7 Game Franchises They Drove Into the Ground 275
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?
More have died... (Score:5, Informative)
Remember that several game developers had their funding cut so Daikatana [wikipedia.org] could see the light of day ( at a burn rate of $1,000,000US per month).
Re:More have died... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sierra Style Quest Games (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the new Sam'n'Max game is perhaps still somewhat along these lines, and perhaps the episodic model will breath some new life into an old genre. I'd love to see a well done new version of the Space Quest series...
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As an interesting aside, it appears from the install license that the games run using dosbox to emulate an older system. Chances are one could get them to run in multiple operating systems in that case (I know dosbox runs in at least windows/linux).
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Wing Commander and WC2 were the best of the series. I was less a fan of the "interactive movie" WC3 and WC4. Privateer was also excellent.
I still fire up wc2 in DOSBOX every so often!
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Re:More have died... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Another that bit the big one after only 2 was 'Blood'. I loved the dark humour.
FYI: Thief 2x (Score:2)
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Jumping Flash (Score:2)
Commander Keen, Wonder Boy, Streets of Rage, Road Rash, Splatterhouse, oh.. there are so many that I wish they would bring back in full force.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think they just don't like the MM:BN games, and I admit, they do get repetative eventualy, however I still really like them.
The MM:Zero games (GBA) were wonderful for a new line in the series (Currently playing ZX on my DS)
MM:X were exactly like the old school megaman games, just with more stuff to do (always a plus in my book)
So I admit, I don't get it.
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It did some fresh things (namely the equipment upgrades) that differentiated itself from the main line. Plus I cant get enough of the music, its one of my favorite SNES soundtracks.
It has definitely been going downhill, though. I dont think the X line has fared as well as the main line in the same number of games.
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That Fluffy Pink Guy (Score:3, Interesting)
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What about PC series (Score:3, Interesting)
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Generals is an RTS game that some people considered a problem. While I did have preconceptions of the game being bad, that was based on the pattern:
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Both Tom Clancy games were completely dumbed down, they basically took out all the stuff that made them different from the countless FPS titles. All the tactical elements are gone and so are most of the squadmates (only 2 instead of 7 in R6), not to mention that the friendlies are now ressurectable! If they called the R6 game "Gears of War: Vegas" I'd give it around 80%, but as it is I consider it
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Dunno about unobtainium whole cars, but if you like the NFS Porsche Unleashed, you can still buy 356s (even Carreras, but they are way expensive) for less than a new Honda, Toyota, etc. or similar. Not to mention the 912, early 911s, etc. Heck, even the waterpumpers (944 series) are dirt cheap (less than $5k)
But I'll admit that I'd never drive my 356 the way I drive in the game
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My Picks (Score:5, Informative)
Command & Conquer - C&C was good. I mean, darn good. But then Westwood failed to deliver Tiberium Sun as promised, and gave us Red Alert instead. Ok, fine. A lot of people liked Red Alert even though it wasn't as good as the original. So we kept waiting for Tiberium Sun. 4 and a half years later, Westwood just kicked it out the door, merely a shadow of what it was intended to be. From then on out, C&C was nothing more than a "property" in which vaguely related games were released one after another, with no real connection to the gameplay that made the original famous.
Graphical Adventure Series - While not really a game series in of itself, the concept of Graphical Adventures has been mostly dropped by the industry, depsite the fact that it was a great way to tell a story. Nearly all the Lucas Arts games sold well, and never really showed a decline in the market. The concept just... fell into the ether, seemingly in favor of "more adult" gameplay. (Boo! Hiss!)
One More! (Score:2)
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yegods, I can't figgure out if I want to salivate or laugh my ass off.
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Graphic adventures are making a comeback in a huge way, though. I'll be especially interested to see how episodic gaming works out. I'm rather enjoying the new Sam and Max series, though it's so easy that the game is just an excuse to play the dialogue. That's oka
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Megaman X wrawked. The thing that killed Megaman was Capcom's total inability to move it out of the sprite-b
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Ask me, and I'll tell you that what hurt the Megaman franchise was Capcom's habit of tacking the name onto games completely unrelated to the canon in order to make a buck. Megaman Legends was actually a pretty decent 3D action/adventure game (with a dreadful control scheme); it just didn't have anything to do with Dr.
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No, Infinity Online [fl-tw.com] is as close as you're going to get to Privateer Online. (Prototype Download [fl-tw.com]) I am waiting with bated breath for the game's completion.
