Did anyone mention Broken Sword? Shadow of the Templars/Circle of Blood is easily the best in the series. Shadow of the Comet > Prisoner of Ice. Freedom Force > vs The 3rd Reich (although I really liked vs The 3rd Reich too). Can't think of many more. No Remorse > No Regret?

How about Discworld Noir? That was my favorite.

The first Dragon Age is a clear example of this... the earlier Need for Speed games, Call of Duty II and Modern Warfare as well.

Actually, I can think of many cases of disappointing or inferior sequels and only a few cases where the sequels ended up being definitively better. And this is speaking both from my own experiences and from popular opinion.

In fact, at this point I tend to gravitate toward originals in a series, not because I want to experience the story from the beginning, but because in my experience the first game tends to be the most cohesive, and the sequels just add in new elements for the hell of it and change things up for the sake of change. They often lose a sense of focus. Or just break what was enjoyable about the originals to begin with. Of course, as Wishbone mentioned, there are also cases where the first game is obviously incomplete and the sequels are the "proper" version of the original idea (Carnivores 2 comes to mind, as does Call of Pripyat to a certain extent).

You can add me to the list to. I love the simplicity of the first game.

I completely agree with you there, but the main reason I prefer ME1 over its sequels is the exploration element that is simply missing from the later games. I loved taking the time off between missions in ME1 and visit some remote planet to discover some of its cool features and side-quests. It provides deeper gameplay diversity and more things to do in-game, which is always a good thing. (On a side note, I've noticed that a lot of people hated the MAKO, but I found it a nice touch.)

The same reason is also why I prefer Baldur's Gate over BG2 - even if only by a small margin. I absolutely loved the work they've put into NPC banters and dialog in BG2, as well as the vast improvements in level- and quest design, but at the same time I was a little bit disappointed that the kind of explorable areas which had made BG1 my number one favorite game were all but removed in the sequel.

Also, political intrigue. I love political intrigue, and BG1 has it in focus. What more could I ask? :)

Yeah, a thread on clearly superior sequels might be interesting. Or a thread about sequels that lost nothing from their predecessor.

I liked it, but Discworld 2 was the more direct sequel and is easier to compare to the first one. And I think I still like Discworld best, even though Discworld Noir has the better story. But it doesn't have Eric Idle, if I recall correctly. ;)

I'm surprised that Civ 4 vs Civ 5 hasn't come up. While Civ 4 is (obviously) not the first in a series, I think the community would agree that it's much better than Civ 5 (or have I misjudged you all?).

Also, I consider Morrowind to be the apex of the Elder Scrolls series. The freedom to actually...exist in a world which doesn't revolve around you, where you can't do everything as one person, but have to make choices (which house to join springs to mind) is very invigorating. Then Bethesda began releasing for console, which (perhaps justifiably) has a reputation for being used mostly by a younger audience, and the quality went...down. Linear questlines and an apparent fear of denying the player the ability to do every activity with one character in a frankly unrealistic way ('I wanna be archmage!' 'Ok, if you go through these dungeons, you can be' is what it amounted to, irrespective of your magical ability or lack thereof). The game tries to be too epic, and just ends up with lots of separate stories you do one at a time as once you've started one the plot gives you no in character reasons to go and do something else. Not to mention that there is, AFAIK, no crossover between the guilds. In Morrowind, I could recover a stolen item of House Hlaalu by telling off the lower ranked member of the thieves' guild who'd stolen it, sigh.

Ok, rant over, I just get annoyed by the way that a company which made something so good followed it with something so bad.

So, in general, would you say that games become worse if they're made for consoles?

Five has much better combat. Depends on your priorities I guess.

I agree; there's room for both, if V hadn't been quite a different beast to IV then it would have just been stagnating, and stagnating never warrants a new release; expanding a game is what expansion packs are for, not sequels.

Personal experience:
Blood
Divine Divinity (counting Beyond Divinity as the sequel)
Syberia

Hearsay:
Deus Ex
Knights of the Old Republic
Dragon Age: Origins
Betrayal at Krondor

I also prefer Morrowind over Oblivion and Skyrim, although Skyrim comes pretty close. Not quite there, though, but a step in the right direction.

Yes, it's better than Oblivion (from memory), and they made an effort to make it a consistent world (characters exist in different questlines, most notably one of the people the db questline sends you to is in the thieves' guild) although the dialogue doesn't seem to be programmed to give a different response according to your status in the other guild (she's still insulting to you in her db dialogue even if you're her guildmaster!) I just wish the world was more interesting, and less...bland.

Canon Fodder - Yeah make a sequel in space, versus little martians, really great idea.

Broken Sword 2 - Hey, what if we did the next one in 3D, kids dig 3D nowadays.

AvP - The next one needs to me much more focused on the comics universe because the comics are what teens buy. And plush aliens. Hey, let's make all the aliens look like plushes. And a nice comic book plot.

Sands of Time - What ? Get rid of that faggot prince and this gay music. Kids like badass hardcore characters and metal. Look at all the other games !

Jedi Academy - Not enough QTE, please fix this for Unleashed.

Last Crusade - Multiple solutions, problems you can solve with brains or muscles ? Great. Hey, how about making it different games directly, where the player can select at the beginning if he wants action-based solutions or mind-based puzzles ? Also, I don't know about the plot, but I'm sure aliens are the future of indiana jones, and... aren't you already working on a space title of sorts, dig dug or whatever ? Great, use that one then.

Carmageddon 2 - Well, it was still too cartoony. People want gruesome. Also, at what point did you forget it's about a race ? A race, not exploration, we're not making an rpg there. Please tidy this up, TDR2000 needs a real tight timer to keep players on track.

Resident Evil 2 - Yeah, the boss fights were cool. Let's make one that consists entirely in one continuous bossfight, with one indestructible boss that you can only stun until the end. Zombies are distracting anyway.


Yeah whatever.

Well, for me it's an immensely interesting setting. As I said in a previous post, I'm all for political intrigue in games, and Morrowind has it in abundance. It's certainly true that the dialog and characters could be improved upon, but the game world more than makes up for it for me with all its factions, religions, politics, history, races, settlements, traditions, and other background lore. I've grown to love that kind of content in games, and Morrowind is the reason.