Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

Sequels We'd All Like To See 514

Voodoo Extreme has a feature up that's a wishlist for future sequels. They run down some great game franchises that have been off the board for a little while, and wonder out loud about the possibility of new installments. Besides the usual suspects for lists like this (StarCraft, TIE Fighter, Descent, Ultima), they touch on some cult favorites that are ... less likely to show up in modern gaming. From the article: "Planescape Torment 2: The Poop -- Loved by many a forumgoer is Planescape Torment, a Dungeons & Dragons-themed RPG set in the other planes of existence. It was a dark game with evil undertones, but also lighthearted and funny at times. Just think Baldur's Gate with an M rating. The Scoop -- Odds of a sequel are equal to or greater than Elvis coming home on the mothership." Any oldies you'd like to see back on modern systems? While I really like many of the ideas listed here, the LucasArts classics Grim Fandango and Maniac Mansion are the ones I'd most like to see rehashed.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Sequels We'd All Like To See

Comments Filter:
  • by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:47AM (#17645102)
    An SCIII from Toys for Bob (or whatever they would name it) is high on my list, even after all these years...
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by LSD-OBS ( 183415 )
      Yessir. I've just spent the last few days making stupid geeky Star Control icons and trying to remember the locations of all the rainbow worlds. Thank $deity for UQM [sourceforge.net]. Anyway, go sign the petition [gamespy.com] for a real SCIII if you haven't already.

      Another greatly desired sequel would be Full Throttle II. It keeps getting brought back to life, then canned again. LucasArts made some awesome, fantastic games. Great to see a Sam & Max comeback, but there's plenty more juice to milk out of their old titles.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by j-turkey ( 187775 )

      Wow, that was the first thing that came to mind. Good FP. The next thing that I'd like to see is another Elite game. Elite IV - MMO :)

  • Roger Wilco (Score:2, Interesting)

    by guysmilee ( 720583 )
    Space Quest? Where the hell is space quest on that list!!
  • They already made a sequel to Maniac Mansion. It was called "Day of the Tentacle". Very fun game, and there was even an easter egg where you could play the original Maniac Mansion on a computer in one of the character's rooms.
    • by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <{slashdot} {at} {monkelectric.com}> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:12AM (#17645512)
      I pine for the LucasArts games of old. The Monkey Islands, the Day of the Tentacles, and Grim Fandango which was more art than a videogame.

      Why is it that everything good and full of art, thought and wit must make way for what is base and stupid and vulgar? I pine for charm and subtle humor, for fully developed characters, for well developed plots for the denouement... for story telling and all the other things forgotten.

      Fuck it, I'm going to write a video game and show 'em how it's done.

      • by Blondie-Wan ( 559212 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:42AM (#17645980) Homepage
        LucasArts made those wonderful graphic adventures for years, and apparently they did well for a while in the '80s and '90s, but I guess they fell by the wayside as gamers became obsessed with first-person shooters. Grim Fandango won all kinds of acclaim, but sold poorly (under 75k units, IIRC). I was really disappointed; I was hoping for a Mac version, but they don't generally bother with Mac ports of games that sold so few copies on the PC to begin with. :(


        I always wondered why, when LucasArts was seemingly determined to make Star Wars games in just about every other genre imaginable (combat flightsims, first-person, racing games, RTS, platform action, fighting games, etc.), with varying results, they never tried to do one in the one game genre at which the company historically excelled and was well-known for. If they'd done a graphic adventure in the Star Wars universe and had it turn out as well as just about all their other graphic adventures, it could have given a shot in the arm to the whole field of graphic adventures. I always thought it would be cool to have, say, an adventure where you played Han and Chewie shortly before the original trilogy, around the timeframe and in a storyline along the lines of the old Brian Daley novels, or perhaps a semi-comic Droids game where you played Artoo and Threepio; in either of these ideas you could switch from one of the two leads to the other, to use whichever character is more appropriate for a given situation. Seriously, it could've been really cool, but they totally, utterly ignored the SCUMM-style adventures when it came to Star Wars, even though they did all sorts of other things as graphic adventures (everything from licensed games with the other major Lucasfilm property, Indiana Jones, to crazy, inspired stuff like Grim Fandango) at the same time they were doing Star Wars in every other genre. Why?

      • On the same note, I really liked the Alone in the Dark series. It's amazing how the right mixture of music and sound effects can immerse you in a games, even when they're only using 10 polygons to draw a person. I liked the first two the most, don't think I ever played number 3, and then I started to play 4, but really didn't like it, as the start of the game starts you off with 8 bullets, and 4 dogs attacking you, each of which takes 3 bullets to kill. Games don't really need good graphics, but they nee
      • Aww, quit your pining already.

