If you could kill one gaming franchise what would it be?

[Elite Lord Sigma]

Call of Duty, due to the adverse effects it has had on creativity and experimentation in the industry. Second place goes to Final Fantasy XIII for trying to eke out a trilogy on a character that's not compelling enough for it to be meaningful. If you need an example of trilogies that do this right, see: Assassin's Creed (Ezio), Mass Effect (the main cast), and The Lord of the Rings (the main cast).

[Goldenboko]

Can someone please explain how Call of Duty has honestly been "killing gaming" because I think you're all kids that don't like it and therefore scapegoat it as the problem with ALL GAMES NOWWWWW. Which doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Quindiana Jones]

Are you joking? I can't tell if you're joking. There are many practices today which only became widespread after the introduction of Call of Duty (MW+). That stuff is irrelevant now; wanting a game to disappear because of the changes it made to the industry is silly, because those changes have already happened. I just want the franchise to disappear because it's a trout game for s.

That, or go back to CoD4 greatness, because that was an excellent FPS. World at War was also quite enjoyable, and I liked the bots in Black Ops, because it meant I could dick about with my friends offline and also try out weapons and upgrades before buying them.

This seems like something of a bipolar post now.

[Skyblade]

There are a lot of series I want killed, picking just one will be nearly impossible.

Madden and Fifa. I am sick to death of these games. Why people keep buying them when the only changes are the players' names is utterly beyond me.

Pretty much every shooter series out right now, especially Call of Duty and Halo. The market is oversaturated, bland, and tired. Even the good series in the genre have plenty of poor elements and poor games just because the entire FPS market seems to have stagnated. Let it go for a while, guys, give shooters a rest, then come back to it with a fresh take on things.

Dragon Age. My gosh, BioWare, what the hell happened to you? You are, for a brief, shining moment, one of the great RPG developers of the current generation, and then, in a few short projects, you have bombed to one of my most hated. Granted, we all know what happened (Hello, EA!), but still, this is pitiful. You rush your games, you gut their writing, you release buggy products, you destroy excellent potential... SWTOR was going strong for a while, but even it is feeling the pressure now, with the latest patch being a new Operation, but containing no new story, quests, planets, or companions, despite what we were specifically told we would get. I shudder to think how painful Dragon Age III will be.

Pokemon. As much as I love this series, it needs to die. Why? Because if the main series can't continue, maybe they'll finally give the spin offs the glory they deserve. The main games have gotten tired and repetitive, and abhor creativity whenever it appears. But the series has a ton of intriguing, well designed spinoffs that exist for one brief moment, and are then abandoned forever, only to watch the main series chug on.

Assassin's Creed is actually on hold on my hit list for the next three weeks. Normally, I'd be more than ready to burn this series to the ground, but the direction they've gone with it has earned them some breathing room. Assassin's Creed was good, and ACII was a phenomenal step upwards, improving a ton of stuff about the game. Since then, however, we haven't seen anything revolutionary, Brotherhood and Revelations brought multiplayer, and that's about it. They are more extra campaigns, expansion packs, than they are full games. A lot of the new ideas that Ubisoft tried clearly didn't work (tower defense minigame, yay), and it does not leave me high hopes for the future. If ACIII is just more of the same, the series needs to die. If it brings even close to the same changes to the series that ACII brought when it came out, then Ubisoft can continue this sales trend as long as they need to. I have no problem buying expansion packs, after all. But the series needs to evolve and improve if I am going to have any further interest in it.

The Half Life Episodes. Valve, you cannot make episodic games. Stop trying. Create each entry as an entire, discrete game, and just go with it. You make good games, but releasing games in episodic parts only works if you can actually release the future parts in a decent timetable. Just drop the concept, learn to count to three, and move on.

Diablo, Starcraft, and pretty much every other game made by Blizzard. Yeah, Blizzard is even more creatively dead than the main Pokemon games. There is nothing new about these games except their graphics. I don't know what else to say about them, really. We're getting obsolete games from ten years ago, and people are buying them like crazy.

I'll probably have more for this list later, but that's all for now.

[Pete for President]

There are a lot of series, I want killed, picking just one will be nearly impossible.

Madden and Fifa. I am sick to death of these games. Why people keep buying them when the only changes are the players' names is utterly beyond me.

Pretty much every shooter series out right now, especially Call of Duty and Halo. The market is oversaturated, bland, and tired. Even the good series in the genre have plenty of poor elements and poor games just because the entire FPS market seems to have stagnated. Let it go for a while, guys, give shooters a rest, then come back to it with a fresh take on things.

