What is up with number 3?

Sequels are really hard to make because the developers works harder to make a better game while retaining the charm of the first game but sometimes when a sequel becomes really good and way better than the first. Developers think about making a third one which either fails to impress because of the high bar the second game sets or never gets released and on rare occasions it becomes the best of the series so lets begin with…

1 – Mass Effect 3 (Ps3, X360, PC) (Bioware-EA)

Gamers have been waiting for the ending of the epic role playing game to one of the best stories ever made in gaming only to realize that the developers just ruined everything by making forgettable characters, making your decisions from the first two games useless and making the most useless and laziest ending I have seen in my life. It was like a slap to face to the fans who invested hundreds of hours on the first two. They tried to fix it by releasing an extended cut but it was not good enough. Hopefully the next trilogy get a better ending.

2 – Half Life 3 (TBA) (Valve)

Half Life is one of the most revolutionary games in the history and considered one of the best and almost every single pc gamer have either heard or played it. It was awesome and then came HALF Life 2 Episode 1 and 2. It also set the bar high for the series and ended with a cliffhanger that made fans dying even more to see a third episode or sequel and fans have been waiting for almost 8 years for Gabe Newell to announce it. Even though gamers got the second best thing which is Steam, still that’s not enough and hopefully he announce it one day.

3 – The Last Guardian or Trico (Ps3/Ps4) ( Team ICO)

While this might not be a sequel or at least a not obvious sequel to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus since both are connected but are never said they are or we can just call it a spiritual successor to SOTC which is their third game. It was in production in 2007 and announced in 2009 and the trailer looked really awesome and had a release date of 2011. Fans were happy because they know they will deliver a masterpiece like ICO and SOTC only to be disappointed by a delay after the other and the departure of Fumito Ueda from the project although he remained a consultant on the game. While the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Shuhei Yoshida said they will introduce it at the right time. That right time never seems to come but I will never give up on it as long as we know it's in production and I believe Team ICO will deliver something amazing with it.

4 – Assassins Creed 3 (Ps3/X360) (Ubisoft)

Yes, I know it's not the third game in the series but it still hold the number 3 so to me it is lol. I cant fathom about the many things that were wrong in this game that made it the worst in the series. The Protagonist Connor is so blank and dull unlike Ezio and will make you hate the game, Haytham his friend was so much better that I wish he was the protagonist. The plot was so bad and a lot of the elements in the game were unexplained which why I hate it even more. The gameplay was really bad and the game was a cakewalk and the glitches in the game are horrible. I stopped playing the series after it and I don’t think I will be playing it again unless they really change the formula that became really boring.

5 – Dead Space 3 (Ps3/X360) (Visceral Games-EA)

Dead Space was considered one of the best horror games because of its amazing atmosphere, creepy monster, cool weapons, great graphics and gameplay and its one of few games last gen I finished over 20 times each. The first one ended with a cliffhanger that was shocking and awesome because I knew there would be a sequel and when the second came. While the horror elements wasn’t as much as the first, they kept the disturbing atmosphere and jump scares intact with a few badass action sequences like the halo jump and the gameplay was improved and faster which I felt was much better and they had Hardcore mode which was both challenging and fun and very rewarding and you get cool weapon when you finish it. Again I couldn’t wait for a sequel until they shown a footage of its gameplay. I knew it will never be the same like the first two, they shown Isaac the protagonist fighting humans as if they were playing a regular third person shooter and they shown Co op. Fans were so pissed because they added two things no one asked for and I decided not to judge anything until I play it myself so when I got it, the intro had you fight humans and felt so weird and no like a Dead space game. Thank god those sections were few but what was bad is that in order to experience the full story you had to play with a partner and the game felt like it was designed for two people. The game was hard and not fun because of the wave after wave of monsters they throw at you every where that really makes you pissed because you needed someone to help and also because the story was not good and they also sold you the real ending in DLC so go figure. The awesome thing about this game though was the way you make weapons from resources which I thought was the best Idea I have seen in a game and felt like it was taken from James Cameron Aliens. Hopefully Dead Space 4 can fix the wrongs of the third and creates an unsettling atmosphere again.

6 – Tekken 3 (PS1) (Namco)

Tekken 3 is one of those games that is considered the best in the series which surpasses the first two in every possible way, the gameplay was faster and more fun, the graphics were better, there were more characters than ever and the variety of gameplay in each of the characters was awesome and it is one of the best PS1 games of all time, while the new Tekken games are all great, there was really few gameplay changes from this one but that is not a bad thing because you know what they say " Don’t fix what Is not broken".

7 – Crash Bandicoot 3 (Ps1) (Naughty Dog)

I have already talked about how beautifully awesome this game was but what made it much better than the first two is that they found the perfect fun between fun and challenge because the first two were incredibly hard at times but nonetheless they were great but this one was the best.

