Hands down Shadow Man 2econd Coming on PS2 - The first one was an under rated gem. You searched the bowels of hell for 120 Souls (not unlike 120 stars...) while wielding shotguns, sub-machine guns and voodoo weaponry. Too top that, in Shadow Man 1, you had to battle Serial Killers modeled after real life counter parts (a Jack the Ripper clone is a bit of scene stealer)

The 2econd sucked almost as much as that pun I just used.

Both made by Acclaim Entertainment... where are they these days... apparently getting sued by the Olsen twins, trying to advertise on actual tombstones and producing BMX XXX are not stable business practices. They even offered money to expecting families to name their children 'Turok'.

+1 for Far Cry 2 and DA2
Just Cause 2
Splinter Cell Conviction.
Probably many more.

Karutomaru:

Then why is it that I've never played a bad sequel?

Either you have low standards for sequels or you've been really lucky. Having no idea what games you've played, I can't say which.

Megaman Battle Network 4. This game was so repetitive. It is based around a fight tournament and that would be fine if it didn't move so slowly. First you have to learn about your opponent and their life story, then you have to do some stupid quest, and after a while you finally get to fight your opponent. Repeat this about 6 times and you finally get to to the real meat of the story. Stopping an alien from destroying the world with an asteroid. The game is also plagued with spelling and grammar errors.

Karutomaru:

sextus the crazy:

Karutomaru:

Then why is it that I've never played a bad sequel?

Either you have low standards for sequels or you've been really lucky. Having no idea what games you've played, I can't say which.

Plenty. Mainly Japanese. Trauma Team, every Kingdom Hearts game, Sengoku Basara 3...

having played none of those games (and only one of those series [trauma center]), I still don't know.

Dragon Age 2, again. Characters were good, story had potential. Combat was fast and fun, I thought. But the all the sweet witty charm of DA:O was not there.
And those recycled levels were just a slap in the face.

Fable 3 was just... not fun.

Oh, and I'm not sure if it's really a sequel, but The Sims Medieval was a repetitive piece of crap.

Woodsey:

To be honest, I think Far Cry 2 needs to be described as a "sequel" (not a sequel) too. It's as much a spiritual-successor to Far Cry as Crysis is.

I do think it's a fairly ingenious game, actually; one that's too smart for it's own good.

True. The game treats you like an adult who can do critical thinking and forward planning, and the game is better off for it. The only thing that really held Far Cry 2 back was the repetitive encounters which made the simplest of tasks a pain in the ass. Also, some more context for the moral choices (which were actually done well) would have been nice.

Karutomaru:
Then why is it that I've never played a bad sequel?

Just take a look through this thread. You haven't but others have. Besides sequels have always been infamous for bringing down the quality of series. It is a stereotype from all mediums. Not without basis of reality. Saying "Yes, sequels always rock" disregards reality.

My addition: Blood Omen 2. I want you to explain to me how come it's a sequel but it's still regarded as one of the worst things that happened to the Legacy of Kain series.

Or Dragon Age 2, which I haven't played by the way, but I've seen a lot of hate directed at it because it's a sequel.

Same thing with Deus Ex 2.

Ditto for Devil May Cry 2.

From what I know, several, if not lots, of Sonic games.

Heroes 4 was a sequel that got 3DO bankrupt.

Might and Magic 9 doesn't exist at all.

I ask of you, if sequels are universally good and always positive, why is it that we have these examples that are sort of legendary in the video game world? And they are legendary for being bad - who is spreading these foul rumours?

Crackdown 2, not a bad game, but not very good compared to the first.
Modern Warfare 3. Felt bland and was for the most part just boring.

The only bad sequel I can think of is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Look, maybe I'm in the minority, but a historical shooter game does have a place whereas games set in today's wars can be construed as jingoistic recruitment tools. Now yes, Modern Warfare does have its great moments, like after the nuke goes off. If the game had ended right then and there, that would have been such a powerful way to end a game. No Russian had a similar feel (even if it was in the early part of the game). However I just don't think Modern Warfare was nessecary and its sequels even more so.

And for those who said ME3 is "teh worst sequel EVAR," please don't let the ending taint your opinion of the game as a whole. Mass Effect 3 is actually pretty superb, it's just that it has a pretty lousy ending. Action beats were exciting, great characters and character moments (like ManShep's bromance with Garrus) and so on. It's like I said though, the ending is bad, but it's not enough to make the whole ride up to it awful.

OlasDAlmighty:
The second super mario bros game is supposedly terrible, though I kinda liked it.

I really enjoyed it, in fact for years it was my favorite Mario title until I played 3.

While it's not a bad game, I wasn't a fan of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.

devil may cry 2
farcry 2
halo 2
red faction 2

im noticing a pattern here.....

