As games become more expensive to make, the big publishers are more likely to play it safe; they’ll stick to what they know will sell and usually that means sequels. Now, I don’t mind a lot of sequels, even annualized releases, if they manage to maintain a certain level of quality. Outside of the usual fanboy complaints from people who weren’t going to play these games anyway, I think most gamers are pretty happy whenever a new Halo, Zelda, or Uncharted is announced, and if you enjoyed the previous entry in the series then it’s only natural to want more.
But unfortunately, not every sequel is as good as the titles I just mentioned. For every genuine, major step forward like Assassin’s Creed 2 or Mass Effect 2 out there, there’s at least a dozen sequels or new entries into old franchises that fall completely flat on their faces. Whether it’s another game in the Sonic Cycle (wherein a new Sonic game is announced, Sega promises it’ll fix everything, gamers get excited and hyped, then the game finally comes out and it somehow ends up being even worse,) or something like the oft-delayed but strangely rushed feeling Final Fantasy XIII, which managed to even disappoint the most hardcore of Final Fantasy fanboys, I’m sure that all of us have been duped into buying at least one misguided, rushed, or simply plain bad sequel.
With that in mind, I’ve compiled my list of what I think are the 10 11 most disappointing sequels in gaming history. Keep in mind there are no Sonic games on this list, because, well, I don’t think anyone with a rational view of the world was expecting most of the recent Sonic’s to be good anyway, and hell, if I included crap like Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed, and the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and PS3, Sonic 4, etc., this entire list would be made up of Sonic games. Now, sit back and prepare to be underwhelmed, because here are the most disappointing sequels of all time, in no particular order, because they don’t even deserve to be ranked:
Metroid: Other M
The Metroid Prime and GBA Metroid games were great, but gamers have always clamored for a new Metroid game done in the style of the revolutionary Super Metroid. They wanted the old, non-linear exploration and the sidescrolling, third-person viewpoint of the old SNES classic, coupled with the presentation and flash of a modern game. In 2010, Nintendo, along with development assistance from Tecmo’s Team Ninja (developer of the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive games,) gave gamers just what they asked for, and in doing so they managed to reinforce the old adage “becareful what you wish for.”
On the surface, Other M looks like it should be the ultimate Metroid game: its got level designs reminiscent of Super Metroid, with a focus on exploration and platforming, and it blends Team Ninja’s signature stylish third-person combat with some of Metroid Prime’s first person shooting elements. If this had been all that Other M offered, it probably would’ve been a much better game, but unfortunately, the developers didn’t stop there.
In an attempt to modernize a franchise that didn’t actually need any modernizing, Other M’s development team (which included Yoshio Sakamoto, director of Super Metroid,) thought they should put a bigger emphasis on the story, and that’s where a large amount of Other M’s problems originate: Samus, the silent, stoic bounty hunter that gamers had fallen in love with was a reduced to whiney, self-absorbed little girl who cowered at the sight of boss enemies (even a reoccuring boss whom she’s defeated several times prior at this point in the series’ timeline,) and who seemingly can’t think for herself. Super Metroid told an engaging story through wonderfully minimalist, pantomimed cutscenes that managed to convey the severity of each situation without saying a word. Other M tells its story via long, badly acted and badly written cut-scenes that transform Samus from bad-ass gaming icon into the gaming equivalent of Don Draper’s wife.
It’s not just the narrative that ruins Other M either. Odd design choices, like awkwardly having to switch the way you hold the Wii-mote from sideways-NES style to the traditional pointer-based method in the midst of battle (while often getting pummeled by enemies while you fumble with the controller,) to badly designed, tedious point-and-click “puzzles,” manage to transform the usually beautifully streamlined Metroid experience into something that feels like a student design project. There are moments when the classic Metroid brilliance shows through, but it’s clear that the development team behind Other M had no clue what direction to take the series, and simply tossed in every idea they had without giving any thought to whether those ideas actually made sense or not. Recent reports from within Nintendo reveal that the company is aware that most fans were deeply disappointed by Other M, so hopefully they can get the series (and Samus’s reputation) back on track with the next game.
Resistance 2
The original Resistance: Fall of Man isn’t the best FPS ever made, but it was a damn fine game in its own right, and it was definitely the best game available at the PS3’s launch. So when developer Insomniac delivered the inevitable sequel, most people expected it to be pretty good. No longer constrained by having to finish the game in time for a console launch, it seemed like Insomniac finally had the time to develop a game that cashed in on all of the potential that Resistance’s epic aliens-meet- WW2 alternate-history setting offered. On paper, Resistance 2 seems like it does just that: the single player campaign is longer with more diverse settings and combat situations, the game offers more bizarre alien weaponry, adds in a dedicated co-op campaign and R2 revamps the competitive multiplayer to support a whopping 40 players in one match.
