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7 Game Franchises They Drove Into the Ground
Via the ever-excellent Game|Life, a post on Games Radar that details seven destroyed game franchises, taken from us in their prime by callous game publishers. Running the gamut from the venerable Sonic (of whose decline we've already spoken) to the good-to-crappy-in-two-years Viewtiful Joe, these are all games that just deserved better. I personally lament the decline of the Tomb Raider series (number 7 on the list) the most. Her most recent outing was much better than previous iterations, and I definitely hope that Eidos can keep up the momentum. Are there any series that you feel have fallen from heights that should have made the list?
Funny how he sees that the decline of Mega Man came with the Mega Max X series. When the first three games appeared while in high school, all of my friends and I were excited about them. And the easter egg that is Ryu's street fighting moves was a pleasure for all. Saying that the games were crappy seems to be a minority opinion, and possibly one based more on retrospect than on how one felt at the time of release.
I always loved the Wing Commander series, but, sadly, it seems to be no more.
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I'm shocked that after terrible incarnation after terrible incarnation, and umpteen-million expansion packs of mediocrity that cause the whole series to fade into obscurity, and their development not being slowed one bit despite that, it didn't make the number one spot.
Starsiege: Tribes (Tribes 1) dominated my PC gaming time until everyone moved to Tribes 2, which was good (but was no Tribes 1).
Then came Tribes Vengeance. It stole most of the community and then killed it by being a horrible game. Now the Tribes and Starsiege franchises are completely dead.
King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest/SWAT, Gabriel Night, Earthsiege/Starsiege/Tribes, Front Page Sports, The Incredible Machine, Dr. Brain, Caesar, 3-D Ultra Pinball, Homeworld, Outpost, Freddy Pharkas, Betrayal at Krondor... Sierra practically defines this topic, and it's not even mentioned.
Deus Ex. Fantastic to cack in just two games. Alas...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Ultima
While others have said Wing Commander, it wasn't itself driven to the ground as more or less abandoned.
Ultima however I'd qualify as driven to the ground in its last release.
Fallout
So many games after Fallout 2 claiming the "Fallout" name that basically drove to the ground.
The only hope is that Fallout 3 (now being worked on) can reclaim some of what it was.
Other ones that I consider more "abandoned" the driven to the ground -
Wizardry
Mentioned already, but the last game was still a pretty good game. It wasn't driven as much as left alone.
Most of the Bullfrog IP
Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Populous
Abandoned when purchased.
For that matter, doesn't it seem like most of the good PC games were killed off by EA?
By Generals, you meant Renegade, right? Generals restored my faith in the C&C franchise after playing Renegade. Even the behind-the-scenes videos that come with C&C: The First Decade barely mention renegade.
This article focuses only on console games, ignoring the similarly-large range of PC franchises torpedoed by bad decisions or greedy publishers.
Star Control III was nowhere the game its predecessors were. SC2 was possibly the best space exploration title ever released, better even than Starflight 1 & 2, whereas SC3 was a lame duck pseudo-RTS with a terrible plot and spaceships populated by talking puppets. Jesus wept.
Thief 3 was another PC title that fell far short of its predecessors, though a lot of the game's problems stemmed from compromises made in adapting the game for XBox, especially the division of levels into extremely small zones.
Ugh. Moo3.
This game doesn't just suck. It teases and tantalizes you with hints of greatness - and then just proceeds to obliterate your spirit and crush your hopes.
MOO3 is like the girl you dated who was really bad for you, and even though you know you're better off without her, every so often, you feel a twang of nostalgia, or think "maybe THIS time will be different..."
Fortunately I got rid of the game so I won't be tempted to reinstall it ever again.
You hear me, Moo3? NEVER AGAIN!
Terror from the Deep sucked donkey balls. It was just X-COM 1 again but UNDERWATER! Oooh! And to make things a pain in the ass lets give half the aliens psionic ability (oops, I'm sorry, "molecular control"). And on superhuman level, lets make the lobstermen nigh impossible to kill. Oh yeah, plus who was the genius who thought going on four hour two-level terror missions on cruise ships was a good idea? Not to mention the other missions (base missions and artifact missions) that were two parter.
That game was too much like the first, but longer, a whole lot more frustrating and tedious, and underwater. It was just stupid.
X-COM Apocalypse was great, it was a fresh take on tactical squad combat and let you use real-time or turn based combat. Now that game was fun.
X-COM 1 was great too, but X-COM 2 was a hurried rehash to try to capitalize on people who would buy it based on the name before their friends told them it sucked.
I like to think of X-COM 2 as the equivalent of Highlander 2. It never really existed, it is just a mass hallucination.
Ultima 7 had to be split into two parts because it was too ambitious initially, but it was worthwhile. The program itself is notoriously hacky because of its custom memory management, but it mostly works. (And Exult means it works on modern machines, better than ever.)
Ultima 8 was too ambitious and while pretty, a lot was cut from the final game, including much of the fun.
Ultima 9 is almost the definition of an over-ambitious game. So much time spent on the tech that there wasn't much game left, and the story is just atrocious.
Ultima is almost the canonical example of why I don't really like the obsession with 3D; it becomes a design straitjacket. Anything you can't do in spectacular 3D isn't done at all. (My canonical example: Imagine a full 3D Nethack for the PS3, with no compromises whatsoever, full Nethack gameplay represented in glorious 3D. Good luck with that.) That really hurt Ultima because of all the details that were the spirit of it, most of which had to be cut in a full 3D world. Ultima 7 was the story apex, and Ultima 6 was the combat apex; combat was especially hosed by 3D. All solutions I've ever seen for running a full party of adventurers in 3D is a joke. (I haven't tried FFXII yet; waiting for a price drop while I play the many other AAA games I've missed. But in some ways I still bet it's a joke. Closest thing to an exception: Grandia 2 and 3.)
- Oni - a quasi-anime third-person shooter/fighter game with a story. Hell of a lot of fun. Made by Bungie right before MS bought them; the sequel and network support they were working on were killed.
- Mechwarrior - Microsoft killed the franchise when they bought them. They had a good thing going with MechWarrior 2, but the gameplay in 3 and 4 got progressively less challenging, refined, and balanced. Ditto for the Mech Commander games, which were medicore at best to begin with. They could do a lot of awesome stuff with this franchise right now, if they did it right. Mechwarrior MMORPG, anyone (ala Mechwarrior Merc on a trans-global scale)?
- Privateer/WingCommander series - with the technology we have today, why haven't we seen this world continued in the old tradition? It was great.
- Duke Nukem - OK, so where the hell is Duke Nukem Forever? Duke3D was great fun, then the release of a couple mediocre side-scrolling games for platform and PC, and we're still waiting for DN4R, which has been in the works for like... 7 years, now?
- Descent - Descent 1 and 2 were great, and 3 was medicore at best in terms of single and multiplayer gameplay. Heck, Descent 1 and 2 are still fantastic to play with d2x and modern textures. The games were way ahead of their time technologically, as well, introducing physics systems, true 3d, and lighting in 1993, for cryin' out loud. And then they just kinda stopped making Descent IV.
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