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Which Game Series Would You Reboot?
Franchise reboots are all the rage these days in Hollywood, and the trend is starting to creep into the games industry as well. The Guardian's games blog is running a story discussing a few examples and pondering likely candidates for future reboots. Quoting:
"If anything, the concept of the reboot makes more sense in the videogame sector than it does in movies. For a start, games are complex entities, with each new iteration in a familiar series adding many, many hours of fresh narrative content. Entering, say, the Zelda, Resident Evil, Half-Life, Dragon Quest or Metal Gear worlds at this stage must be massively intimidating — even if the developers go to great lengths to make each entry work as a singular, self-contained entity within the canon. Also, videogames are going through a paradigm shift in terms of popular appeal at the moment. The faithful audience of young males has been joined by new demographics brought in by the Wii, PC casual games, and now the iPhone. Many of these people may be vaguely aware of long-running game brands, but won't have a clue about the key characters, sign post events and basic gameplay mechanisms."
So, which series (or individual title) would you like to see rebooted?
I would mix up all the letters.
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Spiro's been rebooting with every new iteration from the original game and on. How else could you explain that he keeps forgetting how to breathe fire?
I'm not sure if it really counts as a reboot since there's only been one console version so far, but i'd really like to see Kid Icarus! Rumors about it keep popping up from time to time along with vague statements by Nintendo, so hopefully it will actually get done at some point!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
All the crappy games listed should be eaten by a grue.
A humorous game series about a deep space janitor solving mysteries. There is no better plot.
I am the lawn!
I would love to see a remake of any of the descent series remade. I still have each of them and from time to time have to play them even though they are getting old.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
This game NEEDS to be remade -- the story, characters, and gameplay mechanics are just about the best ever, but are trapped in an awful game engine with atrocious AI. Even with the major flaws, I still play through it about once a year. I would LOVE to see it remade with a modern engine, with all the rough edges smoothed out (and without the dumbed down, console-friendly interface of the PoS sequel!), and the story line and environments fleshed out a little bit further. That would be beyond an epic win.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I would reboot Final Fantasy and make many of the characters less cheesy. I would also make the subject matter a bit darker and the interactions more free form. I think it would also be nice to have a non-turn-based combat option.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
X-Com! Star Control! Especially given that the most recent sequels were horrible.
The original Wing Commander games were great. For some reason the gaming industry has moved away from space fighter simulators. Which is disappointing, that was an early genre that was a lot of fun.
I particularly have fond memories of Wing Commander Armada, which combined in strategy elements. You had to explore planets, mine resources and build factories and ships, and you had to do it carefully. When your fleet met the enemies, it switched to the traditional fighter simulator. Even then though, you had a fleet of ships with goals, and you could switch control between them.
I'd love to see Wing Commander, or some other space fighter, done with today's technology.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
The greatest arcade sports game in history, this game is begging to be remade for xbox live, the simplistic game mechanics yet deep skill still holds up to this day.
Grim Fandango. Just for the thought of being able to roam around in a full 3d environment with Manny would be awesome. Not that was a game that had style.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
This is obvious. Every 3d Sonic has sucked starting with Sonic Adventure (which sucked just a little) and has gone downhill since. Dump all the stupid characters and give it a 2d perspective again. Sonic Rush comes close, it would be nice to see a game of that quality hit a major console.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Syndicate ...and if I was being blasphemous, The last ninja
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Sega had some great games in the 90s that I'd love to see done again:
- Crazy Taxi (how about a multiplayer version, everyone competing for fares?)
- Jet Set Radio (that funky Tokyo-esque rollerblading game with its awesome soundtrack never gets old)
- Shenmue (hell, forget the reboot, I just want to see the damn storyline finished!)
- Sonic (on second thought, no, forget Sonic)
Dual solo campaigns (rebels and empire) and massive multiplayer dogfights, complete with capital ships. Hell yeah.
Come on lucasarts - let's reboot the xwing series - xwing, tie fighter, etc..
make it have the same controls like before, joystick support, keep the simulation aspects, don't dumb it downor make it all consolitis.. I want to be able to manage my weapons shields and engines..
that would be awesome
Guess what, the number 1 candidate I'd have named is getting a reboot. Mechwarrior. My head tells me that disappointment is still the likely outcome, but my hearts looks at the material they've put out so far and jumps for joy.
Other good candidates?
Wing Commander - it was the series that defined "cutting edge" gaming for a generation. I'd love to see this done properly on modern technology - including the heavy story emphasis and cheesy cutscenes.
Eye of the Beholder - this would need to be done properly. RPGs these days tend towards big open worlds, which can be great. But I'd love to see a decent, non-Diablo-style RPG which takes a classic, claustrophobic dungeon setting (running on a decent, modern engine) and places the emphasis firmly on survival and puzzle solving, rather than making friends and becoming the Grand Trademaster Caravanlord of Little Wizzlington.