Dragon Age. My gosh, BioWare, what the hell happened to you? You are, for a brief, shining moment, one of the great RPG developers of the current generation, and then, in a few short projects, you have bombed to one of my most hated. Granted, we all know what happened (Hello, EA!), but still, this is pitiful. You rush your games, you gut their writing, you release buggy products, you destroy excellent potential... SWTOR was going strong for a while, but even it is feeling the pressure now, with the latest patch being a new Operation, but containing no new story, quests, planets, or companions, despite what we were specifically told we would get. I shudder to think how painful Dragon Age III will be.

Pokemon. As much as I love this series, it needs to die. Why? Because if the main series can't continue, maybe they'll finally give the spin offs the glory they deserve. The main games have gotten tired and repetitive, and abhor creativity whenever it appears. But the series has a ton of intriguing, well designed spinoffs that exist for one brief moment, and are then abandoned forever, only to watch the main series chug on.

Assassin's Creed is actually on hold on my hit list for the next three weeks. Normally, I'd be more than ready to burn this series to the ground, but the direction they've gone with it has earned them some breathing room. Assassin's Creed was good, and ACII was a phenomenal step upwards, improving a ton of stuff about the game. Since then, however, we haven't seen anything revolutionary, Brotherhood and Revelations brought multiplayer, and that's about it. They are more extra campaigns, expansion packs, than they are full games. A lot of the new ideas that Ubisoft tried clearly didn't work (tower defense minigame, yay), and it does not leave me high hopes for the future. If ACIII is just more of the same, the series needs to die. If it brings even close to the same changes to the series that ACII brought when it came out, then Ubisoft can continue this sales trend as long as they need to. I have no problem buying expansion packs, after all. But the series needs to evolve and improve if I am going to have any further interest in it.

The Half Life Episodes. Valve, you cannot make episodic games. Stop trying. Create each entry as an entire, discrete game, and just go with it. You make good games, but releasing games in episodic parts only works if you can actually release the future parts in a decent timetable. Just drop the concept, learn to count to three, and move on.

Diablo, Starcraft, and pretty much every other game made by Blizzard. Yeah, Blizzard is even more creatively dead than the main Pokemon games. There is nothing new about these games except their graphics. I don't know what else to say about them, really. We're getting obsolete games from ten years ago, and people are buying them like crazy.

I'll probably have more for this list later, but that's all for now.

Wow, I agree on pretty much everything. Especially Pokémon, that's definitely gotta go.

I guess I was a little soft on my first post with just listing Kingdom Hearts. In fact, if I could trade in all currently ongoing series and get all new IP's in return, I'd sign immediately.

[Skyblade]

I can't quite fully agree with that.

I wouldn't want the Persona series to die, for example. It's moving well, and moving towards something. Each entry has brought a lot of new content, concepts, and ideas. As long as it continues its march forwards, I am all in favor of it continuing.

Fire Emblem is another one. My most anticipated game of next year is Fire Emblem: Kakusei (not sure what the translation is going to be), because, again, this series has had brilliant forward momentum (except Shadow Dragon, but no series is perfect). They keep adding new ideas and thoughts to their games, and I love it. Even Shadow Dragon was an attempt at innovation, and for a remake, that's saying a lot. Freedom to choose a character's class? Gutsy move. And I don't really think it worked. But still, the effort is there, and they've learned from mistakes.

Rune Factory. While I feel Harvest Moon got a little stale (with Harvest Moon 64 being my favorite of the series), holy heck is this not one of the best underrated series ever. The original was a brilliant twist on the classic gameplay, and they have continued to innovate since then. While I wasn't fond of RF2's setup, again, they brought a lot of new stuff to the table, and a lot worked, though some didn't. And RF3 is flat-out brilliant. One of my favorite games on the DS, period. The skill system and stat setup are one of the best I've seen executed in an RPG in a long time. This series also needs to keep going, and I hope we get RF4 released over here soon.

[Slothy]

The Half Life Episodes. Valve, you cannot make episodic games. Stop trying. Create each entry as an entire, discrete game, and just go with it. You make good games, but releasing games in episodic parts only works if you can actually release the future parts in a decent timetable. Just drop the concept, learn to count to three, and move on.

What are you talking about? They clearly did drop the concept. I'm not sure why anyone expects the next game to be Episode 3 at this point.

Diablo, Starcraft, and pretty much every other game made by Blizzard. Yeah, Blizzard is even more creatively dead than the main Pokemon games. There is nothing new about these games except their graphics. I don't know what else to say about them, really. We're getting obsolete games from ten years ago, and people are buying them like crazy.

I have to disagree with you on Starcraft if only because SC2 actually did make some very necessary changes to the formula. Not to mention that in the time between Brood War and SC2, pretty much no one made an RTS in that style that was half as good as either. I can forgive SC2 for simply building on the original for those reasons. The original was pretty much one of the greatest games ever made, and the UI tweaks in 2 are a godsend compared to the outdated, cumbersome horsetrout that we have in the original.

