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Sequels We'd All Like To See
Voodoo Extreme has a feature up that's a wishlist for future sequels. They run down some great game franchises that have been off the board for a little while, and wonder out loud about the possibility of new installments. Besides the usual suspects for lists like this (StarCraft, TIE Fighter, Descent, Ultima), they touch on some cult favorites that are ... less likely to show up in modern gaming. From the article: "Planescape Torment 2: The Poop -- Loved by many a forumgoer is Planescape Torment, a Dungeons & Dragons-themed RPG set in the other planes of existence. It was a dark game with evil undertones, but also lighthearted and funny at times. Just think Baldur's Gate with an M rating. The Scoop -- Odds of a sequel are equal to or greater than Elvis coming home on the mothership." Any oldies you'd like to see back on modern systems? While I really like many of the ideas listed here, the LucasArts classics Grim Fandango and Maniac Mansion are the ones I'd most like to see rehashed.
I pine for the LucasArts games of old. The Monkey Islands, the Day of the Tentacles, and Grim Fandango which was more art than a videogame.
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I pine for charm and subtle humor, for fully developed characters, for well developed plots for the denouement... for story telling and all the other things forgotten.
Get Psychonauts. Make all your friends get Psychonauts. Seriously. It's available from Steam if you can't find it in the bargain bins. DON'T just write it off as a platformer. It has all you want of that, and more. FFS, it even has the same creators as the games you mention.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/designers_noteb
But what's most interesting about Planescape: Torment, and what most deserves our attention as designers, is its setting, its characters and its plot. The phrase "fantasy role-playing game," of course, immediately conjures up images of a group of Tolkienesque characters marching through the forest in search of dragons. Planescape is blessedly free of these stereotypes - I've played for several hours now and there's not an elf or dwarf in sight, nor, for that matter, a forest. The designers of the Planescape universe have at long last abandoned Northern European mythology and devised something perhaps richer, definitely darker, and altogether fresher. If Baldur's Gate is a lager, Planescape is a homemade stout.
The story centers around a nameless, immortal character who is searching for his forgotten past. It uses the hackneyed "amnesia" device to explain why he doesn't seem to know anything about the world he lives in, but I have to say that it's handled at least as well in Planescape: Torment as in any book or game I've seen it in. Our hero is seeking the information that will explain, and then end, his immortality and allow him at last to die permanently. At least that's what I think he's looking for; motives and morals in Planescape are nothing if not ambiguous.
It might not be an official X-Com sequel, but Laser Squad Nemesis is a really good spiritual successor by the same designers, with more of a multiplayer focus.