i happen to like video game sequels. There i said it.

D

Dome

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 16, 2002
Messages
2,096
Movie sequels are often annoying, but like many novels, video games tend to get better with more iterations. graphics get better, bugs get worked out, etc...all in a world that i already enjoy.

let's take mass effect. first game might be my favorite rpg, ever. i bought the 2nd, beat it, twice, and set it aside. i didn't like it as much as the first one and thought i was a little disappointed. a few months ago i pulled it out again and played through and really, really enjoyed it. more than when i first played it. i think it's a game where they weren't afraid to make changes (like the new leveling system) and it set the stage for a game i'm hoping will be even better than the first.

games like halo and gears had less drastic changes but improved with better weapons, smoother gameplay, new game modes, etc. they don't have stories with any meat on them, merely they offer more of the same and do it well.

of course there are the disappointing titles also. Ninja Gaiden 2 had basically zero replay value for me, madden is a joke, and there are many more, to be sure. but i'm willing to bet there are many worse new IPs than there are disappointing sequels.

discuss
 
i am a huge fan of sequels. uncharted 2 blew my mind and still does to this day. but games where single player is the focus usually have better sequels than lets say sports games with just a few tweaks with each new release. Same with some FPS games (i'm looking at you COD)
 
Often times sequels are so much more polished than the original, that if you play the sequel first and then try to go back and play the original, it just sucks by comparison. Dead space 2/1 was this way for me. Other times tho, the originals are so well made that a sequel ends up ruining the experience by forcing in new material that takes away from other aspects of the experience (think modern warfare 1/2)
 
It depends. I enjoy sequels to games I like. But sometimes they ruin a series too.



I guess here's what I'd like to see:

Great games-Generally no sequel.
Good games-1-2 sequels
Bad games-no sequels

If the game is very well made then it's harder to make the sequel an improvement. Usually it's polished more and has more features, but the graphics usually aren't competitive anymore(since it uses an outdated engine).

So if you really love the gameplay of the original then this isn't a problem, but there's still many things they can mess up. Each genre has its own quirks that developers can miscalculate and thus ruin a game with. RPGs can kill it with a bad storyline, FPSs can kill it with so many stupid things(hitboxes, netcode, new features that unnecessarily complicate things instead of making things better, etc.), and RTSs can ruin the balance of the game.


If it's a great game then chances are you can't make another great game by building off of it because then you're relying on the original things that the first game had, instead of coming up with new unique things to keep it interesting and fun.

If it's a good game then you can polish it, update the graphics, and generally just add more content and people will be happy.

If it's bad then yeah... even if the sequel is awesome people will be afraid to buy it.
 
From what games I can think of off the top of my head, I love game sequels (or remakes). As I think more and more about it, there are even a few original games I didn't like but the sequel was very nice... WarCraft 1 vs 2 & 3 for example. Also, Dawn of War 2 is much truer to the original table-top game style of WarHammer 40k than the original DoW ever was.

There are also several games I never played the sequel, but I heard they were very good if not great. Like Homeworld 2, Supreme Commander, and Max Payne 2 just to name a few. Those are still on my list of "I'll eventually get around to it one day"
 
There is nothing wrong with sequels, and I don't understand the hate for them, even if they are churned out yearly. However at the same time you have to keep in mind sequels all started somewhere, without someone taking a chance on original IPs, we would never have some of the series we enjoy today.
 
Supreme Commander was one of the example I almost used to illustrate a good game getting turned into shit. When did you hear it was good RedTalon? Although apparently after much patching and changing Supreme Commander 2 is good now.

Baldur's Gate 2 and Half Life 2 are two games I'm glad that made sequels of.
 
I like Sequels but I like when there's actual time poured into them and they actually evolve and learn from their first games. I used to love waiting for sequels especially those that blew me away. I dont like the frequency that sequels are pushed out these days, it's usually just a few new things on the same engine and that's that
 
I'm also a big fan of sequels. I'm not a fan of franchises becoming recycling machines that seem to do a worse job each and every time they spit out a release for the year.

I think the most sequels a game can or should have is 3. After that retire it or model another part of the games universe into different story altogther but there shouldn't be a 4 or 5 or 6 of anything. Call Of Duty suffers from this but because all the casual drones love it so much it isn't going anywhere any time soon.

This should also go for movies as well (Hello Lethal Weapon). LOTRs proved 3 movies is more than enough to tell even the most epic story.

The only art form I'm willing to accept more than 3 continuing stories on is Books. Books really don't have a limit , if treated correctly you can go on as long as theres story to tell worth telling.
 
Godmachine said:
I'm also a big fan of sequels. I'm not a fan of franchises becoming recycling machines that seem to do a worse job each and every time they spit out a release for the year.

I think the most sequels a game can or should have is 3. After that retire it or model another part of the games universe into different story altogther but there shouldn't be a 4 or 5 or 6 of anything. Call Of Duty suffers from this but because all the casual drones love it so much it isn't going anywhere any time soon.

This should also go for movies as well (Hello Lethal Weapon). LOTRs proved 3 movies is more than enough to tell even the most epic story.

The only art form I'm willing to accept more than 3 continuing stories on is Books. Books really don't have a limit , if treated correctly you can go on as long as theres story to tell worth telling.
Click to expand...

I agree with ya all the way. Hell I loved the first Nightmare on Elm St, Friday the 13, ect... Then they just ruined them with all the damn shit sequels, 1 after another.
 
people bought them tho so that's why they made more. You can't blame the companies for making sequels, blame the consumers. I thought anybody who bought Halo 3 was nuts before I had even played it. 1 and 2 were great but there wasn't really a whole lot of room for improvement after that.

I really agree with this

Andrew_Carr said:
Great games-Generally no sequel.
Good games-1-2 sequels
Bad games-no sequels.
Click to expand...