Star Control - Pretend the third game never happened, just give us either a decent sequel or a franchise reboot in the style of the second game.
And finally (and this is what gets me flamed)... Half-Life. I didn't like Half-Life 2. I've replayed it a couple of times trying to "get" it and I still don't like it. The changes with the game-world of the first game are too jarring and badly explained. The idea of the mute protagonist just Does Not Work in the context of a more open-world game like Half-Life 2. It certainly doesn't work when you try to make said protagonist out to be some kind of a Messiah figure. Pretend HL2 never happened and go back to the feel of the original.
Old Acclaim IP was purchased by the tard that runs Throwback Entertainment. They aren't doing anything with it unfortunately.
We need a true shadowrun game. Nothing at all like the multiplayer shooter MS released. A true old school cyberpunk game. On a completely unrelated note, MDK could use revisiting.
Jumpgate Evolution may interest you, when it eventually comes out. A twitch-based space fighter sim MMO, with a pretty good sounding flight model.
OK, I know this would be the best selling game in the history of games... but I've been pining for an updated Sim Earth lately. There is so much going on with climate science I think it would be really interesting.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Ultima and Wing Commander in particular.
There hasn't been a good single player fantasy RPG game released in quite a while.
And I grew up on Wing Commander. From pixelated sprites to 3-D models. Nothing like nursing your ship through that last waypoint with one working mass driver hoping you don't meet any more nasties. Space sims seem to have dropped of the edge of the planet in recent years (EVE Online excepted). It would be nice to see one again so I can blow the dust off of my joystick.
Despite a growing interest in piecing one together by it's fanbase; Zelda has no definitive timeline.
Nearly each iteration of the series is a reboot.
Zelda 2 was a sequel to Zelda 1. Majora's Mask was a sequel to Ocarina of Time. And I suspect that the DS games I haven't played are related (Oracle series, Minish Cap series?)
The rest are independent of each other. Hell, the intro to Wind Waker basically spells that out.
We're talking about a series of like 12 or 13 games, where only 3 or 4 are direct sequels, and none of the series has 3 in the same series.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Tetris!
BURGER TIME.
'Nuff Said
I still religiously play Commander Keen every year or so. Even today, bouncing mushroom, slugs, and kid heroes in football helmets don't get old. I would love to see a remake, as long as it stays true to the original series.
I think Square-Enix needs to collaborate with Nintendo to make another Super Mario RPG. Few RPGs have the level of actual -fun- that Super Mario RPG had. Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi are pathetic imitations when it comes to Super Mario RPG. And above all the game seemed "fresh", having a lot of the same Nintendo characters but added a lot of new ones with impressive depth. Mix that with graphics that still look great today and it is a game just dying to be re-made as a DS or Wii game.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Reboot of Zork!
The Microprose Turn Based Strategy Games have always been high on my list of wanting another game. Maybe not so much a redo as just get either series started again.
GalCiv is a good game but somehow it just doesnt have the feel of MOO1 or 2. I played MOO1 for hours on end, and the sequel though not as hard as the original was also a very fun game. MOO3 was rushed and it shows.
Give me a remake of Red Baron, and to get my WW2 fix in as well, Aces of the Pacific/Over Europe, and I'd be a happy man. (Throw in another vote for TIE Fighter and/or Wing Commander as well).
Just seems nobody even tries to make a good flight sim game any more.
I just finished buying all the original Lucasarts adventure games that were released on steam (Dig, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones) as well as the new Monkey Island game (+episodes). My fiancee had me pick up the Wallace and Gromit games.
What I'm saying is, I'm still an adventure game junkie, and, if I have anything to say about it, any kids I have will be too. We need more of them.
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
Have you played the X Series games, like X-2 or X-3. I've never played Wing Commander, but X-3 is a whole bucket full of time wasting fun!!!
Loved those two games: Crusader, No Remorse and Crusader No Regret.
Alpha Centauri!
Ah! The existential angst of whether the ball will return, the skill of sending it back with just an expert flick of the wrist...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_a_steel_sky would make an awesome movie.
not that it was really a series, but put in a better map, better hunting, different hazards, more types of supplies, open-ended route selection like gps navigation or something, roving bands of indians to deal with, much much more!!
i still have the old version on a flash drive with an old mac emulator and play it every now and then, so much fun hunting, i always max out the number of bullets i can take with me!
- My uid ends in 69...
System Shock was too far ahead of it's time. The interface was inventive, but not in a good way. The creatures were scary, but had no AI to speak of. The graphics were cutting edge...in the 90's. And they game play has inspired the industry in so many ways, what would happen if the industry returned that inspiration?
Probably one of the most complete post-apocalyptic racing games ever (a highly saturated category, no doubt). Given its original platform, I think it could get a real boost from modern physics and graphics engines.
