Be Excellent To Each Other

Inspired by Fallout 3, I've been thinking. Dangerous stuff.

What game series do you really think deserves a full-on next-gen update? I'm not talking about old shmups redone in exactly the same way but with prettier graphics, I mean a complete re-imagining of the way a game works, as if it were being done for the first time right now with today's consoles/PC power.

My reasoning is obvious, in that Fallout 3, flaws aside, really seems to live up to the spirit of its predecessors whilst being a totally different game in every way but setting. There are other games for which this has not worked, but I can't immediately bring any to mind. Thoughts?

The Ultima series didn't work as it got updated - the move away from the 2D isometric aceness of 7 to the shitty jumpy jumpy platformer 8 and then the third/first-person-Oblivion-precursor 9 was horrible and made Baby Jesus cry.

That's why Lord British fucked off into space, you know.

Ah yes - that's the one I was thinking of that was utterly awful.

EvE Online

And Syndicate.

And possibly, Powerdrift. Or Chase HQ.

How would you re-imagine those games as a modern product? Syndicate as a squad-based shooter could work, I guess?

Apart from EvE online.

Shenmue as well please.

Not just games you want remakes of, folks - games that should be completely made over into a different game, then how and why.

Oh, so not just this thread again then?

I see

Malc

Ooh, loads.

The Secret of Monkey Island
X-Wing
Stunt Car Racer
Geoff Crammond's F1GP
Frontier
Knights of the Sky
Archipelagos
Beneath a Steel Sky

I could go on.

-edit- I'll add to this later with the whys and wherefores.

Actually, Supercars 2 was fucking awesome. Summat like that. And Skidmarks. And stuff. isometric car racing games with 4 players and stuff. And guns.

You could, but I won't listen for the inclusion of stunt car racer as I was 10 and couldn't play it.

A new Freespace game with completely immersive world, with news reports, ability to wander your carrier, race to your fighter, jump in and lauch would be neat. Throw in a dynamic campaign and far superior match-making I'd be the happiest chappy in the world.

Also, a remake of Terra Nova with a giant colony state on Alpha Centauri, with you as leader of a guerilla strike team hiding in the landscape and striking out against the occupying Earth Hegemony forces, meeting locals with randomised personalities and enlisting their help - and trying to spot the traitors in your midst. Sort of Midwinter meets Far Cry - but with Terra Nova awesomeness!

I nearly said Supercars II if it makes you feel better.

Exactly. Not ports, not reskins, complete game recreations.

Knight Lore, reimagined as a Melee-based puzzle sandbox game.

You'd have puzzles going on, combat (first as explorer man, then as werewolf), you'd collect potions to allow you to stick as a shape for a time (and they'd be balanced so that you couldn't just complete the game without ever becoming the wolf), you'd explore castles and all sorts, as well as a FarCry2-esque landscape, trying to kill the man who made you how you are.

Or something.

I love you.

Ok, well it would be like a combination of Shenmue 1 & 2, but the story would follow on from 2.

Supercars II is one of the best games ever.

I liked the quizzes in between races, and the silly names.

The bartering with the sales guy was brilliant, or was that only in the first one?

Ayrton Sendup!

Syndicate as a four-player co-op FPS, with a tactical screen letting you choose your shit and draw where each will go on a map, then the bit of the map you need is super-imposed on the floor when you deploy.

Space Harrier
Dizzy
BMX Simulator 2

See - Grim... understands. You lot fucking suck.

No bloody 8 bit version though, the arseholes. The original game was super on the CPC and Speccy.

Puzzle Pirates as a first person type games.. perhaps Syndicate Pirates!!! Arrrr!

No love for my suggestions?

How about FPS Araknoid, as you're chap with springs on your feet and you fall from a great height, desperately steering yourself towards a moving paddle, hitting it and then flying up again to headbut blocks that unleash showers of fruit or something. It'd be queasy vertigo eye-bleary 'Basejumpers' fun!

I'd like to see Archipelagos as some kind of FPS where you're wandering about destroying obelisks. There'd be an awesome story as to why you're doing it, too.

Syndicate, but in the style of GTA. A huge, dark, rainy future city (the rendition of Blade Runner's Los Angeles in the eponymous 1997 game is the benchmark here) with lots of rain, fog, mist, neon and flashing lights. Proper sleek hovercars (as in the original, not the deLorean ripoffs of Syndicate Wars).

Some missions are straight forward - you're given a task by the executive board and you remotely command your agents to go and deal with it. Others require adventure-style investigations: meeting informants, setting up meetings, collecting packages. In singleplayer you issue controls to the other members of your squad (so you can have some follow you, while another waits a few blocks away in a getaway car to come and rescue you if it goes wrong) and you can jump between each agent as the situations warrant. In multiplayer... well, up to four mates each controlling an agent. Brilliance.

EDIT: Oh, and no 'church of the new epoch' nonsense.

Turrican. I don't care how it's done, as long has got those dreamy visuals, music by Huelsbeck and amazing bosses.

And for the supercars II suggestion. It would be fantastic with proper online play

Taking the thread title literally, I'd like to see a remake of the old Elite game Roller Coaster - I think it would probably work pretty well in 3D. Although I doubt it would sell too many copies if it was just a collect-em-up so you'd probably have to shoehorn some other bits in I suppose.

How about 'Below the Root', in the Oblivion engine? The po-faced dialogue and snooty, unlikeable characters would suit it perfectly.

I'd like to see The Secret of Monkey Island redone in the Mass Effect engine. I know it sounds strange at first, but the dialogue system would work really well.

How about Call of Duty4 with Dogs and Zombies, set in WWII?

Or a full 3D version of Granny's Garden.

I love that so hard.

I want a sparkly new version of crazy taxi, I know barley anything would change but i really want to play it at the moment.

Would Jet Set Willy remade as a MMORPG (moderately multiplayer online retro platform game) count as a different genre to the original?



In a similar vein to that fake Bioshock game, I present Dragon's Lair: The Legend:



...except this one's real.

Mercenary/Damocles

Proper cityscapes (though don't turn it into a Blade Runner "dark and rainy") and buildings to explore, characters and objects to interact with. You wouldn't even need puzzles, just a simple "take this to here" mechanic to ensure that you get to wander around a living, breathing city.

I would say Stunt Car Racer, but wouldn't that just be trackmania?

How about xbox live Kinghts of the Sky? Full scale WWI bi-plane dogfights!

Er.... no? Trackmania doesn't have races for a start.

The Trackmania engine WOULD be an excellent basis for making one though.

Hardwar? Or is it 'too soon' or would it fail to offer enough different from EvE?

It would work well on the 360, though...