From Glory to Garbage

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Ameer67

Ameer67

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This thread is about videos game series that you think have been great, but then became something horrible. Write the series name and explain why.

Here is mine: The Need For Speed Series. I thought that the older ones were great. But things started getting ruined in the mid-late 2000s with games like ProStreet, Undercover and so on.
 
Ridge racer series. I feel the last great one was RRV. I've tried 7 and it just didn't feel like a ridge racer game at all. I'm not sure about unbounded though.
 
Dirt Series, first one was great and then got worse and now its stooped low enough to a demo derby game, maybe 4 wont follow the same trend.
 
Final Fantasy. The best ones since FFIX have been the remakes of the early 2D games. Unlike a lot of people I actually thought FFXIII was okay and relatively traditional (while I didn't like FFX or FFXII and never bothered with FFXI), but it's still a hollow HD-GRAFIXX!!1!-obsessed shell of what the series used to be, and what I've seen of FFXV looks like more of the same misguided nonsense. The original FF, FFIV, and FFVI were a huge part of my childhood, but I've given up expecting anything good in Final Fantasy's future.
 
Castlevania. The two latest ones are particularly horrible (Lords of Shadow).
Agreed on NFS, although I have to say there's a -lone- exception to the myriad of crappy titles since Prostreet, Undercover et.al. and that is the latest NFS Hot Pursuit. I had fun with it, almost as much as the original (NFSIII).
Driver. Ever since Parallel Lines (and some will argue Driv3r). They haven't been able to pick themselves back up.
Resident Evil. Okay, not utter crap but not a reflection of what the games used to be.

I can't comment on FF as I haven't played any after 9, but I have to agree that 7 and 9 were amazing games. The only other FF I played other than those two was Mystic Quest. Pretty fun stuff.
 
@Coxis Driver: San Francisco is a really good game, although the paranormal car switching stuff was indeed off putting.
NfS, Ridge Racer and Resident Evil were already mentioned, I'll add Ace Combat.
Assault Horizon was a joke and while Infinity seems to feature proper gameplay again, it's a free2play title on a dying console. As someone who kinda collected all the PAL releases back then, the franchise died for me when Namco went 360 exclusive with Ace06.

EDIT: Oh and Call of Duty pre-Modern Warfare, turned into one of the most overhyped game franchises in history.
 
My 3 favourite series through ps1 and ps2 have sadly declined in quality in the ps3 generation...

Resident Evil- 4 was the last good one in my opinion
Pro Evolution soccer- For years this was an annually automatic purchase this gen not so much
Gran turismo- Not declined as much as the above but still think GT4 was the peak of the series!
 
PES - The greatest game series ever, The game could do no wrong on Snes, N64, PS & PS2, Since then the series on PS3/360 it has become a complete mess, 7 games from 2008-2014 are so poor.

Res Evil - Amazing horror games that slowly turned into action games for the casuals.
 
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The stealth genre. Reached its peak in early 2000's but now its become stealth mixed with run and gun.

I used to buy all the stealth games now I don't go anywhere near them. Mixing run and gun with stealth doesn't work as they are 2 completely opposite play styles that just don't mix.

The sad part is the publishers don't seem to understand why their games don't sell well and bin the entire series.
 
FLX1981
Gran Turismo. Everything after GT4 was a mediocre mess with outdated content and last century gameplay. (yeah, I said it)
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Polphony still thinking they can get away with almost 10 year old AI and car models is why i think they wont last very long after GT6 because they dont take any big steps to change there gameplay. Apart from graphics GT6 still to me feels like GT3's physics engine.
Devil240Z
I feel the opposite its gotten better to me. More rally less stupid stuff.
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I dont know what your were playing but i didnt consider Dirt 3 a rally game when you force me to do stupid gymkhana which i think is terribly stupid, but dirt 3's infected mode was alot of fun ill give it that.
 
Ridge Racer (piked with type 4), Need For Speed (piked with Carbon), Dirt Series (Piked with Dirt 3), Resident evil series (piked with 4, although I personally like Nemesis better), Grand Theft Auto Series (as amazing as V might be, is nowhere near as good or well design as San Andreas, or lacks the charm of Vice city).

I was about to mention the Ace Combat series, but I have played Infinity and it's go it's charm back (even though is based purely on old stuff, it work rather well, dare I say PS2 Ace combat game quality, you can't get better than that).

Special mention should be done to Silent Hill series, 2 at the top, followed by 4 and then 3, latest game have failed to archive that kind of psychological horror that plague the older games, Shattered Memories tried to recapture that psychological horror, but failed in the horror department, the rest are just ... dull and ... rather boring.

Other game series is Forza, although 5 and Horizon are amazing, none of them compare to the original Forza 1, in terms of features, content and actual design. FM5 is pretty good, so is horizon, but from 1 to 4 they really decline with a real low with FM3 (look forza 1 up for the original xbox and you will know what I'm talking about)

And finally TOCA, I like Grid 2, but TOCA 3 was the peak, and it was amazing, no games has ever come close (it had ****ing monster truck driving).
 
Ameer67
This thread is about videos game series that you think have been great, but then became something horrible. Write the series name and explain why.

Here is mine: The Need For Speed Series. I thought that the older ones were great. But things started getting ruined in the mid-late 2000s with games like ProStreet, Undercover and so on.
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All EA needs to do, is get their head out of their rear, and make an Underground 3.
 