But while those features sound enticing when you read them in a preview or on the back of the game’s box, actually playing game the was a different experience entirely. Lacking a lot of the polish and personality that made the original game the stand-out title of the PS3’s launch, Resistance 2 was strangely released to mostly positive critical praise but was quickly disowned by hardcore fans of the original game; the new single-player campaign lacked the intense, wide-open firefights of the original in favor of boring scripted events and shoddy corridor-based shooting, and was rife with frustrating trial-and-error segments that often pitted you against enemies who kill you in one hit. Resistance 2 ditched the original game’s innovative weapon wheel (an on-screen menu that allowed you to switch between the game’s entire arsenal of weapons quickly,) in favor of a more restrictive two weapon limit, and the chaotic multiplayer showed that it was possible to have too many players, as big matches quickly devolved into wars of attrition rather than tests of skill.
Insomniac seems to have agreed with Resistance’s hardcore fanbase, as they promptly cancelled all planned DLC for Resistance 2 and have publicly stated that they consider the game a failure. Thankfully, they took the fan feedback to heart and gave us Resistance 3 in 2011, and the general consensus on that game seems to be that it’s everything Resistance 2 wasn’t: the single player campaign is fun and polished, the weapon wheel back, and the new multiplayer mode (which reduces the player count back down to 16,) manages to still feel intense and skill based without delving into the random chaos that characterized R2’s online matches.
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams
The original NiGHTS: Into Dreams was released for the troubled Sega Saturn in 1996, where it was immediately overshadowed (and understandably so,) by the launch of the Nintendo 64 and the 3D revolution that Super Mario 64 brought about. But while Mario raked in the sales and accolades, the rare few who tried out Sega and Sonic Team’s experimental flight game found an instant classic. With its mix of surreal visuals and addictive, arcade-like score-based gameplay, NiGHTS became a cult classic that is still regarded as one of the best (if not the best) games to come out of Sega.
While they made their fair share of poor business decisions, the Sega of the 90’s always managed to deliver with quality titles like NiGHTS. In sharp contrast, the modern, third-party Sega that exists today is much more profitable than they were in the Saturn and Dreamcast days, but they’ve all but destroyed the excellent development reputation they managed to build up during the 90’s with modern garbage like Golden Axe: Beast Rider and the licensed Iron Man games. While they still somehow manage to turn out a great game every now and then (examples: Valkyria Chronicles, Sonic Colors, Vanquish,) there’s no doubt that the Sega of today is just a pale imitation of the company that defined gaming for a good portion of the 90’s.
And there’s no better example of that decline in quality than NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, the 2007 Wii exclusive sequel to the Saturn classic that just about manages to get everything wrong: the controls are inaccurate, the new levels are all hideous and are poorly laid out, the boss battles are forgettable, and worse of all, the game manages to turn the original game’s thoughtfully minimal narrative into a trainwreck of children’s programming cliches and bad acting. Do I really need to hear NiGHTS give me a lecture about the importance of believing in myself every level? No, I really don’t, and you really shouldn’t want to play this abomination of a game. The only flaw with the original NiGHTS for Saturn was that it was too short; NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams corrects that by giving you a longer adventure, but unfortunately that added length just prolongs the suffering. This is one nightmare that you’ll want to end as soon as possible.
Final Fantasy XIV
It’s not unusual for a new MMO to launch with some problems. These are gigantic, complicated games, and usually, everything that can go wrong with an MMO launch will end up going very, very wrong: overloaded servers, bugged quests, and constant crashes and server resets have all happened to every major MMO, including the mighty World of Warcraft. Fans of the genre have come to expect, even tolerate these issues.
Even with those lowered expectations, the launch of Square-Enix’s latest MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, managed to provide a new example in how not to launch a new MMO. Suffering from the same issues that plague the genre and then some, Final Fantasy XIV didn’t just fail because of technical limitations, but it failed because the game simply wasn’t finished: there was an appalling lack of content (even by MMO launch standards,) the UI was unnecessarily complicated and unintuitive, and a ludicrous amount of bugs (again, even by MMO launch standards,) that ranged from everything to game-ending crashes to a bug that made it difficult to even chat with other players effectively. Even MMO veterans, who knew to lower their standards when going into a new game launch, were appalled by the state the game was released in. While the game managed to accrue a small following of apologists who insisted (and continue to insist) that nothing was out of the ordinary regarding FFXIV, anyone who ever played another MMO in their life immediately felt short-changed upon entering XIV’s haphazardly held together world.
