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Games That Deserve New Year Sequels
Retrogaming with Racketboy has a piece looking at 10 Games that 'need' a sequel. Each title is a deserving candidate for an updating, though probably some more than others. From the article: "Possibly one the best games of 2004, Beyond Good and Evil featured a magical combination of action, animation, and storytelling that won it high regard among critics. The game represented high quality and production values when most other games on the market were either re-hashes of other successful games or just plain awful. With all the unimaginative plots in games today, a series like BG&E deserves to live on. Of course, it didn't sell well in its first iteration, but much of the buzz about the game happened just a bit after stores started taking it off their shelves. Now that there is a healthier fan-base, a sequel might just flourish."
I cannot believe that Starcraft didn't make that list.
And they said zombies weren't real!
Duke Nukem 3d was one of the best single-person FPS games ever published; the secrets and plot were unparalleled, and the game got shadowed by the release of Quake (which evolved FPS from sprite-based graphics to today's 3-D feel and made the (spirte-based) Duke Nukem "3d" title look ... dumb). Gameplay and overall design were either on-par or superior to Quake, and many people still regard it as the best of the genre. This screams for a sequel.
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No games deserve a sequel, this is the number one problem in the gaming industry today.
So many clones of existing franchises along with endless tired sequels is driving people away from games.
Look at Doom3 and Quack4, too highly anticipated sequels that went nowhere. They were simply regurgitations of tired concepts with fancy graphics.
Why I do believe there are game concepts that warrant revisits, Diablo's style of gameplay comes to mind, this does not mean we need Diablo 3. Why not create a new story with some new innovative features in a new game. Rather then working 4 years to create a Diablo clone that only offers better graphics, come out with new stories using the same engine with novel twists on the concept. I would much rather buy 4 games that are in the style of Diablo 2 that all offer original plots rather then waiting 4 years for a sequel of Diablo 3.
In all honestly, why can't the entertainment industry get it in their head that sequels kill a franchise, especially when NO effort is made to keep them fresh and original. I am sure XMEN 3 will do well this year, but only because they are banking on repeats by past fans, I am also very sure that XMEN 3 will have vapid and underwhelming story line with lots of duplicated scenes and action. I can't wait for the slew of franchise games based on XMEN 3 this year, we all know that games based on movies do well.
Not all sequels are bad, Civ 4 was hottly received, but this is more because new technology allows for richer and more intelligent gameplay while tweaking a game engine to make it more streamlined and entertaining. Civ 4 is simply not a regurgitation of Civ3 with better graphics as are most 3rd person shooters and RPG's.
If you don't have something new to say, then don't say it, same goes for movies and video games. Can't offer anything new and innovative, the simply leave it be. I for one would wish that the game industry be forced to implement money back guarantees, where you are fully reimbursed for the money they attempted to rip off you with another tired sequel.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Four Civs and three MOOs, but not one MOM sequel?
It's suck a pity that the IP rights got swallowed and divided up when Looking Glass went titsup limiting any feasible official remake (I don't have a link to this info, but AFAIK it was in an interview with Warren Spector somewhere).
Oh, and add in a Sam and Max sequel... but it is nice to see Grim Fandango in that list though.
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That game was awesome when it came out and it's still fun to play today since it's more than eye-candy and had a good plotline. Most of today's FPS has maybe 5 major bad guy characters to kill with similar, repetitive level design (outdoors, indoors). Alice, however, used all of the settings and characters in the novel in the game. From the card-guards to chess pieces, to Cheshire cat, to Army ants, etc. playing it was an adventure. And the levels were colorfully done to keep you interested. i.e. after playing level after level of Doom or FarCry, everything starts looking the same. Not with Alice. The only other FPS that I've played where the levels stayed interesting and creative was Half-Life 2. I would really love to play an American McGee's Alice 2 game.
I can see some of those games being good enough that the gameplay/story could be looked at again, but let's face some facts.
Sonic CD has a sequel, called Sonic Rush on the DS. All the same kinds of graphics, and a soundtrack well worth downloading (since the OST is not available outside of Japan). It's a better OST than the Sonic CD one!
Beyond Good and Evil had some good ideas, but the execution was so poor, that the managers responsible for shoving such a half-baked came out the door should be fired. Yes, it has many good points, like a heroine who isn't just ass and cleavage, and a story that seems interesting at first -- but the story falls flat. It's not nearly as deep as reviewers like this seem to think it is, and the ending sucked royally. A bad ending can make anything good suck (look at Terminator 3; a decent Terminator movie with a terrible ending is not a good movie).
Alice proved to me that a platformer on the PC does not work. I want deeper gameplay than having to float to the next excruciatingly place toadstool, having to restart if I miss the target. I want boss fights that are interesting, not exercises in shooting a whole lot.
I think this reviewer has their personal opinion seeping in on games they particularly liked, but which weren't actually that good. Games that are 5/10 or 6/10 (like the ones on the list here) are not ones worth investigating further. The gameplay is not compelling enough, or the story is too half-baked. (I'm not saying they're all bad; I haven't played Grim Fandango through yet, so I reserve judgement on it, but BG&E is a crap fest that deserved to die, and was most certainly not the best game of 2004.)
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