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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Syndicate ...and if I was being blasphemous, The last ninja
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Dual solo campaigns (rebels and empire) and massive multiplayer dogfights, complete with capital ships. Hell yeah.
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.
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.
I agree, you spoony bard!
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I would reboot Final Fantasy and make many of the characters less cheesy.
If you think the characters are cheesy, that's one thing, but why do you think this needs a "reboot"? What does "reboot" even mean here, given that almost every game has nothing to do with any of the other games in the series?
I would also make the subject matter a bit darker
Which FF game are you talking about? A number of the FF games have had fairly dark plots underneath their superficially colorful graphics; FF6, Tactics, 10, and 12 all come to mind immediately.
the interactions more free form
So... you want the series to basically stop being like a Japanese RPG and be more like a Western RPG?
I think it would also be nice to have a non-turn-based combat option.
FF 4 through 9, 11, and 12 all fit that bill. If you didn't mean "turn-based" but actually meant, "I want a battle system where characters don't line up in rows and swing at each other", there's still 11 and 12.
I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're basing your opinion of the entire series off of just one or two of the games.
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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.
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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 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.
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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!
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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?
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. :|
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go here for a trailer: http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002275p1.html
Duke Nukem is in serious need of a Reboot! Don't you agree? I even know the perfect studio to take care of it...
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.
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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.
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Only if room descriptions are like:
"u r in a maze of twizty pssges all aleik lol"