Ruined game series

Mark Hamill

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I know its controversial, but I think FF has started to get ruined by oversaturation. How many sub-series of that game are there now? Seems to be some new one out every month. Even the core 12 got old fast, so I think it is starting to become less relevant with every new installment they shovel out.

I think it doesn't help that they have been oversaturating with crap titles that mostly don't do any of the main series any justice.

I'm surprised that no-ones mentioned Halo yet. I don't necessarily think that the second two where worse than the first one, its that they weren't really different enough, they where more like expansion packs than new games, and they've been ruined because of all the hype for each game that never really panned out. Also the crap ending didn't help.

Creamy Goodness

CCCP^ wrote: »

The Sims. Fifa. Need for Speed.

Actually anything EA touches.

the word ruined applies that the series had to be good to start with

pro evo was ruined with the latest incarnation.
deus ex 2 fell badly to dumbing down for consoles.
thief 3 suffered the same fate, where's was me rope arrows :rolleyes:

tony hawk games were ruined the second they tried to attempt one big city type of things, i haven't played a tony hawk game since that wasteland one.

Azza

I agree with the long decent of the Sonic series since it left the Mega Drive.

Need for Speed witht he exception of Most Wanted just reeks of cash cow.

Fifa 2008 and now the Pro Evo 2008 on the Wii have gone along way to redeem there respective series.

Deus Ex 2 was not a bad game just it had such a hard act to follow.

Medal of Honor has also fallen along way too.

estebancambias

I feel Pro Evo was ruined but I bet on my life they will make a class 2009 version, the same cannot be said for the crappy Smackdown vs Raw franchise.

krudler

Cremo wrote: »

the word ruined applies that the series had to be good to start with

pro evo was ruined with the latest incarnation.
deus ex 2 fell badly to dumbing down for consoles.
thief 3 suffered the same fate, where's was me rope arrows :rolleyes:

tony hawk games were ruined the second they tried to attempt one big city type of things, i haven't played a tony hawk game since that wasteland one.

in fairness though thief 3 had one of the greatest levels ever concieved for a game with The Cradle

Retr0gamer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I know its controversial, but I think FF has started to get ruined by oversaturation. How many sub-series of that game are there now? Seems to be some new one out every month. Even the core 12 got old fast, so I think it is starting to become less relevant with every new installment they shovel out.

Final Fantasy isn't dead it's just called Lost Odyssey now.

As for Unreal the series was always thrash, the first game was utter muck other than the amazing visuals. The Tournament games are a different story but single playerwise it's always been a bad Quake clone.

Jay P

Crash Bandicoot you new-age techno kids! That was the best game on the PS1, they had a decent game on the PS2, but then all these racing games have meant they have zero credibilty

CiDeRmAn

The Need for Speed saga has kinda come full circle, starting out life as the Test Drive series back in the day, the team then producing The Need For Speed on the glorious 3DO and then it got a lesser translation on the PS, Saturn and PC. The follow up was abysmal but the N4S3 was great, unfortunately overshadowed by Gran Turismo, N4S Road Challenge was great anf N4s Porsche Unleashed was nice, especially on the PC and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 on the PS2 was fantastic, the Xbox and GC editions handled by another dev and were muck.
The series has dropped and dropped since focusing on pimped autos instead of the previous focus on auto exotica, and the most recent Need for Speed Pro Street has been rendered entirely redundant with the presence of far superior track racers in PGR4, GT5 prologue and Forza2.
Thankfully the true soul of the Need For Speed has been ressurected in Test Drive Unlimited on the 360, PS2 and even PSP.
Here is the way the series was always supposed to be played, fast fast cars, open roads, sunshine, beaches and, if your lucky, some hot airs balloons on the horizon.

And the best Crash games were on the PS with Crash3 being, probably the best of them, since then the series has been relegated to a bargain bin filler, ah well.

Army Men deserve a mention as the worst game series that lasted so long despite never having any redeeming features whatsoever!

steviec

Micro Machines was never the same since it went 3D. The Megadrive originals (96 in particular) are probably still my favourite multiplayer games ever.

Super Monkeyball has been getting progressively worse since the first one, which is disappointing because I loved that game.

ShaneU

Jay P wrote: »

Crash Bandicoot...That was the best game on the PS1

:eek::eek::eek::eek::D

qwertz

Sim City. They did a good job up till Sim City 4 and ruined it with Sim City Societies.

