Sequels that aged worse than their predecessors

[Citizen]

Many retards here. Question was not which sequels were worse than the predecessors, but which aged worse. Two different things. Bunch of imbeciles

Nah. Aged worse == worse game, cuz there's no such thing as aging for games

If the game 'aged bad' it just means it was always shit, but was playable because of novelity factor (some new tech/graphics/etc)

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Nah. Aged worse == worse game, cuz there's no such thing as aging for games

Agreed, unless however if by aged he means the visuals. Cause there are a lot of games that look like ass today but still play beautifully.

 

[Citizen]

Agreed, unless however if by aged he means the visuals. Cause there are a lot of games that look like ass today but still play beautifully.

That's the same case. For one, I think games with sprite 2d graphics "aged" good because their graphics were not tied to some cool new technology of the time, while some of the early 2000s 3d titles didn't. See IWD series that still looks gorgerous vs. NWN1 that was released around same time and "aged" like dogshit

 

[Grauken]

Why's that?

Terrible UI. Terrible combat. It has good seamless open world exploration, but while seamless open world exploration was quite new at the time, now is it is very common.

It's still unparalleled when it comes to simulating NPC routines and you can do more non-combat things than in most current open worlds (bake bread), but combat is really the main thing making this unplayable for me. GUI I can deal with

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Agreed, unless however if by aged he means the visuals. Cause there are a lot of games that look like ass today but still play beautifully.

That's the same case. For one, I think games with sprite 2d graphics "aged" good because their graphics were not tied to some cool new technology of the time, while some of the early 2000s 3d titles didn't. See IWD series that still looks gorgerous vs. NWN1 that was released around same time and "aged" like dogshit

From a logical point of view even visuals cannot age. If NWN1 is dogshit now compared to IWD, it was also dogshit at the time in which it was released. The same applies for 2d vs. 3d graphics.

The concept of "aging" is a complete artificial one, mainly invented for marketing reasons.

 

[Citizen]

From a logical point of view even visuals cannot age. If NWN1 is dogshit now compared to IWD, it was also dogshit at the time in which it was released. The same applies for 2d vs. 3d graphics.

The concept of "aging" is a complete artificial one, mainly invented for marketing reasons.

Yes, NWN never looked good, it was just the novelity of 3d models and rotating camera that made it look interesting back then. And now when the novelity and coolfactor of 3d weared off it's just an ugly game. On the contrary, the games that were goodlooking thanks to the quality of art direction still look good today

And since a lot of series tried to go 3d (or 3d models baked into sprites instead of hand drawing them) when it became a thing we now have a lot of cases of sequels looking much worse than the predcessor

From the top of my head:
warcraft 2 -> warcraft 3
lands of lore -> lands of lore 2/3
worms armageddon -> worms 3d
blood -> blood 2
quest for glory 1-4 -> quest for glory 5
legends of kyrandia 1/2 -> 3
And probably a hundred more of examples

 

[Üstad]

Sims 3 of course.

Sims 2 just never gets old.

Also Metal Gear Solid III. Despite it's a good game they took whole survival stuff. So it must be aged bad I assume.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Did we have a ur mom joke yet (didn't read..LOL)

But how about...

Your mom's daughter. (That's a sequel...right? )

Zep--

 

[unfairlight]

Splinter Cell: Double Agent (7th gen) compared to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

 

[DalekFlay]

Splinter Cell: Double Agent (7th gen) compared to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

Double Agent was shit when it came out.

 

[unfairlight]

Yeah, that's my point. DA despite being a year newer and on a new generation of hardware still looks way worse today. Arguably the 7th generation version (note: Double Agent was victim of Ubisoft stupidity at the time, where they made completely different versions of the same game across generations) of DA looks worse than the 6th generation Xbox version of the game. The latter aged like Chaos Theory did on Xbox and PC, the former aged like milk.

 

[Agame]

From a logical point of view even visuals cannot age. If NWN1 is dogshit now compared to IWD, it was also dogshit at the time in which it was released. The same applies for 2d vs. 3d graphics.

The concept of "aging" is a complete artificial one, mainly invented for marketing reasons.

Yep, its like saying the Mona Lisa is shit now because its old... But gamers and game devs cannot into aesthetics (the vast majority anyway).

