The Sequel Effect
TheSixthAxis says: 'There’s something I’ve been noticing as I slowly descend into a life that is mostly dominated by watching things or playing things. There is a pattern to sequels or, more specifically, how sequels have to work for them to have any chance of success. For a change, it isn’t actually the fault of the developers/publishers here, though – they don’t have a choice.
After a good/successful game (or movie or TV series), there is a reasonably good chance of a sequel. Hell, the game doesn’t even need to be that good/successful sometimes, for reasons about which we can only speculate, and still get a sequel. The thing is, if this game is successful, a sequel has to stay true to it’s prequel but also manage to innovate and change as it does so. This, as you might imagine/have noticed, is a difficult thing to do in something that has achieved huge success and a lot of praise from gamers/movie-goers and critics.'
