Games series that deserve a comeback

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What are some game series that showed promise but just disappeared? Which ones would you bring back if you could?

I'll start with one.

Midnight Club

What was it? A street racing game that had somewhat inconsistent quality. The first two were decent with the third game really hitting the stride of the series with a large roster of licensed vehicles and real world locations. The game also gave the driver special abilities to use against opponents. (Not so outlandish since Forza essentially allows you to control time!). The last game, Midnight Club: Los Angeles did like so many sequels leaping from the XBox to the XBox 360. They reduced the number of locations but greatly increased the graphical fidelity and somewhat expanded the car roster, but it was essentially a prettier Midnight Club 3.

Why bring it back? Midnight Club existed in a time when street racing games were already common but it didn't do the straight "me too" route, instead trying to distinguish itself. The original game was, in many ways, a ripoff of the first Fast & Furious film, but the focus on free form street races in real locations stood out in a time when that wasn't a common approach. In MC3 and MC:LA It was less of a "tuner" in terms of what you could customize, but you could definitely make each car your own with a large variety of customization options. The special abilities added an interesting wrinkle to the races. My favorite was to get in a muscle car and do "Roar" as it sent your opponents careening off course sometimes.

In the genre of racers it filled a unique niche while only having minor overlap with its contemporaries. Driving in traffic? Burnout series. Street racing? A number of series. Car customization? Also a number of series. Special abilities? Really, it was unique here except for the aforementioned "rewind" ability in Forza. However, it did free form street racing better than any other game and the controls were quite good. It did suffer from not being as distinct between car models like a Forza or Gran Turismo, but such was the scheme for many arcade style racers.

How to keep it fresh? Drop the god awful story mode and just have a career progression. Plenty of racing games survive just fine without a "story" and the cast of characters in Midnight Club ranged from irritating to offensive stereotype. I don't need it and nobody was asking for it. The racing stands on its own.

Change "pink slip" races so that you can restart or quit without penalty. Either that or change it so the game doesn't have a tendency to crash you 100 feet from the finish line. It would be one thing to lose a race and then have to win your car back, but the game's tendency to screw you at the last instant made these races a deal breaker for me.

Take advantage of current gen hardware to offer more than one location but with the same level of detail as Los Angeles in the last game. Doesn't have to be a ton of locales, maybe just 2 or 3.

Keep the free form racing on city streets and the car customization as is, though maybe expand it to be closer to Midnight Club 3 which had more options for customization while Midnight Club: LA had more cars.

Which platforms? I don't see an audience for this on PC and it wouldn't translate well to mobile or handhelds. This would have to be PS4 and XBox One

Taking off the rose colored glasses I would love another installment but the one thing it does well, street races, is something that is so passe in the genre that even the movies dedicated to it barely made mention of it in the last 3 sequels. Although a very different game, in many ways Forza Horizon scratches some of the same itches. Need for Speed has also locked up the "arcade style" racing genre for years. I'm just not sure there is room for it right now.

There are a lot of RPG series I love that probably don't justify themselves sales-wise to follow up on (Valkyrie Profile springs to mind as one that would still work) and I could list piles of games that never got a sequel but should, or became a series that ruined the original (Parasite Eve)...

But here's something the world could agree on: Mercenaries had some great ideas and a ton of fun potential; increasingly powerful consoles and the success of games like Just Cause or Far Cry means there is an audience out there for that kind of open-world violent action. They had some big problems with difficulty balance and could use some minor tightening up in the story and character department, but a well-done sequel would totally work.

I fault EA taking over Mercenaries for the series dying a quick death after the 2nd.

What made the original so great was right in the title "Playground of Destruction". The game was content to just give you an objective and you achieved it in the most explodey way possible. The combat was TOUGH but balanced out by the ease of which you could commandeer vehicles. The first time I swung myself up on a tank cannon barrel, ran its length, and threw a grenade down the hatch I knew it was love.

