A Trend?
 

In the last few days I've noticed a bit of an odd pattern in video game sequels being that the first two games in a series are developed by the same team, then, for whatever reason, a new team develops the third game which turns out to be awful. These are the game series that I've found to have this trend, can anybody name any others?

Carmageddon
Twisted Metal
Flatout

Elder Scrolls.
Call of Duty

Command & Conquer, SimCity...

I thought this was going to be about guys who look like girls.

Fallout.

Silent Hill. Not the third specifically, but same deal.

Age of Empires?

AOEIII wasn't as good as the first two, but it was made by the same people.

Crash Bandicoot - first three were genius until Naughty Dog decided to dump Crash on his ass to be made into dozens of shitty third-party games.

KOTOR - even though it was the second game made by a different developer.


I think he is talking about AOEO, which as made by a different company, though it employed many from Ensemble Studios.

But I like AoEO! Well, mostly.

Squeek's Oddysee.


What? I'm an optimist!

You can't be serious there,

Fallout 3 was great.

You can't be serious there,

Fallout 3 was crap.

and I liked Morrowind and Oblivion

Fallout 3 was good, the fuck are you on about?

Spyro the Dragon.

And wait what!? Fallout 3 was amazing.

Yeah Fallout 3 was great... even coming after two 2D top view games I don't think you can compare 3 to 1 and 2.

You're optimistic that Squeek's Oddysee will be awful?

I would say there's a trend in game series being passed onto different developers/different people working on them and therefore sucking - But it's not always after the third game.

For example:
And (you guys are going to hate me for this) it doesn't always have to be passed onto a different team of people either:

Munch's Oddysee

At least they made it up with Stranger though. :P

Ah, but Munch's Oddysee had a different publisher.

But the same developer.

But widely accepted the problems with it mostly lay with the publisher.

I would like to say that Fallout 3 was just not on the same grade as Fallout 1 and 2, they focused on telling a story with the aid of graphics not the other way around. Fallout 3 had an interesting main story line but that was about it. And New Vegas was worse, in fact one of the only things I liked about FNV was the continuity between F1 and F2. That being said, I'm an Interplayfag.

Fallout 3 and NV have a lot of backstory in them but a lot of it isn't part of the main quest. Some of it isn't part of a quest at all. For a game series that went from a 2D setting to a 3D setting, I think they pulled it off as some of the best out there.

I remember when Bethesda said, 'Skyrim will feature a brand new game engine'.

Said engine was an upgraded version from the one used in Fallout 3, so... it's... not actually new.

Past that, I've yet to play a sequel that has been made by another company.

Ah... good point. I was focusing on the 'new team ' part of the OP and, given that I haven't played any of the games mentioned until my post, I forgot the other bit.


sorry

I agree they did a good job, the games are still fantastic, especially Fallout 3, I just don't think they're on par with the first two is all. =P

my mother is a trend.

just throwing that out there.

#lastnightwithmasmom

i fucking knew you'd be the first to reply.

bastard.

Hey guys do you think this will happen with Half-Life?

didn't know my mother was in Half-Life.

Valve won't be passing Half-Life onto anyone else, I don't think. They've still continued to make decent games, and work on their own terms. Valve are one of the biggest games companies out there right now and Half-Life is their flagship game - Any future games in the series have to be good for their sake. Although they may have a problem of not being able to live up to fan hype - Which is something most developers have a problem with.

Also, Valve own the rights to Half-Life exclusively. They never sold the IP to a publisher who can take it away from them.

They better hurry up with it. After all this time since they announced it, we got nothing to look forward to but another possible 'Duke Nukem Forever' facade.

The sad thing is is that it might just be another Duke Nukem Forever as in everyone is wanted it and is existed but once the game comes it's pretty shit. I really hope not and I want to be blown away by the next game, but you never know, It might but be about as average as Episode 1 and 2 were. (more so Ep 1)

Well this is Valve so I'm expected to be blown away much like how Portal 2 did.

As I said earlier, Valve have too much reputation to lose if they fuck up with their flagship franchise. Valve are much, much larger players in the video games industry than 3D Realms ever was and have a lot more to lose.

At the same time they're only human and make mistakes. If HL3 turns out to be shit, it'll be a very sad day.

EDIT: Whoops, that was embarrassing.

What has ID got to do with anything?

Valve won't release a shit Half Life 3, simply because they're not likely to run out of cash and be forced to release it as-is. They have their standard 'When it's done' release date for a reason, you know.

Oops - Seems I was so tired last night that I remembered my gaming history incorrectly and got ID Software and 3D Realms mixed up.

Truth.

By the way I liked the 3rd game of Crash.