Number Twos: 10 Sequels That Should Have Been Flushed
4/17/2009 5:24 PM | 28 Comments | Page 1 of 3
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
(Contributors: Ryan Kuo, John Teti, James Fudge, Kyle Orland and the illustrious Evan Narcisse)
Last week several members of the CG staff (Vogel, Kuo, Narcisse and myself) traveled to the East Village and entered the confines of a
subterranean club in the middle of the afternoon -- is there any place on earth more depressing than a club in the middle of the day? -- to get a glimpse of
BioShock 2.
After the 20-minute hands-off demo, we debated whether the game would turn out to be the transcendent gaming experience we'd hoped for. (We'll have more details about the demo as soon as the embargo lifts.)
It's a valid concern. I can't tell you the number of times I've had my teeth kicked in by a sequel.
Tenchu 2 is the quintessential example of this. I adored the first game, and I remember trying like hell to love the sequel. I spent days trying, days hoping, to love something that didn't deserve love. I could literally feel my heart breaking as I came to finally accept the fact that the game just plain sucked balls.
Which brings me to CG's list of disappointing Number Twos.
"Did you fart? Because it seriously smells like a fart in here." "I didn't fart. Maybe it's this terrible game we're starring in. That could be what you're smelling."
(Xbox; 2004)
Why It Stinks: F*** this game. Seriously. This is the moment when the train left the tracks for the Halo series. I don't want to hear about how innovative the multiplayer is. Without a strong narrative backbone, there's no reason for multiplayer to exist.
Halo 2 was tedious, nonsensical and tedious. Did I say "tedious" already? Oh, sorry. Let me say it a third time: IT'S TEDIOUS.
"It's-a me, terrible Mario."
(NES; 1988)
Why It Stinks: I deferred to Nintendo expert Kyle Orland on this one. "It's by far the weakest of the 'main' Mario games," he says, "mainly because it wasn't originally a Mario game, but just a cheap-o conversion of an odd Japanese platformer. The best sign that it changed things for the worse was that its style of gameplay -- with multiple playable characters, picking up/throwing enemies/items, etc. -- was never returned to later in the series. If this style of play had really set the world on fire, why was
Super Mario Bros. 3 so much more like the original? On the plus side, the game brought us Shyguys and Bob-ombs." Thanks, Kyle. You can go back to kissing your
Shigeru Miyamoto doll now.
