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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.
Dungeon Keeper III: The Apology.
Dungeon Keeper was a great game with a simple premise. Dungeon Keeper II forgot that adding Mega-3D graphics and a storyline that nobody would care about doesn't make the game better.
Adding new monsters and more flexibility was needed.
I wanna explode more chickens!
Skies of Arcadia (and Legends) is one of the best RPGs I've ever played, as well as one of the best games. While it had its faults (blocky graphics, even on the 'Cube, bad voice acting, high encounter rate), it was a very fun RPG with a pretty good story that focused mainly on pirates. One of the best things, though, was the Airship battles.
I'd love to see a sequel to this game; however, it should be set in the same world but involve different characters (referencing the past characters or having them show up once or twice is alright). It might also be a good basis for an MMO.
I always wondered why, when LucasArts was seemingly determined to make Star Wars games in just about every other genre imaginable (combat flightsims, first-person, racing games, RTS, platform action, fighting games, etc.), with varying results, they never tried to do one in the one game genre at which the company historically excelled and was well-known for. If they'd done a graphic adventure in the Star Wars universe and had it turn out as well as just about all their other graphic adventures, it could have given a shot in the arm to the whole field of graphic adventures. I always thought it would be cool to have, say, an adventure where you played Han and Chewie shortly before the original trilogy, around the timeframe and in a storyline along the lines of the old Brian Daley novels, or perhaps a semi-comic Droids game where you played Artoo and Threepio; in either of these ideas you could switch from one of the two leads to the other, to use whichever character is more appropriate for a given situation. Seriously, it could've been really cool, but they totally, utterly ignored the SCUMM-style adventures when it came to Star Wars, even though they did all sorts of other things as graphic adventures (everything from licensed games with the other major Lucasfilm property, Indiana Jones, to crazy, inspired stuff like Grim Fandango) at the same time they were doing Star Wars in every other genre. Why?
What, are these guys new to gaming?
How about Syndicate, or Magic Carpet, or Dungeon Keeper, or Theme hospital?
How about xcom? (a real sequel, thanks.)
How about Alternate Reality the Wilderness, or the Arena, or the Palace?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Might as well finish the series given that they've spent more than $20 million to make the first two.
There WAS the now-defunct Planescape: Vengeance, a fine example of the modding community coming to the rescue (see http://addoncz.jinak.cz/web/?page=inthum_e and http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/07/ 1351216). I've been playing with IE modding myself, and an abundance of tools makes it not TOO difficult - perhaps if enough people got together a sequel wouldn't be so crazy?
Activision holds the license to one of the greatest franchises of all time: Zork. Back when Zork Grand Inquisitor came out (1996?), they had planned it to be the first in a trilogy (much to the excitement of fans). Since then, they've done nothing. You can't even find any results for the work "zork" on their site anymore (they used to have a nice interactive site to promote ZGI). They're just sitting on the license and doing nothing with it.
Bastards.
- A proper update to Elite and/or Frontier
- A better sequel to 1998's Battlezone. Heck, just update the graphics and let it run on a modern PC and I'd be happy
- Baldur's Gate III, Icewind Dale III
- Another Max Payne installment
- An updated Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire that will run stably on a modern PC
Oh, yeah, and I want a pony too....