The 2nd game was done when EA was in love with all kinds of bullsh*t but before it had pulled off microtransactions (Thank the Gods!) So QTE's EVERYWHERE!!! It was quite ridiculous. Plus it started limiting when you could call in certain kinds of strikes. No more easy tank hijackings, which was kinda dumb as it was a serious part of the original game.

The good news is I consider Just Cause 2 to be something of a spiritual successor to Mercenaries. The original Just Cause was just kind of so-so but the follow up was everything I loved about Mercenaries and then some, except for maybe a less punishing combat model.

That said, I would love a follow-up to Mercenaries if you can pry the rights away from EA. Their current model would render a new Mercs unplayable until you had purchased all the right content. I don't trust them to do a decent follow-up to the game.

I would mind seeing Mechwarrior make a come back. It was a lot of fun.

The easy ones I could mention include:

X-Wing/TIE Fighter
Freespace
Starflight

I'd also love to see more:

Heavy Gear
Earthsiege/Starsiege/Missionforce: Cyberstorm
Uprising
War Wind
Battle for Middle Earth

In order of most desired first:

Wizardry (Sirtech's pc games)
Skies of Arcadia
X-Wing/TIE Fighter
Front Mission
F-Zero
Rogue Squadron
Earthsiege/Mechwarrior

I'm sure I'll think of more later.

Thief.

..... what?

It's a real shame that Serpent Isle was the last Ultima game.

Tanglebones wrote:

It's a real shame that Serpent Isle was the last Ultima game.

IMAGE(https://media3.giphy.com/media/AXSYw2FWF5mGk/200_s.gif)

How have we gotten this far without a No One Lives Forever mention?

1st thing that came to mind for me was Chromehounds.

It was an online shooter that had a slog of a tutorial for singleplayer. A lot of the reviews only ever played that so it was skewered. The online play was amazing! 3 factions and you battle over zones of control, and some of the zones would have boss fights. There was a lot of strategy in how you put your mech together and also a lot of pieces to collect. It had a slowness that gave weight to the mechs that I also liked.

Farscry wrote:

In order of most desired first:

Wizardry (Sirtech's pc games)

Personally I wish they would port Wizardry 8 to tablets. It would be a fine fit with it's gameplay style and is old enough I am sure it would run great and be pretty.

farley3k wrote:

I would mind seeing Mechwarrior make a come back. It was a lot of fun.

Same here, but I don't want it to feel like we're agile athletes in robot costumes. It should feel chunky, heavy, and...heavy. Like MW2.

Other games that deserve a comeback? I mention these every time: Autoduel, Road Rash, Mutant League Football, Star Control, Thief, and Might & Magic (the VI-VII era).

Brizahd wrote:

1st thing that came to mind for me was Chromehounds.

I've never played Chromehounds, but am told this is a very close spiritual successor, if that helps:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/28...

Brizahd wrote:

1st thing that came to mind for me was Chromehounds.

It was an online shooter that had a slog of a tutorial for singleplayer. A lot of the reviews only ever played that so it was skewered. The online play was amazing! 3 factions and you battle over zones of control, and some of the zones would have boss fights. There was a lot of strategy in how you put your mech together and also a lot of pieces to collect. It had a slowness that gave weight to the mechs that I also liked.

I still remember our GWJer gang playing that in the early days of the 360, it was the first console game I really got into with online multiplayer, and one of my favorite mech games ever. It's a pity there wasn't a follow-up that addressed some of the limitations to the original game's online features.

Farscry wrote:

In order of most desired first:

Wizardry (Sirtech's pc games)

I'm sure I'll think of more later. ;)

Your wish was granted -

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls Review

Unfortunately, it was picked up by a Japanese company and they threw in a lot of anime style and general Japanese JRPG wackiness.

Star Control, that would be good. Battlezone, that would be great.

But, for me, Sacrifice. Underrated when it came out, it was way ahead of its time. An updated sequel would be a day one/kickstarter purchase for me, and I don't do day one or kickstarter.

LtWarhound wrote:

Battlezone, that would be great.