 

[Siobhan]

Aging isn't artificial at all. It states how something measures up to the current standards of quality relative to the quality standards when it was created. Those standards may well be retarded, but that doesn't invalidate the concept of evaluating something against them. In a potential future where the quality of art is measured by how much lime green it uses, the Mona Lisa would have aged badly and a tissue full of radioactive snot might have aged tremendously well.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Aging isn't artificial at all. It states how something measures up to the current standards of quality relative to the quality standards when it was created. Those standards may well be retarded, but that doesn't invalidate the concept of evaluating something against them. In a potential future where the quality of art is measured by how much lime green it uses, the Mona Lisa would have aged badly and a tissue full of radioactive snot might have aged tremendously well.

Only if you are one of NPCs who follow blindly its the current year mentality Comrade the modern ''art'' is only art if you your standards. Lot of those games NWN1, Panzer General 3, FO3 etc... looked like shit during release but people were brainwashed to not see it thanks to advertising, now where the graphics did got more complex (but not always better) we can see how bad they were.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah, that's my point. DA despite being a year newer and on a new generation of hardware still looks way worse today. Arguably the 7th generation version (note: Double Agent was victim of Ubisoft stupidity at the time, where they made completely different versions of the same game across generations) of DA looks worse than the 6th generation Xbox version of the game. The latter aged like Chaos Theory did on Xbox and PC, the former aged like milk.

I agree with everything you're saying I just thought the thread was more about games that were better when they came out. Double Agent (PC) was trash from day one, so I'm not sure it qualifies. In the Splinter Cell series I'd more say Pandora Tomorrow aged badly, because at the time more of the first game but not as good was an okay experience, but after Chaos Theory it looks like the shit expansion pack it is.

 

[Rahdulan]

Sims 3 of course.

Sims 2 just never gets old.

Visually? I don't know. 2 was just a graphical upgrade over the original in terms of model complexity, while 3 had that weird "digital dolls" look to characters. Subject of EA continually taking out more and more features so they can sell them back as expansions is a separate matter, though.

 

[Siobhan]

Only if you are one of NPCs who follow blindly

Most people are, including here, that's the whole reason why aging is a useful notion. Let's look at RoA2 and RoA3. Both are good games --- they were on release, and they still are. But RoA2 was more of an open sandbox, whereas RoA3 is a pretty linear affair. Given how expectations for RPGs have shifted away from linearity, RoA2 has aged better. That doesn't mean it is better, but to anybody who understands what the current standards of evaluation are, knowing how something measures up with respect to them is a useful notion. If your standards are the very opposite and you prefer linearity with tight pacing, the fact that RoA2 is currently believed to have aged better than RoA3 means you're likely to rank RoA3 higher than RoA2.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Only if you are one of NPCs who follow blindly

Most people are, including here, that's the whole reason why aging is a useful notion. Let's look at RoA2 and RoA3. Both are good games --- they were on release, and they still are. But RoA2 was more of an open sandbox, whereas RoA3 is a pretty linear affair. Given how expectations for RPGs have shifted away from linearity, RoA2 has aged better. That doesn't mean it is better, but to anybody who understands what the current standards of evaluation are, knowing how something measures up with respect to them is a useful notion. If your standards are the very opposite and you prefer linearity with tight pacing, the fact that RoA2 is currently believed to have aged better than RoA3 means you're likely to rank RoA3 higher than RoA2.

So basically you are confirming that "aging" is an artificial concept since it depends on what the current fashion dictates. Aging is something that should be associated to evolving systems that change with time, such as biological systems. I think that a better understanding of how we are easily conditioned could be achieved if we reject the notion of aging when it is associated to digital objects such as video games.

 

[Siobhan]

I disagree with your definition of artificial as it seems to also subsume voting patterns, mating choices, language, systems of morality, dozens of things I wouldn't consider artificial. Basically anything that's at least partially dependent on societal conventions. I also don't understand how rejecting the notion of aging would make for a constructive contribution to a thread about whether certain games have aged well. That's like going to a theater performance and telling the audience that the people on the stage aren't actually the people they pretend to be. Well, yes, but how does this add anything to the experience?

Anyways, I don't wanna derail the thread, bad habit of mine. Let's talk games. The easy ones have already been nominated, so I'll pick Albion, which loses to Amberstar and Ambermoon for the same reason that RoA3 loses to RoA2.