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What game should have ended already?


King_Sama

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I love video games more then the next person. Finishing it from start to finish and having that accomplishment of knowing I completed it. Though, there are some games that go along longer than they should. Games that start off well and get a sequel, because the first one wasn't enough but when you continue giving that good game a sequel or even a prequel, is it still a good game?

 

For me it's Call of Duty. I enjoyed the game when it originally came out, it made a great way for me and my friends to connect while enjoying video games. Somewhere down the line the game became repetitive and just boring to play after the 6 or 7th game.

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For me game series that honestly could best to left to the ages are Final Fantasy, Call of Duty, and Kingdom Hearts now that KH3 is done.

Call of Duty: I am not really a fan of war games really, but have taken a liking to some FPS titles. As far as COD is concerned it died for me long ago like after Modern Warfare which was like 10 years ago. Now its even worse with what they are doing with it, and what they are doing to their fandom. 

Final Fantasy: Ok this one was tough for me to admit because I am a true lover of JRPGs, and FF for the most part set the stages for this genre. Though the latest relases for FF in my opinion have not been to good spiritually 14, and 15. I wish for the days when I could just play a story hevy JRPGs with FF characters without all this dlc, and loot crate crap. FF has not stood the test of time either as its overall story telling has slipped a bit since FF12, and arguably FF 10-10.2

Kingdom Hearts: Ok so this will sound as though I am really contradicting myself here, but bare with me. KH is without a doubt one of my favorite JRPG series of all time. Unlike FF it managed to do what FF seems to have forgotten how to which is tell a truly amazing story with depth, and character development with of course in part with F characters we all know, and love. Though the one issue that has plagued the KH series is its constant delays for KH3. Favoring instead to make interquels, or prequels for lack luster platforms even mobile at one point. Now again thats not to say the DS/3DS, or PSP/Veita are lack luster themselves as a platform barbecue they aren't. Though Even some of these additional games such as Birth by Sleep, or Dream Drop are rather good, and do a decent job of explaining a lot of plot holes within the KH timeline. Though the big issue at least for me is that we just wanted KH3 for so damn long, and now that its here it is not even being properly received. Sales for it in Japan aren't truly anything to write home about. Though as a hard core KH fan I do personally love what they did with KH3. I would at the same be perfectly ok with the series just wrapping up there.

 

There are of course quite a few other series that should honestly just die, and have the fandoms just run with them like Sonic the Hedgehog, Rayman, Rock Man/Mega Man for example.

Though the sad thing about that is video gaming is the largest entertainment medium today so there is plenty of money to be me in so many bad ways, andd a near endless suply of cash cows to milk for it.

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4 minutes ago, Illusion of Terra said:

Haven't seen 14, but if it is anything like XV it doesn't deserve the name of this awesome series. XV was a bunch of 💩

I don't mind if they continue series, if the new ones are decent.

Well yah I don't mind if it continues to be good. Though it is true if a series goes for to long its culture, and audience will change. FF is only one example take Mario ffor example. I did not mention this one above because well Mario is kinda one of the crore icons of gaming that despite opinions that vary greatly among fans on weather the newest games are any good it still dose not change the fact that Mario is still a big deal. The newest games in my opinion are not so good, butt thats merely because they aren't what I expect having started literally with Mario Bros from 1985. Much the same thing can be said of the FF series. They have gone online, and have modernized fairly well, but as a old school F fan its personally just not something I look for when I am thinking FF. The thing with FF while it is itself the icon of JRPGs at least in the west it dose not have the rep that Mario has. Mario could see a dozen poorly made platforms, and ppl would still probably like them to a point. In the case of FF, or most other JRPGs, and game series in general the fans are not nearly so forgiving. They expect way more in terms of plot, character development, and design. Not to mention since dlc is now such a big thing they even expect nothing but greatness from that too. That simply is not the case with Mario. Yes we want greatness, but are more willing to play a half baked Mario fan game, or even poorly designed one from Nintendo then a poorly made FF title.

