Even Mario seemed a little tired of the franchise by this point...
Back when I was in university, my roommate used to borrow steal my computer for hours on end to play a video game. I had the highest-end Mac you could buy at the time, and he had a beast of a PC that he had built himself. He was perpetually telling me how much better his PC was than my Mac, and then borrowing that Mac for extended periods so he could play a Shareware game called “Escape Velocity“.
Now don’t get me wrong, it was an excellent game. Free-form, unstructured gameplay, with missions available when you wanted them, or a simple economy for a more exploratory theme if you preferred. Its unguided gameplay meant that there were many ways for you to kill hours of time, but it also meant that eventually, it was fairly easy to get bored of the game. Which is, thankfully, what eventually happened.
Then those bastards released a sequel, Escape Velocity: Override. And damn, was it good.
They introduced factions, politics, intrigue, espionage, piracy, warfare and diplomacy into the game, and suddenly everything took on a whole new level. The same basic game — the graphics were little changed from the original — grew a whole new life with the introduction of even more “human” elements. And once again, I lost my computer. And don’t get me started on what happened when Escape Velocity: Nova came out.
Not all games have had such successful follow-up efforts, however. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was such a horrible remake of a classic game that it almost single-handedly killed the software company that developed it. And there have been so many bad Mario Brothers sequels that it often seems like it is strength of will alone that keeps that franchise afloat.
But surely one stands out as the shining turd in the pile. What is the worst video game sequel of all time?
[puts on flamesuit to protect against Sony fanboys]
Gran Tourismo 5
Duke Nukem: Forever
After both spent almost an eternity in development hell, they were both disappointments.
You know, as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with you on the GT5 thing. There are seemingly too many obstacles to just turning the game on and driving. GT5 was kind of the reason that I got a PS3. I have since given up caring about blu-rays and I don't really play games much anymore. Dang, I am getting old. Speaking of being old, when I picked up my copy of GT5, I remarked to the youngster at the game store about the Duke Nukem display they had and he wasn't even aware of the original game, way back when. I gave up on Duke years ago.
Same here, but I am trying to pick GT5 back up. The menu/home screen is downright confusing and half the print is unreadable on even a ~47' HDTV (55" 4:3 screen). The regular vs. premium car thing is confusing. The racing itself is still some of the best, but the rest of the interface is really horrible.
GT5 can be frustrating with the updates that you have to wait through before actually, you know, play. However, once you do get through them, it's a blast. Is it much improved over GT4? Not a whole lot. However, the margin for improvement on something like the Gran Turismo franchise gets increasingly small as you reach perfection.
Also, another great use for the PS3 is streaming videos off your PC. I d/l the torrents for WRC and V8 Supercars racing, as well as the real TG:UK episodes (not the watered down BBC America versions) and then stream the videos from my PC to the PS3. Some day I may build a HTPC, but until then this works just fine.
Sorry, but Mario 3 is definitely not the weakest link in the NES Mario chain. That honor belongs to Mario 2.
<img src="http://themoviebros.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/super_mario_bros.jpg">
I don't remember being able to play movies on my NES…
Here's a zucchini for you!
That movie is awesome for all of the right reasons. I have no fear in admitting that.
I know somebody who is friends with Mojo Nixon, who played Toad. The first time he came to town after Mario production wrapped, we were hanging out with him before a show giving him crap about the haircut that hadn't grown out yet. He wasn't embarassed by the haircut but seemed to be quite a bit embarassed about the movie, which hadn't even been released at the time.
I actually loved SMB2, but it really does stick out of the pack for being quite different from the rest of the Mario universe. There's a reason for that.
The game known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan was never released in North America on the NES. It later showed up in the compilation "Super Mario All Stars" for the SNES with the title "Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels".
What most people know as Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in Asia far earlier by its original developers (not Nintendo) and its original title: "Doki Doki Panic". The game was almost exactly the same, except there were no Italian plumbers. The main character was a young Arab complete with turban. Nintendo re-tooled the game to change the turban to a mushroom cap, named the character to "Toad", and crammed Mario, Luigi, and the princess in there.
Well, that explains a lot of my confusion.
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7UyesaqfeFM/TmUTMYv0IiI/AAAAAAAAANE/lxclINENzkE/s1600/TheMoreYouKnow.jpg"width=200>
<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/115/301202387_12c3dc90a4.jpg" width="400">
Puppy Pong was… Pong. Yup, just Pong, but repackaged in what was originally supposed to be Snoopy's doghouse. Schulz didn't like the idea, however, so it got genericized. Its one redeeming feature was that it was intended to be free, for use while kids were in a pediatrician's waiting room. Instead, it ended up at Chuck E. Cheese. It didn't catch on, possibly because it didn't actually involve puppies.
MS Flight Sim 5.
Don't get me wrong, the graphics, for the time, were darn good. However, MS had changed graphics engines and not given companies that did add-on packs enough time with the new engine. Therefore, it would be about a year before any add-ons were available.
KQ2 was the weakest of the first 6.
Forza 3 was an absolutely horrible game , it was so messed up that Turn 10 couldn't release a patch to fix it . Not only that but they stripped away alot of the things that had made the Forza series good like custom lobbies , tunning in lobbies , Forza tv where you could spectate races , and a whole lot of other stuff that they flat out lied about to the forum community telling us they weren't going to take anything away from the game .
Since I jumped into the Forza series at 3 I guess I didn't miss the laundry list of items it didn't include.
I started at 2 and I didn't even really miss that stuff. I guess its all what you use.
The physics in 4 makeup for anything wrong with a predecessor though in my book. They really made the way a tail kicks out gradually feel perfect.
Ya Forza 4 is where 3 should have been , it really is a great game so far
OMG, Escape Velocity. I spent so much time playing that game. Fell into an Escape Velocity hole and didn't come out for, like, six months.