        Dan East
      • Ummm, Subtle...Yeah. Like blasting Heavy Metal music in order to shake some fake barf off a ceiling.

        Look, I love the Lucas Arts classics as much as anybody, but Subtle or High Art they were not. They had about the same intellectual content as a 1940's Bugs Bunny cartoon, which is admittedly very entertaining, even witty and charming, but thats still a far cry from the ivory towers of literature and haute cinema.

        Although alternatively this does raise an interesting question, at what point does Pop art, l

      • I've actually been doing just that [adamandjamie.com], working on a module for Neverwinter Nights 2. It's tremendous fun, frustration, and can easily suck up huge volumes of time. On the plus side, you can add quirky humor, characters that interact the way you want, and plot twists that would be avoided in a mass-market game.

        There's other game creation resources [ambrosine.com] out there, in addition to modding the big name games (e.g. Unreal Tournament, HalfLife, etc.). Give it a try!
      • by LarsWestergren ( 9033 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @11:23AM (#17646616) Homepage Journal
        I pine for the LucasArts games of old. The Monkey Islands, the Day of the Tentacles, and Grim Fandango which was more art than a videogame.
        [...]
        I pine for charm and subtle humor, for fully developed characters, for well developed plots for the denouement... for story telling and all the other things forgotten.


        Get Psychonauts. Make all your friends get Psychonauts. Seriously. It's available from Steam if you can't find it in the bargain bins. DON'T just write it off as a platformer. It has all you want of that, and more. FFS, it even has the same creators as the games you mention.

  • by east coast ( 590680 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:52AM (#17645168)
    My problem with sequels is that it's just way too easy to botch a good thing.

    There's a ton of games I'd like to see either updated editions of or new maps/missions for but at the same time my initial reaction would be somewhere between fear and anxiety.

    And as for updating older games... sometimes it's the nostalgic effect of playing it on the old systems that make it better than what the game really is.
  • Dungeon Keeper (Score:5, Interesting)

    by loftwyr ( 36717 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:52AM (#17645170)
    Dungeon Keeper III: The Apology.

    Dungeon Keeper was a great game with a simple premise. Dungeon Keeper II forgot that adding Mega-3D graphics and a storyline that nobody would care about doesn't make the game better.

    Adding new monsters and more flexibility was needed.

    I wanna explode more chickens!

  • System Shock 3? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Clazzy ( 958719 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:54AM (#17645196)
    Enough said? Really, I could think of a few games which would be lovely to have sequels to (DX, KOTOR to name a couple) but sometimes it's better to have an original story than churning out the same thing over and over which is what seems to happen nowadays. Perhaps I'm just too cynical.
    • You're probably already aware but Bioshock [2kgames.com] is in development which is effectively System Shock 3, or at least as close as you're ever gonna get to it. Due out 2nd half of 2007 apparently.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jesterboy ( 106813 )
      I concur wholeheartedly; a true System Shock sequel would be wonderful. Bioshock looks good, but it seems to be quite a different experience. I would even settle for a re-hash of the first two; my current system doesn't play nice with either of them, despite trying several emulation solutions like VDMSound and DosBox. -_-

      In the same vein, I would love to see a GOOD Deus Ex sequel/update. Invisible War just seemed to be lacking what made the original so great; the customization, the many approaches to the
  • by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:55AM (#17645204) Homepage
    Hell, re-release those with modern graphics and upgraded online play (ala Half Life:Source) and they would sell all over again. I still play all three of those games and i cant remember a LAN party i've been to where we didnt get a game of starcraft going. Show me a gamer that doesnt have starcraft tucked away on their system somewhere.
    • I'm not really a gamer and I have StarCraft. That was a good game. Sometimes we connect through Hamachi and play with my friends now scattered all over the world.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Actually half-life: source doesn't really have updated graphics, just an updated engine, so it still looks awful.

      If it was any good then the Black Mesa mod for Half-life 2 might not still be going.

      Counter-strike source would have been a better example, they actually remade the levels to a modern detail level.
    • Starcraft is indeed still a great game. Although it seems a sequel probably will come out, whch is great news, I think for now Dawn Of War is probably so similar to what I'd expect of Starcraft 2 that I'm not too worried with how long it takes to develop.
  • Bard's Tale IV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by owlman17 ( 871857 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:55AM (#17645208)
    And not just a remake. No, the new Bard's Tale isn't enough. Neither is Dragon Wars. We'd like a real Bard's Tale IV after Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      The new "Bard's Tale" really has absolutely nothing to do with the original (aside from the title and the fact that it's an CRPG). It's a funny game, with a lot of satire, but it's a shame they had to stick it with that name.