(i will give farcry 2 SOME leniency because they tried to go in a completely different direction and tried something new....it just happened to crash and burn spectacularly)

Rock-nerd:
OMG LIKE ME3 AMIRITE LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Just kidding. Eh,i don't know sequels are never as good as the original

This for one

Quake 4 was pretty damn bad too

I thought that Final Fantasy XII was terrible. It committed the cardinal sin of a Final Fantasy game- it was boring and forgettable.

The characters were meh at best, and interchangeable most of the time. The combat system had none of the shine of Final Fantasy XIII (which took it far enough to at least be interesting) or the management of the older games. The "program their behaviour" was bloody useless. The levelling was atrocious. The storyline was ready-made bland; just add water.

Gears of War III. Don't get me wrong, the combat was a bit smoother, but they had clearly made this game for the multiplayer and not for the single/co-op player(s). And the storyline... I get that Gears of War was certainly no Game of Thrones, but even so... ugh.

Halo 2. The game which had absolutely no point besides leaving Cortana behind with the Flood. I mean, Halo is hardly the most interesting franchise (you get it for the multiplayer modes, let's be honest) but it was so repetitive, bland and boring. How do you make a game where aliens shoot plasma as you, a super-human with two guns, blows them up in various over-the-top ways? This game will show you how.

Halo 3. See above.

Halo: Reach. See above. But I will give them this, they added a lot (stolen from other games, granted, but hey! Halo isn't about originality anymore, amirite?)

Kingdom Hearts 2. Reads like a bad fanfiction. Added nothing to the gameplay which improved. The introduction was especially bad. And has given us WAY too much bad fan-fiction.

Killzone 3. Just didn't have the same pizazz as Killzone 2. The multiplayer also felt like it'd taken a lesson or two from CoD.

The general formula tends to be with the first game to express your vision, and mold it into something marketable enough not to shock the market.

The sequel tends to be more along the lines of expanding on the original game with newfound resources.

The third tends to be where people experiment and muck things up.

Now this isn't a universal truth, but it works for a lot of games. A few sequels I deem 'bad' but none I deem a horrible game. Saints Row 3 was a bad sequel but a good game, same with Dragon Age 2. Fun games that I enjoyed, but took out to make it bad sequel material.

So ask yourself this, did you mean a game that is a bad sequel, or a sequel that is a bad game?

Saints row the third was hands down a terrible sequel.
It ruined the series it messed up everything

Saints row 2 was the perfect sequel to the original saints row, it polished the mechanics it expanded the city a bit it gave some new dynamics but it already started to get a tad crazy
There was a lot of build up to the crazy and it still made sense for the universe really.

Saints row the third just went fuck you to everything that made saints row saints row, it gave you everything you needed to work for instantaneously and then came with bullshit like superpowers and stuff like that.

It just messed up the complete experience and feel.

Metal Gear Solid 4 - The ending ruined the series for me because it changed whole chunks of the entire story, essentially ruining the canon.
Final Fantasy X-2 - While I will admit the gameplay was serviceable, the story was not needed, and it completely ruins the poignant ending of X.
Final Fantasy XIII - Why? Just WHY???!!!
Disgaea 2 - The weakest of the series, in my opinion, mostly because it takes itself too seriously, and the characters are nowhere near as likeable as the previous cast and the cast to come. Gameplay was top notch though.
God of War 3 - Beyond the first 45 minutes, the game is just boring and contrived, with too few awesome moments expected of the series.
AC: Brotherhood - The cornucopia of redundancy.

Empire Earth 3. It was horrible. It took away everything that made the series good. The first was very good, but challenging, the second was not as good, but still OK, but the third was just s**t.

Crackdown was a flawed gem.
Crackdown 2 was a giant turd.

Yeah, I have to say, MGS4 never should have been made. Neither should FFX-2. Devil May Cry 2 doesn't exist in the eyes of the Devil May Cry fanbase. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is the last one that stands out to me as being sufficiently bad. There are countless disappointing and underwhelming sequels.

Nobody mentioned Rainbow Six: Lockdown? That has to be the worst sequel in living memory. R6:LD and the Vegas games are so bad they actually make the GRAW series look like decent games in comparison.

And on Saints Row: The Third, I have to disagree, i think it was bloody brilliant, and I loved Saints Row 2 so much that after I had played through the entirety of it at a friend, i bought it twice (PC and PS3) for me.

Sure, it's quite mental (even if they left out the sewage spraying missions), but with GTA getting more serious in tone, I think it was smart from THQ to stear the franchise in the oposite direction.

In a broad sense of sequel, I'd say DBZ Ultimate Tenkaichi, combat was down to rock paper scissors for 80% of gameplay and QTEs for bosses.

