Whilst playing Sonic Mania, it made me reminisce about the games I used to play as a kid and how they've tried to reboot some of them from time to time, but failed miserably.
I've been waiting for a genuine Road Rash contender for years now. Racing through the streets, chain whipping your fellow racers, the police, anyone who gets in your way. I particularly loved flying off the bike and then trying to run the rest of the race on foot.
This series could easily be rebooted in HD. Have a ton of real world bikes - similar to how GT does with cars. Supply some decent weapons and it'd be a superb multiplayer game.
I don't know how it would fair as a fully fledged game in this day and age, but it could be something that Trials incorporates as a 'racing mode' perhaps? The puzzles are great fun, and the 'trials' of course. But adding in a Road Rash mode would be perfection.
I spent years of my life playing Streets of Rage 1 and 2. I never played the sequels, but from what I can assume it seemingly got worse and worse. This is an IP that needs to come back with a fleshed out and polished story.
Imagine how good it could be, living off the premise of the originals, having the same protagonists and antagonists, and weaving some proper grit through the story.
I'd love to see it redone - we've had games that pay homage to it, but they've left out the most important part! The police car rocking up with some insanely dubious weapon, shooting fire into the sky.
That part is the Cherry on top. In a modern game, they could allow for upgrades and changes so that you can have bigger, better and more outlandish specials.
I feel like the people that make Saints Row (Volition) could do this game with a really good style and sense of humour. Although they'd probably try to include too many adult themes that I'd rather do without.
I feel like we've seen a rebirth of the theme park, city building, tycoon genre in recent years. But nobody seems to be looking at Theme Hospital! I know Bullfrog are long gone, but the only game similar to have come out in the 20 years since Theme Hospital came out, is Hospital Tycoon which was rubbish.
The Sim City reboot was frustratingly limited, with its small city sizing and their insistence on being constantly online at first, forcing you to think regionally instead of one big map.
They'd have been better off making the entire region a single map, and forcing users to try and figure out a way to balance everything so that each part of your region fuels and funds the others.
This is essentially what they did anyway, but they put a silly boundary on things which hindered enjoyment. That may have been due to hardware resources, but perhaps let the user figure out that part?
I've been waiting for a modern version of Freelancer to exist for a while, but all the games I see coming out that claim to be similar, or follow the same frame of mind are always lacking in something, or they expect a ridiculous investment in both time and money to get anywhere near the 'dog fighting in space' mercenary game I enjoyed.
If No Man's Sky had decided to include a big story and some major civilisations then I think that'd be pretty perfect as they certainly have the large scale universe. Maybe they should use No Man's Sky as the sandbox to their next title and go from there.
Another game series I'd like to see return, especially since the films are few and far between, would be the Men in Black games. I spent so much time playing the first, which was mainly a point and click puzzle with some wandering around.
I found it incredibly difficult, like most games in that era, before suddenly getting way further than I ever had before, getting stuck again and never actually finishing it.
Come to think of it, I never finished Freelancer, or Theme Hospital, or Streets of Rage, or Roadrash! Perhaps I enjoy fun games that I just massively suck at!
One of my favourite JRPGs is Breath of Fire 3 and I reached the final boss of that, and in the sequel, and never actually managed to best them. Similarly with Final Fantasy 6 I believe.
I could really do with someone getting me to the final parts of all these games so I can just go and knock them all down one by one to close the book on my shameful past.
What games would you like to see rebooted? I appreciate that games should be left to exist in the past. But when they're remaking games that aren't even 5-10 years old, and they're doing HD remakes of games a few years old. It seems a shame to think they can't do a AAA Blockbuster for these classics.
I guess there's a risk associated with it all. The Micro Machines reboot hasn't gone to plan sadly, but that seems more to do with limitations on time and budget than quality. The Road Rash remake was a similar case, it was poor.
It seems like if passionate fans are the ones trying to redo it then they're not going to get the required budget to spend years and years making the game, which automatically waters it down.
What would you like to see return? Have I missed any of the above returning? Is there an obvious title that needs to return?
