10 Next-Generation Franchise Comebacks

JamesO writes "Pro-G has posted an article which looks at their top ten most wanted next-generation comebacks. By this time next year there should be three next-generation consoles on store shelves. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Super Mario and GTA are certain to appear at some point in the lifetime of these consoles, but what about older franchises we'd like to see again?" From the article: "Few games have scared people as much as System Shock 2. Developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios, it's another great game that was released by EA that hasn't seen a sequel in years. Set onboard the Tri-Optimum starship Von Braun, you played a UNN soldier who is part of the crew on the Rickenbacker....When Looking Glass studios went into liquidation the future of the series became very uncertain, with a true sequel now looking very unlikely. A spiritual successor, in the form of BioShock from Irrational Games, is due in 2006." Any games you want to see resurrected?

Comments

Custers Revenge

[Gr33nNight]

Yes I will take a sequel to one of the best games of all time: http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/custer.shtml Custers Revenge

Chrono Trigger

[n1ywb]

Nuff said.

fallout!

[hammeredpeon]

i want fallout 3. plus, unlike probably everyone else, i want it to be a single player game because i can't have a mmorpg ruining my life :)

Re:fallout!

[goodenoughnickname]

Oh, it'll be single player. But you don't mind first person shooters, right?

Final Fantasy Tactics?

[metroid composite]

Hmm...lots of PC and Sega games on that list....

The one game I can think of which really needs a sequel is FFT. And no: FFTA doesn't count.

Old franchises

[RogueyWon]

That's not a particularly bad list; System Shock, Magic Carpet, X-Com and maybe Syndicate are all ripe for a return. The others don't strike me as great choices, though. The series I'd really like to see return would be:

X-Wing and Wing Commander series: Freespace was nothing more than an inferior knock-off of these. I'd particularly like to see the old X-Wing games resurrected. The Rogue Squadron games we have now are ok... they're among the few Cube games really worth playing... but they're far too arcadey for my tastes. A decent, tactical space-flight sim would make me very happy. On the Wing Commander front, I'd love to see a new Privateer.

Aliens vs. Predator: The PS2/X-Box RTS was, quite frankly, shite. However, this is still a franchise that has a lot of potential. Imagine a version of this done on the Doom 3 engine. Hell, cut the Predator out if you want and just make it an Aliens game. With the technological capabilities of the next gen, this should be scary as hell.

Star Control: Star Control 2 remains one of my favorite Sci-Fi RPGs of all time, not least because of the fantastic arcade-style combat. The third installment sucked, but that's no reason why we couldn't have a remake or another sequel on decent hardware.

Streets of Rage: Don't get me wrong, the current generation of consoles has had some great action beat-em-ups, with God of War standing out as perhaps the best example, but I do miss the old side-scrollers. Feel free to substitute Final Fight instead if that was more your thing.

Ultima: PLEASE can we have a new Ultima game (that isn't a MMORPG). We'll forgive you Ultima 9. Just bring back the vast game-worlds and complex ethical systems. Do this right, with a decent interface and combat system, and you could easily get something to rival the Final Fantasy series. Also, while we're at it, can we have a new Ultima Underworld please?

Gunship: What ever happened to all the helicopter games? Gunship 2000 was one of my favorite fight-sims ever, but the genre just seems to have vanished. I wouldn't even mind seeing a more arcadey version of this.

Re:Old franchises

[syrinx]

Was going to post for more Star Control. I say just ignore SC3, it never happened. A real sequel to SC2 would be amazing.

Re:Old franchises

[martone66]

If you loved Star Control 2, check out The Ur-Quan Masters.

Re:Old franchises

[RogueyWon]

Hmm... I disagree completely here.

