Buying older versions of a game series

davethorp

I bought and played Batman Arkham City before Arkham Asylum. That's probably one of the few games in a series I've played out of sequence

Chickabiddybex

I played Uncharted 3 then 2 then 1 and regret it SO much because of little bits and bobs I would have better understood had I done it in order. Not that this specific example matters because you can't get it on Xbox. But anyway - my point is where possible you should try to play in order if it uses the same characters (not as important for non-plot games either)

Percy1983

I would say its not always just stories sometimes game mechanics change, I remember playing all the splinter cells and then going back to the first one and trying to do tricks you couldn't do in the first one (I will say I did play them in order and just forgot what had changed).

Gold_Dust_2

stphnstevey wrote: »

I have got into Xbox gaming rather late on and have bought the latest series of games like Assassin's Creed, Halo, Saint's Row, Call of Duty etc

I can see the older series of these games are fairly cheap second hand and was wondering wether it's worth getting the them and ultimately the whole series?

My worry is that as I have played the latest versions, I will just feel the older versions are lacking something that was added to the newer version?

I anticipating there are lots of other people who have played the whole series of these games. But also others who might have come in at the same sort of point as me and are wondering the same

I see your point about maybe feeling that the older versions were lacking in something, but I'd rather play everything in the series and risk the possibility that it might feel slightly worse off than not have played the predecessors. It's the first games in the series that set the whole premise; laying down the original storylines, setting the scenes, giving you the whole storyline without expecting you to know anything from before. It gives you a chance to experience the magic that spawned the whole franchise! Even if the playability lets you down a bit, it's worth it to learn more about the backstory and explore the individual virtual worlds and their respective stories.


And if you are really new to the gaming world and you enjoyed the Assassins Creed games, you should definitely pick up the Prince of Persia trilogy. Can't believe it's been almost a decade since it came out! :eek:

(Let's all ignore the fact that it paved the way for a horrible film. Yep).

AlecEiffel

Some yes, some not so much.

Assassins Creed has a narrative running from one game to the next in the present age, and different narrative that is a little more stand alone set in the past. You gain a lot playing them in order.

Uncharted are stand alone stories with a little bit of character development between games (a bit like the Indy films, each stands alone plot wise but the people and relationships carry over).

Fallout are all stand alone games. They are set in different times along a timeline but have very little cross over. Ditto Elder Scrolls.

Bioshock 1&2 stand apart from Infinite.

Dead Space are best played in sequence for plot purposes.

And I could go on forever!!

AlecEiffel

Gold_Dust wrote: »

you should definitely pick up the Prince of Persia trilogy. Can't believe it's been almost a decade since it came out!

I remember playing the original Prince Of Persia in glorious 16 colour EGA 20 odd years ago

dizziblonde

With Halo there was the re-done version of the original recently if it's the idea of the graphics that's bothering you. For some reason my husband played that entire series backwards recently - just the amount of swearing at certain game mechanics they were in to at certain periods (some driving sequences) varied according to what number he was on.

I seem to have been playing the Final Fantasy series backwards for about the last three years - I'm down to number 4 at the moment... but they're different in that until they picked up this "let's flog every world we've created for all it's worth and if that's not working let's do yet another tech demo of the opening of FF7 again" they had on-going themes but were stand-alone in terms of the worlds created for them.

Some stuff I prefer older versions of the series - Civ being my big one... don't think you can quite top Civ II.

iamtrev79

Perhaps if you had played these games when they first came out you might enjoy them more than if you are coming from them from the newer titles, because as you say you will notice features that are not present because they were added into later games. I was a big fan of using the knife in later CoD games and if I remember correctly this was not in the original WW2 games, and that is probably something that would annoy me now if I were to go back and play them.

If you enjoy playing older games though, which might not be the case as you say you have only recently got into gaming, a lot of older games tend to have a lot more playability. There has always been a tendency in the game industry to sacrifice game play for fancy graphics. I'll just say, having owned most of the Call of Duty series, the very first original is the only one I played from start to finish in Singleplayer. As for multiplayer, you may find that not many people still play the games online, so you will miss out on that aspect of them. If they are going for a couple of pounds though it can't do you any harm to give them a go.

Gold_Dust_2

AlecEiffel wrote: »

I remember playing the original Prince Of Persia in glorious 16 colour EGA 20 odd years ago

Me too...I got very well acquainted with the spikes

Nada666

Pong is much more fun than Grand Slam Tennis.