---Jedixi---
I would love to see a remake of EA's Mail order Monsters. My friends I spent hours, weeks, months playing it. Ok Ok, I break down, we spent years playing. Actually I still do. It still holds my interest.
'nuff said
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
If you liked BSG and Wing Commander, then check out Beyond the Red Line, based on the FreeSpace2 engine: http://www.beyondtheredline.net/demo.html
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Chaos Engine!
Ok my karma is maxed out. When do I become Enlightened?
The originals - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness. Wrap them in one long game. Tie them together a little more neatly. Remove the reliance on journals. (Although I will admit the translation wheel and journal were awesome in the day, now they only serve as a distraction -- dig through the box, find the manual, read the entry - and that's only if I've managed to forget what the entry was, which isn't likely.)
Remaking the games and giving PoR and CotAB the Fix command in camp would be nice. Updating the graphics would be nice. But the game play - what I refer to as fantasy based squad level combat, not role playing - could be hugely improved. You could add role playing elements by expanding the options in the games for solving the puzzles. Make the players think more in quite a few of the situations they found themselves in.
Though, SotSB could probably be left out to die. I don't have many fond memories of it. And this probably doesn't qualify as a reboot so much as a remake. And WotC, or whoever holds the AD&D license now, would insist on using 4e rules which would change the flavor of the game entirely...
Dungeon Keeper would be a fantastic game to see re-imagined. Eye of the Beholder. I'd enjoy seeing what some of the darker personalities of the world could do with the Warcraft lore, given the chance. Space simulations need to come back -- picked up FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 at Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com) and loved 'em; they're made even better with the FreeSpace Source Code Project created by the source code release by Volition. (Hm, have they already been rebooted, or just remade? There are several new campaigns...)
Wing Commander would be awesome to see revived. Ultima would be a fantastic series to see reimagined, especially the first three (which I never liked all that much due to the space portions). RIP Origin. :|
My reality check bounced.
Yep, Wing Commander is a game series that could really use a good reboot. Start with the same premise with the same characters, and see where it can take you. I liked 1/2 and loved 3/4, I wonder what modern graphics technology could do with this series. And as others mentioned, space sim games are really lacking nowadays. The last good one I played was Freespace 2.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
go here for a trailer: http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002275p1.html
What Ubisoft did to Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon after they bought the Tom Clancy franchises is a travesty. They're in desparate need of a reboot back to their realistic, tactical roots. Recent games in both series have turned into poor imitations of action movies. The latest R6 game even had a climactic boss battle where you, on foot, have to take down an attack helicopter while dodging left and right on a tennis court to avoid its missiles.
I would love to see a modern-engined Carmageddon reboot. Sure, the 3rd one(TDR) was horrible, focusing on the missions. The reason for that is that even the developers realized there wasn't much to this game. The enemy cars often got damaged and just randomly veered around. There was no sense of urgency except to kill peds to keep your timer from running out. Ergo, missions were put in(some I could not solve even with cheats).
It was just fun to drive around & do stunts, mixed in with car combat & running peds down. Veered into sandbox-style games. It was a zen game. Let's see this redone with a modern game engine, perhaps with destructible environments and such.
Probably nobody else is going to agree with me, but I had to mix it up a bit.
Duke Nukem is in serious need of a Reboot! Don't you agree? I even know the perfect studio to take care of it...
Speaks for itself... it had brilliant game play, a very twisty-turny plot with magic and undead galore, mixing medieval with technology with magic - the story could go pretty much wherever the story-teller wanted it to.
without a doubt; in my opinion that's one of best games ever. I wonder why there weren't any more games like that, probably too complex for true 3D?
Most of the games that have been mentioned are or were gems. Maybe of their time, but they were really good. They don't need a reboot. They need a makeover. The formula was right and the game in a new dress would rock again.
I think what we should be looking for is games that had a great idea but went off in the wrong direction. Where the original idea was novel, stunning, the foundation of a truely great game, but the game itself was lacking in some way. Or games where the first installment was awesome but they botched it with the sequels.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That game was awesome before it went 3D
Bioshock was a pale shadow of the masterpieces that were System Shock and System Shock 2. I've never, ever been scared and immersed while playing a game like I was in SS or SS2.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Back in the 80's my parents bought me the game for my 8086 5mhz 512k CGA computer. It was a neat game. The mechanics of it were very much like scumm. The music was catchy (written by DEVO) even on PC speaker. It wasn't until years later that I read the book. After reading it, I definitely wanted an updated version of the game.
Crusader: no remove/no regret aged terrible. A while ago I tried to reply the games, it partially ruined my fond memories of it. I would love a reboot of the series.
As I used to tell snarky Halo fanbois, "I liked Halo better when it was called Marathon". It always seemed to go over their heads tho.