In terms of gameplay mechanics, Freespace was closer to the Wing Commander school than the X-Wing. I always preferred the X-Wing style of combat. It was slower, needed more tactical thinking and more careful use of your wingmen and simulated large battles involving multiple capital ships better. After the original X-Wing game, it was very rarely a case of "your ship against the entire enemy fleet". In TIE Fighter and XW:Aliance, you're usualy going into battle with friendly capital ship support. You needed to use every system on your fighter well to beat the harder missions and power allocation was something that needed to be tweaked constantly. The battles felt far more organic than any other space-flight sim's and there was a much greater degree of background detail in the missions, when they occur in a busy area of space. Having unrelated freighter convoys passing through the area, docking and even fighting each other while you're involved in another fight adds a real level of immersion.

Wing Commander combat had always been faster and shallower, from the original game through to Prophecy. The afterburner feature, along with the very high rate of fire on the guns, contributed to a style of dogfighting that was much more spray and pray than X-Wing's more considered dogfighting. In terms of gameplay, there isn't much to set Wing Commander Prophecy and Freespace 2 apart. Both of them feel and look almost identical. Power allocation etc only need to be tweaked from the default settings on a very few missions. The only real differences between the games were that Prophecy had better cutscenes/plot (and yes, I actually quite like the whole FMV-cutscene thing), while Freespace's capital ships fired big lasers at each other (with little real effect on gameplay). On balance, I'd take the cutscenes.

with every generation, our pleas get weaker

[Alzheimers]

...but we still ask...

Please, Nintendo, give us a Kid Icarus sequel! Look what it's sister silver label game, Metroid, has become

Give Pit a chance! Let us wage war against the evil Medusa and her army of Eggplant Wizards and Grim Reapers again! Let us seek treasure and avoid the God of Poverty in our quest for mallets, hearts, feathers, wallets and bottles barrels!

You can do it!

Re:KOTOR3

[nocomment]

If you're talking about classic games you'd like to see again, AND lucasarts in the same paragraph, you MUST always talk of Monkey Island and nothing else. :-D

XCOM

[Thalin]

A true XCOM, in the style of UFO and TFTD. None of that shooter stuff, turn/squad based strategy FTW.

Nintendo

[MajikMan]

Maybe it's just me, but several of the games they listed aren't really in comeback position, as they've already done so. I'd love to see a new Punhcout game made...I loved the first two.

Also - I want another Earthbound! I'm not an RPG player generally, but I spent hours playing Earthbound.

Re:SS2 where cryokenetic monkeys freeze your @ss

[Luigi30]

SS2 upgraded models

Re:KOTOR3

[Gothic_Walrus]

1. Knights of the Old Republic isn't a classic game. It's two years old. You can't make a "comeback" when the franchise hasn't vanished.
2. The game was praised for its storyline. Taking it MMO would rob the game of that, causing it to lose what might have been its strongest point.
3. Star Wars Galaxies is still active, with another expansion pack on the way. Lucasarts won't compete with that, as there's no need to.

And finally, saying that something "sucks" when you haven't experienced it is a sign of stupidity. Your opinion isn't valid because you don't know what you're talking about, so please don't share it.

Re:KOTOR3

[Gothic_Walrus]

You forgot Grim Fandango.

And Maniac Mansion.

And Sam and Max.

And...hell, let's just give them ALL sequels! :)

Fallout 3

[PIPBoy3000]

Fortunately, they've already begun pre-production on it. I'm guessing that Bethesda will start seriously working on it after Oblivion.

And yes, this is the reason my nick is PIPBoy3000.

Icarus

[Ian_Bailey]

Well, you're not the only one waiting for it...

We need a new Wizards & Warriors.

[FifthDream]

I've been waiting for a current-gen Wizards & Warriors game for years. The NES games were great. I want another.

Balloon Fever

[tepples]

I want to see a 3D Joust or Balloon Fight game.

Duke Nuke 'Em

[mopslik]

I hear a sequel is already in the works, and is due anytime now...

More "Thief" to hold you over for now.

[WidescreenFreak]

I fully agree that we need more "Thief". Without question one of the most immersive game series ever created. And -- horrors! -- rich with story! Imagine that!