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This is a general problem with the entertainment industry.  Whether it be game, movie, tv show, books, or whatever, if a title is even slightly successful it gets reused.  Old movies that worked get reboots.  New movies get a sequel.  TV shows get another season.  Books get a second volume.  Games get a new version, or maybe just DLC.  Then if the sequel is successful they do it again.  And again.  And again.  They do it until the story suffers and the original authors/actors/programmers are sick of it.  But even then if it sells they do it again.  And again.  And again.  And they keep doing it until the story is utterly destroyed and even the die-hard fans are so sick of the franchise they stop paying.  Then, and only then, does the industrial promotion apparatus move on to the Next Big Thing.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

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26 minutes ago, efaardvark said:

This is a general problem with the entertainment industry.  Whether it be game, movie, tv show, books, or whatever, if a title is even slightly successful it gets reused.  Old movies that worked get reboots.  New movies get a sequel.  TV shows get another season.  Books get a second volume.  Games get a new version, or maybe just DLC.  Then if the sequel is successful they do it again.  And again.  And again.  They do it until the story suffers and the original authors/actors/programmers are sick of it.  But even then if it sells they do it again.  And again.  And again.  And they keep doing it until the story is utterly destroyed and even the die-hard fans are so sick of the franchise they stop paying.  Then, and only then, does the industrial promotion apparatus move on to the Next Big Thing.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Franchising is not always bad. Disney does a very good job and invests a lot in maintaining and expanding their franchises. They've been quite successful in keeping it all alive. Pokemon (Nintendo right?) too has done the same (even though most games are identical in all but starters). It is unchecked, unplanned, unnutured franchising that makes people sick of it.

 

A new Assassin's Creed game every year will burn out all but the most diehard fans. That is unchecked franchising. The sequel to a standalone film or game? Unplanned. The random reboots? Unnutured. 

 

Franchising if done right can be innovative and nostalgic at the same time. It's the rest of them that let their greed overtake their common sense.

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1 hour ago, efaardvark said:

This is a general problem with the entertainment industry.  Whether it be game, movie, tv show, books, or whatever, if a title is even slightly successful it gets reused.  Old movies that worked get reboots.  New movies get a sequel.  TV shows get another season.  Books get a second volume.  Games get a new version, or maybe just DLC.  Then if the sequel is successful they do it again.  And again.  And again.  They do it until the story suffers and the original authors/actors/programmers are sick of it.  But even then if it sells they do it again.  And again.  And again.  And they keep doing it until the story is utterly destroyed and even the die-hard fans are so sick of the franchise they stop paying.  Then, and only then, does the industrial promotion apparatus move on to the Next Big Thing.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

I can't fully disagree with this though I do agree that it isn't all bad when this happens. Though with that said it is rare even for retro games to stand the test of time unless they are truly an icon.

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Disney is better than most at monetizing, I'll give you that.  That's all it is though, IMHO.  They realize that driving off the fans kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.  They're all "pop" stuff though.  Nothing really controversial or serious in a social sense, at least not intentionally.  EVERYTHING that comes out of Disney passes through several layers of corporate lawyer, public relations, and profitability committees before getting green-lighted.  You can barely hear the writers' intent through all the filters, if indeed you can hear it at all.

They are also not good corporate citizens.  They sue teachers for using Disney material in class.  They take old, public-domain stuff and slap their own copyrights on it.  That'd be ok if it were just their own content and "for limited Times" per the Constitution, but then they go and threaten to sue everyone who publishes the original material as well.  They have been big promoters of perpetual copyrights.  They're fine with using the public apparatus to protect their artificial monopolies (and not incidentally their profit streams) forever.  When it comes to paying for that protection by giving back however, not so much.

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22 minutes ago, efaardvark said:

Disney is better than most at monetizing, I'll give you that.  That's all it is though, IMHO.  They realize that driving off the fans kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.  They're all "pop" stuff though.  Nothing really controversial or serious in a social sense, at least not intentionally.  EVERYTHING that comes out of Disney passes through several layers of corporate lawyer, public relations, and profitability committees before getting green-lighted.  You can barely hear the writers' intent through all the filters, if indeed you can hear it at all.