Square-Enix immediately realized they really dropped the ball with XIV and announced that the game was suspending all subscription fees until further notice, and that the game was being given a completely new development team to “fix” the mess that everyone had just paid $60 for. They more recently announced that they’d essentially be relaunching the game as Final Fantasy XIV Version 2.0, an attempt at salvaging the project which makes so many changes to FFXIV’s core systems that it might as well be entirely new game. When you consider that there wasn’t a whole lot the original release of FFXIV got right in the first place, it makes sense that they’d basically just remake the whole thing from scratch. Here’s hoping they get it right this time.
Mega Man 4
Now, don’t get me wrong: Mega Man 4 isn’t a terrible game. There are far worse Mega Man games out there, and there are other action/platformers out there that are infinitely worse than this. Mega Man 4 isn’t on this list because of some stupid design choice or shoddy programming or anything like that. It’s on this list because of what it represents: the turning point of Mega Man.
The first three Mega Man games are all challenging, wonderfully designed games that are all based on the same formula, but still feel fresh thanks to their unique, clever level design and memorable boss characters. While 4 introduced a major innovation in the form of the chargeable mega buster, it also represents the point in the series when the designers clearly ran out of ideas and simply began churning out sequels for the money; while still a technically passable game in every way, Mega Man 4 (and pretty much every game in the original Mega Man series until the current gen retro rival Mega Man 9) lacked the passion, the cleverness, the attention to detail, and that certain je ne sais quoi of the first three games in the series.
By the time the game came out in 1991, it was clear that Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune and his team were focusing most of their new ideas into the game that would eventually become Mega Man X (a spin-off series which itself would suffer from too many iterative sequels a few years down the line,) and Mega Man 4 and its further sequels on the NES all felt like afterthoughts. While not a terrible game, Mega Man 4 was a substantial drop in quality from the original trilogy of Mega Man games, and marked the point at which the series began to jump the shark. I love Mega Man, but there’s a difference between quality sequels like Mega Man 2 and 9 and the unimaginative, template-recycling cash-ins that games like Mega Man 4 represent.
Phantasy Star Universe
I’ve made my distaste for PSU clear on this blog before, but hey, I’m still bitter, so let me repeat myself: Phantasy Star Universe is the epitome of mediocrity, and an insult to the games it claims to be the successor to. Just as NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams was a pale imitation of the original NiGHTS, PSU did nothing but tarnish the reputation of pioneering Dreamcast classic Phantasy Star Online.
It’s almost laughable how much Phantasy Star Universe manages to screw up a winning formula. The original PSO was probably one of the most addictive console games ever, and its nigh-perfect balance of challenging dungeon crawling and loot collecting turned what could’ve been a repetitive grind into one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had while playing a game. PSU is the exact opposite: while improvements were made to the core combat mechanics, PSU completely screws up the delicate balance between grind and reward that PSO so deftly pulled off, resulting in a game that feels more like work rather than fun.
That’s not PSU’s only problem, however: the game also features one the worst, most insipid stories and cast of characters that I’ve ever seen in a game, and that’s saying a lot considering the amount of terrible J-RPG’s I’ve been subjected to over the years. Every single irritating anime cliche and trope is recycled un-ironically in PSU. It’s as though the game’s designers were trying to create some sort of Smash Bros. like crossover starring every annoying stock character from every terrible anime you’ve ever watched. This game’s cast is the gaming equivalent of The Jersey Shore. If the characters in this game were all of the same race, I would demand that that race be ethnically cleansed.
Perfect Dark Zero
The original Perfect Dark wasn’t the best FPS on the N64, but it was still a solid, fun title that, at the very least, gave console players a worthwhile alternative to Goldeneye. The single player campaign cast players in the role of Joanna Dark, a futuristic spy who became embroiled in a secret conflict between two alien species. While the alien conspiracy theory-filled story line wasn’t the greatest piece of fiction to ever grace a game, it at least had the good sense to not take itself too seriously, and really, it was just an excuse to set-up some interesting gun fights. Like Goldeneye before it, Perfect Dark also featured an incredibly addictive multiplayer mode that kept me and my friends squinting at our split-screened standard-def TV well past our bed-times.
While N64 classics like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were perhaps the first truly good console FPS’s, the genre grew by leaps in bounds in the generation to follow, thanks to innovative hits like the original Halo. Dual-stick controls became the norm, as did epic, scripted events and enemies with tactical AI. In the span of less than five years, simple corridor shooters like Goldeneye and the original Perfect Dark went from being cutting-edge to ancient relics.
