Franchise of the generation.

[Benza]

[Cyph]

Talking about franchises from this generation, so, the past 5 years or so? My two cents are (although I'm uncertain about labeling a series with only two games as a franchise);
Uncharted, Mass Effect, The Witcher (although I'm uncertain whether to name this, as the first one was a while ago), LBP (for a new standout platformer franchise), Demons/Dark Souls. That's what I enjoyed, although I'm not thinking about franchises I didn't find fun but were commercially successful (Battlefield, CoD, WoW, etc). I'm sure there are more but I'm having a brain freeze All I can think about is Dark Souls atm.

[GooberMan]

I like how Resistance just hasn't been mentioned at all despite having three successful current-gen games.

I've never played them. Just wondering if anyone actually loves them.

EDIT: and Lost Planet.

And Dead Rising. Which I thought the first one was fab, but I lost interest in the second one after getting about 2/3 of the way through.
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[Benza]

Would WoW count? I mean it's basically it's own franchise apart from Warcraft 1-4, it's onto it's fifth expansion pack wich are blizard expansions (So basically entirley new games worth of content)
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[mrpookles]

[Jarrod]

The perspective has changed but the gameplay is still built around role playing (though New Vegas is closer to old Fallout than Bethesda's work). But I wouldn't count it for the same reason I didn't initially list (and wouldn't count) the Galaxy games.

Dead Space is one we're all forgetting. I wasn't as big on Dead Space 2 as a lot of people (I think I like the first more. Not happy with the sequel's direction), but it's certainly a strong IP. Dead Space was fun, people loved Dead Space 2, and Extraction is a quality side story.
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[GooberMan]

First person to seriously suggest Mirror's Edge gets a neg from me.

(And it technically is a franchise thanks to the iOS game. I also have the comic series that was made around the time the first game was new.)
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[emech]

It has to be Ass Creed for all the reasons listed above. It took us somewhere different, each game built upon the last whilst offering more, the inter-mingling of history was intellectually inspiring. Despite all this (and owing all CEs cause I'm a bitch) its not even in my top 10. (All the rest a stand-alones though so don't count here) The series could go to anywhere, and here we are 5 games in and still in the same place. Where are my WW1, feudal Japan and mongal hodre assasians? When is desmond going to kick arse? When is ubisoft going to stop milking the one cow and deliver us the rest of the farm? <ends rant>
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[nuahs]

My big two for this generation are Assassin's Creed and Dead Space (with AC slightly in front). Not only do I love the gameplay and worlds of these franchises, but I love the way they have crossed over into other media so well too.

My other favourites would include: Uncharted, Batman: Arkham, Bioshock and Gears of War.
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[Gamesta]

Uncharted and Saints Row for me and to a lesser extent Resistance. I would say Batman but there's only 2 and I've only played one.
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Welcome to the internet. Where any joke can turn into WWIII.

[Soap of Death]

For me it's out of Mass Effect and Assassins Creed. Both franchises offer an engaging story, interesting characters and solid, innovative gameplay.

I favour Mass Effect in terms of story and characters overall. I'm more interested in seeing how Shepard combats the threat of reapers to all life in the universe compared to continuing the final events of AC: Brotherhood which I won't mention.

Where AC shines over ME, IMO is that it has clearly improved over time. For example, I thought the story of ME1 was stronger than ME2's. AC2 was an improvement in all areas. Brotherhood too made some improvements, not as much as AC2 did over AC1 but enough to have made the game feel worthwhile.
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[PixieGirl]

[Aussie XP]

Mass Effect is easily my favorite. Gears of War and Dead Space are probably really close.
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[chickenplucka]

+1 for Assassin's Creed
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[IISpacebreakII]

For this generation, it is Assassins Creed without a doubt. When I played the first Assassins Creed I thought it was a terrific game, flawed but terrific. I had no idea that Ubisoft would be able to produce such sheer quality in it's next titles, I honestly thought they would of put a lacklustre effort in to pump out a sequel. Or they would of emulated the first game, with new environments. But they went to a completely new era and location, also improving upon the gameplay until it really felt like you could bring down an entire city.