Also, sadly, Soul Calibur V for somehow ruining defence (!!!) and lacking any story except a painfully short series of fighting the same people for an hour or so; losing weapon effects and most of all, no more decent endings, intros and profiles for characters.

BENZOOKA:
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II

Didn't like it one bit.

While I enjoyed the campaign, but it didn't feel right with no base building, so the multiplayer sucked royally.

Red Faction: Armageddon - Guerilla was BRILLIANT, I loved just about everything about that game, but with Armageddon (Aside from the Nano-forge, and MR TOOTS!) it just felt like a complete downgrade from Guerilla, no free roaming, no vehicles, linear levels, no side missions, spending most of the game underground, and a terribly short story, it was a massive disappointment for me.

Z of the Na'vi:

Wayneguard:
Condemned 2: Bloodshit is the definition of bad sequel. The first was goddamn brilliant and the 2nd was just... bad.

You sure?

I thought the entire sequence where the rabid bear tears through a ski lodge to hunt you down was damn brilliant.

Everybody always points to that part and says see... good game. I remain unconvinced. The primary problem with Condemned 2 was the descent into camp and ridiculousness the game makes almost immediately after you begin. The first level was fucking awesome where you investigate a decrepit hotel overrun with gangs and drug addicts... that was pure condemned. Then you start throwing explosive babydolls and fight a girl with a lolipop saw blade. And the subtlety with which the first game treated the game's supernatural elements was thrown out the window in favor of psychic cults or some shit. And then there's the final sequence (that we shall never speak of again). One cool sequence does not redeem a broken game.

M-E-D The Poet:
Saints row the third was hands down a terrible sequel.
It ruined the series it messed up everything

Saints row 2 was the perfect sequel to the original saints row, it polished the mechanics it expanded the city a bit it gave some new dynamics but it already started to get a tad crazy
There was a lot of build up to the crazy and it still made sense for the universe really.

Saints row the third just went fuck you to everything that made saints row saints row, it gave you everything you needed to work for instantaneously and then came with bullshit like superpowers and stuff like that.

It just messed up the complete experience and feel.

THIS, my thoughts exactly, thanks for saying that so I didn't have to friend!

OT: Although not bad at all I don't think Metal Gear Solid 2 was nowhere near as good as the first 1.

Also I didn't find Little Big Planet 2 as good as the first one, although everything was improved immensely since the first everything felt cold and sterile the storymode was uninteresting. Although it was great that it expanded into new genres of gaming I think it took away from the platforming aspect which was done so well in the first game.

Also I don't think Final Fantasy games should have sequels as it ruins the entire "whole story contained in one game aspect" of the series, Crisis Core was excellent but that was because it wasn't a sequel and went more in depth on something that was already covered in FF7. FFX-2 and FFXIII-2 can just be forgotten in my opinion.

Leemaster777:
Final Fantasy X-2. Fuck that game. All. Day. Long.

This. How could Square make a siquel of such low quality to my favorite game ? From story of group of highly likable characters saving the world to freaking super happy fun-fun maho-shojo anime game. That is just disrespectful.

P.S. Why many people say that DA2 is bad? It had great story, party members, finally a dialogue icon that symbolizes romance option. No, seriously, when I was playing DAO (I always play as a good guy) I acidentally started a romance with Zevran simply because I was always polite with him. Ouch.
Sure, it had problems, but they are not that huge. Exept for repetative dungeons, obviously.
As for hack-n-slash, you can simply go into the options and change attack to auto-attack.

Oh, yes, and, in my opinion, voiced protagonist with last name is better then "Hey you, yeah you" protagonist.

AC: Brotherhood, AC: Revelations, Fallout 3, GTA IV...

Revnak:
The assassin's creed sequels have all continually disappointed me, not because they are bad, but because they are way too easy. Other than that I can't really think of any.

I found the first to be overly easy myself.

Bad sequels: Dues ex Invisible War/and several Sonic Games

Good but not as good as the first: Kingdom Hearts, Metal gear 4, Devil May Cry 2/4

lord.jeff:

Revnak:
The assassin's creed sequels have all continually disappointed me, not because they are bad, but because they are way too easy. Other than that I can't really think of any.

I found the first to be overly easy myself.

Bad sequels: Dues ex Invisible War/and several Sonic Games

Good but not as good as the first: Kingdom Hearts, Metal gear 4, Devil May Cry 2/4

You must have used something other than the hidden blades then. That and guards always assuming you are going to try to murder everyone. And even then I still agree with you to a point. I killed that entire camp of soldiers without breaking a sweat. I also killed the final boss in a third of the time through an exploit. I still think the sequels were easier.