For anyone outside the relatively small bubble of gaming aficionados we have here, video games can seem quite daunting and confusing at times. There’s just so many of them, all with different ways of playing, for numerous different consoles, and all with different names.
Things used to be easy when it came to names. Sometimes, particularly with sports series where it’s just the year slapped on the end, they still are, unless you’re talking about Madden 25 which was followed up by Madden 15. What are EA going to do ten years from now? But I find, more and more, that even my favourite franchises have become plagued with silly and at times confusing naming conventions, where it seems as though developers can’t decide whether to put a number or a nonsensical subheading on the end.
I think it was either Grand Theft Auto or Tony Hawk that brought it into the mainstream. The former, with III, then went to spin-off into Vice City and San Andreas on the same engine. These were, at least in my circle of adolescent friends, considered to be “GTA Four” and “GTA Five”, but then a new engine came along on new hardware and so did GTA IV. So what the hell would we call “GTA Four” now? Probably just Vice City. Yeah, that works actually.
Tony Hawk, on the other hand, started off with Pro Skater but then diverged into many different subtitles, something that Activision would replicate with Call of Duty after Modern Warfare, which was still branded Call of Duty 4. I remember my friends calling World At War “Call of Duty Five” despite a game of that name not existing to this day, and it will probably never exist, unless the series takes a spectacular turn.
Speaking of which, looking further back in time, games such as Sonic the Hedgehog even eschewed traditional naming conventions when Sonic & Knuckles – the sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – didn’t have a number on the end. But this gave Sega the opportunity to make a game named Sonic the Hedgehog 4, and release it in two parts, playing on fan’s nostalgia which weakened their wallets just enough to get them to buy it. Twice.
The Legend of Zelda is probably my favourite gaming franchise, yet the idea of having a game named “Zelda II” seems dumb, and it actually happened. The clue’s in the franchise name: this is a chronicle of lots of different adventures, rather than direct sequels, spanning thousands of years, so the successor’s title of A Link to the Past was a smart move, playing on the main character’s name quite well to make a good pun, which is something we can all appreciate.
But then, after Link’s Awakening on Gameboy, came Ocarina of Time, and the series moved – and stuck – with something that made sense, where the title is based around a very important plot point, such as an item, mechanic, or character. This works, particularly when you have the added alliteration of Majora’s Mask, Skyward Sword, and The Wind Waker. Wait, The Wind Waker? Where did that “The” come from, why is it there and not in any of the other mainline titles? Damn it, even Zelda can’t get it right!
Mario Kart was named after the platform it released on (let’s ignore Double Dash and Super Circuit for now, please, because I wrote this paragraph before remembering them) until Mario Kart 7 came out, where it became a dual-name for an item and the game’s number in the series. Mario Kart 8’s smart actually, because the number 8 has been stylised to look like some of the tracks, which make a lot more use of the 3D space which they inhabit and have lots of eights in them, like those Channel 4 stings on the tele. Yeah?
And then there’s Super Smash Bros., which started off as just that before moving on to cool names such as Melee and Brawl, before becoming Super Smash Bros. For 3DS and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U with their latest iterations. Those names are dumb but get the point across more than most, and are certainly better than Pokémon X and Y, where they’ve just left the placeholders for the names in and rolled with it. I swear, though, if the next Zelda game is called The Legend of Zelda For Wii U I might not even play it*.
I’m just typing a raft of examples now, but I think you’re getting my point, and it’s definitely not just Nintendo games that are offenders. Just look at Assassin’s Creed, where we went from roman numerals to Brotherhood and Revelations, then back to numerals to distinguish one release from its disappointing predecessor. And now Assassin’s Creed: Unity isn’t numbered despite having a new protagonist, and shares a name with the game engine that it isn’t running on. Oh, and don’t get me started on Final Fantasy. You wouldn’t like me when I talk about Final Fantasy.
Numbers aside, why can’t they at least get the subtitle right? Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. That doesn’t work, only the first and third start with Drake. Have none of these game developers watched a single episode of Friends? The One With The Lack Of Game Naming Conventions is a particular favourite of mine.
We’re responsible in some part for this too, though – it’s not just the developers’ fault. We’re all talking about how Fallout 4 might be getting announced soon, when the fourth Fallout game already exists in New Vegas. And we called it – well, not specifically me as I stayed away from that dumb name – but we, collectively called it the “Xbox 720”, like that was an actual possibility. Microsoft still managed to make the name even sillier.
