Video Game Review: Top 10 Worst Video Game Sequels I've seen so far: Part 2

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Ceaser is pissed off at these sequels.

 Alright we've seen some notoriously bad sequels in the last list and there were some good things to say about them. For example I hated the gameplay of X6 but the music was still good, and Kingdom Hearts Recoded was much better as a movie then a game. But these next four, no quarter given, in my opinion these are some of the worst sequels I've seen and played.

#4 Devil May Cry 2

 As I mentioned in my best sequels list I'm not a long time fan of the series and the only reasons I checked it out was because Dante and Lady were in Project X Zone, I fought Dante in SMT Nocturne, and the HD collection was on sale so I figured why not. The first game was ok but I was still wondering why everyone loved Dante so much. From what I saw it was decent but not as good as God of War which I've been a fan of since the first game. My opinion of the series didn't improve once I got to Devil May Cry 2. What little personality Dante had was just gone, there was no banter between him and the bosses and we got a secondary lead who was boring, had a clone backstory that went almost nowhere and the gameplay just took a giant dump. 

 Thank whoever is up there for me giving Devil May Cry 3 a chance because when I finished the first fight in that game it all suddenly made complete sense. For me Devil May Cry was like the Original Evil Dead trilogy except Evil Dead 2 was far better then the first and Devil May Cry 2 sucked like a black hole. In both cases thankfully I made it to the third installment because now I know and am so waiting till I can finally get to Devil May Cry 4 and let's play that sucker. Though I do have more games on my to do list before I get to that, but rest assured I will play that game. Also for everyone who whined about DMC, I see where you're coming from but 1 it's an alternate universe and 2 trust me it's not the worst in the franchise that to me will always be Devil May Cry 2 until I see otherwise.

 #3 Assassins Creed 3

 I believe that with this one I barely have to explain myself but the might as well anyway. Assassins Creed 3 right after the conclusion to Ezio's story in Revelations gives us one of the most boring protagonists in the series, Conner Kenway. Even worse they teased us with the first two sequences instead having us play as Conner's far more interesting and entertaining father Haytham. Though admittedly the twist of him actually being a Templar was handled pretty well in my opinion and the fact that we have to kill the people that we've come to know (for the most part) kind of makes it more personal especially since unlike the previous groups of Templars Haytham's order do seem to care about protecting the Colonies. But their methodology is more then a tad questionable because we need to have our conflict somehow.

 Also back in the worst parts of these games AKA the modern segments we get a whole new dimension of annoyance with Desmond in the form of his fucking daddy issues. 

"GET IN THE FUCKING ANIMUS SHINJI, I MEAN DESMOND!"

 I'm not even kidding with that joke, just like in Evangelion Desmond shoves his daddy issues all over the place which are kind of small potatoes when you know THE END OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON DESMOND FINDING WHERE CONNOR HID THE KEY TO THE TENPLE SO THEY CAN SAVE THE WORLD! Though at least this was only early on and they did reconcile so it's not as bad as it could have been. Also the game at least killed Desmond off so we don't have to follow his boring chosen one ass for the rest of the franchise. 

 At least we now just have Shawn and Rebecca to deal with, at least they both have something resembling personalities that we can get behind. Also Assassins Creed 3 still had the multiplayer which while still fun still had Micro transactions which is never fine for me in a $60 game. Though there was the Tyranny of King Washington DLC which had an incredibly goofy premise and cranked it up to 11 with it giving Conner super duper Native American super powers. Thankfully we had Assassins Creed 4 after this because if we had another boring romp with Conner I would have jumped ship long before the dual release of Unity and Rogue.

#2 Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts

 Do I even have to say anything?!  You all know why this would eventually make the list I don't even need to go over it. But I have to at least fill in 2 paragraphs for these entries so here it goes. Everyone who grew up with an N64 at least heard about Banjo Kazooie and how they were fun colorful platform games. We were teased with a third game in at the end of Banjo Tooie but aside from some GBA spin offs there was nothing for years, especially after Rare was bought out by MICROSOFT! "Spit"

 But then we heard that there was going to be a brand new Banjo Kazooie game for the 360 we were over the moon. But then it was released and all our hope turned into despair faster then you can say "I was stupid, so stupid" and BAM Banjo Kazooie Nuts and bolts was unleashed onto the world. I of course never played it but you didn't even need to play it to know that you don't take a beloved platform game and turn it into a FUCKING BUILD YOUR OWN CAR RACER GAME!? That just doesn't make any sense from either a game design perspective or a brand loyalty perspective. Why in the wide wide world of sports would somebody think "hey we have this beloved platformer IP that people have been begging for a sequel to, let's make it into a goddamn Lego racing game that bitterly insults the fans and mechanics of the two games that made it so beloved!" 

