(AfroGamers.com) In my 25 years as an avid video gamer, I have played many great games like Mario and Sonic as well as playing many that turned out to be not-so-great.
Here are my least favorite video game sequels.
1. Streets Of Rage 3 – This old school beat-em-up game on Sega Genesis is actually my least favorite video game sequel for several reasons:
1) the weapon usage was completely watered down from Streets Of Rage 2 where there’s a health bar on the weapons in the game because once the health bar of the weapon is used up, you can’t use that weapon any more.
2) the special moves in this game were greatly toned down because once you performed a special move, you had to wait a little bit before the special move meter was fully refilled and I absolutely hated that.
3) the graphics and gameplay were not as smooth and a bit slower than they were in Streets Of Rage 2.
4) In the Japanese version of the game, players could play as a controversial white LGBT character by the name of Ash while the controversial character was later omitted from The U.S. version of the game due to the taboos of white LGBT characters in the mainstream let alone video games at the time.
2. WCW Backstage Assault – This game was supposed to be the sequel to WCW Mayhem, but as it turns out, this game turned out to be an absolute flop for several reasons:
1) the character models for this game were much worse than they were in WCW Mayhem because the character models in this game absolutely looked like something that was made from clay dough.
2) the developers at EA at the time felt that the game should only have hardcore backstage fights and not having any hardcore matches in the ring.
3) the animation and graphics for the game were extremely choppy and wonky.
4) the control scheme was very bad.
5) the game had only one-on-one matches and had absolutely no features added to the game. This Nintendo 64 wrestling game is my least favorite wrestling game.
3. NBA Hangtime – I remember playing this game a few times and I just didn’t like the game for several reasons:
1) the graphics were nowhere near as great as they were in the first two NBA Jam games.
2) The game didn’t offer very much when it came to addicting new features.
3) The character designs looked a bit choppy and wonky unlike the two previous NBA Jam games. This game is definitely one of my least favorite video game sequels.
4. Contra Force – I remember playing this “spinoff sequel” for the NES back in the day and this Contra game became my least favorite of all the Contra games that I’ve played over the past two decades for several reasons
1) the constant slowdown and flicker of the graphics from the game
2) the villains not being aliens, but instead human terrorists
3) the game’s plot and story have absolutely no significance to the overall main storyline of The Contra series.
5. Street Fighter III (All Versions) – Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a fan of Street Fighter since playing Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition for The Sega Genesis back in the day where you can play as the four boss characters you couldn’t play as in the Super Nintendo version called Street Fighter: The World Warrior. The reason why Street Fighter III is my least favorite of all the Street Fighter games is because of the fact that notorious Street Fighter villain Bison was conspicuously absent from all versions of Street Fighter 3 and I didn’t like that because without Bison, there’s no Street Fighter.
The Conclusion – The lesson to be learned here is that just because you played a game that turned out to be very good doesn’t always mean that the sequel to that game is gonna be better than the previous game.
Staff Writer; Kwame Shakir (aka Joe D.)