Fast forward to 2005: Microsoft is about to launch their newest console, the Xbox 360, and they need a killer app. Halo 3 won’t be ready for another year, so Microsoft taps Rare to finally create a sequel to Perfect Dark. Rare could’ve used this opportunity to modernize Perfect Dark, and reclaim their crown as kings of the console FPS from the likes of Bungie and Infinity Ward. Instead, they gave us a game that managed to feel as antiquated as the original N64 game, with boring, simple settings, brain-dead enemy AI, and level designs so broken and confusing that the designers actually had to paint giant flashing arrows on the ground at the last minute to let the player know where to go next. Joanna Dark herself was redesigned to look like a failed, 80’s teenage pop-star, and in general the whole game reeked of market focus testing and a generally embarrassing feeling of the developers trying way to hard to be “hip.” While the game somehow managed to get decent review scores from most major press outlets, fans were less than impressed with Joanna Dark’s latest (but definitely not greatest) adventure. Call of Duty 2 ended up becoming the stand-out hit of the Xbox 360 launch, and Perfect Dark Zero quickly found its way to bargain bins, where it (including the Limited Edition of the game,) can still be found today.
Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within
Do you remember Poochie? In one of the best episodes of The Simpsons, the creators of Itchy and Scratchy decide that they need to introduce a new character to boost sagging ratings of the show, so they end up creating Poochie, a rapping, skate-boarding dog, designed by clueless marketing execs to appeal to what they think kids find cool.
Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within is videogaming’s Poochie. The first game in the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy was critcially acclaimed, winning most publications Game of the Year awards in 2003 (even managing to top stiff competition from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), but publisher Ubisoft felt like the game didn’t sell as many copies as it should have. So instead of trying to make a better game for its sequel, they concentrated instead on making a more marketable game.
In the original game, the titular Prince was a snobby but charming smart-ass. He was a flawed character who managed to grow into a heroic figure slowly over the course of his adventure. In The Warrior Within, the Prince is transformed into a grungy, masochistic warrior who cusses like a sailor and revels in destruction. If it weren’t for the opening exposition telling me that this was the same character from the original game, I wouldn’t believe it: any traces of the original lovable snob are gone, and in his place we have an un-ironic 90’s budget action movie cliche as our new protagonist. Instead of Farah, the self-sufficient and intelligent Indian princess who was the Prince’s original love interest, The Warrior Within features an impossibly buxom, personality-less piece of wank material who’s only memorable trait is her outfit that’s seemingly made of dental floss.
At the time of its release, mature games like GTA were just beginning to take over the hardcore gaming scene, and it seems like Warrior Within was a shameless attempt at piggy-backing on other games’ successes. Everything in the game just smacks of marketing exec influence and pandering, and everyone over the age of 12 or 13 found Warrior Within’s painful attempts at being “edgy” embarrassing. The Prince of Persia series features some of the best platformers ever made, but Warrior Within is not one of those games. It remains memorable for one reason only: as a cautionary tale of what happens when you let your marketing team have more influence in the design of a game than your actual game designers.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Obsidian Entertainment are great at designing games. Unfortunately, they aren’t very good at finishing them: thanks to bug-filled and crash prone releases like the otherwise fantastic Fallout: New Vegas and Neverwinter Nights 2, the company has garnered a deserved reputation for releasing unfinished games that feel more like early beta’s rather than boxed, retail products. Obsidian’s games are undeniably great when they work properly, but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen all that often.
Their most infamously broken game was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, the sequel to Bioware’s genre-defining hit. Obviously, not many developers out there are up to the task of filling in for Bioware, but for the first few hours of KoTOR 2, it seems like Obsidian succeeded: the mystery filled story shows a lot of early promise, and the dialogue is just as clever and natural as Bioware’s best. The game makes some minor improvements to the original KoTOR’s semi-turn based combat system, the most notable of which are different lightsaber stances that allow you to tailor your fighting style towards specific situations.
But while KoTOR 2 makes a good first impression, things quickly fall apart: on both the original Xbox and PC versions, the game is prone to constant crashes, graphical glitches, and weird AI and pathfinding errors. The original KoTOR had these issues too, sure, but the bugs weren’t this prevalent. By Obsidian’s own admission, the game suffered from a rushed development schedule, and once you get passed KoTOR 2’s prologue areas, the lack of dev time really shows. Big plot threads are never properly resolved thanks to last minute cuts and edits, and the game’s difficulty curve and balance are completely off; some major bosses (including Darth Nihilus, the bad-ass Sith who graces the game’s cover art,) can be defeated in one or two turns, while other, more basic enemies are strangely difficult.
KoTOR 2 isn’t a terrible game, but it’s a game that fails to live up to the original Knights of the Old Republic, and it fails to make good on the potential that’s so evident in its own opening chapters. Like most Obsidian games, all of KoTOR 2’s flaws probably could’ve been fixed with a few extra months of development and some extra bug testing, but as it stands now, KoTOR 2 remains one of the most disappointing missed opportunities in gaming history.