8 – Metal Gear Solid 3 (PS2/PC/PS3/X360) (Konami)

This one is a personal opinion really but I honestly thought MGS3 the best think Kojima ever did. The story has an incredible depth and the Big Boss/Boss relationship was beautiful and sad, the CQC gameplay was tight and the stealth mechanics were amazing and I honestly think Kojima outdid himself with this one. I still love MGS1 and MGS2 as much as I love 3 but this one had a different charm to me and off course the reason I used the name DarkOcelet because of how awesome Ocelot is in the game, he is such a badass :) .

9 – Dino Crisis 3 (Xbox) (Capcom)

Capcom really knows how to piss its fans. After the incredible Dino Crisis 1 and 2 by the awesome Shinji Mikami on the Ps1, fans wanted a third part for the epic dinasour game, but then they go and make it exclusive for the Xbox. And not only that but they also replace the badass Regina and left you wondering what happened to her after the ending of the second one and decided to make the game in space . Dinasours In Space. Who the hell thought that was a good idea lol. I admit the cutscenes and the sound effects in the game were amazing and the graphics were good for the time but the overall game was a disappointment from one of the worst camera in the history to the stupid idea that you are fighting mutated species that has a DNA of the dinasours. Hopefully we get a reboot or fourth installment on the current because this is an underrated series.

10 – Grand Theft Auto 3 (PC/PS2/Mobile) (Rockstar)

I have been a GTA fan since the beginning when the gameplay was top-down driving game but the leap from that to the 3d style open world gameplay was the most innovative thing I have seen in a game at the time and it was excellent, the amount of freedom you had was amazing. It was a truly one of the most revolutionary game in the history. And they kept making the franchise better and better with each sequel. I cant wait to see what they do next.

That is all I have for now folks, leave a comment and tell me what threequel I forgot or that you think belong on the list. Thanks for taking your time to read this :). And Happy New Year.

[thorstein]

Now you know why there will never be a Half Life 3 or any "3" from Valve.

[DarkOcelet]

Yeah, L4D2 was Awesome, Portal 2 was a masterpiece and Half Life 2 was unmatched. Hard to beat those.

[Bimkoblerutso]

That's perfectly fine. I actually respect developers that quit a franchise before it becomes "milking," but Valve decided they were done with Half-Life at the worst possible time. They left it at one of the biggest cliff-hangers in gaming history.

Still love Valve. Still love Half-Life, but I honestly think Valve has done the franchise and it's fans a great injustice, especially if they've really decided to retire it altogether.

[Conzul]

Dead Space 3 was an excellent action game, the only thing that was wrong was that it was supposed to be a horror game.

I still firmly believe that Dead Space 2 was one of - if not THE - best multiplatform games of last gen.

[DarkOcelet]

I agree Dead Space 2 was really super awesome and finished it more than the first and i know Dead Space 3 was genius but the Co-op and humans action part just doesnt suit the style of the game and yes i know they are a Unitologist soldiers that want Isaac out of the game but they shouldnt have let us fight them because that is does not fit the mood in the game. And i blame EA for the stupid decisions like the DLC ending that should have been included and the damn Micro transactions that ruined the immersion for me. Its a shame talented people in Visceral have to do stupid things like that to appeal to the mass audience.

[Picnic]

What is up with number 3? Your answer more or less seems to be 'nothing out of the ordinary'.
So why ask the question?

I'll try to:

Resident Evil 3 - more action oriented than what was arguably the pinnacle, Resident Evil 2.

Silent Hill 3 - easier to get in to than the previous 2 Silent Hills. The best one to play if you don't like all the fog. Scary, beautiful, game.

Uncharted 3 - more of a tale of bonding between Nathan and Sully than part 2 was, part 3 does away with some of the overblown, unrealistic, puzzle levels of part 2 and is more intimate. Like the first game, part 3 becomes crushingly hard later on as if to over-compensatingly apologise for how relatively easy the game had been up to that point. So part 2 is a more balanced game and part 2 is arguably the game that most makes you feel like you've just played a really great film. Part 3 is more intimate on the whole. Part 3's shooting seemed way off when it was released but it has since been massively improved and the AI can be scarily responsive. Unchared 3's multiplayer is also the most fun, Uncharted 2's multiplayer levels being too large. Uncharted 3 is a decent sequel once you get over how the walk through the desert is not that great. The ending, on the other hand, was unforgivably lame, like a weak version on Uncharted 2's- showing you a huge city that you can barely explore and the easiest boss battle ever. Still, I think that overall Uncharted 3 is a great game because of the intimacy, the naturalness, of it.

Max Payne 3: Not made by Remedy. The second game hadn't sold as well as the first. The third game is more hardcore arcadey.

