Expectations....

[Rabasaurus]

No game will live up to your expectations. Especially a sequel. Ive been reading a few threads and it seems people are always 'dissappointed' with new game releases. But its your own fault. You want to these new games to be super, fantastic, mind-blowingly brilliant, and if they dont meet this standard then you are 'dissappointed'. You build them up in your own mind. You see a screenshot. you make a judgement based on that screen shot. "This game looks like .....". "Its going to be cool". And there, you've done it. From your desires of what the game should be comes your own dissappointments.

Lets take Mario Kart DD for example. If mariokart DD had the exact same graphics, exact same game engine, handling etc etc but had different character models in each kart and was called "Racer Kart 2003" your opinions of that game would be different. I think peole should be looking at games more objectively, not simply jumping onto the franchise hype bandwagon. Judge a game on what it does do, and not what it doesnt do that x prequel did or x prequel had. Nobody builds hype for a game except yourself.

[PeteJ]

I agree with what you are saying, and it has always been a problem throughout the history of gaming, but...

Ive been reading a few threads and it seems people are always 'dissappointed' with new game releases.

I'd say quite the opposite. Most of the 'official' threads here for new releases have been blindingly positive, despite high expectations (Joe and Fzero especially).

[Vaipon]

If a sequel is crap, it's rarely because of over-hyping. Can you really say that "Devil May Cry 2" was crap simply because we expected too much from it? Bull. It was crap because it lacked most of the stuff that made the first game in the series so brilliant, not because it was over-hyped. They wrecked Dante's combo system. They ruined the character by removing all his charisma. The enemies were poorly designed, and even the scenery was somehow less detailed than it's predecessor.

Similarly, MGS2 was seen by many to be inferior to MGS1 because of the environment of the Plant section. The tanker level was loved by everyone, and if the entire game had been set in a real-world dimly lit environment instead of the sun-drenched hexagonal bland oilrig wannabe, there would of been far more scope for an enjoyable gameplay experience. A few better boss-battles wouldn't have gone a miss either. None of these faults are because of the amount of hype the game had.

[Max M]

I certainly think some people like Edge worry a bit too much about expectations and heritage. Of course, there should be some comparisons to previous games in a franchise, but compare, say, their Jak And Daxter and Mario Sunshine reviews. The J&D review prasies the game through the entire text, while Mario Sunshine spent the whole review slagging it off for not being Mario 64, despite Sunshine earning a higher score. That's just kind of screwed up to me. As I said, I do believe expectations should come into it to an extent, but it's also extremely important to get the balance correct, and to treat all games fairly.

There seems to be a trend this generation of claiming all sequels aren't as good as their last generation titles, yet I can't help but wonder if a lot of this is due to rose-tinted specs. There's definately some titles like MGS2, Project Gotham and the previously mentioned Mario Sunshine that are inferior in some ways, but I do find it baffling when people say things like Smash Brothers Melee, Ridge Racer or Soul Calibur 2 are worse than the originals. Play them back to back, and I'm sure anyone objective enough will see these games are bigger and better than the originals, it's just that they're not as groundbreaking, but at the end of the day, if it aint broken, there's no need to fix it.

[Che Musashi]

I had big expectations for Vice City, but after some time with I found myself missing my nameless voiceless Claude from GTA3. Still the game was fun, it didn't 'hook' me like the first one.

I had high expectations for Evo and that exceeded them, in fact so much I think I hurt my arm playing it. As I heal I think how long I was waiting for it, and how happy I am with what Sega did.

I think if a game is underhyped and is good then its good to have no expectations but in the case of games like Tomb Raider, the developer and publisher set too false expectations and deserve every reaction they get.

Speaking of sequels, I'm excited about Jak II.

"Think the worst and hope for the best."

[Max M]

I think if a game is underhyped and is good then its good to have no expectations

I do love buying games like Doshin The Giant and Gitaroo Man that I know practically nothing about. Even if you end up not being keen on them, it's nice to play something you haven't already seen all over the internet.

[Che Musashi]

Yeah I find that too, though I wish I could figure out what the hell to do in vid ribbon.