Mortal Kombat 3
It’s 1995, and Mortal Kombat is at the height of its popularity. While the original game drew infamy for its (now comparatively comical) violence, Mortal Kombat 2 proved that MK was a legitimately good game that offered more than just gimmicky gore. There was a Mortal Kombat tv show, action figures, and even a surprisingly tolerable big-budget movie. It was impossible to talk about games without talking about Mortal Kombat, and some people even went as far as to say that Mortal Kombat was superior to Capcom’s pioneering Street Fighter series. Expectations were high for Mortal Kombat 3, and people expected it to change everything.
In many ways, Mortal Kombat 3 did change a lot of fighting game fans’ lives: it made them stop being Mortal Kombat fans and changed them into fans of other fighting games. To put it simply, the game manage to disappoint on every level.
There’s a lot of genuine problems with Mortal Kombat 3: the pointless addition of the “Run” button and meter, or the inflexible, stiff “dial-a-combo” system that the game introduced, but Mortal Kombat 3 will always be most derided for its cast of characters. The new characters range from the ridiculously lame, mall cop-esque Striker to Motaro, a centaur created using claymation techniques that looks like he was ripped out of a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. As if the new characters weren’t enough to make series fans question whether they wanted to stick with the series, the third game also omitted many fan favorites from the roster, including Johnny Cage and the iconic Scorpion.
Many consider MK3 the point at which the series jumped the shark; following entries in the franchise took MK into 3D, and while some games were better than others, none of the Mortal Kombat games released throughout the next fifteen years managed to achieve anything better than abject mediocrity. Thankfully, NetherRealm managed to successfully resurrect the franchise with their excellent reboot last year, and for now, it seems like Mortal Kombat is back on its way towards being a respectable fighter again.
Duke Nukem Forever
All of the games I listed previously were disappointing for a number of reasons. Some of them were ruined by technical issues. Others suffered from a lack of imagination. Most of them failed to live up to the standard set by their prequels. Duke Nukem Forever is all of these things and more, but there’s one thing that Duke Nukem Forever isn’t: a good game.
The other games on this list were probably preceded by a few months or a year of hype before they were released, hence the disappointment. Duke Nukem Forever had 14 years of empty promises, ridiculous hyperbole, and unrealistic expectations to live up to, so you could say that the disappointment this game delivered was magnified by a factor of 14. But even if you manage to divorce DNF’s troubled development period with your thoughts on the final product, it’s inarguable that Duke’s latest outing is perhaps one of the worst games of the generation.
Despite being released for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, DNF features graphics that are about on par with the Wii games you find on clearance for $5 at Wal-Mart. While the game features plenty of pointless diversions like being able to draw a dick on a whiteboard, at no point during its painfully long (or, at the very least, it felt like it was long,) campaign does it manage to serve up a single entertaining or satisfying gun fight, nor does Duke ever manage to say anything that’s even remotely funny. I mean, it’s obvious that the game is trying really hard to be funny, but that painful, strained desperation to entertain just makes Duke even more depressing. I understand that there are some people out there who somehow think that this game is both fun to play and hilarious, but those people are probably the same… uh, “special” people who think Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill is a cinematic masterpiece.
Duke Nukem Forever is to the original Duke Nukem games what Sonic Unleashed was to Sonic 2. It is to videogames what Justin Beiber is to music. Sure, there are worse games out there than Duke Nukem Forever, but you know what? There are worse diseases than herpes out there too, that doesn’t mean I’ll gladly and willingly infect myself. DNF, despite its inarguable crappiness, has managed to accrue a strangely overly sensitive defense force who seem convinced that DNF is free from any massive flaws and is somehow being unfairly targeted and bashed by the press. I have no idea what game these fanboys are seeing, because even with their emotional, desperate, often poorly worded pleas to “OMG JUST LEAVE POOR DUKE ALONE ASSHOLE,” I can’t see a single reason why anyone would find even a single aspect of this game worthwhile.
Well, I’ve said my piece. Those were the 11 games that I think are the most disappointing sequels in gaming history. If you think I forgot something, or you actually somehow actually liked one of these games, feel free to vent you impotent nerd rage in the comments as usual.
Rian Quenlin
Prince only cursed twice in Warrior Within actually: calling Shadee a bitch after she gets a cheap shot, and yelling “Die you bastard!!” at the Dahaka when he goes hurtling down a pit. I’ll admit it wasn’t as good as Sands of Time but it was hardly disappointing. I wasn’t keen on the soundtrack at all though, they could have done better making the Prince look weathered and fatigued from his constant retreats from the Dahaka though. Then again they did justify it trying to be darker and edgier, but went a bit too far.