They are also not good corporate citizens.  They sue teachers for using Disney material in class.  They take old, public-domain stuff and slap their own copyrights on it.  That'd be ok if it were just their own content and "for limited Times" per the Constitution, but then they go and threaten to sue everyone who publishes the original material as well.  They have been big promoters of perpetual copyrights.  They're fine with using the public apparatus to protect their artificial monopolies (and not incidentally their profit streams) forever.  When it comes to paying for that protection by giving back however, not so much.

That is a very interesting point. The house of Mouse has been known to be rather greedy over the years in terms of how they go about their acquisitions. Though they are not at all immune to fan backlash as the entire, or nearly the entire star wars fandom rose up to have the star wars fan film produced by Star Wars Theory on YouTube demonetized. So even Disney needs to tread carefully when remaking old things, or doing this of this nature. Funny thing is within a day, or so the motorization for said film was removed by Disney.

 

Though in keeping on topic for the thread now that we bring up Disney, and Star Wars in my opinion Star Wars games by EA just need to stop, or they need to go about it another way. As it is movie licensed games have enough of a hard time standing on their own two feel. Though EA is not helping the matter with what they have done, or rather the lack of what they have done with the Star Wars IP.

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57 minutes ago, ArchieKun said:

in my opinion Star Wars games by EA just need to stop

Yes, SW & EA is another "good" example of greed and bad franchise management.  I'm so over the whole SW (and ST for that matter) franchises anyway at this point, and I've been officially boycotting EA titles for years already as well.   The two together was DOA before it was even released, at least as far as I'm concerned.

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I can't completely hate on the Star Wars games. They aren't great don't get me wrong, everything about them just seems wrong and the worst thing about it is the potential that's just hanging there in front of their faces. The Force Unleashed was an amazing game, they have that to go on and they won't. It's nuts!

Still, I think it has more to do the creators then anything. EA should have stayed in their lane and made their usual copy and paste of sports games. That's what they are good at.

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As a SW fan, I can say George Lucas's insanity and greed killed SW, not Disney. Eps 1-3 were trash, completely disregarded the lore and history that Eps 4-6 had set up and were designed for a quick sell at top dollar to Disney. If anything, Disney saved SW because from what I've heard, they actually cut Lucas out entirely. He was so bad they didn't even want him as a consultant after they experienced him themselves. Sure, Disney went through and said "Eps4-6 are canon, the books are not, Clone Wars is canon, KOTOR is not,  FU is not (poor Starkiller)" but it had to be done. SW was created from an insane genius. Someone had to pick a path sometime. 

 

Granted, I didn't like Ep 7 (too much a New Hope copy), and I didn't like 8 (omg...our villian is a snowflake who still has temper tantrums, much of the movie was entirely unnecessary) but I'll hold judgment on the trilogy till 9 comes out (maybe they'll pull it together into something good). That said, Rogue One was amazing and Solo was alright (the crazy lady droid was a bit over the top). Growing pains folks. They're figuring out what makes a SW movie SW. 

I've enjoyed most all SW games I've played (Kotor, Jedi Knight series, Rogue Squadron, Force Unleashed, and so on) though FU was probably my last series. Wish I had another Rogue Squadron....perhaps a Tie Fighter version.  I always was an Empire gal. Go Empire!

 

Anyways, I feel I am treading off my response...Disney saved SW and it will only get better the more they figure it out. I hope the old cast (Eps 4-6) are completely over. We need them out (and everyone constantly saying that was the only good time for SW to stop being reminded of those Eps, no matter how good they were, to go as well) unfortunately to move on to better horizons. 

EA however, I find to be a franchise killer. They buy studios, rape their IPs, then trash them when the fanbase has been used up. 

 

EA and Disney are worlds apart folks. WORLDS.

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Games, like movies, and other entertainment gets run into the ground because the companies chase money.