Conclusion:

Nothing massively conclusive except that, if it's a series that ends up continuing, part 3 tends to be a refinement. It cuts away any of what is perceived as the fat of part 2. Sometimes like Silent Hill 3, it represents more of a return to the style of the first game.
Part 3 is often released not long after part 2 and, as a result, it doesn't suffer from the over heavy story or complete identity crisis that a part 4 sometimes has where a team has had the luxury to think about things too much.
Part 3 sometimes even has better seeming graphics than part 4 (not in the case of Resident Evil of course). This can happen if part 4 is released not long after part 3 when a team can start to feeling burnt out - or if part 4 is released at the start of a generation when the tech is still being got to grips with.

[DarkOcelet]

Resident Evil 3 was by far the scariest in the series, not in terms of atmosphere but in terms of tension. The first time the Nemises came at me so fast, it really scared the $%^$ out of me.
Silent Hill 3 was great but honestly in terms of story, it didnt have the big impact like in Silent Hill 2 but it was indeed scarier.
While i did not play Uncharted 3. Alot of the fans are saying it wasnt really the best but thats easy because the second one has set the bar so damn high but i cant comment on that.
Part 3 isnt always a refinement to go back to the roots of the first, i mean look at Dead Space 3, it just felt like a different game entirely, and the concentration on co op and the availability of micro transactions was really immersion breaking.
One more thing i wanted to add is Arkham Origins and while that is a prequel, it still considered the worst in the series and felt like a bit of rehash from Arkham City and the inclusion of online. Who the hell thought that was a good idea is beyond me.
One last thing though, like i said in the article part 3 isnt always bad, we have MGS3,GTA3,Super Mario Bros 3 , Crash 3, Jak 3. All of those games are considered as good or even better than originals.
And the answer to my question is just the mystery of the third part. Like i said it either flops,never released or just not as good as the first two.

[Picnic]

I played the original Dead Space for a small amount of time. The series depresses me in its unroriginality- how it rips off the film Aliens and Doom 3 (and, some say, System Shock 2)

I know that many games have influences, particularly the film Aliens, but Dead Space takes the biscuit.

It's weird to me how people generally don't rate EA highly in artistic terms yet they gave Dead Space high scores.

There's no genuine tension in it. The only space creature that was ever genuinely terrifying was H R Giger's brilliant alien. So if you want to kill aliens (on PS3 anyway) why not buy Resistance instead with no pretence of building up any non-existent atmosphere? At least Resistance has a nice 1950s look to it.

Now that Alien Isolation is out, would anyone care to adjust their opinion of Dead Space?

[Picnic]

The number of exceptions that you have to your rule, some of which you have pointed out yourself, is so large that you no longer have a rule.

However there might be some truth to the 'flops' part you mentioned. If you look at a lot of part 3s, they often sold less than the part 1 or part 2. Rarely so low as to be considered flops though.

Never released? There aren't huge numbers of cases of that. Half Life - but even that had extra episodes. If they make a bad part 2 they want to correct that. Whereas if they make a good part 2 they want to capitalise on that.
It'd take a game of Bubsy 3D proportions of awfulness to entirely kill the series (and that was the third game in the series anyway).

Just not as good as the first 2? - I'd argue that Silent Hill 3 was a better game for newcomers - or lovers of great graphics in general- to come to the series.
But, on the whole - OK. Sonic 2 was better than Sonic 3 for instance.
But in terms of 3D Mario games, Super Mario Sunshine was 'part 2' and the superior regarded Galaxy is part 3. Miyamoto wasn't heavily involved with Sunshine though - its mechanics were far better than its game levels.

[Blacklash93]

There are good examples, like Devil May Cry 3 and Super Mario Bros 3.

[Cernunnos]

I strongly disagree that Crash Bandicoot 3 was the best. I have always felt CB2 was the best of the series. Just the perfect platformer. CB3 was good, but too many gimmicky levels.

[Team_Litt]

I have a theory. The first game is usually a learning experience for developers and its failings and successes are noted and applied when making number 2 which in many cases is brilliant. Allow me to list a couple of examples.
Mass Effect 2
Uncharted 2
Spiderman 2 (movie and game)
Gears 2
PlayStation 2
Batman Arkham City
The Godfather 2

All these were sequels to great products and the formula was tweaked to bring about near perfect successors.

Unfortunately striking gold breeds hubris. Developers/producers start believing their own hype and the next product can be bloated.
PlayStation 3 (initially)
Spiderman 3 (game and movie)
Mass Effect 3
Uncharted 3 (way way too much)
Gears 3 (again, just too much)

[gangsta_red]

I definitely agree with this. Part 2 usually expands and tweaks slightly on the success of part one. Giving the user more of what they liked from the first entry. The devs are still humble and hungry to make a good game for their fans.

Part three though, I feel most of the time is the Michael Bay effect as devs and producers are riding super high, rich as well as drunk and feel the need to go way overboard and extreme and hand off most of the duties to their junior assistants.

You could see it with the RE series as it just became an action explosion fest, same with God of War as it just dissolved into a huge mess at the end, Mass Effect 3 was okay but no where near as tight and interesting as part 2.