Chris Hernandez
I think Mortal Kombat redeemed itself with MK3 Ultimate, it was my favourite MK.
Also, I never played the first one but Resistance 2 was a blast to me. Though if I had played the first I could see how I might have been disappointed.
Jonathan Stoffregen
i agree with every game on this list although i should say mw2 is on too 😀 either way GREAT LIST MATE!
Anonymous
Where’s Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts?
Rian Quenlin
Top lists tend to be the opinion of the author, I personally am surprised to not see Xenosaga 2, Devil May Cry 2, or Phantasy Star 3 on this list. All of them had some high expectations to live up to, yes, but they were all poorly done.
TheOne
The last line made this article for me! Nerd rage haha… awesome article!
Anonymous
Duke Nukem Forever sucked because it was designed for casual console users.
Rian Quenlin
It sucked because it used the same style of FPS it used 15 years ago and you know it.
PS, casual console users? Go play Etrian Odyssey for a few hours and come back to me on how casual that is.
morbid_slayer_25
15 years ago FPS where not QTE crapfests with corridors and scripted events that today’s FPS players seem to enjoy. 15 years ago, you actually had to search for the exit as well as killing everything in your path. Now? DNF had linear levels with corridors, staying alive ain’t much of a challenge with all the interactive objects that upgrades your maximum health as well as the execution moves that fully heals you.
So no, DNF didn’t suck because it played like classic FPS, otherwise, it wouldn’t be that bad. It sucked because of uninspired level-design, un-funny jokes, short campaign (though that may be a blessing more than a curse) and stupid features integrated to “modernize” the game (self-healing, 2-weapons limit, overuse of scripted events). So yeah, I’d say that’s pretty casual and taking a DS game as an example of hardcore game just proves you might wanna get a few completed games under your belt before arguing.
Curtis Isabell
resistance 2 was a vast improvment to resistance 1…. they were both OMGarbage though. i
bought a PS3 and got the double pack for $15, i feel ripped off.
i would throw in one of the many COD games, the worst is probably MW3, or MW2… both lowered the standard of the series even more so idk which would be better for the list.
rainbow 6 vegas 2 should be on the list. vegas 1 is the best shooter of this gen, vegas 2 was no where near as good.
Daniel Carroll
i agree with you
Munkefissen
Worst Call of duty is Black Ops despite what many people say.. MW2 and 3 both suck too. Last good COD was COD4
scott
not a huge cod fan, but all the games are ok in my book. THeyre fun arcade style multiplayer games that you can enjoy with your friends(who are too cheap to buy other games besides the COD series). MW2 and 3 are the are the more sucker ones IMO. They’re basically COD 4 with new maps and guns. Waste of $60 bucks. I had a lot of fun still with MW2 but got bored really fast with MW3
Treyarc i like because they change it up. WAW was nice with the old stlye warfare and weapons. Black Ops was ok. I like the campaign the most in this one (although i dont really care for campaigns in COD). BOII looks awesome. And Nazi Zombies is the best part about COD now.
Hakker
Actually found DNF to be quite playable same goes for Resistance 2. There are far better options
Carmageddon TDR2000, Devil May Cry 2, Final Fight Streetwise, Metal Gear solid 2, Turok Evolution, Shellshock 2, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, The Zelda’s on the CDI
Rian Quenlin
“Mah boi… this voice in your head is what all true Zelda fans strive for.”
tailszero
Metroid: Other M wasn’t perfect, but its a LOT better than the other games on this list, and I would rather play it than a lot of games out their. Sure, the story is crap, but the game play is enough like super metroids for me to love the game.
Eddiedv37
resistance 2, other m, KOTOR 2 and Warrior Within, they don’t deserve to be in this list
Chris Hernandez
You expected Other M to be as it was, not better? You are a rarity among Metroid fans then.
This list is not saying the games are bad, only that they did not live up to what they could have been.
El_WrayY88
I’ve never played Other M but agree on the other games
Razvigor
KotOR 2, sadly, deserves a spot on this list.
It’s one of my favourite games (despite it’s flaws), but the main problem is that it could have been one of the greatest games ever – but it was rushed, and a large amount of content was cut…
Mitch Strenke
NERD RAGE – WHERE IS DRAGON AGE 2
Riverastorm
Can not agree with that the story was lacking compared to the first but the combate improved alot compared to te first.
Parsa Hadidi
Ultima 9?
Brutalizer77
Uuhh, yeah, Mortal Kombat 3 was amazing. Dumb list.
Chris Hernandez
The entire list is dumb because you disagree with one choice? Makes sense.
Knight96-1994
Happy you didn’t add MGS2 in the list
Shermo7
Master of Orion 3!
