Is There a point on playing inferior prequels?

[RCBH928]

In some games, the sequels are a build and update on the story which you DO want to play like Metal Gear Solid and MGS4.
In other games the original is so good but the sequel is bad which you dont want to play

BUT
There are sequels that are just like the original game but with additional content and fixed the bugs and improved on it for example:
Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy
Def jam Vendetta and fight for NY

Is there a point of playing the original? Or should you just play the next improved on version?

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

Thats a good question, I guess all I can say is that if you really care about the storyline, by all means play it.

[Reprise]

I don't think there is a point now. It is good if you played them upon initial release and therefore in order, but if you're playing them later, it seems kind of pointless.

I think the two examples you made kingmohd84 are good ones. The Def Jam games were two I first thought of two. In particular, I bought Fight for NY last year and really enjoyed it. I then decided to check out the first game Def jam Vendetta, but I couldn't really enjoy it much compared to the second one, so I've never played it much.

Then there's the WWE Day of Reckoning games. I bought the first game in the series last year and really enjoyed it, so later bought Day of Reckoning 2. I was then disappointed that I had wasted my time and cash on the first game and wished I'd just skipped right to the second game. It was essentially the same game, but with improved play mechanics, more characters, greater graphics and basically a big improvement over what is the same engine.

[Yancakes]

This is a really good question and a good idea for a topic.

I will generally only play prequels for the sake of story or if gameplay is drastically different.

For instance, I loved Gears of War 2's gameplay, but don't give a damn about the story, thus there's no point in me going back to play GoW1 which has practically identical gameplay (I have played a bit of it).

I won't touch Civ3 because Civ4 took everything that Civ3 innovated on and improved it, plus added tonnes of stuff. I WILL, however, play Civ2 still (frequently, actually...) because it is a drastically different game.

In some series, though, even if the gameplay is very similar and the plot is irrelevant, I'll go back and play prequels if the level design is worth it. Vectorman stands out in my mind for this, or Earthworm Jim and EwJ2.

[GigaPepsiMan]

It is hard to make a good prequel. Just look at films, if the prequel has the same main character as the original then it is hard to get emotionally involved because you already know that things work out, one of the failings of the star wars prequels was that you knew Obi-Wan was never going to die and that Skywalker was Darth Vader.

It can be like that in games, if the story to a game prequel is no good then all it has to fall back on is the gameplay.

[emb1234]

I think it's worth it, generally. Just for the history of it.

For example, I don't care about the story in Mario. And SMB 1 is pretty dated compared to SMB 3 (imo). Doesn't mean SMB lacks value though. It's still a really good and fun game, being 1 upped later doesn't detract from that. And it's still important to see how that game shaped future entries in the series.

That development over time is often really interesting to me. So if I'm willing to play something from a series of games, I usually plan to some day play them all (or at least all the good ones...). Even though CoD and Assassin's Creed come out every year now, and I'm not that interested in either, I'll still plan to try them out one day just due to their importance.

I wouldn't do yearly sports games and so forth though, simply because no given one of them would be interesting to me. I guess I'm just weird and have sort of arbitrary criteria about this stuff, lol.

[AppleQueso]

It is hard to make a good prequel. Just look at films, if the prequel has the same main character as the original then it is hard to get emotionally involved because you already know that things work out, one of the failings of the star wars prequels was that you knew Obi-Wan was never going to die and that Skywalker was Darth Vader.

It can be like that in games, if the story to a game prequel is no good then all it has to fall back on is the gameplay.

That's not what we mean by this topic at all. Basically it's asking if there's any point in playing Street Fighter II after playing Street Fighter II Turbo.

[GigaPepsiMan]

It is hard to make a good prequel. Just look at films, if the prequel has the same main character as the original then it is hard to get emotionally involved because you already know that things work out, one of the failings of the star wars prequels was that you knew Obi-Wan was never going to die and that Skywalker was Darth Vader.

It can be like that in games, if the story to a game prequel is no good then all it has to fall back on is the gameplay.

That's not what we mean by this topic at all. Basically it's asking if there's any point in playing Street Fighter II after playing Street Fighter II Turbo.

No because Turbo is the same bloody game.

[J T]

When you play on a PC, the old game gets updated with patches and is lost forever (but who cares if it was inferior). Though the jump from Tekken games or something isn't quite the same, I feel roughly the same about it and would rather just play the best version. It varies from game-to-game though. Some of the best King of Fighers games for example are not the most recent, so you have to search and figure out which versions are best.

[Pulsar_t]

Prequel is not the word you're looking for here, OP.