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It seems like the graphical adventure series is having a minor resurge in the handheld market with the Nintendo DS. The Pheonix Wright:Ace Attorney game could be considered a graphical adventure and it sold well enough to get a sequel just released. Also, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 just came out, and it's a Noir adventure game with a unique graphic style, and it's been getting very good reviews. I also lamented the death of the adventure game genre, but I think with the handhelds as well
Re:Blizzard? (Score:5, Informative)
That's right. It's coming back to me now. It wasn't Westwood that was the problem, it was Ultima Online. EA decided that they'd rather sink the money into the Ultima series than into the Wing Commander series, which they felt hadn't been doing so well since they took over Origin. (Gee. Surprise, surprise.) So they killed Privateer Online in favor of doing the sequel (WTF?) Ultima Online 2. In the process, EA made a huge mess of things.
Star Control (Score:2, Informative)
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(Goes to check.)
Damn - they're not taking pre-orders yet.
(Refreshes)
Nope, still not.
Damn.
What, no Sims? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to have a pedestal to fall off of (Score:2)
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My two-bit commentary on games: Unless it is an MMO, completely open-ended games do not tend to hold interest for long. (And even with MMOs, if you don't have fr
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Heres the data to back it up: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164433.html [gamespot.com]
Starsiege: Tribes (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
RE: Not all that universal... (Score:2)
Another one that would've made the list, had the oldest title on it not been Mega Man, would've probably been Valis...
Valis went from one of the first platformer games, pretty much the same age as Metroid with the first undisguised female lead to, in the past couple of years, a porn title.
Sonic Rush for the DS... (Score:3, Interesting)
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In the old 2d sonics (the Genesis ones, some of my favorite games ever), there werent pits to run straight into everywhere like there are in Rush. The bottomless pits all over the place are so annoying, especially since the game moves so quickly.
I'll probably pick it up and give it another shot (I purchased it when it came out), but next time I wont be expecting a Genesis-Sonic experience (maybe that was my problem going i
Duke Nukem? (Score:2)
Re:Duke Nukem? (Score:5, Funny)
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Can you say Sierra? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say Sierra? (Score:4, Insightful)
They didn't drive any of those franschises into the gound, they just droped all their old titles
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Slow down there, cowboy. SWAT 3 and SWAT 4 were both mighty fine games.
Hello? Tribes? (Score:3, Interesting)
First they started with a great game: Tribes 1. Then the obvious thing to do was to make a sequel, which came out horrifically different from the original in terms of gameplay and feel - not to mention it was broken in the box. Endless patches ensued, until eventually the player community wrote maps and patches to make it feel and play more like the original game. After that debacle, development began on T:V, which as mentioned above was also broken.
Thanks, guys. You took a franchise which could have flourished and just buried it.
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Do we really need Super Mega Hyper Extra Street Fighter 9 or something? I love to play the game, but Anything past SFIICE is just sort of overkill to me. Same for MK.
Layne
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I also liked the three-dimensional aspect of the game: in most FPS at the time, you only had to worry about threats from around you. Tribes had the extra "holy cra
Might and Magic (Score:2)
I did see a new one in an add, but I don't know if I even want to bother. Of course I'll probably get it in hopes it will be decent...
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Driven and abandoned .. (Score:2, Insightful)
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. I
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I prefer the beloved items of bullfrog IP remain buried, their graves undisturbed by EA...they would have just pumped out a couple half assed titles before dumping them anyway.
Not a videogame, but deserves mention: (Score:2)
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My picks (Score:2)
The occasional side mission playing as one of the other characters was fine in the first game.
However, in the sequels, 2 out of 3 missions were non-Sly Cooper. The acrobatic, platforming perfection of the Cooper charatcer was replaced by one of two clumsy, annoying characters.
2. Xenosaga
After a great setup in the first game, they replaced the combat engine with one of the most hideous systems ever seen in an RPG. Basically, if you an eveny with anything other than the "correct" sequence of atta
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If they finish, hopefully they patch up some of the inconsistancies between ep 1 and ep 2 & 3. The writers did a pretty good job, but some of the changes between the first and the rest of the games makes me think that they rewrote significant parts of their story after they were done with the first one.
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AD&D games? (Score:2)
I was a huge fan of the Buck Rogers series. Too bad that died.
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X-COM (Score:4, Interesting)
UFO: Aftermath, Aftershock (and soon, Afterlight) are pretty cool games but they're nowhere near the coolness of X-COM: UFO Defense (or, for those of us in Europe and other parts of the world, UFO: Enemy Unknown) and X-COM: Terror From The Deep.
