Enough Already: 6 Video Games Franchises That Need To End

Disclaimer: This article is an opinion piece, which does not represent the views of We Got This Covered or its staff as a whole. I can completely understand that people who are diehard fans of certain video game franchises will be pissed off by this article. Please remember, though, it is an opinion piece (like most articles you'll find on the web), so rather than find out where I live and try to kill me for insulting one of your favorite franchises, why not just take to the comments after having read the entire piece and rationally tell me why you disagree with my theory about that particular franchise? Just a thought. Second, just because a franchise is on the list does not mean it is not or was not a great series at one point. It might have even recently ended on a high note, but since announced a new entry. In other words, I am not insulting any of these series. I am simply saying that with all good things, you need to know when to call it quits. Would you rather be the person who walked out of the party early with an air of mystery around you, or the last person at the party, laying in your own vomit, passed out while people Sharpie your face? I have been both, and can tell you to go with option one. All I am saying is, a couple of the franchises on this list are pretty damn close to being the last, vomit soaked person at their own party. Most games series reach a pinnacle (or massive downfall) in their third volume, and anything that comes out after that is often just a cash grab at fanboys. The best series learn how to evolve, even in little ways (GTA being the best example of this), but the worst just become steaming piles of shit over time. On that note, here are six video game series that just need to f*ck off before they soil themselves, and a few who already have. Oh, and to the people who yell at me because Saints Row is not on the list, at least that game TRIES to switch itself up. Not saying it always works, but you can at least sense the effort to try to present something different every time. 1) Resident Evil Let me start this off by saying I was the ultimate Resident Evil fanboy until part six. I played through every single (console) game, and even despite the buggery of the A.I in part five and the lean towards action, it was still a lot of fun for me. But then something happened. In between part five and part six, they decided to go full Michael Bay on us and just filled their game with set-piece moments, quick-time events, new characters who were hard to like and new gameplay mechanics that were just impossible to enjoy. The game also felt like it suddenly thought it was the coolest kid in the class, and was really just the fat kid trying way too hard (story of my life, which is why I use that analogy a lot). If this series had ended after part four, it would have gone down in the record books as a game changer. Instead, they just announced part seven and even though they say it will "return to its roots," isn't that why we have the awesome The Evil Within now? In other words, you and your shitty movies need to move on. Game over. 2) Assassin's Creed The very first time you play the first (and even second) Assassin's Creed games, you get completely sucked up into the world. The free running system was well implemented and a lot of fun, the weapons and settings were awesome and the characters felt like (and were often based upon) real people. It was like a perfect relationship in its first stages. Call me a fool, but it felt like, at the time, that this could last forever. Then, they started putting these games out once a week. Really, that is what it felt like. After number three, there were just too many Assassin's Creed games coming out that all played like they could have been one, hundred-hour long game instead of twenty games that were all similar. While I can admit that Black Flag injected some much-needed energy into the series, it still seems they want to drop seven new Assassin's Creed games in the next few years. We get it. Leap off building. Kill the guy. Go hide. Get some convoluted but intriguing VR story, and then repeat. It really did work at first, but this horse is dead and they have been kicking the fuck out of it for too long now. Again, for those who want to say Black Flag was best in series, I am from the school who thinks that should have been the start of a whole new pirate franchise and not a tag-on for this one. 3) Halo Again, it's so weird to talk shit about such a good series that has helped re-define console gaming, but this needs to be said. And while it could be argued that most of the Halo games are pretty damn good (and a few are phenomenal), they are just cashing in now. To release a sixty dollar game that has a five hour fucking campaign is a surefire way to hurt your fanbase financially. Five hours is DLC content, I don't care how cool anyone tries to package it. So to see the constant repackaging of Halo to trick rabid fanboys into forking over serious cash for what is essentially DLC seems a little shitty to me. Way to thank your supporters. Hell, even the same rabid fanboys still haven't figured out they were duped by Destiny. They thought they were getting Borderlands meets Halo meets Mass Effect. What they got instead was nothing they haven't played before. 4) God Of War I will say it now, and say it without hesitation. The God of War trilogy is just about as good as gaming gets. From the graphics to the gameplay to the story to the voice acting, those three games could very well be called perfect. But the best business men, franchises and athletes know, that is when you need to walk away. At the height of it, when they are still chanting your name. I am not saying the games that have come after part three have been terrible, because they haven't. But would anyone dare say they bested God of War 3? I would hope not. It is a perfect trilogy and whatever comes next is just going to be more of the same. The franchise evolved perfectly across the first three games. Anything they add now will just be arbitrary (ohh, a new "scythe of maddening rage" weapon or some shit) and work towards sullying the great name of Kratos. Seriously, let Kratos fucking die. The guy has been begging for it since the first minute we met him. 5) Uncharted Again, I've got nothing but love for this series. If they hadn't made the short announcement of a next-gen title coming soon, I would have never had to do this.... What does next-gen mean so far? Nothing but shinier graphics, as far as I am concerned. So, what will the next Uncharted be like? I will give you a hint. You will shoot things, then have some witty banter with Sully, after which you will run into an old flame (while with a new flame), and then you will get in a shoot-out. After the shoot-out, you will wake up in a crashing (insert any vehicle here), which you will barely escape as it (falls, blows up, sinks in water). This will all be based loosely around some real life artifact and all be placed in some exotic, real-world location. Oh, and at some point, you will think Sully is dead (but he's not). Does that sound about right? If I can write your game for you in a paragraph inside an article, it may mean you are doing something wrong. Or it may mean you should fucking hire me to write some shit for you. Uncharted is awesome, but let it die before it feels like we are playing repeats. 6) Call Of Duty At this point, Call of Duty is too formulaic. Get into a fight, participate in a set piece, play the (sinking, blowing up, falling) level, and then get saved by "that" guy. There's a plot twist involving some good guy who was bad or vice-versa, and then you shoot more things with no real sense of tension. There's also the obligatory "saved from falling thanks to another fucking button mashing" event (Call of Duty is actually a "slipping off ledges" simulator, for shit sake), and then you shoot a bad guy in slow motion and the game ends. Though I will give them some points for their cool zombie modes and whatnot, they really need a whole new franchise. Shit is just so predictable and trite by now and I can't imagine that they'll be doing anything innovative anytime soon. Sure, Advanced Warfare looks kind of neat (see the trailer above), but don't even try to tell me that it's going to reinvent the wheel. It's basically just Titanfall re-skinned. You know it, and I do, too.