When a game is released, one of two things happens: it either bombs, and gets sent to the bowels of gaming hell, never to be looked at again; or it sells a bajillion copies, guaranteeing a sequel and a chance to wow us all over again.
Sometimes, though, things go horribly wrong – and for reasons the gaming gods themselves cannot fathom, we don’t get the double gem we dreamed of, but are rather left with a steaming turd to stare at in horror.
Let’s take a look at 5 instances where a good game got a terribly thought-out sequel.
Dino Crisis 3
In Dino Crisis 2, Red-haired vixen, Regina, and her new partner, Dylan, get caught up in the most ridiculous time-bending plot device ever conceived.
After finding out that his future self was part of a team that was attempting to preserve dinosaur life by sending them 3 million years into the future, Dylan also discovers that he has a daughter, and – okay, the point is, by the end, things were exploding, and everything finished on an epic cliffhanger.
So naturally, Dino Crisis 3 would then resolve everything?
Nope! Dino Crisis decides to ignore everything in Dino 1 and Dino 2 and rather opts for the next best thing: dinosaurs in space!
Indeed, no longer are we dealing with time-bending and convoluted plots – instead, we get to dabble in DNA manipulation and deep space dinosaur invasion. And while we’re at it, let’s forget survival horror, and just stick to shooty-shooty action!
Aside from the fact it involves dinosaurs – Dino Crisis 3 completely disregards everything the series stood for – making it one of the worst sequels in existence.
Dinosaurs! In space! With jetpacks!
Jak X
Jak X was a shoddy sequel for a number of reasons.
While it wasn’t a bad game, there’s something inherently wrong about basing an entire game around one of the most frustrating features from a massively diverse title.
Jak X is a racing game based entirely on the driving mechanics from Jak 3 – and as such, carried over are the same physics, the same feel, and the same frustrations.
On top of that, the game carried a tacked-on story that’s actually considered canon – serving as a prequel to the PSP-ported-to-PS2 Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier. In fact, add that to the list too.
Why? Because loads of people loved Jak and Daxter all the way up to Jak 3, and couldn’t be stuffed to play a game that’s exclusively driving, or a game only available on an over-priced platform, to get the full story.
Pictured: The worst part of Jak and Daxter
Tony Hawk Ride
Long before Activision were milking every franchise they could get their hands on with annual releases, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was ahead of it’s time, with 11 games coming out in as many years since 1999.
While arguably we could list every Tony Hawk game since Pro Skater 3 as a bad sequel (as running about, stupid stories and Bam Margera are enough to make them entirely skippable) – it’s difficult to top the awfulness of Tony Hawk Ride.
The reason for this is simple: that board peripheral.
Released during the boom of peripheral gaming, led by that other year-after-year cash-cow, Guitar Hero, Activision somehow thought that what gamers really wanted to do with a skateboard game – was skateboard.
Without the wheels. Or the fun.
They should have just written it off as a bad job, but they even made a sequel, Tony Hawk Shred, that used the same peripheral and added snowboarding to the mix.
Because when we think “Tony Hawk”, we think “Snowboarding”.
Yes, this is how you look when you play this game
Devil May Cry 2
What was supposed to be Resident Evil 4 way back in the beginning, ended up being an entirely different game in the form of Devil May Cry. At the time of release, the game was unlike anything we’d seen before.
It combined sword and gunplay with a charmingly cheesy protagonist who spurted out such classics like “Flock off feather face!”
It was insane, button-mashing fun – with huge bosses that were a challenge and a half; legions of enemies; and swift, responsive controls.
Then came Devil May Cry 2, which was none of these things.
Dumbed down gameplay; awkward camera angles that made Dante look minute against the backdrops; and Dante himself lost his smash-talking nature, and was a sober, broody shadow of his former self.
Take everything we love about a game, and do the opposite. That’s not how you win over fans.
Oh, did I forget to mention the completely random DIESEL promotion?
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
Or otherwise known as “the death of Lara Croft until Crystal Dynamics saved her fine ass”.
The Angel of Darkness was a misstep in almost every conceivable way – from the ludicrous story centring around Lara Croft being accused of murdering her former mentor and chasing after a Parisian serial killer.
Even by Tomb Raider terms (you know, having T-Rexes and dragons and whatnot) the following tale of angels and humans and blood pacts and secret orders just took the crazy up a notch.
Not that you would even get that far; hampered by a control scheme that was outdated in the late 90’s, coupled with a banal ‘RPG’ element that required you to perform specific, yet ultimately meaningless task to progress – you would have given up long before you discovered what was actually going on.
Worst of all – for a game with “Tomb Raider” in the title, you spent more time messing about on city streets and research facilities, than actually raiding any tombs.
You also have to play as this guy, for no particular reason
Can you think of any sequels that disgraced their predecessors? Share your horrible gaming sequels in the MyGaming forum or the comments below!
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