Sammy Lane
MKIII was EPIC!!Why is it on here??
llllllllllll
Duke Nukem Forever is to the original Duke Nukem games what Sonic Unleashed was to Sonic 2. It is to videogames what Justin Beiber is to music. Sure, there are worse games out there than Duke Nukem Forever, but you know what? There are worse diseases than herpes out there too, that doesn’t mean I’ll gladly and willingly infect myself.
Very nice. Made me laugh, but it is so true.
Maza
This is one of the best things I’ve read all year.
Moodleyoren
You put Prince of Persia on this list??????? Idiot
Jeff
So many spelling and grammar mistakes! Learn the difference between “its” and “it’s”! Then “peace” and “piece”, how to make plurals without an apostrophe, etc. Do you call yourself a professional writer?
Chris Hernandez
Thanks for the input. Can you point out how “peace” or “piece” were used incorrectly?
FishyCirus
At the end “Well, I’ve said my peace” It should be piece. :p
Not that it matters, you’d just finished writing about Duke nukem, so I’m surprised you could even remember how to type. Everytime I play it makes my brain go mushy. ._.
Ater
it’s =/= its
WTF, man? Did you fail first grade grammar?
Waynemarkcaberoy
hey final fantasy XIV is a great game your just angry because it topped the the skyrim nerd
Michael Lacerna
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/final-fantasy-xiv-online
Fonzie
MAH DICK IS DISAPPOINTING
Craig-victory
what about star wars the force unleashed 2 that was realy disappointing to me it was an ok game but could have been so much better
Cody Cromarty
Went down to the comments just to find impotent nerd rage.
God, I am never disappointed on gaming websites.
Boxofhalf
I hate how every one rips on DNF! Your graphics argument is invalid. The graphics are the equivalent of any other good ps3 game! I have it for the pc and still the graphics are awesome! Anyone who has played Fracture for the ps3 knows what bad graphics are! DNF rules!!
Drg2k
Mortal Kombat 3 was great in my opinion. MK 4 was terrible. Also, Devil May Cry 2 was a huge disappointment.
mickael
Many people say that MK2 is the best in the series but MK3, or should I say UMK3 which was released as an upgrade to all MK3’s 6 months later. …which had the characters he felt were missing. MK4 is where is sucked until the latest one, MK9.
Riverastorm
I liked the second Knight of the Old republic better
Ed
I loved Warrior Within. I think you not liking the aesthetics is just bias, because if you go past that it’s a game as good as any Prince of Persia game.
El_WrayY88
I can beat Sands of Time in a couple of hours but Warrior Within was more challenging which platformers like this never do for me. I liked the story to KOTOR II more up until the final planet, yes, I’m one of the four people on the planet that do. Or even just the one actually…
Also thought Resistance 2 wasn’t bad at all and Perfect Dark Zero wasn’t good but definitely not that awful.
yosrebel84
final fantasy X-2 should be on this list actually should be top of this list worst game i have ever wasted money on
Gibson Justin
FFX-2?
Or didya not want to pick on Square too much after bashing XIV?
Elias Vilte
are you kidding me? MK4 sucks and MK3 was a good game (yeah yeah you can complain about “running button” but not a sinlge and only combo in the whole game…………)
POP:TWW was great and the changes were awsome ¿what do you expect?¿another shining castle? BORING -___-U
that’all i can complain about this review
Kid381
People complain about DNF because of it’s “gameplay” and “child-like, crude humor”, but that’s exactly what made Duke Nukem. They kept the “outdated” FPS style for the Vet gamers that were expecting that kind of a shooter. Yes, the aiming could’ve been enhanced a little bit, but they were trying to keep it as original as possible so that they can’t get hashed on for “adding new things” such as what happened to “Other M”.
The humor of Duke Nukem is greatly satisfying to those can catch the references. Example being when he said “Power armor is for pussies” with a suit of green armor similar to that of Halo’s Master Chief. His humor is a form of insult that people that either don’t like what’s being made fun of, or someone who actually is open-minded to humor, would get a kick out of.
As for POP, he seriously needed that attitude change. As much as I love his sarcasm from the other games, his new way of saying and looking at things were definitely a thumbs-up from me.
Guest
what’s with the all of a sudden hate on resistance 2? quickly disowned? it hasn’t been until recently that i’ve ever heard a shred of dislike for the game, other than 2 weapon max. resistance has gotten better with each main iteration in the series.
Charles Nelson
I also disagree with MK3 I spent every last quarter on it at the arcade only to come home and click on the SNES for more practice to beat the kids at the arcade. Scorpion was essentially replaced with Smoke anyhow and who in their right mind played that fairy Johnny Cage…
I was on FFXIV for Alpha, Beta and bought the CE. The game definitely failed and belongs on the list but seeing how the new development team has handled such a massive failure I have a lot of faith in 2.0 delivering on it’s promises.
