This subject reminds me of an article I read back in late 1996 when the Nintendo 64 was brand new on the market. I believe it was from Electronic Gaming Monthly (not 100% certain). The author at the time joked about how he couldn't find the 63 previously-released Super Mario Brothers games that he must have missed. His main point was something along the lines of the then-new number "64" on almost all first and second party games released on the console having the potential to create confusion (that part probably also being an exaggeration; most of the article had a sarcastic approach on the whole "Let's put a 64 on each of our games to make sure people understand it's for our 64-bit console" trend back then). It wasn't that far from all the "Super" that was placed in front of so many titles on the Super Nintendo. Just take Super Metroid for example, which chronologically takes place after the events of Metroid II (GameBoy), so is technically a sequel and could have been named Metroid III. But instead they removed any number, placed "Super" in front because... hey... it's on the Super Nintendo and back then such was the mentality of video gaming competition of the 1990's (it just screamed "I'm on, and I'm for this console and this console ONLY, it's Super, because you're playing a Super version of a Metroid game on a Super console, screw the Genesis!").
Sometimes it does fit, however. Let's take Mortal Kombat for example... well granted, right now saying this doesn't tell which one in the series I'm talking about, but there's only two possibilities. I was of course referring to the remake, released in 2011, which was simply named "Mortal Kombat". It's not the first one per se, purely technically and chronologically speaking. But it is a remake of not only the very first one, but also a retold MK2 and MK3 all put together (and again, it was a remake). A lot of MK fans call it MK9 to differentiate it from the other titles of the series, some call it MK2011, and very few just call it "MK" (and those who do and never get confused about it are probably ones that have never played any of the original three, or are probably too young to have experienced them at the time of their release). In the case of a remake, or a reboot it makes more sense. But it doesn't always work quite well either. If I take DOOM 3 for example, which was a "retold" DOOM (original) in a somewhat new setting (albeit pretty much the same context) it still confused people because 1) if it's a "remake" / "retelling" of the original then why bothering at all with "3" in there? and 2) since it's not a direct sequel of DOOM II: Hell on Earth then, again, why bothering at all with "3"?
Then again, if a series has many titles in it and all you do is sequentially numbering them, then it starts to get silly after a while. The best example I can think of is Final Fantasy (and I'm talking about the naming of the games here, not the quality of the games themselves). It's also the worst example in a way. The "problem" is that there's so many games in that series that creating a subtitle for each of them might have been too confusing unless you'd happen to follow their release on a chronological basis (and play them all, too). It's easier to just call the next one Final Fantasy 16 / XVI, rather than going for something like Final Fantasy: It's Not Like We Ran Out Of Ideas For Original Subtitles Six Years Ago. But there are some titles that are just... either pointless or merely meaningless (or simply dumb). Say... Duke Nukem Forever. What's the point, meaning and significance of the word "Forever" in there? I mean OBVIOUSLY other than the fact that it took forever to develop? Damn, that's a good one, if it was intentional. I mean Duke Nukem 3D was technically the third one, but they added a "D" because of course back in the early 1990s having 3D in your title meant it kicked some serious ass because being "3D" (or semi 3D anyway) was all the craze at the time, and it was a clever word play on the numbering as well (and they wouldn't have bothering actually naming it "Three D" either).
We could take a more recent example, with the Dragon Age series. The first one isn't merely named "Dragon Age", it already has a subtitle even though it was the... erm... the Origins(al) one... I see what you did there BioWare, why you so smart. Then... whoa... what's that? You JUST go with Dragon Age II? That's it? Well ok, wait... there's no actual in-game Origins anymore this time so... well ok nevermind, DAII it is. Then they announced that they'd be making another one, obviously. The DA community called it Dragon Age III for the longest time until of course its official name was announced, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Well it's not too difficult to remember which one is which since there's only three games in the whole franchise... so far. But we all know that Inquisition wasn't the last. So I do wonder if they'll go back to just numbering the next one with Dragon Age IV (doesn't it look nice with roman numerals heh?), and for the fifth one they could again come back in force with a new subtitle replacing the otherwise more generic "V" for something along the lines of "Dragon Age: This Time We REALLY Get To See Andraste". Yeah, wait until we have six or more games in that franchise... but we're not there yet so for now it's easy to distinguish them.
There's one particular series for which the naming method couldn't exactly be more clear even if they tried, and that is The Elder Scrolls. The first one is TES: Arena, that's alright. It's clear, to the point; it reveals the main title, and since it's the first one there's no need of an actual number. And its subtitle reveals... well ok it was the original intent (main feature of the game was to be gladiatorial combat in multiple arenas across the game's world) and even though that main feature was changed for a full blown RPG it still hold its value, overall pretty straightforward (similar to Dragon Age: Origins for example). Then comes TES II: Daggerfall, it's a sequel to the first, so there's number 2, it's still TES so... TES it is, and Daggerfall because it happens to be a city in the province of High Rock, in Tamriel... so good naming there. Then we have our beloved TES III: Morrowind, and that one's naming employs the same logical approach as both previous titles. Then of course followed both TES IV: Oblivion and TES V: Skyrim (and the apparently inevitable TES Online but that's another topic). I mean, yeah, Bethesda sure knows how to properly name games in a series.
Well, anyway this is a lot of typing for such a simple subject. So, to the main question: why do games have stupid names?
And the answer to that I suppose is that it can only be "stupid" if you - on an individual basis - happen to consider it as such. Because apparently whoever decided to name it as it is (the devs or the publisher, doesn't matter) isn't bothered nor confused by the chosen title and understand its meaning (even if you, yourself, don't think that it makes sense and is "stupid"). It's obviously ultimately subjective. For example OP you dislike "Rise of the Tomb Raider", but I myself like it. My reasons is because the reboot of the franchise merits its "original", non-numbered first title "Tomb Raider" (2013). In that reboot we get to know a new Lara Croft, the new rebooted "first / original" Tomb Raider of this generation. The sequel is a sequel of that new original Tomb Raider, and obviously not a sequel to... say... Tomb Raider 3. In "Rise of the Tomb Raider" we get to see that specific rebooted Lara Croft "rising" to its true nature and becoming a "fully-fledged" Tomb Raider. It fits, in my book, and didn't need to be named "Tomb Raider 2", nor needed to have a subtitle to it considering how the main title is already self-explanatory.
I guess it's a matter of perspective; a game's title / naming isn't that important, really, as long as you enjoy it.
Facebook
Twitter