Those were the days...
Masters of Orion (Score:2, Informative)
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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!
My pics (Score:2)
Wing Commander - Died again thanks to EA, not sure why they had to let it
Command & Conquer (however a TRUE new C&C is coming down the pipes)
Mechwarrior - so deserving of a new one
Descent - Loved the first, and apparently Freespace was pretty good
Duke Nukem - what more can be said?
x Quest Series - Good job Sierra
2D Sidescrollers - I hope Nintendo sees the success of New SMB and makes more 2D based Mario games.
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Re:Ultima (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
Turok (Score:5, Interesting)
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil for N64 set new standards for console FPS games in terms of both graphics and weapon design. In my opinion, Turok 2 is yet to be outdone by any FPS as far as hardcore weapon lineups are concerned. Sure there is the occasional gem like HL2's gravity gun, but nothing has had as many great hurting machines as the Turok games.
Those first two games rocked. Great levels, awesome bosses. Turok 2 even had a half-decent multiplayer.
I don't know what went wrong after that, but the games just underdelivered in every way possible. There was Turok: Rage Wars which was the dumbest thing ever because when you have Perfect Dark (or Goldeneye) on your console, like heck you're gonna care about a multiplayer-combat-oriented Turok game. Whoopee. And it just went downhill from there.
They're trying to resurrect this franchise nowadays, so we'll see what happens. But my expectations at this point are quite low.
Tex Murphy (Score:2)
Ultima (Score:2)
Not just console games (Score:3, Insightful)
Star Control III [wikipedia.org] was nowhere the game its predecessors were. SC2 was possibly the best space exploration title ever released, better even than Starflight [wikipedia.org] 1 & 2, whereas SC3 was a lame duck pseudo-RTS with a terrible plot and spaceships populated by talking puppets. [scifi.com] Jesus wept.
Thief 3 [wikipedia.org] 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.
Starfox (Score:2)
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How about Final Fantasy? (Score:2)
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I know i'll get punished for it (Score:4, Interesting)
What you have currently is 3 different types of "games" based on the same mod, CS, CS:Z, and CS:S, CS and CS:S cannot be played together, and I think CS:Z is only backwards compatible. And they are different, any fan of a particular "game" will tell you how much the other "doesn't feel right"/sucks, etc...
Not to mention dropping thrid party support for anticheat tools, and constant (almost weekly) "tweaks" to "improve gameplay" that make playing a standard game a near impossiblity..
I tried to play CS:S the other night on one of the varible pricing servers (were prices fluctuate due to demand) and it was quite frustrating.. how do I make my choices of what gun to buy when i have no idea how much it costs in relation to other guns without spending every week going over the pricing? I couldn't even buy armor and helmet without forking over 4500 bucks?!?! (sorry bit of a rant there).
My main gripe is that I used to be able to just jump in a game and play for a few hours, knowing the maps, knowing what my money would buy, knowing what equipment was available.. with source this is pretty much not possible.. it seems like Valve wants to kill it off completely.
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No, they just killed the Internet portion. You can still use the legacy versions by running in insecure mode and connecting directly to the server's IP address.
Franchises are meant to die (Score:2)
A good recipe for a game only works for so long then you need to whip out a new one. I know there are are franchises that just won't die like mega man, dynasty warriors and Final fantasy but then I have to remind you that these games now don't provide nearly as much fun as they did when they began. mind you, FF did evolve with its latest installment.
I've read elsewher
Rainbow Six (Score:2)
Tombraider (Score:2)
My point is -- it helps to have a new design and development team to take a fresh approach if the orginal team has faultered.
Nostalgia may bias it, but... (Score:2)
I'll join the Wing Commander chorus here. Blasting Kilrathi in the later years just wasn't what it was in the beginning... there's only so many times you can be called a "hairless ape" before you get desensitized to it. And you'd think after a single human pilot wipes out 10,000 of their fighters and a couple of hundred of their capital ships they'd know better than to kill his woman or attack his homeworld.
I'd also like to toss out Mechwarrior (downhill after 2) and Gunship (2000 was outstanding, Gun
A couple more... (Score:3, Insightful)
- 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.
Dear God.... There is another like me? (Score:2)
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I'd buy a wizardry 9 if it came out.
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to be fair, street fighter 3 is a VERY good game, and SFIII: third strike is considered to be one of the best 2D fighters ever made. problem is by the time it was released, it was overshadowed by flashier 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter and Tekken, and overlooked by a lot of gamers.