But let's not get TOO hasty! "Thief: Deadly Shadows" was only released less than a year ago! (Contrary to what another poster says, I thought that "Thief: DS" was phenomenal! If someone was not totally freaked out out by the sanitarium level, then that person must be bereft of the ability to have an emotional reaction.)

For the time being, I strongly recommend "T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age" at http://www.thief2x.com/default2.asp. This "Thief 2" add-on is just as good as the full game. I was very impressed by it.

Magic Carpet, Freespace, and my additions

[WidescreenFreak]

"Magic Carpet" is still one of the best games around. Fully-deformable terrain with terrain morphing, topology that was actually made of rolling hills and valleys, instead of boring polygonal plains with suddenly-jutting mountains, full 640x480 resolution (which was astounding for its time since there was no 3D acceleration), almost totally dynamic gameplay, difficult puzzles, reasonable AI particularly when your opponents decide to gang up on you ... even the fun of the hokey "Magic Eye" 3D stereo effects and the red/blue anaglyph 3D effects. My God, that game was just incredible. And sadly, there really has not been any game like it. I specifically built a 350 MHz system running PC-DOS 7.0 and SloMo earlier this year in order to play the game again. (Windows 3.1 with Netscape 4.07 and full TCP/IP connectivity with DHCP just for the hell of it, too. Laugh all you want, but it's f**king FAST!!)

I don't understand why the Bullfrog team, who went to other projects after EA dissolved the company, didn't try to continue their game series, even if they were under different names to avoid copyright issues. Bullfrog was to the 486/Pentium gaming world what Epyx and Activision were to the C64 world - almost every game could be considered an instant classic.

I also have to agree with "Freespace". "Freespace 2" did have its weaknesses, but when it came to graphics and gameplay, it was a great game to play, especially over a LAN.

A few that were left off the list:

• "Sam and Max". Okay, game companies. Lucas doesn't own the rights to it any more. Will someone PLEASE talk to Steve Purcell about getting a "Sam and Max" sequel out?!
• "Max Payne". I confess -- "Max Payne 2" isn't all that old, but I loved both games. Even of there are no extra functionalities to a third release, I'll still buy it in a heartbeat.
• "No One Lives Forever". Fun to play. Great level design. Babe who has no problems kicking ass. A hell of a lot of funny lines. What more needs to be said?

Pfft!

[Bega]

Mario 128 is sooooo last-gen. Mario 131072 will be awesome! Or 262144! And think about Mario 1048576!

Deus Ex = SS spiritual successor

[caitsith01]

Deus Ex (ONE, dear god not two) is as close as you'll ever get to a successor to System Shock 1 or 2. Similar themes, though perhaps more cyberpunk, less scifi-horror, and very similar immersive FPS/adventure gameplay. In my opinion nothing has yet bettered DX1 as an all-round great fps adventure, even Half Life 2.

XCOM truly is the king of kings

[caitsith01]

Anyone who has never played X-Com will really not see the attraction - weird low-res graphics, turn based gameplay... but it truly is one of the best games ever written. It combines the addictiveness of a management/strategy game like Civilisation with freakishly atmospheric sci-fi combat sequences. This game running at 320x240 has scared me silly more times than Doom III ever could cranking along in glorious hi-res 3D. I also marvel constantly at how such a phenominal game could weigh in at around 2MB when game companies today routinely crank out 3-4 disc turds of games.

And they've been screwing up X-Com sequels ever since Apocalypse - we don't WANT real time combat, we don't WANT to fly an interceptor or run around in the first person. We want a new, bigger, higher-res, polygon-driven version of X-Com 1 with more alien and UFO types, bigger, more varied levels, and an even more intricately linked and immersive gameworld. Oh, and soldiers with more individual variation.

Re:XCOM truly is the king of kings

[DiscoBoy]

You should have a look at "Rebelstar Tactical Command"
http://gameboy.ign.com/objects/738/738202.html

It's a Gameboy Advance version in the works, by the actual authors of the original XCOM 1.

I just can't wait for it to be released.