Cliffy B: Gamers hate sequels

Epic design boss Cliff 'Cliffy B' Bleszinski has observed that there is a culture amongst shooter fans of "hating sequels" - but that many fall back in love with a series in time for its third iteration.

[MaxOpower]

I kinda like sequels....

[KingZFlipper]

I kinda like sequels too.... I like them because if e.g a game gets some harsh criticism, they get a second chance for improving it in the following game. For example, Gears Of War 2 Online is not that great, but Epic Games is trying to improve it in Gears 3

[Christopher]

Sales of the big selling sequels on the 360 prove otherwise.

MW2 vs MW1

Halo: Reach vs other Halos

GeoW2 vs GeoW ... wait, the second one did worse than the first there...

Oh, wait, people didn't like his sequel. I get it. Hey, Cliffy, take off the blinders. The reality is that the success of your sequel doesn't spell out the success of other sequels.

[Nac]

Buying and liking, two different things.

[Active Reload]

"Oh, wait, people didn't like his sequel. I get it. Hey, Cliffy, take off the blinders. The reality is that the success of your sequel doesn't spell out the success of other sequel."

You should take off the blinders. Because I would bet my house and car that 99.9% of the games and sequels out there would love to have the success of his sequel, lol.

Edit: What?? I just quoted what you said. Unless you're telling me what you initially posted is irrelevant.

Gears of War 1 sales > Gears of War 2 sales

Gears of War 1 metacritic score > Gears of War 2 metacritic score

"On both fronts people have shown to not like the second as much as the first. Your post is irrelevant to the topic since the comparison is between the two games, not other games out there."

If this was your first comment I wouldn't even had made a statement and would have agreed with you.

[Christopher]

***You should take off the blinders. Because I would bet my house and car that 99.9% of the games and sequels out there would love to have the success of his sequel, lol. ***

Gears of War 1 sales > Gears of War 2
Gears of War 1 metacritic score > Gears of War 2

On both fronts people have shown to not like the second as much as the first. Your post is irrelevant to the topic since the comparison is between the two games, not other games out there.

To show more proof, if gamers hated sequel then why:

Uncharted 2 sales > Uncharted 1
Uncharted 2 metacritic score > Uncharted 1

The fact of the matter is that there is tons of proof out there that games love sequels. Sequels that improve on gameplay and aren't released with lots of bugs.

[Active Reload]

Now that I'm reading your comment again, it makes me wonder if you read the article. Cliff gave examples of the type of games he was referring to. And there is WAY more proof around, that validates his comment.

[Christopher]

***Cliff gave examples of the type of games he was referring to.***

And I gave an example of the same type of game above.

[kalebgray92]

gamers hate bad sequels... gears 2 couldnt touch gears 1

[mrcash]

are you referring to the online portion? because the campaign on gears 2 put the gears 1 campaign to shame.

[TEFL0N_D0N_81]

I agree. The campaign in Gears 2 ran circles around the first one. That being said, I still play Gears 1 online to this day, and it still looks good. Gameplay is still spicy, shotgun is crunchy, and ragdoll effects don't looks like marshmallows. Gears 2 online sucks juevos.

Things I don't like about Gears 2 (if this has changed by update, I don't care. I still walked away from Gears 2 online early enough):

1) Smoke/Stun grenades. Each person should be equipped with only one, or it should be an item you can pick up. Also, if you're given two, only the 2nd one through active reload should be plantable on walls.
2) Matchmaking. I hate how long it takes to find a game, and also, why can't we play the same opponents after the match? Latency still sucks too.
3) Ghost cam. A cheater's tool. They made the maps bigger (which I didn't care for), but ghost cams made the bigger maps stupid.
4) Large explosion weapons are just too much. As the classic execution games only gives you one life (I like it that way), mortars and other big explosion weapons kill you too fast with too much bs.
5) Shotgun sucks. It's too slow and mushy compared to the first game. Also damage registration is slower and/or inconsistent.
6) Host advantage still exists. I actually don't have a problem with this, even though I never host in Gears 1. You can use strategy and team work to adapt. But to minimize Host advantage, they left the standard game rooms for matchmaking. Problem is, host advantage still prevails. If that's the case, give me back the rooms because I can at least choose the host and game type.
7) Nerf the lancers and hammerbursts a bit. The first game rocks because of the shotgun and close combat. Not p*ssies shooting and crouching from a distance.
8) 4v4 was (and still is) perfectly fine. You don't need to make bigger maps to accomodate 1 extra person. On a similar note, new maps are too big. Make it smaller so it's easier to find action.
9) Get rid of that square box cross hair on torque bow. Makes it way too easy to use it.
10) Give me more maps for Gears 1.

[KillerPwned]

Hm cliffy should not be talking i don`t think gamers hate them i think he does. He would never admit as to how horrible Gears 2 was total let down. IMO

How can you hate sequels then we could never continue the story in such games like MGS,Resident Evil,Half-life,Halo...just to name a few.