 I mean if this was its own IP people would never have had this big of a fan revolt that wouldn't be matched until the ending to Mass Effect 3. But nope Rare was owned by MICROSOFT "spit" and so owned by their new overlords they took the name of Banjo Kazooie and ran it over their Gummi Ship knock off monster truck. Thankfully the people who were really responsible for Banjo Kazooie being the success that it was broke away from; them, founded their own company and have created a brilliant looking spiritual successor Yooka-Layle which is on its way very, very soon. (Which I personally backed on Kickstarter and yes I will begin a Let's Play of that lovely little game as soon as I possibly can!) So in a way we can be a bit thankful to Nuts and Bolts because without this flaming turd we wouldn't have Yooka-Layle to look forward to. So thank you Nuts and Bolts, now never bother us again. Now before I get to #1 some dishonorable mentions.

Assassins Creed Bloodlines.

 Shitty little PSP game that tries to explain some elements of how Altaïr hid the Apple of Eden on Cypress and was overall unnecessary and graphically repulsive. The only reason anyone would have to play this was to unlock weapons in Assassins Creed 2. Nothing else to say but OH UBISOFT!

Final Fantasy X-2

 Takes place after an ok Final Fantasy story and takes two of of the characters plus a new character and basically makes them into Angsty vapid and poorly written clones of Cutie Honey. While the combat and dresssphere system is interesting, the plot can get stupid and for those who want to 100% this game the monster collection mini game is one of the most tedious obsessive compulsive tasks I have ever seen. Those who have played this game on the PS3, 4 or Vita know exactly what I'm talking about.

 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days.

 Aside from having one of the dumbest titles I've ever read for a video game, just like the other Kingdom Hearts DS game is just ok. The gameplay is better then Coded, it's story is actually relevant by showing Roxas' time with Organization 13, explaining why he left in the first place and showing how he and Axel became good buddies. And just like Coded this games events are cannon so it's unskippable and it's events have been made into a clip-show/ movie so you don't have to search Amazon for a copy, so no muss no fuss. But as bad as these previous entries was this is still nothing compared to what I consider the worst sequel I have ever encountered!

 #1 The Legend of Zelda, Phantom Hourglass.

 Each of the previous games have their own unique flavors of horrible. From Nuts and Bolt's betrayal of the classic games that made them a household name to Final Fantasy 13's misguided and horribly confused design, but nothing on this list pisses me off more then Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass. Just like Assassins Creed 3 PH comes right after my favorite Legend of Zelda game, Wind Walker which I loved even back when it first came out when everybody else was pissing and moaning about how "kiddy" it looked. When I learned about there being a continuation of that continuity (this was back before I learned how messed up the Zelda timeline was; btw at that point the only Zelda games I played and finished were OOT and Majora's Mask) I picked it up right away. Then a few hours later I put it down and never picked it up again to this day.

 That's right of all the bad games I've played I at the very least try to finish one play-through of it. Not so with Phantom Hourglass, this is one of the very few games that I just gave up on and never looked back on. That comes down to three things. First was the graphics, now I know that going from the GameCube to the DS I knew there would be some kind of a graphical downgrade but wow the graphics for this game were bad. Everyone looked like they were made of Legos and there was little to no expression on their faces aside from their default faces.

 Number 2, the controls were awful. Now when you have a directional pad on your portable console you would at first think that you would use it to move your character. But not in this pile of puke, no no you needed to move Link with the DS touchscreen and Stylus and making such a dramatic change to the controls especially for an established platformer did not win points with me. But that leads me to the biggest problem with Phantom Hourglass, THE TEMPLE OF THE OCEAN KING!!! Oh by the Emperors magnificent golden lazy boy did that place become my personal purgatory. 

 See every time you defeat a boss you have to go back to this place every single time, go through every single floor just to get to the new floor to progress in the story and I repeat you have to go through every single floor in this place every single time to progress through the game. It was when I realized that fact and found seemingly no way to mediate this problem I for the first time in my memory, gave up the game and never played it again. This game along with the horrid controls for Skyward Sword have basically caused me to give up on the Legend of Zelda franchise, a franchise that I was only a very casual fan of to begin with. So that is why Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass is the worst video game sequel I've ever encountered, it took a franchise that everyone said was a seminal classic and turned it into an overrated and overhyped mess. Does anyone else have their own sequel that's worse then this? Then leave it in the comments below and make your case. Now if you'll excuse me I have a good sequel to play to cleanse my palate of this horrible trip down memory lane.

