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[CABL]

I made this thread because we all want to crap down on some games periodically. And to bash my personal "Worst Sequel Ever Made", Arkham Knight. It's like "Worst game you ever played" type of thread, but it's only about Sequels.

Rules for this thread are very simple:

- First of all, tell why you think the game(s) is/are crap? Tell why this/those game(s) is/are disappointing as sequel(s) for you.
- The game(s) you hate needs to be a SEQUEL(s), not reboot(s), prequel(s) or anything like that.
- Remember The Rules of Bay12 Forums.
- If you want to argue with someone, then please refrain from personal attacks. Don't make Toady lock this thread like he locked "Things that made you rage" thread.
- The game(s) you hate can be both Indie and AAA title(s).


That's all for the rules. Now I'm gonna bash my personal "Worst Video Game Sequel Ever Made", Arkham Knight:

Oh, Arkham Knight, where do we even begin? Let me simply tell what Arkham Knight did right.

Spoiler: Good Side of The "Game" (!!SPOILERS!!) (click to show/hide)

+ Riddler's Challenges. Riddler captured Catwoman and now our long-eared hero douche decides to save her. Those missions include Batmobile races (I liked them) and Puzzles, where you need to switch between Catwoman and Batman to complete some objective. And they're pretty interesting! Unfortunately, Riddler doesn't ask you to collect his Trophies to open the next challenge, resulting in a pretty fast completion.

+ Siege of GCPD. Near the end of the game, Scarecrow will launch the massive attack on Police Department. After beating four squads of Scarecrow's best men, you'll fight in the only good Batmobile fight in the game! The sheer quantity of enemy's drones transforms what could have been yet another boring shooting gallery, into truly epic and somewhat challenging fight.

Yea, only 2 good things about this game. And now let's dive into the crappy side of AK.

Spoiler: Crappy Side of The "Game" (!!SPOILERS!!) (click to show/hide)

- Story. That's probably where this "game" drowns in its own shite. It starts okay at first but goes down to the HFS very quick. Scarecrow threatens to destroy Gotham with his fear toxin, Batman looks for some clues about Scarecrow's grand plot. And when Batman goes to the rescue of Poison Ivy, everything goes down. Batman manages to make Ivy cooperate with him. How he managed to make Ivy cooperate? Right, by feeding her (and the players) rotten "If you don't cooperate with me, then plants will die" cliche. Yea, that's how Batman managed to get misanthropic, humanoid plant woman to work with him. Also, she doesn't try to betray him. Uh, If I'll keep talking about the story, I'll be unable to type more. TL:DR: Ground level => HFS in 1 hour.

- Batmobile. This thing is the game's main gimmick. Pure 100% love/hate gimmick which I hated. While pursuits and races are quite fun, the vehicular combat is very dull, and combat is far more common than the former. You have two weapons and a few sort of combos: "Vulkan" gun and 70mm cannon, plus EMP charge, hack tool, Rockets and some other "combo" I forgot. Vulkan can one-shot everything if you hit the blue glowing button, while 70mm cannon is for stuff without the buttons and "Cobra" tanks, which have a big red glowing button on their backs. There are three types of encounters: Hold off enemies for a while, "stealth" against huge "Cobra" drone tanks and simple Batmobile fights where you destroy drones. Vehicular combat as I said, is very dull. You simply shoot enemies and do combos (with rockets and EMP being the most helpful ones), while avoiding enemies' line of fire. Someone might say: "But fist combat is dull and simple too! You punch/kick enemies and use combo when your multiplier is glowing yellow.". Yes, fist fights are really simple, but they're satisfying, unlike vehicular combat. You don't feel like you are vehicle operator at all, you are not immersed in the combat. It's almost Space Invaders for me, but in 3D and with thugs instead of aliens.

- Side Missions. Remember Hush from Arkham City and his plan to look like Bruce Wayne through surgery? Yes, there is side mission in AK about that guy... And it's a total waste! He basically takes Lucius Fox in hostages and it's all goes to "press X to win". Good job, Rocksteady! Good job! Unfortunately, I don't remember side missions all that well. But I can say that they all suck, with the exception of mandatory Riddler SM and "Ubisoft" ones (towers, outposts and mine disarming). Yes, Ubisoft-y missions are better than most of more original side missions!

- Batmobile Torture Scene. Remember when The Joker was about to die but Batman said that he still would save him after all crap he's done (And also was broken due to Joker's death)? Well, watch how he tortures Scarecrow's underling without any mercy! And yes, I'm aware that Batman "tortured" his enemies in the past, but tell me what is more horrifying to see? Batman which beats the crap out of masochistic, insane evil clown (The Joker probably enjoyed the pain)? Or downright vomit-inducing and very risky method of hurting some lowly underling with Batmobile's wheel (which can very easily crack the neck, BTW)? When I played this game, my emotions were mostly "I don't care" or "Picard.jpg", but this scene made me hate Arkham Knight's Batman. He's not Batman, he's Crazy Steve from Frank Miller's ASBAR.

