For those who don’t yet know, the increasingly popular expression “jumping the shark” refers to the moment at which something good peaks and goes downhill from there. It comes from the episode of Happy Days where Fonzie jumped over a shark with his bike. Some fans consider that that’s when the show definitely died.

Well, I’ve been thinking for a few months (since E3, really), that this is the year when the good game franchises jump the shark.

Cases in point:

SSX On Tour - Yes, I’ve spent a relatively large amount of time playing it, but in many ways it is very inferior to its predecessor, SSX3. The only innovation to gameplay is that you can now be a skier, but it feels like shit. The graphic design is supposed to be cool and grungy, but 3 was so much slicker. The soundtrack is repetitive and includes Scorpions and Iron Maiden, while the soundtrack for 3 made me discover Royksopp and Fischerspooner.

JakX Combat Racing - Come. On. The Jak and Daxter series has traditionally been a platformer with great vehicles to drive, fun combat moves, well-tweaked platforming (jumps, climbs etc), and projectile weapons. All that stuff takes a lot of effort to balance and get right, and they did a pretty good job of it on the first three iterations.

In this one, it’s now a RACING game! They took their well-polished vehicle physics and simply created a bunch of racing tracks, and voilà. A game made with little effort. I’m not impressed. Bad dog!!!

Finally, and most heartbreakingly:
Ratchet Deadlocked - The beauty of the previous three games was in the platforming (jumping, climbing, and other ways of getting around environments without vehicles) and the fantastic weapons and gadgets you used to get around beautiful and diverse worlds. In a similar scenario to Jak, the fourth in the series has taken their well-tweaked combat code, and plunked our hero in a bunch of deathmatch arenas where all he has to do is shoot, shoot, shoot. Aren’t there enough shooters around? Plus, Clank is no more.

I’m finally posting about this because today I actually bought Ratchet Deadlocked. It’s the last time I can say “It will suck” before being (please please please) proven wrong.