like I did in 1. I stopped playing after like 14 hours and haven't picked it back up, so the better graphics and better AI didn't matter as much to me as the better story ME1 had. Oh well.

 

[CaptOfSerenity]

Nah, Modern Warfare 2?
Someone who played every God of War enlighten me (I only played 1 and 2).

Yeah, all game reviewers lie about mass Effect 2. In fact all fans of the series who think Mass Effect 2 is better are paid to say good things about it. There's not one single person alive who actually likes Mass Effect 2.

Just because you didn't like it, doesn't everyone else is "corrupt." There are millions of people who like ME2. I'm one of them, and I use to not like it.

Grow up.

 

[Netrigan]

In trilogies, I've always noticed that the first usually ends on a somewhat ambiguous ending, but an ending nonetheless. The second ends of a giant fuck off cliff-hanger, and the third ends the main story, but leaves a character cliff-hanger so they can make more later. Have yet to see anything deviate from this.

Off topic, but every time I see the title of this thread, I think it says "Trilogy-tits"

Same. Reminded me of recall.

That seems to be the fall-out of the Star Wars saga, where everyone decides to take the sequel and break it into two incomplete movies. The Matrix 2 & 3 would have made a really good movie, likewise Pirates 2 & 3; but they keep forgetting that Empire finished the story it was telling and the cliff-hanger whetting your appetite for the next film (Back To The Future did the same thing).

But in games, the reason so many second installments are better than the original is that they have a bigger budget and can put in all those things they wanted to do the first time around. The improved gameplay often covering up narrative problems (such as rehashing the original's plot). Unless they completely revamp the game (ala Grand Theft Auto III), then they're not only repeating the story beats, but they're not adding anything of significance to the game play.

There's a few games that buck the trend, such as Assassin's Creed, with the third installment taking place in the series' best environment (there is no ancient city as iconic as Rome) and the ability to call in assassins being one of the series' best additions. Revelations is where it becomes obvious that they're not too many more mountains to conquer for this franchise.

 

[CaptOfSerenity]

.

Yeah, all game reviewers lie about mass Effect 2. In fact all fans of the series who think Mass Effect 2 is better are paid to say good things about it. There's not one single person alive who actually likes Mass Effect 2.

Just because you didn't like it, doesn't everyone else is "corrupt." There are millions of people who like ME2. I'm one of them, and I use to not like it.

Grow up.

Oh come on, you should know that is sarcasm, it's pretty obvious.

I hope it is, but I've seen too many posts, made seriously, to give him/her the benefit of the doubt. If it is, then my bad, although my point still stands.

There are people who think this for real, and they're nuts.

 

[TyrantGanado]

Not a trilogy, but from what I remember the first Tomb Raider game was good, Tomb Raider 2 was great, and 3/4 were pretty bad.

Am I alone in thinking that The Last Revelation was Core's best Tomb Raider game? It only went rapidly downhill from then on until Eidos gave it to Crystal Dynamics.

OT: Personally I reckon the problem is due to many factors. If the second instalment is highly regarded then the third is already going to have a lot to prove which works against it. This might lead the team to focus too much on outdoing certain areas of the previous entry while neglecting the other parts of the game, leading to a jumbled mess. Other than that they could just be trying too hard to get the next one out on time so it's either a piece of crap or highly polished but a lot shorter.

Other times there are simply things that, for whatever reason, are left out of a sequel that can annoy one to no end (where the hell is my goddamn cheats menu in Drake's Deception, Naughty Dog!?)

 

[skywolfblue]

Halo 3: Excluding halo reach, 3 was my favorite in the Trilogy.

Gears of War 3: Gears 2 and Gears 3 are pretty close, great in different ways.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: Yes not technically labeled "3". It was pretty much my favorite Assassin's Creed game of all of them.

Other then that I don't have a whole lot of "3" games. Those should be proof enough.

 

[Netrigan]

.