Charlie

Duke Nukem.

DN3D was phenomenal, and really set a tone for games like GTA to follow.

However, with the shoddy Playstation games (and some shoddy side scrolling PC game), and the never ending fiasco that is Duke Nukem Forever, the series IMO has gone to the crapper. A real gaming shame.

CCCP^

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The descent was cliff-like.

I quite liked that sentence.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

James Bond series has lost all respect in my eyes too.

Goldeneye on the 64 was no doubt the apex of the series, the only noteworthy game since then was Nightfire.

Chemo wrote:

the word ruined applies that the series had to be good to start with :P

Back in the day Fifa was the bomb. Fifa International and Fifa 95 we're the best on the Mega-Drive (until I discovered European Club Soccer and you could play as Irish teams) and for some reason I played Fifa 98: RTWC for about 3 years. I liked that you could start at the beginning of the qualification process and go all the way with teams like India or Qatar. Looking at it now, it's rubbish. The International Superstar Soccer series was so much better, in particular ISS Pro Evolution. Awesome game. The best Pro Evo was 3.

thelordofcheese

charlie mchugh wrote: »

and some shoddy side scrolling PC game

Those predate Duke Nukem 3D by several years, Duke Nukem 1 was in 1991 and it's sequel was '93. Duke 3D came out in '96
Unless you mean the Manhattan Project which was anything but shoddy.

Charlie

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Those predate Duke Nukem 3D by several years, Duke Nukem 1 was in 1991 and it's sequel was '93. Duke 3D came out in '96
Unless you mean the Manhattan Project which was anything but shoddy.

No, i'm not talking about Duke 1 and 2 but this. Yeah, the Manhattan Project, which imo was well shoddy.

Sabre0001

Sensible Soccer - fond childhood memories and then I heard a new one was coming out...Great I thought - oh how wrong I was (Though it did get me to reinstall the old version and take Irish teams to the finals of European competitions - great fun!!!)

Kinetic^

The last decent Tony Hawk's game was Pro Skater 2, was an epic title. I bought Pro Skater 3 and just remembering it sucking quite hard.

I think some of the developers just try too hard to make their game be the next best thing. My favourite Mario game to this day is still Super Mario World on the Snes. I'm not saying that the Mario games since then have been bad but I just like how simplistic it is.

stevenmu

The ultimate ruined series have to be the ghost recon and rainbow 6 series. Two fantastic, excellently made, series which brought a unique and distinct style of gameplay to the gaming world. They carved out a niche for themselves with a very dedicated fanbase and a talented modding community, won plenty of awards.

Until one day someone in Ubishaft decided "Hey, instead of putting some effort into making a great unique game, why don't we just make some generic drivel, stick on a cool soundtrack and advertise the sh1t out of it".

Malice

stevenmu's post just reminded me about the Ultima series. I can't believe I completely overlooked it. I am very disappointed with myself! Ultima VI, VII and VII Part 2 are three of the finest RPGs I have ever played. The reactionary platform-based nature of Ultima VIII caused the quality of the series to take a nosedive and as for the abomination that was Ultima IX, the less said about that the better.

I still replay VII and VII Part 2 occasionally thanks to Exult as the rich storyline is one of the best I have ever come across in gaming. I'm not sure but I think they were the last Ultima games to have involvement from Richard Garriott as the ever-loveable EA machine consumed Origin and focused on Ultima Online.

CiDeRmAn

I thought the MicroMachines on the PSone was brilliant, I enjoyed it far more than the numerous editions on the Megadrive.
DukeNukem3D has yet to get a real followup, that tat on the PSone was just filler til they get their thumb out of their butt and complete DukeNukem Forever.
Monkeyball on the Wii is pretty good, I don't think a runined game series can really be only said to have one good title followed by progressively poorer editions, Monkey Ball 2 wasn't a patch on the original, neither were others, although I did like the game on the GBA.

MOH

Half Life. 1+2 brilliant, Episode 1 meh, and I hated large parts of Episode 2.

