Worth Playing: "The best thing that can be said about Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is that it is competent. The shooting is fine thanks to some good partner AI, and the destruction looks good. The bland characters and presentation are some things you can easily overlook, but the same can't be said for the regression in the cover system and co-op mechanics, both of which stop at the bare minimum. With those hooks failing to be executed properly, it is difficult to recommend this as a purchase even to those who are big fans of the series or genre. If you haven't had the chance to play the first two games, do that instead. If you've already gone through those titles, rent this if you feel like blowing through something disposable for an afternoon."
Alongside death, taxes and terrible Adam Sandler movies, video game sequels are just another crushing inevitability of life. Sequels and franchises are the lifeblood of the industry, so you can bet any halfway successful game will be aiming towards at least five more follow-ups and spin-offs in pursuit of more delicious money.
Yet even major franchises tend to run themselves into the ground eventually, where they can either reboot themselves and come back stronger than ever (think the new Tomb Raider games) or stay buried in the past.
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We all have game franchises we love so much that we don't care what others
think. Then there are games that the majority just agree shouldn't exist.
Sometimes it just takes one of these to kill our most beloved series.
It Takes One Game to Kill a Franchise
Street Fighter V and SoulCalibur V come to mind.
^^ i agree .....i also damn totally agree with Halo 2 ...if it wasnt the huge fanbase behind the first one and the huge potential of the franchise would be a dead IP ...HALO CE for me is still an unsurpassed FPS but HALO 2 completely trashed the series to below mediocrity quality levels...i also partly agree with MGS2 ...it had ridiculously convoluted and gibberishy plot considering what masterpiece MGS1 was ...but it narrowly escaped...also RE 4 could be considered such type of game ...RE was doomed after that
Interesting that you would pick Halo 2 over 4 or 5. I have yet to play 5 but as for the other 4, not one of them has disappointed me in terms of story or play mechanics. Halo 1 is a classic and 2 improved on everything while being a cliffhanger and then 3 having the dual story lines was a nice way to bring things to a close (of that trilogy).
4 was an interesting take on trying to create a new story where it had initially ended. The demand of knowing what was going to happen next for MC was what prompted them to come up with the new trilogy. I hope 6 will bring all things to a proper close... for now.
More like it takes one guy or team to kill a franchise. Its not the game fault it's the person behide it. Same with movies.
True, and it depends on what the devs learn from the experience whether or not the franchise can make a comeback. Or even make it's first "comeback". Like with Nier. Nobody cared about the first one, but it's hype all around for the sequel :p
Sometimes a game can kill a franchise even before it starts, if it doesn't perform as well as expected. The Order 1886 is an example of this.
I want to say socom with socom 4 as it was by far the worst but confrontation had its issues also. However compared to socom 4 confrontation was amazing. Still not socom 2 but it worked.
Only in gaming can you engage in multiple planet-clearing world wars or explosive shootouts where one man somehow takes on hundreds of opponents. There's stiff competition as to which game really has the highest body count, so to make it simpler here we're going to generally avoid anything that's too “big picture” in the death department. Check out the top games with the most ridiculous body counts now!
This makes me sad. I know in my head that Army of Two was never the best game in the world but it had character and I liked it. They could of expanded on the larger than life characters of Salem and Rios but instead they gut it of what actually made Army of Two likable. Not to mention the removal of the aggro is meter is just a terrible decision.