- Ending. The whole ending is one giant "WTF?". In fact, I don't even know what I can write about it, aside from that it didn't answer the player's question, and just creates even more questions for the poor confused player.

- PC Port. Everybody said about how bad the port is. 30 FPS, you can't turn that crappy blur off, memory leaks, and overall crap quality. I was one of the "special snowflakes" which had no problems with memory leaks or crashes to desktop. And I heard the port still sucks to this day. "But Croc, if you had played this game on the console, you would love it!" Hahahahaha! NO, I WOULDN'T! I play Batman Arkham games for their storytelling, not for gameplay or shiny looks (and definitely not for shiny looks). In fact, it's one of the few games where the story is above gameplay or any other thing. I would still hate this turd even if I played it on a console. And for the final nail in the coffin...

- DLC. Harley Quinn DLC is probably one of the most baffling DLCs ever. It's basically VERY short story about how Quinn rescued Poison Ivy from Bludhaven PD. I'm not even joking, it's like 10 minutes long (difficulty doesn't matter)! And I heard other DLC were longer by the small margin: like 15-30 minutes longer. Modern DLC policies at their finest!   

Spoiler: Conclusion (click to show/hide)

Batman: Arkham Knight is easily one of the worst sequels ever made. Bad story, love/hate gimmick, disappointing side missions, attempts to needlessly make it look even edgier and darker but ultimately dumber, terrible ending, bad PC port, and last but not least, overpriced DLCs. It's pretty much THE perfect crappy and disappointing sequel/grand finale. And while I may encounter even more terrible sequel in the future, Arkham Knight will be at least remain in my personal 10 top for sure.

Ugh, that was a very long rant. Anyway, come in and share your own "Worst Video Game Sequel Ever Made" with the others! Debates are welcome as long they follow rules.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Half-Life 2.

I came into it expecting the intelligent, free form, creative and above all, realistic approach to the shooter, where ammo appears in ammo crates, guns in arsenals, where enemies act surprised or hunt you tactically, or even confront each other: e.g. like the original Half-Life

Instead I got a dumb canned introduction, followed by a stupid dash through some sewers, as psychic baddies poured out of every cranny, immediately sensing me, and causing me to kill more people in the intro than in the original game. Then I hid, ran through a tunnel and discovered that the baddies not only knew where I was, but brought a truck or two to the exact random tunnel I surfaced and were dumping explosive barrels my way, following what I can only assume is the Donkey Kong tactical warfare manual.

I quit and never came back

[Virtz]

Gothic 3
Broken combat system, horrible engine with ridiculous loading times, dull quests, and a world that feels generic compared to the first two. It was an attempt to put Gothic in a large world (probably to rival TES or something) and failed really hard.


Dragon Age 2 and 3
I'm putting both in, because they're both terrible in their own ways. One's a lazy action-RPG with constant reuse of areas, repetetive 3-wave combat with enemies crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches, and all strategy elements ripped out compared to the first game. The other shares the dull combat of 2, except shoved in an open world, with the most "we couldn't be bothered" mouse-keyboard controls since Dark Souls 1, and MMORPG quest and world design. It is baffling to me that people found this acceptable, let alone good.


F.E.A.R. 2 and 3
I wouldn't really put these in the same league as the previous two so much as call them disappointing compared to the first. Ripped out all the things that made the shooting so satisfying and pornographic special effects-wise in the first and turned it into an okish generic shooter. But they weren't the worst thing ever. I played through 3 with a friend on co-op. They were just competent shooters with a horror theme.

[Ozyton]

Team Fortress 2

What I wanted:

Spoiler: Expectations (click to show/hide)

What we got:

Spoiler: Delivery (click to show/hide)

I suppose this isn't really a "worst sequel" as much as it is a "disappointing" sequel, but you get the idea.

[PrimusRibbus]

Half-Life 2.

I came into it expecting the intelligent, free form, creative and above all, realistic approach to the shooter, where ammo appears in ammo crates, guns in arsenals, where enemies act surprised or hunt you tactically, or even confront each other: e.g. like the original Half-Life

Instead I got a dumb canned introduction, followed by a stupid dash through some sewers, as psychic baddies poured out of every cranny, immediately sensing me, and causing me to kill more people in the intro than in the original game. Then I hid, ran through a tunnel and discovered that the baddies not only knew where I was, but brought a truck or two to the exact random tunnel I surfaced and were dumping explosive barrels my way, following what I can only assume is the Donkey Kong tactical warfare manual.

I quit and never came back

This. HL2 reminded me of some newbie modder's first map where the enemies' broken AI can't even see you when you're standing right in front of them, but then suddenly it wakes up and every enemy on the level telepathically knows where you and and takes a zombie-like straight path to you.

The lousy gameplay combined with the throwaway story and the novelty of silent Gordon wearing off made it a major disappointment.

[Astral]

Perfect Dark Zero.

I absolutely loved the original on N64 as despite its flaws it was a genuinely good shooter in its own right. It improved on the Goldeneye formula, expanded multiplayer by a lot (even when playing single player, the many bot types added a lot of diversity), had an engaging storyline with some interesting, memorable characters (Elvis will always be an alien to me now) and overall was a major improvement on its predecessor Goldeneye.