Not only that, but they managed to incorporate fun puzzles into an action-based game - but didn't force you to solve them. If you wanted to know the true backbone of the story than you had to put the effort in, so much like Metroid and Zelda in these senses. Not only that but I loved that Subject 16 clip in Assassins Creed II, really incredible concept.

This generation has admittedly been terrific in some areas, I also have to give praise to Gears of War and Halo 3 - they are two of my highlights for this generation. Next generation I would like to see a reiteration of the Metroid Prime series.

[WarAdept]

The Professor Layton series is something I hold dear to my heart. I'd consider the DS as the current gen handheld because lets face it, the 3DS is currently rubbish.

I'd also pick Demon/Dark Souls, as well as the Mario Galaxies.

I'd love to say a Bioware series, but I was dissapointed with both ME2 and DA2, despite playing the first iterations of both series until the disc wore out.

Really would love to say Metroid. Hell, Metroid.

[Island_Wolf]

Batman series. Never had an interest in the game, not a comic fan (and only seen a few batman movies). I bought it from a Steam sale and decided to play it after a few IRC member raved on and on about it and then I fell in love in it and got other people hooked with my recommendation. A franchise I wasn't expecting to be good.

Have to go against the majority and say I have trouble recommending AC due to its rage-quitting controls. If they fix that up in the first game, I might be able to finish the game happily (maybe a mega patch from Ubisoft?) and start playing all the other games in the series. Fix the turning camera affecting mid-air movement and sensitivity please!
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[redemption]

[ThunderCurls]

Guitar Hero!







...ppfffhhfhahhahahaha.
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[sobriquet835]

I'm going with Portal. I adore puzzle games, and this is one of the greatest puzzle series of all time, up there with Columns and Tetris. Combine with Valve's brilliant story telling ability, and you have a rare masterpiece, or in this case, 2 masterpieces.

Honorable mentions to uncharted, Ace Attourney ( I know it has had games in older gens, but they were only in Japan afaik, so I'm counting it) and Professor Layton.

[Benza]

[Esposch]

[GooberMan]

Wow, two posts in a row about it. Okay then.

My rant about Mirror's Edge goes something like this:

It is a game of confused identity.

I fairly well loved the demo, and went out and bought it at EB for $overpriced because they were selling it a few days earlier than everyone else. I decided I wanted to play the game with Faith's mindset - a pacifist that wouldn't murder anyone. I mean, that's the entire point of the game, right? She's framed for a murder she didn't commit and is on the lam?

Over the next thousand deaths, the game proceeded to provide a compelling case for gun use in a glowing white dystopian future.

The idea of first person platforming is something I still like (even if it is a bit clunky, what with the fighting-game-esque button combos you have to perform to pull off some of the moves), and the time trials are the best example of that. But the game itself made it excruciatingly painful to go through the game without killing a single cop. Any attempt to run around them would see more pop up and shoot you, any attempt to disarm them would see you cut down on approach, and then there was that final room with a heavily armoured cop with a massive gun that took me about fifty deaths to decide to try a bombing run approach on him where I'd distract him one way, then come up the other and jump in to him far too many times.

I got that achievement. Yay me. But straight up, the game would have been a billion times less frustrating if I ignored the entire plot of the game and absolutely positively killed every single last motherfucker in my way.

And as such, my stance is this: Nice idea, poor execution. (And that can even be considered a pun)
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[Esposch]

Yeah, I didn't run into that problem. I got the biggest gun I could find and shot everyone in the face.
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[Jarrod]

I'm with Goober. Not necessarily because I wanted to play as Faith that way, but because I felt the game forced gun/melee combat on to the player, and the combat itself stunk. As a first person platformer I thought the game was excellent, and shines most during time trials and chase sequences. But the campaign devolves into heavy combat encounters that to me just don't feel right.
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