L31mr0d

CCCP^ wrote: »

Need for Speed.

ditto, Need for Speed has really gone downhill of late. Most Wanted was the last decent game in the series. Carbon somehow made the cars look actually worse, like they where plastic and cartoony. Also the difficulty of the cops was just shot in the foot. I remember screaming at the screen in "Most Wanted" because the cops where god like in their driving skills. Sometimes it would take close to an hour before I could outrun them and find a hiding spot. But it was so satisfying when I did and it also made my driving a lot better. In Carbon you merely had to make a left turn followed by an immediate right and the cops would call off the chase.

Pro Street, while it had its good points, again was a step backwards, removing the open world environment, and having an overcomplicated menu system.

It seems like EA will build up a game with quality releases for the first one or two games, then start churning out poorly developed sequels knowing the game will sell on its name alone. EA is all that is evil about the gaming industry.

Also, i'm going to disagree with the worms jab. I've played every worms game in the series and I actually really like Mayhem. If you want 2D, then play Armageddon. At least once a week I hook up online with my brother-in-law to play a few rounds of worms mayhem. Sure its not the same animal as the 2D version but its just as good in a lot of regards, and I have just as many laughs playing it in 3D as I do playing it in 2D.

A truly ruined series though imho is the UFO (i.e. X-Com) series. Anything released under that name since "Terror from the deep" has been utter pants.

Kiith

MOH wrote: »

Half Life. 1+2 brilliant, Episode 1 meh, and I hated large parts of Episode 2.

:eek: Episode 2 was fantastic. Short, but with some of the best set pieces of the series. The strider battle was brilliant.

thelordofcheese

Kiith wrote: »

:eek: Episode 2 was fantastic. Short, but with some of the best set pieces of the series. The strider battle was brilliant.

I just cleared Episode 2 last night (someone let me play on their Steam A/C) and i have to agree, it's superior to Episode 1 in every way, Episode 1 was pretty dull, even before we had Episode 2 as a comprison.

And i agree with stevenmu, Rainbow 6 has been changed into something i just don't like. What was a thinking mans shooter has now become a bland, generic console shooter.
Give me back my intricate planning of assaults on terrorist hideouts you bastards!

MOH

Kiith wrote: »

:eek: Episode 2 was fantastic. Short, but with some of the best set pieces of the series. The strider battle was brilliant.

Knew that wouldn't go down well.:)
Sure, ep 2 had a couple of great set pieces, but

I started off thinking great, this looks fantastic, good nice outdoor scenery for a change and then spend about 70% of the game squishing grubs in tunnels for no apparent reason. Pretty much everything from Alyx getting injured to getting the car just felt like I'd done it all before (apart from the grub-squishing, wihich was new for the first couple of hours)

OK, ruined might be a bit strong, but I won't be awaiting ep 3 as eagerly as I was HL2.

L31mr0d

MOH wrote: »

OK, ruined might be a bit strong, but I won't be awaiting ep 3 as eagerly as I was HL2.

It IS only an episode in the end of the day... you play Episodes 1,2 & 3 back to back and that will be one solid FPS. Plus it's a sight better than some of the other muck that gets labeled an FPS these days (see: Blacksite, Timeshift, MoH:A, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty... etc)

MOH

L31mr0d wrote: »

It IS only an episode in the end of the day... you play Episodes 1,2 & 3 back to back and that will be one solid FPS. Plus it's a sight better than some of the other muck that gets labeled an FPS these days (see: Blacksite, Timeshift, MoH:A, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty... etc)

Valid point. It's better than the first Sin episode (not least in that there's more than one!).

Actually, MOH is another one, quite disappointed with Airborne. I therefore nominate myself as another ruined game series.

BLITZ_Molloy

The Crash Bandicoot racing game on the PSOne was in fact rather excellent. Certainly the best of the Mario Kart clones, and better than Double Dash (and MK Wii from what I'm hearing).

I didn't like HL2 at all. The weapons have no punch, the enemy behavour isn't any step up and the pacing of the whole thing is 10 times slower than the first game.

Jumpy

Ultima.

Pagan was ok (just), but that last one? What a piece of crap.

joe123

Bubs101 wrote: »

The WWE games spring to mind for me. No Mercy was a near perfect game on the 64 but ever since then it's been downhill

damn that really was an amazing game....Why did thq never make another no mercy with no mercy controls/gameplay/options....smackdown is muck.

I remember no mercy had a bug where it kept reseting. I brought it back to the shop but all they could do was give my money back there was no more copies being made. A few years later i saw a copy of it in a shop but the blood had been removed from within game. It was strange.