Guitar Hero
Here's a remarkably clever idea - grab a hunk of plastic in the general shape of a guitar, put some buttons on it, and write some software that encourages you to jump around like a loon. The Guitar Hero franchise is proof that even the craziest concepts can milk a metric truckload of money for a suitably adventurous publisher, and once more revived the notion that video games could actually come bundled with peripherals that weren't complete crap.
Should have quit after...
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The dumbed-down Guitar Hero World Tour shifted the franchise from the impossibly difficult Guitar Hero III towards a family-friendly sing-a-long experience, and despite the promising Guitar Hero 5, it's never really recovered the raw, head-pounding, teeth-gnashing and controller hurling angst that defined the series from the outset.
If Activision and Red Octane had stuck to a guitar-centric experience and pushed out multiple track packs based on the Guitar Hero III engine (whilst subtly removing the ridiculous boss battles) they'd have provided a much better experience for gamers. The Rock Band franchise was always more than capable of providing the band experience for those who wanted it, and in the case of Guitar Hero, the diversification to group play moved the spotlight away from what was good about the game in the first place - massive lines of alternating hammer ons, hammer offs and nasty chord changes. Plus, you know, Dragonforce.
The quiet release of Guitar Hero: Van Halen this year is evidence that the bottom of the barrel has indeed been scraped, and that gamers have probably had enough of music peripheral games for at least another decade.
Leisure Suit Larry
If you're old, you may recall using copies of Leisure Suit Larry as virtual currency at primary school. Social groups were formed and disbanded, friendships defined and destroyed over the possibility of sneakily using an IBM Compatible PC for half an hour after school at an unsuspecting parents house. The goal was to see eight flesh-coloured pixels simulate (censored) sex with eight other poorly defined pixels, precipitated by the quickest known death from a sexually transmitted disease ever depicted in a video game. Indeed, Leisure Suit Larry: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards was a milestone in gaming - as equally ridiculous as sordid, as pathetic as it was progressive. Truly, those were the days.
Should have quit after...
The jury is still out on this one, mainly because admitting you know a lot about the Leisure Suit Larry franchise is a bit like admitting you once taped a mirror to your shoe and frequented a busy shopping mall. It's more towards the grubby side of mainstream gaming, and whilst some of the intermediate episodes were positively tame in compared to thirty seconds and several creative keywords on Google, the series should have rightfully ended with Love for Sail!
This fifth (albeit titled sixth) episode was the last for the original creator Al Lowe, after which he presumably left to emulate his creation with success fees accumulated over the years. The episodes that followed, Magna Cum Laude and Box Office Bust, were shallow, uninspired, and shameless attempts by the studios involved to trade off the dubious yet instantly recognisable name acquired thus far.
Plus, the release of Love for Sail! 1996 ties in well with the massive uptake of a computer entertainment platform more than capable of outstripping Larry Laffer in dishing up porn. You probably know it as the internet.
Tomb Raider
In 1996, Tomb Raider redefined the platformer by introducing the third dimension (and the double-D bra size) to the genre. Players controlled buxom archaeologist Lara Croft as she jumped, shot and bounced her way through ancient tombs in pursuit of valuable and often magical artefacts.
Tomb Raider is largely credited with facilitating the original PlayStation’s rise to domination in the closing years of the 20th century. Sequels, spin-offs, movies and theme park rides were inevitable.
Should have quit after...
While Lara Croft was arguably at the peak of her pop culture fame with the release of Tomb Raider II (remember the Lucozade commercials?), in critical terms, it was all downhill after the first. Sure, the descent was initially gentle, with critical score averages sliding from 91 to 85 to 75 for games one, two and three, but where Tomb Raider really bottomed out was with Chronicles.
Chronicles failed to innovate at all, and was tenuously strung together on a tired and predictable plot. The hole got much deeper with 2003’s The Angel of Darkness. Unresponsive controls married with a camera that had a mind of its own led one sore critic to pronounce Angel “the sloppiest major game release I've ever played... an inexcusable mess.”
In March this year, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was announced. As if to highlight the game’s diminished status from perky PlayStation peddler to sagging digital spinster, the title will be download-only on PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE and Games for Windows.
Mortal Kombat
Ford versus Holden, Coke versus Pepsi, Street Fighter versus Mortal Kombat. Used to be a time when these were all subjects fairly up for debate.
The original Mortal Kombat was an irreverent fighting game that prioritised exaggerated violence above tactical combat. Nobody forgets the first time they saw one of Mortal Kombat’s gruesome killing sequences, a Fatality.
All of this was back when videogames had no true ratings system, meaning we were heading down to the arcade to perform brutal spinal extractions with Sub Zero before heading off to do our long division homework. Good times.
Should have quit after...
Mortal Kombat II was a quality instalment, but the franchise's reliance on comic violence over tactical gameplay meant its days were ultimately numbered. Mortal Kombat 3 was surely the beginning of the end. The game introduced a spate of new and poorly-conceived characters, and withdrew some fan favourites.
In were the questionable Stryker, Sindel, Nightwolf and Cyrax, and gone were four of the series’ most beloved: Raiden, Scorpion, Reptile and Johnny Cage.
By the time Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance had shipped in 2002, the spate of franchise segues into different genres, a poorly-conceived animated series and a huge box office belly flop meant that audiences were too saturated and jaded to care anymore.
Anything with Tom Clancy in the title
At Gameplanet, we're not above heroic acts of bravery. We work around electronic equipment that could malfunction at any time and electrocute us. We've even drunken way in excess of our daily recommended dosage of caffeine on more than one occasion. But to listen to Tom Clancy, anyone who hasn't single-handedly thwarted a global thermonuclear war whilst simultaneously being shot, flying a jet at Mach 2 and saving an entire village of Serbian peasants from genocide is a complete loser. Which isn't always the case.
Should have quit after...
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon back in 2001. There's only so many times you can play a tactical war simulator full of gung-ho, self-righteous Americans without seriously considering invading an oil-rich nation and shooting 10% of your own army in the process.
The games that bear Clancy's signature are so prolific, the effect has been diluted well beyond what could be considered reasonable; at last count there's at least 16 Rainbow Six titles, eight Ghost Recon and six Splinter Cell variants, not to mention EndWar, H.A.W.X. and whatever the hell else is yet to come. Clancy is the Mills & Boon of video gaming, except there's typically more heavy artillery and less use of the word "corset".
Either way, it's time for these titles to stand on their own, unassisted by Clancy, and suffer the indignation of failing just like any other repetitive, unimaginative, shoot-by-numbers war game should.
---
What's your list of franchises that need to retire? Get your rant on in the comments section below...
The SWAT 4/Raven-Shield debate can go on forever and can be quite heated, but end of the day it is pretty hard for anyone remotely intelligent who is into FPS to say that that Raven Shield is a mistake.
Facebook Comments