Top 10 Games Sequels Where Bigger WASN’T Better

PlayStationing writes: "Bigger isn't always better. Here's our list of ten sequels that were worse than their originals."

[DualWielding]

disagree on Arkham City I think it was an even bette rgame than asylum

[linkenski]

Me too. I even think the story was better which I know is debatable because it's so jumbled and inconsistent in focus, but I thought it had much more memorable moments.

[IRetrouk]

Disagree with batman and jak and daxter, other than that, spot on.

[abzdine]

Jak 2 is the best one in the series by far and same goes for Arkham City.
i agree with the rest.

[goldwyncq]

Are you nuts? Portal 2 had by far the better design and is actually challenging compared to the first game which was a piece of cake(no pun intended). Also strongly disagree with Arkham City. It had everything which made the first game great and translated it perfectly into a semi-open world environment. The side missions were never intrusive and I felt more like the Batman in this game than all the other Batman games combined.

[Phils_Libra]

For me, Portal 1 was better, though I did really enjoy Portal 2 also. I found the 1st game more engaging in how it told the story more through the environment than narration; like when you first find the room where "the cake is lie" is introduced, telling the player that others like yourself have been here before. Portal 2 had way more narration through other characters and audio recordings, while Portal 1 used the environment and I felt that rewarding feeling of self-discovery in Portal 1 was taken away a bit in the sequel. No opinion on Batman; played neither.

[Amplitude]

I disagree with pretty much everything he listed.

[Ilovetheps5]

Jak 3 was by far my favorite in the series. It was just such a good game. Was it different from the original game, of course. But it was just so much better.

I have no clue how Portal made the list. Portal 1 just felt like a demo. When Portal 2 came around, it was a fully fledged game. The humor was better and it was much more enjoyable than the first.

Other than that, I have no major oppositions to the list.

[linkenski]

I know this article is mostly about gameplay, but seriously, where is Mass Effect 3!? It tried to be so Uncharted and Michael Bay that it just ended up ruining it, at least for me.

[Matt666]

and whats wrong with ME3?

[linkenski]

The writing is really bad in the main sections of the campaign. Everything is way too big and blockbuster so it loses a lot of the subtleties they put in the series in ME1 and ME2. The mother of all thresher maws suddently shows up in the same part of one planet where Shepard has to get past a Reaper and it kills the Reaper... I mean, god dammit how convenient, right?

It just felt so half-assed much of it.

[WeAreLegion]

Disagree with almost all of them. Also, I freakin' love DMC2. It's not as good as 1, 3, or 4...but it's insanely fun!

[PowerNerd101]

I agree with The Precursor Legacy, mostly because if there was a part you didn't like you could just move on and go elsewhere. Jak 2 in particular was just brutal.

[TomRL]

I must be the only one to agree with the Arkham City choice. In Arkham City, I was far less invested in the ludicrous story than I was in Asylum. The gameplay was far more about stealth in Asylum too, and even the odd puzzle. There was only a higher variation in characters when it came to Arkham City, everything else was more or less the same all the way through.

Also Scarecrow.

[SilentNegotiator]

I agree with Jak, but only because I'm a bigger fan of the old school 3D platformer style than the weapon-focused style that consumed a lot of Ps2 platformers (including Jak 2 and 3). I still loved those types of ps2 platformers, but they have a different place in my heart.

That reminds me; I still haven't bought the Jak and Ratchet HD collections.

[SonyStyled]

the Jak collection should be pretty cheap by now. even the original asking price is more than worth it. never have been a huge fan of the Ratchet games

[SpiralTear]

I liked Arkham Asylum more, but not because Arkham City was "bigger." I just liked a lot of the puzzle/environment design in Asylum more. The open-world in Arkham City wasn't too big, so it didn't feel like meaningless padding, and the grapple traversal was loads of fun.

[SonyStyled]

im not understanding this guys beef with Jak and Daxter. i really enjoyed the gritty open world over the first installment. with Resistance though, i enjoyed all of them regardless that every title had some large changes. actually now that i think of it, theres not much about this article i can agree on aside from THPS taking a dip.

[gaffyh]

Right at the end

"Disclaimer: Now we’re not saying these sequels were bad games in and of themselves (well maybe in the case of the Tony Hawk series), but that their predecessors had something that the sequels lacked."

[dumahim]

Portal 2 was great.
I agree about Arkham. Open world just has too many distractions and I like the better focus of Asylum.

I know this is a PS focused site, but I would add Dead Rising 3.