It’s pretty much a given that game developers will capitalize on the success of a popular title by releasing a sequel (or two, or three). Often these promise more of what made the original game so appealing. Some fall short, especially when a franchise changes developers. Other times, the game falls short even with all the features that promise to make it better.
Personal experience with both of these within the last twelve months is enough to make me rethink my buying strategy, as twice now I’ve bought a game in the hopes of a new yet familiar experience, only to conclude that that once was probably enough.
The Benchmarks
Last year two franchises came into my life that I had not previously had an interest in playing. Both were launch titles for the Xbox 360, and both are remarkable games. It didn’t take me long to play through either of them, and I was impressed by the entire experience in both cases.
The Successors
Something got broken in the transition to the newer titles. One sequel was handled by a different developer, and while I’ve heard great things about the multiplayer, I think the single player experience suffered for it. Everything was mostly the same with small changes that seemed more like they were different for the sake of being different than anything else. I bought it right after finishing the previous title and forced myself to complete it before I could move on to other games, but I haven’t touched it since.
The other game showed a lot more promise, and I was genuinely excited for its release. There were some really great features promised, and upon playing through I can’t argue that they weren’t delivered. But at the same time, they again seemed to make some arbitrary changes, and the game lost some of the slickness that I liked so much about its predecessor. I think about the day I bought it. I needed to use some about-to-expire Best Buy offers, and so it was between this, Bioshock, and Halo 3.
I should’ve waited for Orange Box.
The Conclusion
You may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned titles. I’m not convinced it’s really relevant; despite the fact that I was disappointed by the games in this context, they are both quite good. I guess they just weren’t what I was hoping for.