There were definitely similarities. Maybe more than I ever saw, since I only played the first Halo game. I could easily imagine both Halo and Marathon taking place in the same universe.
A couple things I liked in Marathon, but missed in Halo:
Marathon had a real sense of the unknown. You didn't know who the enemy was. You didn't know why they were attacking. You didn't know what they were capable of. The first level where you encounter a hunter was creepy as hell. You kept reading about them in the terminals... Kept seeing mentions of their howl... And then you finally get jumped by one.
Halo, on the other hand, seemed very routine. Even when you the player encountered something new, the attitude of all the NPCs around you was "oh, here's another badguy, same as last time." You got the distinct impression that Master Chief and his cohorts have been fighting this war for a very long time, and there's nothing new about any of it. Even the Flood, which was a surprise to the humans, was well-documented by the Covenant.
Marathon also had terrific diversity in enemies. You had the Pfhor - who came in a half-dozen different varieties. Different weapons, different armor, different threats. You had the S'pht, which were just plain creepy. Then you had all the assorted slave races... The little bug-guys, the big ol' hulks, the flying things that lobbed missiles at you...
Halo, on the other hand, seemed to keep throwing the same kind of enemies at me. Some of the little grunt guys, some of the bigger elite guys, and occasionally someone in a tank or something. There was never the feeling of "oh, he's different, I wonder what he does?" Only "oh, they gave him a different weapon this time."
Finally, Marathon had a weird kind of metephysical thing going on. You'd periodically get Durandal rambling on about the end of the universe, or the embodiment of chaos, or Childe Roland... It was never clear if he was just raving, or if he'd tapped into something deeper. Kind of reminded me of Moorcock's eternal champion.
Halo had some incredibly-long backstory with the flood and the halos and some progenitor species and whatnot... But it didn't seem to get terribly mythic.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Wings, Rocket ranger and 'It came from the desert' were outstanding Amiga games from the 80's. The graphics were about the best there was at the time, The Music in all the games was excellent and all 3 games (except Wings) combined strategy elements with (fun) action sequences.
.... (there was no save)
I played Rocket ranger for about 10 years and never once was able to finish it
No One Lives Forever (NOLF) 1 and 2 were the games that first made my wife (I know, I know, insert standart /. joke about the unlikliness of a 'wife' existing) enjoy PC gaming. Every now and then we'll still yell "AAABBBIIIGAAAAAIIIILLLLL" at each other and smile. Good campy humor combined with good stories in a FPS that works for both men and women? NOLF 3? Yes please!
MoM was like Civilization ... only with a magical/fantasy emphasis instead of Civilization's technology emphasis. It also had 2 worlds ... the day world, and a sort of "underworld" that you could get to through magic gates.
I'd update it, give it solo, multi-player (LAN, or closed list of players), and online modes (open to anyone on the internet, probably housed in a game company's servers)
and in the online mode, instead having the "underworld", the gates would lead to other online game groups where the overall power levels were comparable (so that the game could, in theory, keep building along, as long as there are other game worlds at a similar level of advancement ... and that latter qualification (comparable/similar-level-of-advancement) would keep things relatively playable so that small empires aren't clashing with empires that span 12 worlds).
If a player conquers a world, then they could save and exit the game, which just means that all gates to that world (or group of worlds) close until the player resumes.
Remember the Myst series, and the spin-off Uru series? The franchise is almost surely dead at this point, and in the time leading up to it's death Cyan Worlds was working against a tight budget of time and money. This resulted in some official works violating canon and general confusion and drop in quality. Nonetheless, I think the world and concepts they developed still have enormous potential. It would be nice to see another game from them that better explains the world (which would make it more approachable by new players), perhaps starting at the discovery of the cleft by the DRF and going through the restoration (the DRF/DRC and the Restoration were covered in the spinoff Uru series), with integrated history lessons going over the fall of D'ni and the events that followed that (which was the focus of the Myst series).
I might be stupid, but that's a risk we're going to have to take.
Yes give us more commander Keen.
read my mind at http://the-willows.blogspot.com/
I wouldn't mind a refresh of the original Marathon. Upgrade the engine and graphics but keep the game play and sounds, other than converting to true surround sound. Was totally creepy playing that at 3am, even with just a stereo setup.
Then vsit Marathon Open Source to download an updated version of the Marathon engine, all three original games in formats compatible with the updated engine (free and legal), and a variety of graphical enhancements (high-res walls, weapons, basically everything but the monsters) created by the fans over the years.
Also, while you're at it download my own 52-level unofficial sequel to the Marathon Trilogy, complete with all-new hi-res goodness just like the originals now have: Eternal. Also highly recommended: Marathon: Rubicon, another unofficial sequel.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
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...Lemmings!
Stupidity is its own reward.