Yeah, all game reviewers lie about mass Effect 2. In fact all fans of the series who think Mass Effect 2 is better are paid to say good things about it. There's not one single person alive who actually likes Mass Effect 2.

Just because you didn't like it, doesn't everyone else is "corrupt." There are millions of people who like ME2. I'm one of them, and I use to not like it.

Grow up.

Oh come on, you should know that is sarcasm, it's pretty obvious.

I hope it is, but I've seen too many posts, made seriously, to give him/her the benefit of the doubt. If it is, then my bad, although my point still stands.

There are people who think this for real, and they're nuts.

On the subject of Mass Effect... as much grief as the second part gets from the RPG crowd, I wonder how you could have continued that story without completely gutting your character progression in the first game. Does Sheppard get hit in the head and forget all of his soldiering skills? Do you get an evil boss who takes away all your really good weapons and stick you with a Sling Shot +1?

The problem of just about every RPG I've ever played is that you start off insanely weak and end up insanely powerful, which is kind of cool for one installment; but there's no up for you to go. You have to shift to another character to keep that formula viable. Otherwise, it just turns into a heroic version of Freddie Kruger, instead of explain how the villain came back to life yet again, you have to explain how the hero got almost completely depowered yet again.

 

[ElNeroDiablo]

X-Men 1: Yeah that was good, X-Men 2: Yeah, that was better. X-Men 3: Yeah, that was not good. X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Losing Hope, (HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO DEADPOOL). X-Men Origins: First Class: "Oh damn that's good"

A good example of how movie series that hit the fourth movie generally need a total reboot in the fifth movie. Example: Batman, Returns, Forever, Batman & Robin, Begins (Reboot), Dark Knight (Reboot sequel).

Or for the Trek geeks here: Generations (TNG #1), First Contact (TNG #2), Insurrection (TNG #3), Nemesis (TNG #4), Trek XI (Reboot). Yes, I know that for the 6 TOS movies Final Frontier sucked and doesn't fit the "fifth movie is reboot" theme, but that's due to what's basically the Star Trek Curse (Pre-Nemesis: Every odd movie sucks, every even movie is good. Nemesis supposedly screwed it and JJ's Trek balanced out the suck in Nemesis).


Anyways, going back to games;
Pre-WoW Blizzard: WarCraft 3/Frozen Throne is my favourite of the WarCraft series.
Post-WoW Blizzard: I know I'm preempting it and calling it early but Diablo 3 is gonna SUCK compared to the classic that is D2/LoD, which wrapped up the story of the Three Prime Evils (Diablo, Mephisto, Baal) just fine, whilst having you wipe out two of the Lesser Evils (Andariel & Duriel) on your path to destroy the Three Brothers, leaving just 2 Lesser Evils left (Belial & Azmodan).

 

[Yopaz]

Nah, Modern Warfare 2?
Someone who played every God of War enlighten me (I only played 1 and 2).

Yeah, all game reviewers lie about mass Effect 2. In fact all fans of the series who think Mass Effect 2 is better are paid to say good things about it. There's not one single person alive who actually likes Mass Effect 2.

Just because you didn't like it, doesn't everyone else is "corrupt." There are millions of people who like ME2. I'm one of them, and I use to not like it.

Grow up.

Fix your sarcasm detector.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

I find Gothic to be a perfect example of this.

Gothic = Great game with some flaws and not very deep.

Gothic II: Night of the Raven = Amazing game that built on the first, had a deeper story and some of the most enjoyable gameplay I've experienced.

Gothic 3 = A drop in everything that made the first two so good. While the game world was fantastic (Varant in particular), the gameplay, story and NPC's suffered terribly. I think the game was trying to be too big than it could really handle.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Both are still very good. I replayed through the Crash Bandicoot trilogy (for there are only three Crash Bandicoot games, no matter what anyone else says)

What about Crash Team Racing? That was an insane amount of fun, I still play it with friends on PS3.