As for series that I wish would have ended but did not, I cannot think any in an overall perspective, but I would have to say Trails in The Sky trilogy would worth mentioning. The games are not bad and start out fun, but there are too many cut scenes that go on for so long in all three of them, with the worst being the endings, which is not helped by how long the final boss battles can last (number 3 took what felt like hours).

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12 hours ago, efaardvark said:

This is a general problem with the entertainment industry.  Whether it be game, movie, tv show, books, or whatever, if a title is even slightly successful it gets reused.  Old movies that worked get reboots.  New movies get a sequel.  TV shows get another season.  Books get a second volume.  Games get a new version, or maybe just DLC.  Then if the sequel is successful they do it again.  And again.  And again.  They do it until the story suffers and the original authors/actors/programmers are sick of it.  But even then if it sells they do it again.  And again.  And again.  And they keep doing it until the story is utterly destroyed and even the die-hard fans are so sick of the franchise they stop paying.  Then, and only then, does the industrial promotion apparatus move on to the Next Big Thing.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's even more annoying when the book, game, whatever, had a perfectly fine and satisfying ending with pretty much every conflict resolved (except maybe a few) and then they decide to make a sequel. Characters with completed archs need new reasons to stay relevant in the story and the new ending might just be bad... This, ofc, applies to series with a continuous story, like books, TV series or some games. Imagine of Tolkien wrote a "Lord of the Rings Part II, Return of the Dark Lord" (However that's supposed to work canonically) or Dicken's "A Tale of two Cities: The Afterstory"....

 

With discontinous games like Final Fantasy, like @ArchieKun mentioned, you run into the problem that you'll have to change the gameplay and setting a bit, every time. And in the end you might end up with something that doesn't even have anything to do with the original games. Like in FF. The gameplay is very different, the aesthetics, the way the story is told, etc. ... They could have just made a completely new franchise by changing the lore a bit or, maybe the optimal solution, a spinoff series.

Assassin's Creed is another example of this: What exactly have the newer AC games to do with the earlier games? They should've stopped after AC III and make a new series that is maybe similar to AC but still different enough... like the newer AC games - they'd just need a bit of change and you'd have a new series. Or to to go back to the idea earlier, a spin-off series...

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Battlefield series.

 

They made an extremely good comeback with Battlefield 3, everyone loved it to death. It was what everyone wanted, now, afterwards, came Battlefield 4 improving the formula, it was great, people complained a lot in the beginning but steadily got better and people came to terms to accept it.

 

Then things started going bad from there, they tried to appeal to what was popular on the marked making Hardline (Imho, basically COD + Payday) which made for a poor game, then they tried to compensate by making Battlefield WW1, it was something unexpected and people were hyped, except... It was... Bad... No one really liked it a lot, it was simply a poor game with lots of faults everywhere, specially on the fact that it felt less like Battlefield and more like call of duty.

 

Then they shoved down our throats their SJWs theme and enforced it with Battlefield V, which has been a horrendous disaster so far. People lost interest on it two weeks afterwards, literally EA paid streamers to play their game, namely Dr Disrespect and after the two three week "Trial" he never touched it again.

 

EA overall should end...

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9 hours ago, leinwandname said:

It's even more annoying when the book, game, whatever, had a perfectly fine and satisfying ending with pretty much every conflict resolved (except maybe a few) and then they decide to make a sequel. Characters with completed archs need new reasons to stay relevant in the story and the new ending might just be bad... This, ofc, applies to series with a continuous story, like books, TV series or some games. Imagine of Tolkien wrote a "Lord of the Rings Part II, Return of the Dark Lord" (However that's supposed to work canonically) or Dicken's "A Tale of two Cities: The Afterstory".... 

Actually, if you read The Silmarillion, LOTR is a kind of "end of the world, part II".  Sauron is actually a lieutenant of Melkor/Bauglir/Morgoth, the REAL bad-ass.  But that's ok.  The Silmarillion is the creation myth to the whole Middle Earth mileau.  It is supposed to be a larger than life backstory.