Shiirow
Anyone who says DNF was an homage to the orginal and a good game are same brainless drones who think Call of Duty (and every subsequent release thereafter) were masterpieces of FPS design. Id give every CoD game and clone for another decent Doom or Wolfenstein 3D….
Worf
Master of Orion 3. What a way to destroy expectations. MOO was a great and unexpected game. MOO2 was and even bigger, better more awesome game. MOO3 was probably the greatest letdown of my gaming career. They managed to destroy EVERY SINGLE THING that was great about the previous 2. From gameplay to storyline….
NomBomb
Final Fantasy XIV isn’t a true sequel… FFX-2 and FFXIII-2 are sequels. That’s like saying VIII is the sequel to VII… Just… No.
Jay Wilson
I didn’t find DNF to be that bad. Maybe because it cost me $4 on steam lol. Was ok to pass the time though but the animations were terrible and agreed with the bad jokes. Hope you put D3 on a new version of this too. For me D3 is the most dissapointing sequel of this year >.<.
Princess Peach
LEAVE DUKE ALONE!
HE’S A HUMAN BEING!
LEAVE HIM ALOOOOO-HOOOO-HOOOOOONE!
(But srsly, you guys, DNF was mediocre, not dogshit.)
ploodie
Thought RES2 was MILES improved over the original, and better than the laughable RES3. Also, knowing this is an uphill battle,… but I thoroughly enjoyed Other M – I think it gets way too much bad press.
connor
Warrior within is a great game
mattwo
I liked PSU’s story.
Of course I’m the type of person who ignores things like character stereotypes as long as they aren’t to the point where they impede on … I lost my train of thought. I’m not really good at discussing things like this…
Rootlan
Warrior Within was great it really improved the combat and the platforming was still challenging as well as the puzzles and if the prince was angry and bitter it was because A FRIGGING DEMON was chasing him EVERY DAY OF HIS LIFE WANTING TO KILL HIM for a couple of years.
jc
I totally agree. Even in The Sands of Time, his father was gone, almost everyone was turned into a sand monster and yet it looked like everything was just fine for the Prince! I enjoyed The Sands of Time a lot, but the way the story is told sounds like a childish Disney movie. Warrior Within seems to have been made for a more mature public and that made its story better. Plus, combat was improved. Plus, the whole game was more challenging. Plus, those moments escaping from the Dahaka were a thrilling experience not found in any moments of The Sands of Time or The Two Thrones!!
ta
Sigh I violently disagree with you. The only thing you said that’s accurate is that combat was improved.. but it traded that for dumbed down platforming and and lazy simplistic puzzles.. which were the hallmarks of the series. And no.. Sands of time was made for a more mature public (‘mature’ doesn’t equal blood and swearing btw). SOT actually trusted its players enough to be story driven (wasted on some clearly) and have flawed rounded characters instead of the over macho emotionless card board cut outs that are the staple of modern games.
PaulH82
oh man Final Fantasy. . . what happened 🙁
Anonymous
Duke Nukem Forever was awesome. This list sucks.
TonyG
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have fond memories of pumping quarters into an MK3 arcade cab. And UMK3 was even better.
Get your head straight, boy.
Blaz
You but in KoTOR 2 but you leave out Dragon Age 2? Get the F out of here man.
Michael Lacerna
Hi, my name is Michael Lacerna and i love to crete crappy list, dahhhhhh. im retard 😀
NO ONE
The person who wrote this article is a total, absolute,flawless idiot. THE WARRIOR WITHIN is one of the best games ever made. You obviusly have never played it or you are just like i said – an idiot. MK 3 is also a masterpiece. You are nothing of a gamer you asswipe
Das Noodleman
All these games are pretty good, just not as good as the original. I can name sequels that are far worse than these
da-ginja-ninja
dragon age 2 isn’t that bad
blooopi
I think Socom deserved to be here, the worst sequel for the ps3 ever, it was the best game for the playstation 2 ever but the sequels after that were sooo bad it hurt to play.
Mickael
Metroid Other M, Resistance 2, Mega Man 4, and Perfect Dark Zero are perfectly placed on this list. (especially Resistance 2 considering as you said, it scored very well with critics) but I gotta say you meant to say the Mortal Kombat series started sucking at Mortal Kombat 4. Mortal Kombat 3 because Ultimate MK3 and fixed your problems.
Imran
This article is completely based on personal opinion.Prince of persia warrior within & Mortal combat 3 were great sequels.Infact i started my gaming life from Warrior within