Gamers are a fussy bunch. Sequels are often amongst the most contentious points of videogames at large - should developers appease existing fans and deliver more of the same, or should they change fundamental elements which some will appreciate, but others will deride? It’s a fine balance, and a lot of games fail to achieve it - you only need to look at titles like Rainbow Six Vegas 2 or Final Fantasy XII for examples of games being criticised for changing too little or too much respectively. However, because we’re fussy bastards, and because we like few things better than lists to prove how right (or wrong) we are, let’s discuss some of the most disappointing sequels ever:

10. Super Mario Bros. 2
SMB2 has a unique history. The original Japanese version was released in the West on Super Mario: The Lost Levels as part of SNES bargain game set Super Mario All Stars, but back in 1986 Nintendo decided the ‘real’ SMB2 was both too hard and too similar to the original, so they re-skinned a game called Doki Doki Panic! and released it to unsuspecting Westerners as the Mario Brothers’ second adventure. It wasn’t necessarily the best idea, as this version was fundamentally different to Mario’s previous adventure (jumping on enemies didn’t kill them!) and it didn’t really have the style or accessible gameplay of its Japanese alternative. It was a brave move by the Japanese giants but ultimately you’d think making The Lost Levels a little easier would have been the better option?!

9. Deus Ex: Invisible War
Admittedly, Invisible War was a pretty good game that got a ton of bad rap. If it had been a separate game entirely many people might look back at it quite differently. However, it wasn’t, it was actually Deus Ex 2 and the fans wanted so much more from it. More conspiracies, more globe trotting, greater character customization, more choices, more Deus Ex. What they got was a shorter campaign, less quests, less character customization, less choices, universal ammo, less great music, less Deus Ex. In Invisible War’s defense it’s hard to imagine a game ever living up to Deus Ex’s prestige, but that didn’t make it any less disappointing.

8. Halo 2
Let’s talk about some of the things which made Halo: Combat Evolved truly great - awesome weapons; excellent, vast level designs; surprisingly interesting plot; cohesive missions. Now let’s talk about the things Halo 2 doesn’t have - all of the above. Despite all the pretentious plot nonsense, all the watered-down weaponry or all that crap with the Arbiter, Halo’s stand-out feature was its massive, beautiful and hitherto unique levels, and Halo 2 pisses on that fire by limiting their size, making them far more linear and populating them with rubbish foes who were but a shadow of the Elites.

7. Jak 2: Renegade
Jak 2 was less a game and more a cynical marketing ploy to get the GTA generation to buy a mascot-led platformer: “Look kids, Jak has guns now, he steals vehicles, and he’s not above periodic swearing, either. Buy it!” But in such a vast turnaround from the first game’s ideals, they lost almost everything which made it interesting and likeable, and in the process created just another derivative title desperate to find the same levels of success as Grand Theft Auto.

6. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
It’s almost as if Crystal Dynamics’ design ethos took a u-turn; while the first game had vast, open ended environments and a simple but well-presented plot, the second game removes any sense of exploration with extremely linear levels and overcomplicates the plot with abundant flowery language and more double-crosses than a woolly cardigan. All of which makes it hard to care - there’s no sense of exploration or discovery to the levels any more, and for a series which clearly prides its plot so highly, it feels like it’s going out of its way to be so bloody complicated and consequently make the player feel dumb. Never a commendable mix.

5. Metal Gear Solid 2
I don’t blame Raiden. I don’t even blame all that weird shit with Otacon’s adultery revelation (who cares?!), or that Ocelot had become possessed by the dead man’s arm that had been grafted onto his body. I blame Arsenal Gear - or, more precisely, its AI. Or maybe just Kojima and his level designers. MGS2 starts off really well with the tanker, gets quite boring with Big Shell and frankly goes off the rails in an acid-fuelled VR trip in its closing stages. If you turn it off after the ‘hero shot’, MGS2 isn’t great, but it isn’t bad, but play on from here and things just spiral out of control into laughable depths otherwise unseen by the series.

4. Red Faction 2
The Geo-Mod destruction was never what made the original Red Faction good; it was a solid and interesting FPS in its own right, accompanied by what was (at the time) some very impressive technology. RF2 quashed most of the first game’s accomplishments with perfunctory use of the Geo-Mod, a story that was incredibly dire and predictable, stupid enemy designs (luminous blue mutants!), poor bosses, restrictive level design and very uneven balancing. This series could have been one of the first-person greats, but clearly developers Volition aim to focus on the third person genre now, and having played the likeable if shallow Red Faction Guerrilla, it’s probably for the best.

3. Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil 5 is the reason I am glad that at Thunderbolt we can review each game once per platform, because - no disrespect intended to fellow writer Josh - I would have been disappointed had his 9/10 for the PS3 version been our only rating. The co-op might be a great feature which undoubtedly increases the fun and longetivity, but strip this away and you’re left with a game with dated controls, finicky inventory, laughably bad plot and acting, and increasingly poor level design. The fact that Capcom announced even before RE5’s release that #6 would again see a series reboot says a lot about their perception of the game, although it didn’t stop it selling millions of copies to gullible (and later, probably pissed off) consumers.

2. Final Fantasy VIII
Trying to follow in the footsteps of FFVII is like trying to write Citizen Kane 2, so you can’t really blame Square for changing some fundamentals and taking an alternate stylistic direction. However, given most RPGs stand or fall on their plot and characters, it’s curious as to why they made the plot so uninteresting (oh wow; they grew up in an orphanage together!) and the main character such an introverted, miserable, unlikeable bastard. It doesn’t help that the core battle gameplay was changed irrevocably in having to steal spells from enemies and having to appease and look after your Guardian Force as though it were a bloody Nintendog.

1. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
Though it was revolutionary back in 1996, the Tomb Raider series quickly began to feel restrictive and dated, with its punishing yearly schedule and increasingly restrictive block-by block design. Despite being in development for a long time and promises from both Eidos and Core that it would re-invent the series, The Angel of Darkness was an unfortunate mess, with controls that were downright archaic in the PS2 era, camera angles ill-advisedly taken from Devil May Cry and further emphasis on combat, which has never really been the series’ strong point. Thankfully consigned to the past and all but forgotten, new developer Crystal Dynamics took the franchise on and truly succeeded the classic originals.

So - do you agree, and if not what would be your most disappointing videogame sequels?

Thanks to Sean Kelley for contributing to this article.