But yeah, a "done" story, forcibly reopened just to make a few more quick bucks, is annoying as heck.  That's just disrespecting the fans.  I've even got a policy of not even starting a movie/game/anime if I know it goes on for more than a couple iterations in part to avoid that sort of thing.  If they're going to do that then get the crew that did so well on the original material and make a new story, game. or whatever.  Or a spin-off or something with different characters and story if you want to reuse the scenery.  I'd go for it... done it in fact.  Seeing a "from the authors of .." is the one of the few types of marketing that actually works fairly well on me.  (Assuming I liked the previous work of course.) 

I also have issues with series that are left in cliffhanger state just because some suit didn't think it'd make enough money to bother wrapping things up.  Again, that's just dissin' your base.  If you're going to start something, finish it!  Looking at you, SyFy! 😠

I don't mind though if something is broken up into smaller pieces.  LOTR is a huge story.  I saw it all (Hobbit + LOTR) in one physical book once upon a time and it was awesome as heck, but so unwieldy as to be practically unreadable.  Stuff with that much background behind it has to be kept close to the original storyline or risk alienating the fans.  OTOH, putting it ALL in a single movie is also a bit much to ask people to sit through, even the fans.  I didn't/don't mind the The Hobbit as a "prequel" either.  It actually is a separate story, you don't really need it to understand LOTR, and it lowers the financial risk for the studio to do it that way.  I'm fine with that sort of thing, even if it means paying to see 4 separate movies.  (Actually, since I'm a fan of the story and they/Jackson did a good job, in hindsight I'd have been fine if they'd split up the movies even more.  The extended edition of The Two Towers alone is almost 4 hours long!)  I'm not going to pay to see a half-hour movie in 5-minute increments so don't go too far in that direction, but give me value and I don't mind paying for the content.  At all.

Now if they'd done a half-assed job, or released Fellowship and then stopped just because it didn't make "enough".... then there would have been blood.  :) 

The whole Middle Earth universe is kind of a special case anyway though.  Obviously there's already a huge, existing, multidemographic fan base to sell to, and Tolkien did so much background work to flesh things out for his own purposes that the only real risk is in production.  Besides the LOTR/Hobbit there's enough material in The Silmarillion alone to reasonably produce at least half a dozen more spinoffs with little financial risk and without messing the main story up.  As long as they stick to Tolkien's material - or at least don't conflict with it - the fans will be fine with it, and money will be made.

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9 hours ago, efaardvark said:

Actually, if you read The Silmarillion, LOTR is a kind of "end of the world, part II".  Sauron is actually a lieutenant of Melkor/Bauglir/Morgoth, the REAL bad-ass.  But that's ok.  The Silmarillion is the creation myth to the whole Middle Earth mileau.  It is supposed to be a larger than life backstory.

But yeah, a "done" story, forcibly reopened just to make a few more quick bucks, is annoying as heck.  That's just disrespecting the fans.  I've even got a policy of not even starting a movie/game/anime if I know it goes on for more than a couple iterations in part to avoid that sort of thing.  If they're going to do that then get the crew that did so well on the original material and make a new story, game. or whatever.  Or a spin-off or something with different characters and story if you want to reuse the scenery.  I'd go for it... done it in fact.  Seeing a "from the authors of .." is the one of the few types of marketing that actually works fairly well on me.  (Assuming I liked the previous work of course.) 

 I also have issues with series that are left in cliffhanger state just because some suit didn't think it'd make enough money to bother wrapping things up.  Again, that's just dissin' your base.  If you're going to start something, finish it!  Looking at you, SyFy! 😠

I don't mind though if something is broken up into smaller pieces.  LOTR is a huge story.  I saw it all (Hobbit + LOTR) in one physical book once upon a time and it was awesome as heck, but so unwieldy as to be practically unreadable.  Stuff with that much background behind it has to be kept close to the original storyline or risk alienating the fans.  OTOH, putting it ALL in a single movie is also a bit much to ask people to sit through, even the fans.  I didn't/don't mind the The Hobbit as a "prequel" either.  It actually is a separate story, you don't really need it to understand LOTR, and it lowers the financial risk for the studio to do it that way.  I'm fine with that sort of thing, even if it means paying to see 4 separate movies.  (Actually, since I'm a fan of the story and they/Jackson did a good job, in hindsight I'd have been fine if they'd split up the movies even more.  The extended edition of The Two Towers alone is almost 4 hours long!)  I'm not going to pay to see a half-hour movie in 5-minute increments so don't go too far in that direction, but give me value and I don't mind paying for the content.  At all.