Devil May Cry is owned by Capcom and Hideki Kamiya.
Assassins Creed 3 is owned by Ubisoft, Patrice Désilets, Jade Raymond and Corey May.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is owned by Microsoft Game Studios and Rare.
The Legend of Zelda is owned by Nintendo & Shigeru Miyamoto
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is owned by 20^th Century Fox

Movie Review Expendables 3: Why does this have bad reviews? (Spoilers warning!)

 Now don't get me wrong, personally I think that this is the weakest of the Expendables movies so far, but at first I thought it just seemed to be the continuing trend of the critics that the first movie had, some go in expecting Hamlet and just get a tin of expired spam, while others accept it as the great last hurrah of the action stars of the 80's, with some more modern action icons along for the ride and get a fresh perfectly cooked pork lollipops. However after seeing it, well, I don't know it just feels like something was missing. Whatever, not everyone has to like the same thing, but this entry in the trilogy is defenitly the weakest as I will explain.

 Now I do like the plot "shutter" plots in an action movie I'm off to a fantastic start. This installment starts off with Barney and his happy family gives a great big hug and a C4 laden kiss from them to a Russian prisoner transport train. There they rescue one of the original Expendables, Doc played by Wesley Snipes who had been stuck in a Russian prison for a few years after a botched job. But before the team can bring Blade back to the good ol' US of A they just need to take out an arms dealer on the way back. However it turns out it wasn't any old dealer they were dealing with it was...

Hell do you want Sugar tits?

Yeah, well if I saw Mel Gibson I probably would freak out a little bit myself, what with me being half Jewish and all. But it turns out that Stonebanks (Mel's character) was actually one of the original founders of the Expendables team alongside Barney and Doc and was responsible for getting the other two killed ( who I personally think were Reb Brown and Pierre Kirby.) So Barney tries to kill Stonebanks, he messes up, Caesar nearly gets killed,

Caesar, not, in this, movie, LIAR!!!!

No not that Caesar, Terry Crews' character, gets near fatality shot and then Barney considers the obvious, he and his boys aren't getting any younger and tells them to get on with their lives while he forms a new younger team to take down Stonebanks. Now I'm not going into a hissy fit over the R to PG-13 rating, frankly it didn't seem less bloody then the previous installments but there was just something in this movie that didn't sit right with me, and that is tied into one of the movies' two themes that I actually do like. See one of the themes of this movie, in my interpretation is the concept of legacy, generational gaps and accepting old age. Now be fore warned this goes into a bit of Spoiler territory so if you haven't seen this movie I want you to turn back right now, go see the movie (preferably see the first two beforehand) then come back.

I think so, so anyway one of the plot points of the story is Barney realizing that he and his crew just might be too old for this life, so he recruits four younger hard-cases to help him take down Gibson. During his interactions with the new crew they still maintain professional attitudes during their mission but also bring modern sensibilities to the table, convincing Barney not to go with a "Charge in, guns blazing" approach when they know where Gibson is going to be, instead deciding to hack the security system of the building the target is conducting his next deal in so that they can execute a stealth approach. Also during the final act both generations of Expendables face off against Mel Gibsons army ( I'm assuming you've seen the movie so you know what I'm talking about, those who didn't and read anyway SHAME!) both groups held off a force that would have destroyed the original crew on their own. Kinda like when the Pre 2011 JLA teamed up with the JSA, old heroes and younger heroes being able to kick ass harder then on their own. In the end we see that the new guys have the same Tattoos that Barney and the old crew have, a sign that they are truly part of the team, this along with a line by Christmas about Barney looking like a proud, insane dad, further supported this theme with me and made this movie have a bit more to it then the usual brand of awesome this franchise has. However what conflicts me and what I think is the central problem is that three of the five new guys are just so bland they blend into the background almost as badly as Randy Couture and they mostly drag this movie down for me, aside from the one guy hacking I could hardly tell what the last two had to bring to the table other then bringing cool techno guns. But what really clinched it for me is that we have to leave behind the rest of the old guys, the main reason why we go to see these movies until the third act, which makes this movie weaker in my eyes then the rest of the franchise. However the only bright spots from the new meat is UFC fighter Ronda Rousey playing Luna, because her fight scenes are awesome and you can tell she's doing her own stunts, and Antonio Banderas' Galgo, though he does teeter between being funny and annoying with me. While he is funny, the problem is that unless he's being stealthy he doesn't know when to shut his gob.
Now on to the other theme I saw in this movie, how far does one go before being taken over by the dark side? The villain, Stonebanks was one of the original five who then decided that he wanted to move up the food chain. During the scene where Barney confronts Stonebanks in the getaway truck after they captured him, he asks Barney what the difference is between the two? They both have killed lots of people, have seen a fair chunk of their comrades die and yet one is a death dealer while the other is a weary old solder who doesn't know when to die. What was it exactly that separates the two? Stonebanks says that it was Barney's conscience that got the others killed trying to stop him, is it that simple?

