Us gamers are a greedy lot. Before we’ve finished one gaming experience, we're already looking forward to a further instalment in any given series, demanding more of the good stuff and less of the bad. Sequels give fans more of what they want while developers get the chance to add new features (however minimal) and iron out any previous feedback grievances.

Often developers are only too pleased to dish out more of the same (particular given the rocketing costs of software production), but whether it's an eagerness to please or just pure laziness – we’d lean towards the latter – some of the most anticipated videogame sequels simply end up falling way short of expectation.

GamerSquad duly has picked out a selection of seven of the worst or most disappointing gaming follow-ups of all time: they’re listed below, just begging for copious amounts of tsk-ing and ‘should have done better’ head shaking.

Check below to ‘enjoy’ some of gaming finest series being tarnished irrevocably by their resultant offspring. It’s painful.



Final Fight: Streetwise
Remember when the Final Fight franchise was enjoyable? No, we can’t either, and chances are that any lingering memories of joy were dented forever if you’ve been bashed about in Final Fight: Streetwise. It reeked of unoriginality, was plagued with technical issues and was an insult to what used to be one of the best side-scrolling beat ‘em ups of its day. Beyond disappointment, Final Fight: Streetwise was much more of a knuckle dragger rather than the knuckle sandwich series fans were hoping for.


Sonic the Hedgehog
Much has been said about Sonic the Hedgehog's largely poor transfer into the 3D realm, and none have been more criticised than his truly dreadful debut on the next-generation Xbox 360. An awful mix of poorly implemented adventure elements and impossibly unfair on-rails platforming action swiftly left SEGA’s once iconic mascot inspiring disgruntled gamers to become ‘the fastest customer to return a duff game to the store’ rather than merely becoming ‘the fastest thing on Earth’ – though both probably intertwined on the way back to EBGames.


Driv3r
The original Driver was part of a revolution in gaming – the freedom to explore an expansive city without linear shackles – but in what seemed like a cynical decision to include Grand Theft Auto elements into the series’ second sequel, Driv3r was, shall we say, a bit of a mess? Yes, disjointed and awkward on-foot missions, dodgy and inaccurate weaponry aiming, and a truly awful storyline made sure of that. The biggest shame of all was that the actual in-car gameplay (Driver’s core strength) was still quite enjoyable but ruined by the flawed padding around it.


Gex 64: Enter the Gecko
Crystal Dynamics' former platforming hero was always going to have a tough time selling his slimy scales alongside the likes of Mario and Sonic, but his first two-dimensional outing wasn't that bad (really? – Ed). Sadly, the lovable lizard’s 1996 sequel Gex 64: Enter the Gecko (presumably built as a rival to Super Mario 64) was nothing short of terrible. The list of criticism is vast, but in the main it was crippled by a dreadful in-game camera, grating sound bites, and environments that were mysteriously plagued in fog – to hide the general lack of developer effort, we don’t doubt. Amazingly, ever-faithful (read: gullible) gamers actually endured one more outing from the now poisonous Gex before he thankfully slithered off for good.


Mario Party 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8
1999's Mario Party on the Nintendo 64 was somewhat of a pioneer in the party gaming space, encouraging up to 4 players to do the dirty on one another on the road to victory via imaginative and varied mini-games. Every year since that point Nintendo has gleefully punished us all with a fresh gathering of gaming ‘fun’ featuring the legendary Italian plumber and his insanely happy chums - except every offering arrives as being virtually the same as the last. And, despite the apparent longevity of the rinse and repeat series, Mario Party 6's crappy microphone peripheral and Mario Party 8’s poor motion-sensing control on the Wii still couldn’t combine to provide enough variety to help save a series that collapsed like a party animal overcome with the effects of dancing on 3 bottles of vodka… nearly a decade ago.


Bomberman: Act Zero
If there was ever a videogame character/franchise that just needs to be left alone, it's Bomberman. It's been fiddled with and tinkered with for over 20 years, but no amount of applied developmental bells and whistles has successfully added anything significant to the once-brilliant core gameplay. If anything, it has detracted from it. For example, Bomberman: Act Zero is perhaps the franchise's biggest unnecessary travesty. Human characters, minimum gameplay modes, no offline multiplayer and disgracefully ugly graphics all came to together to contribute to yet another blot on one of videogaming's best-loved series.


Carmageddon 64
Carmageddon 64 was released in 1999 after numerous delays and it's safe to say that the 64-bit sequel to one of gaming’s most controversial creations – which saw players tasked with mowing down innocent bystanders for points – failed in every way to live up to the gathered sense of expectation. Truly ridiculous physics, awful graphics and human targets replaced with un-dead zombies left Carmageddon64 as nothing more than a monstrously bad sequel. Though it’s perhaps worth noting that zombies at least have human form, which wasn’t what German fans got once the censor’s knife had finished hacking at the game. Any guesses? Yep, that’s right… dinosaurs.