Now if they'd done a half-assed job, or released Fellowship and then stopped just because it didn't make "enough".... then there would have been blood.  :) 

The whole Middle Earth universe is kind of a special case anyway though.  Obviously there's already a huge, existing, multidemographic fan base to sell to, and Tolkien did so much background work to flesh things out for his own purposes that the only real risk is in production.  Besides the LOTR/Hobbit there's enough material in The Silmarillion alone to reasonably produce at least half a dozen more spinoffs with little financial risk and without messing the main story up.  As long as they stick to Tolkien's material - or at least don't conflict with it - the fans will be fine with it, and money will be made.

Ah, yes, Silmarillion. But I meant a more direct sequel of LotR, Silmarillion is largely of 'What happened in this universe', more of an extension and summary of the entire universe, than a sequel or prequel to any of Tolkien's stories. If I remember correctly the end of the third age is almost at the end of the book and doesn't continue for that much longer - though I haven't read the book in a long time...

LotR is a huge book with about ~1300p (depending on the font size and layout of the pages) with a story telling that kinda hard to adapt, if they kept more things closer to the original. I, for my part, would not have minded a 4 movie series (leaving out the scouring of the shire, for me one of the best parts of RotK, really is disappointing....).

As for an adaption of the Silmarillion, I think, it wouldn't exactly turn out to be that good. A director would have to change too much, IMO, to adapt it. Now, Children of Húrin or Beren and Luthien are a different story (well, technically not :P)

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For me the biggest issue are game series that like clockwork have a new game made each year. In that timespan there is no way you are going to see amazing writing or new and exciting gameplay. It'll just be the same gameplay with a few shiny new toys and features, and a story that isn't anything special. Usually! Exceptions do happen and stuff~ 

If a series has several years between new games in it, generally I find they end up usually meeting or exceeding expectations with both a new world, and improved gameplay. I am fine with continuing series that do this as usually the new installments still feel fresh and interesting. Most Bethesda games did this for me. Keyword "did" because Fallout 76 is... just awful. I maybe am one of the few people on the planet that genuinely enjoyed 4 though. It's dialogue and story were definitely worse but the actual gameplay felt much better to me. I LOVED the prior Fallouts, much moreso than 4,  but the gunplay wasn't stellar. But still all things considered, I still enjoyed 4 and appreciated that it made dramatic changes to gameplay.

Now, if a game is mainly good from a narrative perspective and such, it definitely should not get too many followup games. A good story deserves a good ending, not to be dragged on until it's story goes from good to garbage. I would say the Uncharted series handled this well. Each game had its own separate story, with the 4th bringing it to its final, decisive conclusion that didnt just conclude that games story, but the main character's story as a whole. Not sure how I feel about a sequal to The Last of Us because it left off on a great note. 

To summarize my feelings in a few lines; yearly releases are awful, though multiple games in a series is fine when lots of love and care are put in, and it feels new, not recycled.

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**SPOILERS; Don't read below this line if you don't want anything ruined**

 

Call Of Duty - Repetive, same Zombies and same tactics just a different theme.

Assassin's Creed - This series used to be good and honestly the series should of ended after Desmond Mile's death. After that the franchise became repetitive as hell.

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17 hours ago, EnviousEnvy said:

**SPOILERS; Don't read below this line if you don't want anything ruined**

 

Call Of Duty - Repetive, same Zombies and same tactics just a different theme.

Assassin's Creed - This series used to be good and honestly the series should of ended after Desmond Mile's death. After that the franchise became repetitive as hell.

I agree completely at least when it comes to Assassin's Creed. It has fallen in so many ways compared to when it started. Among other things it just hasn't not aged well. 

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