I’d like to say that Sony get it right, and their method is flawless and simple: PlayStation 1, 2, 3, 4, as easy as that. But then they called the second PlayStation portable console PlayStation Italian Word For Life rather than something sensible to follow up on the entirely logical PlayStation Portable. Just look how well that went for them.
But yes, there’s a counter argument here, and that is that naming a game “2” – such as The Last of Us 2 – won’t always work, but there’s got to be some form of sense within how you’re naming your series to start off with. That’s especially true when outsiders might be harder to convince that a name such as Zombie Army Trilogy or Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late is worth picking up, never mind if you’re planning on having an even more convoluted name for the sequel.
*In case any one takes this sentence and holds it against me, I absolutely will play the new Zelda game, even if it’s named ZeldU.
tactical20
Erm, chill out mate, lol!
bunimomike
Storm… meet teacup? :-)
Avenger
I always think back to what they did in the older days, and I think one or two games went by a numbering system (i.e. Super Mario Brothers 3) and so forth, whilst consoles pretty much did their own thing (or sort of). I’m thinking of Sega Mega System, Sega Mega System 2, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast etc. I do think there is underlying meaning to the whole numbers system. If you number something, it’s continuation or succession of something, where some devs just want to start new or do a variation of something.
FluBBa
Which number is GTA London again?
simplebob
Not to mention when a franchise is multi media. Looking at Dead Space, the main games did ok with 1, 2 and 3, but looking at the spinoffs and DLC you have Extraction, Ignition, Severed, Aftermath, Catalyst, Downfall, Martyr etc covering games,novels, comics and movies. I love the franchise, but even I lose track at that point.
Crazy_Del
@simplebob is right about Dead Space as I love that game but have no clue on these PSN spinoffs.
Metal Gear Solid is confusing for the story well for me that is with numbers and names such as Snake Eater (3) Guns of Patriots (4) Sons of Patriots etc…
Then theres Resident Evil on all different formats such us RE Zero, RE Umbrella Chronicles, Biohazard (granted its only in Japan but that confused me when I was young)
Since Uncharted is mention what number is Golden Abyss? There is also God of War xD
Stefan L
I’ll just leave this one here:
Star Wars Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy.
bunimomike
That’s all one game, right?
Stefan L
Yes. First there was Star Wars: Dark Forces, followed up by Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, then it was Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and finally Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.
So, extrapolating from all of that, Jedi Academy’s full game title was surely Star Wars Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy. Or something along those lines. ;)
bunimomike
Can we have you forcibly thrown out of whichever building you currently inhabit?
The Lone Steven
MGS is fairly infamous for it’s sequels in terms of chronlogical order and it’s really simple. It’s MGS3:snake Eater, MGS:Portable Ops, MGS:Peace Walker, MGS5(Both Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain), Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2(the one by Hideo, not the bastardised NES version), MGS1, MGS2:Sons of Liberty and MGS. The rest are spin offs and are not canon.
However, i feel i should reveal why Final Fantasy is called that. It’s because it was Square Enix’s last game due to their funding being rather low and was their all or nothing game. If it failed, it would have been their Final Fantasy. But it didn’t thus we have a giant franchise. I would try to explain which games came out and what order they should go in but i ain’t touching that! You would have to be insane to try to explain the games and the order they should be in!
But the worst names are those that have the number in the title. It is just awful and cheap. Oh but the worst they can do is give the game a title that has already been used. It happens with films. Such as Rambo and Rambo. Ok, the first is called first blood but most refer to it as Rambo. Then there’s remakes and then awfully named titles.
blast71
Being pedantic, Rambo wasn’t used in the title until the 2nd film. It went – First Blood, Rambo (First Blood 2), then I think it was Rambo 3.
Someone will probably be pedantic about my answer, and correct my corrections. But I’m too knackered to care. ;)
Crazy_Del
First Blood, Rambo 2, Rambo 3, Rambo 4, Rambo 5…. Rambo 12…. xD
Forrest_01
Lets also not forget ‘Rambo’ – Which was kinda Rambo 4.
Blair may have a point here…
The Lone Steven
It was Rambo 4 but for some reason, they decided to just call it Rambo after deciding that John Rambo wasn’t a suitable name. Now, we have to use First blood and Rambo the whatever year it came out but as i’m too lazy to research the date, i’m putting this instead version.