[gta_manic]

cliffy needs to just shut up and make games... or at least make some more amazing games before talking(gears 3 is looking good but not at the level like it was for gears 1)

[Redrum059]

hate is such a powerful word :P
i like sequals

[despair]

ah Cliffy B, I like your games but you really talk out your ass a lot. Uncharted 2 was a shooter sequel that was loved by a lot of people, so was COD2, doom 2, UT sequel UT2003 was also a great game. There are many others also, hell Gears 2 was great except the MP had too many problems, its the developers fault if the sequel is not liked as much as the original not the fans, if you make it great people will like it.

BTW really looking forward to Gears 3 and Bulletstorm, they really have me excited for next year...so many games for 2011...

[kaos_fish II]

A good sequel improves upon and enhances it's predecessor. A bad sequel can make you throw your hands in the air, walk away and never come back.

[GamerSciz]

Sequels are always welcome. Some great sequels that I have played in my day are...

Uncharted 2
God of War 2/3
Metal Gear Solid 2/3/4
Prince of Persia 2/3
Motorstorm 2 (pretty good but not the best sequel but a lot of new gameplay elements helped separate it from the 1st)

[Lirky]

Then why does cliffyb create sequels.. Plus gamers dont hate lbp2 thats a sequel.

[djfullshred]

In general a lot of us are jaded when it comes to sequels. We know that many times it is an easier path for game companies to follow the money with cookie cutter sequels on the same game engine, rather than taking a little risk on developing new game concepts.

[Agent Smith]

No, Gamers only hate bad sequels.

[Der_Kommandant]

Gears of War 2

[blackburn5]

What nonsense. GOW 2, UC2, RAC series, MS2 and KZ2 all perfectly great sequels that were vast improvements over the last and Sony is about to prove it again with GT5, KZ3,LBP2 and Infamous 2. Fanboy whining about every minor change doesn't count.

[byeGollum]

I like stand alone games and brand new IPs .. sure you can make a new game in the same universe(E.g. Fallout New Vegas, or the final fantasy series) but not every game needs to have a sequel, I hate sequels because almost every game has one.

What I also hate about sequels is that, they just stamp a number beside them, no sub title. For Example Killzone 1, 2 and 3, Id prefer something like Bioshock, then Bioshock: infinite, not Bioshock (3), you get me?

[dinkeldinkse]

I understand what you are saying. Too many IPs have sequels to them and I also don't like that most sequels just have a number printed next to them.

[visualb]

=O

I say "gamers hate bad sequels"

just like

"gamers hate bad games"

so...pretty much, same argument.

[Upbeat]

Its knowing when to stop tbh, like in regards to mw2, it sucks and everyone knows its a glitchy piece of shit, but people play it, cause tbh there is very few multiplayer games that people play atm,my friends list always has players on mw2 or halo, and on PS3 kz2,uc2 and mw2.

[REDHULKSMASH]

I don't, some of the best games are sequels. I think he is saying that because gears 2 got alot of criticism... but the campaign was good in my opinion. They couldve taken out the whole reaver scene in my opinion...it was a little akward seeing Marcus and Dom sitting crotch in ass on the reaver's saddle.

Gears ' 1 campaign and graphics were/are better than gears 2. Gears 2 had a more fun multiplayer and more maps but it also had alot of flaws alot of which are still there now.

Gears 3 looks a little more cartoony than 2 hopefully they'll fix that. I wish they'd leave the whole waterworld theme and Seattle woodsy crap and go back to the gears 1 look. Torn up European looking buildings, rubble, cloudy skys= awesome. Deciduous forrest, mountains, and flowers=bleh.

[jaosobno]

Is that why you made Gears 2&3 Cliffy?

And I love sequels. When properly done, they give us more of our favorite stories, enchanced versions of already great gameplay and bunch of other stuff.

[Dno]

There is not one gamer alive (who buys games anyway) who does not own a sequel. That will never change.

[ThatsGaming]

The sequel hate comes more from the choices that the game developers make then from it being a sequel.

Usually a game gets a sequel if it was a great idea to begin with... Gears, Halo, Uncharted, etc.

Game developers almost always attempt to do some significant changes in the first sequel and many times that does not go over well with the gamers who loved the first game.

In the third game, developers look at what went right with the first two games, what went wrong in the first two games, and developer the perfect game in #3.

Also, first games are almost always with open endings and people expect sequels, second games you are always in the mood of "we know there will be a third", and the third is usually an epic conclusion of some sort adding to the game story and creating some finality.

[iliimaster]

i only hate sequels when you take the first game a success and totally trash the online MULTIplayer on part 2

[Kaneda]

I like Uncharted 2. If you do it right then people will love it.

[mirroredderorrim]

Cliff seems out of touch.

[theonlylolking]

We like sequels as long as they are as good or better than the previous game(depending on how good the first game was). Just because gears 2 did not get as great reviews by gamers does not mean we hate sequels. Just look at uncharted 1 it is really good and everyone wanted a sequel. We got the sequel and it was even better so no one complained.

So the bottom line is. Just make your sequels better and we are good.

[Jamaicangmr]

We don't mind sequels it's the ones that suck or are not as good as the prequels that we don't care for.

Come on Cliffy shake it off get back on your game.

[PS360fanboy]

No they don't...

[NastyLeftHook1]

sequels are a gateway to ones first enjoyment.