I feel like DLC and map packs is a way around releasing a sequel to truely great games. Then again, the Ocarina of Time team managed to make an amazing sequel to their game, but that was probably mostly because it was an entirely different game. Doing something like that today would generate a lot of hate for the best selling franchises. In the end though I think the developers just have to be really passionate about whatever it is that they're making in order for it to be good. Being forced to make the same type of game over and over again takes a lot of the artist's passion out of the creation process and it shows in the gameplay.
 
Sports games.... see ya :D




I would have really liked for Bioware to have had spent their time doing more original games instead of making a ME. Though I enjoyed playing through it, its story was underwhelming and all the concepts of the universe and even the ship you fly around in is pretty much copy-pasta.
A game like Diablo 3 is going to be a great game in its own right. Only the story and background stuff is carried over from previous titles. A true sequel IMO
 
Like movies,game sequels can be good or bad depending on the effort put into them. It takes more than just "more of the same",but at the same time they have to be careful not to stray so far from the original that it loses the spirit of what made it good. Wolfenstein3D was a classic,RTCW was a great updating of that classic,Wolfenstein was consolised mess.
Clear Sky,while not a bad sequel,wasn't as good as the original STALKER:SoC,it felt rushed and didn't address some of the flaws in the first game.Call of Pripyat was a far better sequel,it introduced new features and polished up the gameplay while retaining the spirit of STALKER.
 
I don't know if you can put numbers on things like this. Clearly there's some examples to back up the numbers listed so far, but what about Zelda? Ocarina of Time was the 5th in the series. They don't try and keep a single timeline going in the series from what I know, and the time frame for releases had been over 10 years long by the time Ocarina of Time was out, so I'm sure all that helped. I could see myself enjoying quite a few more games from the Half Life universe without feeling that they are milking the franchise if they keep the quality up and the story interesting. That idea does however count on them ever releasing another Half Life, so it may not be relevant. :p

In general, it definitely gets harder to keep a series feeling fresh the more games into it you get, and the closer together they are released. I think most of us are smart enough to know when a game was put out to sell based on it's title rather than its quality.
 
Everyone likes sequels to games that they like as long as they are a tad better, the reason why it might seem like people don;t like them is because the industry believes there is more potential success in squeals then original IPs, so we end up each year with nothing really new just the elevation of old and it's not as fun as new worlds to discover and explore
 
I like sequels. Some of them have pretty terrible stories but I can easily look past that if the gameplay evolves and improves. More times than not, sequels correct small annoyances in the original.

Rehashes that add nothing new to the franchise are not cool, though.
 
As long as the sequels are more like The Godfather Part 2 rather than The Godfather Part 3
 
I'd say that in the video game world good sequels aren't uncommon. Unlike movies you're not necessarily limited by a script written as a cash grab.
In many cases it gives devs more money and time, plus they can fix little issues that they had with an original.
Not all sequels are good, but I'd say there are a lot more video game sequels that rock compared with movies or literature.
 
All depends on the sequel. Some are good, and some are even better than the original. But some are blantent money grabs. It's a mixed bag, all in all.
 
I like to judge games based on their own merits, not preconceived notions of what I or other people think they should be.
 
There are three types of sequels:

1) Sequels that regress on the quality of their predecessor by removing gameplay features and being generally shitty (see: Mass Effect 2).

2) Sequels that are really more like expansion packs. These are the most common type of sequel. If you don't pay close attention, you could easily convince yourself you're playing the first game. These are the type of sequels that come out every year or two (see: Dead Space 2, Madden games, Call of Duty games).

3) Sequels that seize the opportunity to expand on the plot of the original as well as the graphics and gameplay. These are a rare breed. The best example is Half Life 2.
 
One thing about the "expansion pack" sequels is that if the first one was good to begin with (Assassin's Creed comes to mind), playing more of that game isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The real issues tend to creep in with the sports franchises. It's tough to really "reinvent" football every year, especially when you've been making Madden games every year for 20 years. That said...those really should be expansion packs these days. Still, for others like the UFC game they just full-on didn't try.
I think we've finally hit the era where game companies should turn yearly franchises into DLC.
 
What happens when a franchise is so kickass that a MMO is made and the entire thing is ruined? I say 'yes' to sequels and 'no' to MMOs. A sequel to a MMO is acceptable.
 
Domingo said:
One thing about the "expansion pack" sequels is that if the first one was good to begin with (Assassin's Creed comes to mind), playing more of that game isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The real issues tend to creep in with the sports franchises. It's tough to really "reinvent" football every year, especially when you've been making Madden games every year for 20 years. That said...those really should be expansion packs these days. Still, for others like the UFC game they just full-on didn't try.
I think we've finally hit the era where game companies should turn yearly franchises into DLC.
Click to expand...

This was originally what Valve wanted to with the episodic gaming formula, by splitting Half-Life into episodes. In theory this allowed fans to continue the story of an existing game without having to wait years for an reinvented game based on new tech. Of course in practice with each episode taking so long, things didn't work out.
 
I do love good sequels seriously. I've waited years for the sequel to Soldier of Fortune 2, Parasite Eve 2, Unreal 2 The Awakening. Well, The first two was a major disappointment and the 3rd one never happened at all.

Those games I mentioned are all sequel itself and they were great.

The only problem is these days, they don't seems to be interested in doing it seriously. All the did was to take the franchise in the case of Soldier of Fortune, or the character in the case of The 3rd Birthday (from Parasite Eve), and they completely screw them up. They are only interested in cashing in on the franchise past glory instead of making it even better

Hell The 3rd Birthday went to far to piss off us fans of the original franchise, by making us wait 10 years only to see them killing off the main character.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top