I like games, but don't have really time to play them, but obvious Glory to Garbage are, for me, DiRT series, NFS, CoD, PES and somewhat GT.

DiRT- I never had the games but played them all for decent amout of time and I'm in position to say that the first was decent, the second was great, the third was good, but then with the Showdown game they just blew their reputation. It was awful. But I, somehow, I'm still hoping for a return.

NFS- The first games were truly amazing and featured cool cars. And the saw themselves rising and rising until the ProStreet. From there they've been free falling and lost every bit of interest they had left. They were so deperate they even tried sim-racing world with no success. The last great NFS was Most Wanted 1.

CoD- They simply ran out of ideas... Modern Warefare was a fairly good sequel and Black Ops 1 wasn't really terrible but from there they just ruined things. I have Ghosts and it's clearly forced, the story is too sythetic. Oh, and they're just overhyped and overrated.

PES- The last good one was 2008 when it actually could compete with FIFA, now look at them... They're bad and they're a mess. In fact EA Sports is the only EA that is doing some stuff right.

GT- I played the GT3 and it was great, I played GT4 and it was great, I played GT5 and I was disappointed. I played it because I loved cars and it was the only "proper" sim that I owned. Never GT series been so low and that was reflected in people faces. GT6 isn't great but it was a sort of a climb back. Constant delays are ruining a bit the experience. It is flawed, people are sd about it but I have hope that is going to appear a great one someday.
 
sumbrownkid
All EA needs to do, is get their head out of their rear, and make an Underground 3.
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I used to think that, but after Most Wanted, I disagree. If they were to make Underground 3, then it would be Burnout sliding and cops, which is not Underground... They need to let Criterion do Burnout, and some other dev do NFS, maximize money and all!
 
Crispy
I used to think that, but after Most Wanted, I disagree. If they were to make Underground 3, then it would be Burnout sliding and cops, which is not Underground... They need to let Criterion do Burnout, and some other dev do NFS, maximize money and all!
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Need For Speed needs to stop with the reusing of older titles honestly. Like new Most Wanted and the old one. Barely any similarities.
 
The Test Drive series kinda has fallen from grace in my opinion, it was pretty ground breaking back in the day and when it was being developed by Accolade and the early main series releases and 'off road' ones were good. Then it started to go stale during the late 90's early 00's and pretty much dissapeared from the scene as NFS ran away with the genre.

Then came along TDU which was a stroke of brilliance, basically invented the concept of persistant online free roam (dubbed M.O.O.R), had an amazing map and brought in other lifestyle elements like buying apartments and clothing.

All looked well for the series and then after a delay of 5 years it was followed by the abomination which was TDU2 and it threw the series off a cliff along with the studio. Ferrari Racing Legends has been pretty meh as its Shift 2 with a skin.

On a side note, Star Trek games... 56 Games, 37 Developers, 42 Years and only maybe 3 good releases! :ouch:
 
Call of Duty. A franchise that Activision straight ran into the ground. I started playing with 3, became obsessed with MW1 & MW2, really enjoyed parts of both BLOPS but became so fatigued by the time I stopped playing BLOPS2 that I never considered buying Ghosts. I spent 3 hours one night playing Ghosts MP and had no interest to continue or pick it up again. The only way I could see me getting interested again is if they remaster MW2 for nextgen but even then I'm not so sure.
 
ANYTHING I've EVER seen from EA.

On a more serious note, the Simcity series is a big one to me. I used to play Simcity 4 to death, but with Simcity what-they-call-it it more like a pooping pile of stinking poop.
 
ASSASSIN'S CREED. The first game was a bit repetitive, but the second game seriously improved things. Then it went a bit downhill with BROTHERHOOD and REVELATIONS, because although the gameplay improved, the quality of the storytelling slipped; the three stories would have been better as one game. But then we got to ASSASSIN'S CREED III, and it all went to pieces. It was difficult to engage with the setting, the hero was unlikeable and dismissive of things that should have provoked deep thought, the present-day story was horrible and came out of nowhere and the whole game took itself way too seriously.

Fortunately, the series redeemed itself with BLACK FLAG.
 
Suzuki TT Superbikes is still the best motorcycle racing game I've ever played.

It had the entire Isle of Man track, and the physics were very nice.


And then TT Superbikes 2 came out, oh god that was awful.

Graphics were worse, physics were garbage, it was basically the same as Alfa Romeo racing, but with bikes.
 
GT - GT2 was their best effort.

COD - MW2 was the last one for me.

NFS - Undercover and ProStreet were meh, HP 2010 was good but just too arcadey and it's been a re-skinned Burnout Paradise since then.

DRIVER - The first ones were brilliant, Parallel Lines was still really good but then, Driver San Fran, I don't know what that is, it's fun a game but that's about it.

Metal Gear - I enjoyed 4 but it wasn't the best, then they came out with something completely different and now they're selling demos.

The PlayStation platform, so many great exclusives back in the day, with each generation, their legacy exclusives keep getting worse or they don't even exist anymore, now it's all about overrated quick-time event fests, on-rails story telling, indie games nobody really understands or cares for, generic shooters, etc.
 
NASCAR. After NASCAR 06 things started to go downhill. Now a company can't hold onto the liscence for more than a few years. NTG2011-Nascar 15 were all garbage (Aside from Inside Line), and NHE looks like a mobile game, when Real Racing 3 is the best NASCAR experience, we have a major problem.
 

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