Aren't you thinking about this too much s***head?

Eh possibly, but then again this is my brain and you're just a guest here. Speaking of trigger happy nut-jobs let's focus on Mel, he really does come off like a pretty damn despicable bad guy, continuing the trend left by Van Dame from last time. They both come off as intimidating psychopaths that could kill you just by looking at you. He really does look like he's enjoying himself and helps carry the slack of this movie for me. Harrison Ford pretty much fills the part that Bruce Willis left behind. Although Drummer does come off as less of a dick then Church, actually having a stake in taking down Stonebanks since two of his agents were killed by him.
 In a nut shell if you've seen any other movies in this franchise and liked them you should come away with just as much 80's throwback nonsense as the others, and hey, look at it this way this should tide you over if you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy or you can use this as an excuse to get out of seeing Michael Bay's TMNT.

The Expendables 3 is property of Nu Image, Millennium Films and Lionsgate, based on characters
by David Callaha.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is owned by 20^th Century Fox

Black Lagoon is owned by Rei Hiroe, Sunao Katabuchi, Madman Entertainment, Viz Media, Madhouse, Universal Australia and Funimation Entertainment

Movie Review Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Hail Caesar

Wow, just wow. Me and my Mom and Brother just got back from watching Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and all I can say is, why haven’t you watched this yet?

.............Really?

Okay, fine I do have a bit more to say then that. Besides, I wouldn’t be happy with myself if I didn’t at least try to show some semblance of professionalism. Now before going into this I have to say that I have not seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies before this. (You may start throwing stones, flaming barrels, poop, and homophobic slander at me.) Nevertheless, this movie gets into my good books already by being one of the rare sequels that you do not need to see the prequel first to fully get what is going on. That to me is one of the key tricks of a great movie for me, one that you can get into without having extensive knowledge of the franchise to enjoy it. Now to monkey business, the movie takes place after Rise of the Planet of the Apes and thanks to the “Simian Virus” unleashed by Caesar in the last movie, most of humanity is whipped out save for several pockets of resistance that were immune to the virus. Now Caesar and his tribe are living out in the Muir Woods of California and are trying to create their own civilization. In the ten years since the aperising Caesar and the rest of the primates have progressed enough to develop a large fortress, spears, speak sign language and have a small grasp of English. However there is a small band of humans lead by Future John Conner (He'll play John in the upcoming Terminator Genesis in 2015) and Commissioner Gordon that are hiding in the ruins of a city that are trying to restore power to their city, the catch is that the dam that could provide power is in Caesar’s territory. From there, the movie goes into themes of diplomacy, leadership, trust, and what it means to be a man or a beast. Now, I can barely remember most of the human characters that aren’t Malcolm and Dreyfus, no the real stars are of course the apes themselves, there’s very little dialogue between them but through their actions and facial expressions you can grasp more about their relationship and their place in the tribe more than any dialogue could. (Though the subtitles during their sign language conversations does help :3) This is thanks to incredible CGI technology but mostly though the motion capture of the actors portraying the apes, top dollar in this case of course goes to Andy Serkis as Caesar. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a guy that will always prefer practical effects over CGI especially in this 3D dependent, CGI infested era of film making, so that should say something when I say that the CGI for the apes is amazing, you could honestly tell that these could be living, breathing creatures. Though again, the acting is what drives it home for me, not the graphics, take note David Cage this is what you should be trying to do. On that note I do highly recommend seeing this in 2D, not only because it is cheaper and I desperately want this new 3D craze to go away, but also some of the action scenes work just fine without the overblown gimmick. Of course, it does have its moments of fun without the action scenes; I do not want to spoil anything concerning characters however so I am not going to. Yet I sense that most people aren't convinced yet, so I will just show this image.

I am a monkey with Machine Guns on horseback, your argument is invalid!

 

Now go see this movie to get the context for this hopefully iconic image.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is owned by 20^th Century Fox

Based on Characters Created by Pierre Boulle

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was released on July 11^th 2014.