[Goldenboko]

Are you joking? I can't tell if you're joking. There are many practices today which only became widespread after the introduction of Call of Duty (MW+). That stuff is irrelevant now; wanting a game to disappear because of the changes it made to the industry is silly, because those changes have already happened. I just want the franchise to disappear because it's a trout game for s.

That, or go back to CoD4 greatness, because that was an excellent FPS. World at War was also quite enjoyable, and I liked the bots in Black Ops, because it meant I could dick about with my friends offline and also try out weapons and upgrades before buying them.

This seems like something of a bipolar post now.

Call of Duty created a new standard of FPS aiming systems, with their great ADS system. That's it, how the hell they "kill creativity in gaming" is beyond me. Not every game should have completely unique controls, games would never feel ergonomic if they all did.

[Bolivar]

^ This is another reason why I'm with Boko on this issue. Even if CoD didn't exist you'd still be left with an industry that imitates (poorly) whatever's successful and the real problem would still remain.

[Slothy]

^ This is another reason why I'm with Boko on this issue. Even if CoD didn't exist you'd still be left with an industry that imitates (poorly) whatever's successful and the real problem would still remain.

Except it's not just a problem of immitators. There have always been immitators for better or for worse, but the problem is one of scale that COD created. AAA development is expensive as hell and publishers don't like to take risks with tens of millions of dollars. So what do they do when a single series is selling in the billions every year while itself changing very little? Take fewer risks and try to copy it's success more than I think I've ever seen before in any other console generation. Sure, it's not COD's success alone that drives it, though their unwillingness to take risks within that series isn't helping. They're basically advertising every year that they can do next to nothing to innovate and make a billion dollars. Point being, much of what COD accomplishes every year only serves to highlight the absolute worst aspects of the industry. It and Activision certainly aren't alone in being unwilling to innovate and take risks, but they're the prime example of it. For that reason alone I would be just about ready to cheer if the next entry were a sales flop.

[Depression Moon]

Madden and COD. That is all. Pokemon is sounding the same, but all they need to do is change stuff up. Take a look at... Nah I'll just make a new thread about it.

[Goldenboko]

This is silly, or need I remind you that you are posting on a Final Fantasy forum? A series that has spawned 14 games, many of which have had very similar systems (Job System, III, V, X-2), Turn-based (I-III), ATB (V-IX, XIII), FFXII is the most unique game of the series really. Look at the newest CoD and compare it to CoD II, if you tell me those are the same, then you just hate FPS and don't really have a right in that conversation.

[Slothy]

This is silly, or need I remind you that you are posting on a Final Fantasy forum? A series that has spawned 14 games, many of which have had very similar systems (Job System, III, V, X-2), Turn-based (I-III), ATB (V-IX, XIII), FFXII is the most unique game of the series really. Look at the newest CoD and compare it to CoD II, if you tell me those are the same, then you just hate FPS and don't really have a right in that conversation.

Do you honestly believe that the FF titles are all as similar to one another as every COD since 4 is? Because I don't see it. Sure, some FF's utilized similar mechanics, but most of them play so differently that arguing they didn't innovate any more then recent COD's have just doesn't fly with me. From what I've seen and played of COD's in the last few years, there's been little appreciable difference since COD4, but what should we expect from a publisher who didn't want COD4 to begin with and wanted Infinity Ward to make another WWII game?

[Goldenboko]

I spent more time playing the Zombies mode in BlOps then I did the multiplayer, yes I'd say that part of the game plays entirely different and does not look like any part of CoD4. Look at the difference between FFVII and FFVIII, how DRASTICALLY different is the core, fundamental gameplay between the two. Different leveling systems, and only SLIGHTLY altered battle systems.

[Edge7]

As far as sequels go, AC Brotherhood was a decent placeholder, it made enough small additions to AC2's core that it wasn't redundant. AC Revelations however, felt really redundant. I understand though that they were just there to slow the wait for AC3, which looks like a major revamp.

I would agree on ending MGS; I always felt like Kojima wanted to move on to other things. Despite, I'm excited as hell for Ground Zeroes. Plus I heard MGS5 will have Solid Snake in it (he was always my favorite character, though I love Naked Snake).

I think Resident Evil is kinda done. Just looking at RE6, everything seems REALLY silly; the Uncharted level disasters, the plot (though it's really kinda cool to see Sherry again, and have Chris and Leon finally meet), the uninspired third person shooter gameplay. I seriously doubt Capcom will get their crap together.

Zelda and Mario definitely need some mad revamping. Though that's probably impossible; not only is Nintendo incredibly resistant to change, a good portion of fans are too.

EDIT: Oh, and Kingdom Hearts 3 really needs to come out too. With each spin-off, things seem to be getting sillier. DREAM DROP DISTANCE SPOILERSOrganization XIII comes back(What is this, Final Fantasy IV?)? Axel becomes a Keyblade wielder? Now they're just pandering to the fanbase.