Zero came along and dashed all expectations. It was clunky, stock-boring first person cover-based shooter with none of the charm of its predecessor. Part of the reason, I think, is that it was a launch title for the 360, meaning they had to rush or cut a lot of the game to get it ready for the console wars. Another classic case of "they waited too long (5 years), got expectations up, and put out a subpar product in a rush to meet a deadline" in my opinion, and Rare really hasn't done much of note since the N64 days.

[miauw62]

Team Fortress 2

What I wanted:

Spoiler: Expectations (click to show/hide)

What we got:

Spoiler: Delivery (click to show/hide)

I suppose this isn't really a "worst sequel" as much as it is a "disappointing" sequel, but you get the idea.

TF2 did so much right, though. The gameplay was and still is amazing. The aesthetic was amazing, although it's been diluted. It's certainly more interesting than TFCs. Don't blame Valve for ruining the aesthetic and the game in recent years.

Also, from what I heard, TFC had many problems that TF2 tried to fix, and generally succeeded at, like grenadespam.

(Here I am, passionately defending a game I can't bring myself to play anymore...)

Also, TF2 as a strategic shooter a la Battlefield would have been really weird, considering its lineage. TF2 has been the best arena shooter available for a decade.

[da_nang]

It's been almost a decade so I don't remember all that well, but Empire Earth III. Unoptimized, buggy game with dumbed down combat and design. It was not even a husk of the EE franchise's former glory.

[Shadowlord]

Master of Orion 3. No explanation should be needed.

[jocan2003]

Stronghold 3, bought it as soon it came out, only to realise there was NO SKIRMISH IN A STRONHOLD GAME!!! Come on now... AI is sub par, story is meh. I expected a stronhold 2 or stronghold crusader with better graphic and a couple bonus ting but nope... what we got is a tripped down version of stronhold..... What i figured would be impossible is to fuck up a stronhold game... but they managed to do it.

[Folly]

Puzzle Quest: All of the sequels.
None of them managed to reproduce any of the several things that made the original enjoyable.
I'm not sure if Gems of War counts as a sequel. If it is, it's the only decent one.

Dungeon Defenders 2.
This is actually a decent game right now(not great, but worth the purchase price imo), but only after several years of the developers trying to reboot the entire game every month with random ideas that failed horribly. Some people just shouldn't be allowed to make video games.

Sacred Citadel and Sacred 3
Sacred 2 stands as my favorite game in it's category. This sequel and spinoff share some of the same lore, but otherwise bear no resemblance to the previous games and are critically hailed as complete and utter garbage. Not only did these games disgrace a once great series, but likely annihilated any chance of seeing any new Sacred games ever again.

Sims 3.
A lot of money for a game with memory leaks that cause constant crashing. They keep releasing more and more DLC, without fixing the broken base product.

Civilization 5
Maybe this shouldn't be on a list of worst sequels, it was decent. But it did fail to live up to the admittedly high standard set by Civ4 and generally felt like a step backwards.

Warhammer40k, DoW2.
They completely scrapped the established gameplay type we knew, love, and expect from this series, and replaced it with something that was a fraction as much fun.

[Aedel]

Command and Conquer 4.

Drops pretty much the entire series' story line, throws in a wife then never does anything with her but cry over your main character, removes base building and resource management while also adding in a 50 unit cap(where tanks are 8+ points for the cap) and makes it into a rock paper scissors game.

I'm still salty.

[Iceblaster]

Sims 3.
A lot of money for a game with memory leaks that cause constant crashing. They keep releasing more and more DLC, without fixing the broken base product.

So do you think 4 is better? I mean, I think both are decent, but 4 IMO has the potential to be a much better game. I personally never felt the open world of 3 to add much besides 'oh okay i don't have to load between lots.' But even then, I didn't mind the loading in between lots in the other games. Honestly, I think just having a loading screen to divide up gameplay keeps it from being a bit... Mushy. You get a clear sense of 'okay new stuff!' instead of 'oh. that's happening. again.'

maybe i'm just weird.

[miauw62]

Civilization 5
Maybe this shouldn't be on a list of worst sequels, it was decent. But it did fail to live up to the admittedly high standard set by Civ4 and generally felt like a step backwards.l

How was it a step backwards? 1UPT and hex tiles are amazing. Tall being actually viable is also great. The little I played of Civ IV (Before I owned V, even, so there's no bias here) wasn't actually fun, so I dropped it fairly quickly.

[Aoi]

Puzzle Quest: All of the sequels.
None of them managed to reproduce any of the several things that made the original enjoyable.
I'm not sure if Gems of War counts as a sequel. If it is, it's the only decent one.

Man, I loved the original, to the point of having a "perfect" file on the DS and enjoying the awkwardness of people starting in horror at my file. Then I had to switch to a "normal" one for a fair match that didn't end in like two moves.

The later ones were slow, uninspired, had mediocre art, even lousier narrative to the point I'm convinced the entire staff for the original got pushed into a volcano, then it was capped just to make sure none of their essence would make it out.