The long-anticipated Guild Wars 2 is soon to be released, having had its first beta weekend on April 27-29. In honor of the arrival of such an anticipated game, it seems like a good time to revisit some of the best (and worst) video game sequels.

What was the first video game sequel, like the first video game, is under some debate, but whether you consider it to be one of the various versions of Spacewar or Hunt the Wumpus 2 (which indecently was the first game to allow the player to create his or her own maps) or any other of the equally valid choices, it’s safe to say they’ve been around since at least the 70’s, which has given plenty of time for some spectacular, and some dismal, ones to be released.

But when does a video game need a sequel? To quote GamingStandard member Kegen ‘there is no worse sequel than one that is never made’, and with the increasing focus on story, this has become more the case than ever in recent years.

MMO sequels often have a more difficult time of it. Due to the time an MMO demands and the price that is often involved in playing them, and being based on a system that relies on a world the is both huge and flexible, it is harder to say at exactly what point the sequel is needed, and even harder for it to strike that perfect balance between similar enough for the old fans and different enough to justify its existence.

What makes a good sequel is just another issue under debate, and often it is easy to find the same title on one player’s ‘Best’ list and on another’s ‘Worst’ list. Therefore, several GamingStandard members were kind enough to add their opinion and thoughts to the important question of which are the best, and worst, sequels they’ve played.


According to Nitros

The Best
“The most successful sequel I can think of at the moment would have to be Warcraft 3. This was a game changer in the Real-time strategy world. It had the elements of a RTS and an RPG rolled into one massive game with a pretty nice looking graphical look. The fact that people still play the game to this day online should tell people about its successful life so far.
The Worst
“I would have to say that Sword of the Stars II is the worst sequel I have ever played. Being a huge fan of the original Sword of the Stars, SotS II was a huge let down. The game was released prior to having been fully tested. So it took the developers months to fix the game, and even now there are some horrendous bugs still kicking. Also they changed some of the core game rules and play styles… just doesn't feel like you are plying SotS anymore. I still break out the original SotS now and then and relive a good 4x game.”


According to Kegen

The Best
"Thief 2: The Metal Age"
“Arguably one of my FAVORITE games of all time. This is the game series that started me on my love for stealth based gameplay, so much so that I detest most first person shooters as bland Madden-esque clones of boredom. While everyone was jetpacking around in Tribes 2 shooting at each other, I was stealthily sneaking into the enemy base and blowing up their precious things.”
The Worst
"Psychonauts" / "Beyond Good and Evil" / "Jade Empire" / "Giants" / "Sacrifice" --> NONE? REALLY?!?_
“I doubt this will be a unique position to take in the gaming community, but there is no worse sequel than one that is never made (at least bad sequels can be deemed non-cannon). These games harbor unique story-lines, game-play, and perspective making them instant classics in their own right... yet they were passed over due to a poor understanding of what qualifies as a "hit" within the business office of the bean counters (and a potential lack of "adventure" in the tastes of the average gamer).”


According to Leevers

The Best
DiRT3
“I started up the game and straight away I was presented with visually stunning menus and design. A tad complicated maybe, but that’s not going to tarnish my thoughts. I dove in the deep end and jumped into the campaign mode. Off I went…. Straight away my eyes went from half shut due to lack of sleep the night before to nothing short of full of life! The graphical detail of this game blew me away. DiRT2 gave us next generation graphical detail, but DiRT3 gives us out of this world visuals. Here I am planting my foot on the accelerator and I find myself blinded by the dust of the drivers ahead of me. Rocks are thrown up on my windscreen only to cause large cracks in the glass. As each second goes by I find myself fully immersed in what could possibly be the closest thing to the real deal! It is really difficult to give you an idea of how marvelous this game really is and I don’t think any video or screenshot can prepare you for when those lights go green.....I cannot express enough how incredible I think this game is. It blew my mind and I guarantee it’ll blow yours.”
(Note: Leevers has written a really incredible and in-depth review of this game. Unfortunately due to length only part of it could be shared with you in this article. I highly recommend getting the rest from him.)


According to Stalkers

The Best
“My favorite sequel would probably be Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. The Sands of Time was a great game and the atmosphere and story of Warrior Within was just superb. They made the combat better but kept the climbing and platforming just as good with a nice polish.”
The Worst
“Right now what I think was the worst sequel would probably be Call of Duty: World at War. Nothing about that game was really any good at all. The campaign was storybook scripted with uninteresting characters and the multiplayer was just poorly done. Too large of maps with no good layouts.”


According to Joey Murderface

The Best
“A good one was the Soul Reaver series as far as good ones go… [another] good one was Mass Effect 2.”
The Worst
“Horrible? See Mass Effect 3. Loved the game, but the story nosedived hard into the ground for me. And that alone is what ruined so many fans' experience with the third and final product. Another one I thought could have been much better was Star Wars: KoToR II, just based on the story alone, yet again. Most of the Turok games utterly failed/sucked bad. Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 was garbage with makeup. Also Devil May Cry 2, Final Fight Streetwise, and of course, Duke Nukem: Forever.”