Rebellion is working on a remastered Battlezone, apparently.

http://www.rebellion.co.uk/blog/2015...

For me I would love to see a new Breath Of Fire game in the vein of the first three. Dragon quarter was really underwhelming.

Another series I would like another game in is Chrono Trigger\Chrono Cross. Been a long time since they took a stab at that series.

Never was a series but would love to see a sequel to Legend Of Dragoon. That game has so many unique and interesting ideas, especially around combat. And the story was pretty good from memory even though I never finished the fourth disc.

Botswana wrote:
Farscry wrote:

In order of most desired first:

Wizardry (Sirtech's pc games)

I'm sure I'll think of more later. ;)

Your wish was granted -

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls Review

Unfortunately, it was picked up by a Japanese company and they threw in a lot of anime style and general Japanese JRPG wackiness.

Yeah, that's not Sirtech's Wizardry games, which is why I specified them in my post. The franchise spun off in Japan, gradually morphing significantly enough that while it bears some similarities, it's gained its own identity. At Ferret's recommendation I picked up Tales of the Forsaken Land, and it is excellent on its own merits. Labyrinth of Lost Souls, though, is sloppy, tedious, and quite a departure from Sirtech's excellent games.

I'll also note that I've never played the games prior to Wizardry VI on the pc, so I'm basically referring to 6-8 when I say I want to see the franchise get a comeback.

Give me Dark Cloud 3 please.

Beyond Good and Evil?

Golden Axe and Rygar - There is no reason why people look fondly on the Prince of Persia reboots but those games got shoddy development reboots. Take the time and do them right!

Dawn of War 3 - just please... come on! This should be a no brainer. Oh and fix the horrendous load times that are preventing me from getting back into the DoW 2 games. And skippable in mission cutscenes please or get rid of them because they aren't that great.

Warhammer Online - such an awesome framework that was completely bungled post launch. I could do a phd thesis on what could have been done to help WAR be successful.

EQ Next - just follow through on what you've shown

Mechcommander

Rampage - voxel based 3D city destruction and romping; slice in a little king of the monsters, instant classic

Dungeon Siege - fix the controls and UI; make melee combat and archery as exciting and diverse as magic

Outpost. Colony building in space.

It's a cursed genre because the original game is a lot like Master of Orion in that everyone is reinventing the wheel and fail to even match the original.

I could also dig a new Streets of Rage.

Jagged Alliance - the post Sirtech installments just can't overcome JA2 and probably won't until the IP holder farms it out to a studio with a decent budget.

FF Tactics - I don't know why SE doesn't follow up with a serious follow up (the Advance games were fun but didn't have the darkness that made the original so great).

Warlords - fantasy 4X/RTS by Australian developers. EA apparently didn't acquire the IP when they bought Firemint so it is possible the creators might stage a comeback.

Bfgp wrote:

Warlords - fantasy 4X/RTS by Australian developers. EA apparently didn't acquire the IP when they bought Firemint so it is possible the creators might stage a comeback.

OH god yes, can a brother get just a remastered Darklords Rising up in here, please?

So many, but off the top of my head:

Warcraft
Tie Fighter/X Wing
Waverace
Maniac Mansion
Wing Commander

Never going to happen picks:
Wakeboarding Unleashed
NHL Hitz

Shifter wrote:

Wakeboarding Unleashed

I actually just purchased this game, never played it before, but I'm having a couch co-op gaming party and this one came highly recommended.

Front Page Sports Baseball could be good.

There were so many different ratings that players actually felt different. OOTP is a very good game, but there aren't enough ratings to really differentiate players as much as I'd like. Even though I'm more interested in managing / GMing a team, today's graphics could really ad some atmosphere to the game even if just managing.

I'm no longer a baseball fan, so I'd want them to have past seasons with authentic stadiums and uniforms. As long as they included 1978 as a starting point I'd be OK because Ron Guidry is one of my all time favorite players.

fangblackbone wrote:

Golden Axe and Rygar

Check out Dragon's Crown if you are looking for a Golden Axe style game

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