      A real Bard's Tale sequel is indeed well overdue.

      -Eric

  • X-Com! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bakreule ( 95098 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <neluerkb>> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:57AM (#17645242) Homepage
    Xcom doesn't make the list?! Gripe! Complain! And none of that silly water stuff from the sequel. Give me aliens!
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      Have you checked out UFO: Alien Invasion? It's "heavily inspired by the X-COM series" (and if they say "heavily" they mean it!), supports network gameplay, and is licensed under GPL. And it has no underwater missions :-) http://ufo.myexp.de/ [myexp.de] Cheers, hobbes vs boyle
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jesus_666 ( 702802 )
      Hasbro Interactive was producing three sequels, of which one (X-COM: Genesis) was what the first two games were, with modern technology - ie. that what every X-Com fan was aching for.

      Then Hasbro decided to shut down Hasbro Interactive and sell the rights to X-COM to Infogrames.

      Then Infogrames (now part of Atari) decided to scrap all X-Com projects and produce X-COM: Enforcer. On top of that, Atari doesn't plan to revive the series, despite the unbroken popularity. (Thanks a lot, Atari! I hope you die a
  • Ob (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bastard of Subhumani ( 827601 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:59AM (#17645274) Journal
    I liked Duke Nukem, any chance of a follow-up?
  • Skies of Arcadia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <<tukaro> <at> <gmail.com>> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @09:59AM (#17645282) Homepage Journal
    Skies of Arcadia (and Legends) is one of the best RPGs I've ever played, as well as one of the best games. While it had its faults (blocky graphics, even on the 'Cube, bad voice acting, high encounter rate), it was a very fun RPG with a pretty good story that focused mainly on pirates. One of the best things, though, was the Airship battles.

    I'd love to see a sequel to this game; however, it should be set in the same world but involve different characters (referencing the past characters or having them show up once or twice is alright). It might also be a good basis for an MMO.
  • Fallout (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chemisor ( 97276 ) * on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:00AM (#17645298)
    Fallout was unquestionably the best PC game ever made.
    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      *I* would question that.

      -Eric

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Faw ( 33935 )
      Yes, coolest ending for a game ever.

      Those ungrateful Vault 13 bastards...
  • by FhnuZoag ( 875558 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:05AM (#17645372)
    Pleeeease don't make a Planescape Torment sequel. Sure, make another game set in the Planescape multiverse. But a sequel to Torment can only be a rape of a fine game's memory. The game had a fine ending, a great ending. Don't ruin it by tacking something on.
  • The Poop? (Score:3, Funny)

    by devnullkac ( 223246 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:06AM (#17645392) Homepage

    I've never heard of the original, but Planescape Torment 2: The Poop sounds like a winner to me.

  • E.T. 2 (Score:2, Funny)

    by fyrie ( 604735 )
    What?
  • Master of Magic II (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Usekh ( 557680 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:09AM (#17645454)
    Anyone else remember that game? man Master of Orion got 3 sequels. It deserves at least one.
    • You could not be more right, all the fun of CIV plus strategic combat and fantasy elements, win!
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 )
      Master of Magic. Oh, how easily abused it was. But how very much fun lay in creating the most munchkin unit imaginable.

      Like taking thirteen Death books and just summoning Wraiths from the first turn. Or casting Flight on warships and using them to attack on land. Or Halfling Slingers with adamantium bullets, Flame Blade, Giant Strength, Heroism during a Crusade for a Warlord wizard plus blessing effects from Torin and an Archangel for about a billion damage a turn. Or abusing the wizard skills system to cre

  • by taxman_10m ( 41083 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:11AM (#17645478)
    I loved the Wing Commander series and was very disappointed when they decided to go lite on the movie parts with the last game. The world needs more Kilrathi.
    • And I don't mean "Privateer 2: The Random Game We Grafted Onto The Franchise."

      I mean a real, honest-to-God Wing Commander Privateer sequel.
      • by DrCode ( 95839 )
        I agree. The original Privateer was one of the best games ever made, with much more challenging combat than any of the later Wing Commander games.
  • Last Express 2: A sequel to the Win 95/98 game made by smoking car productions. First game was set on orient express just before the assaination of Archduke Ferdinand. Great story and gameplay. Duke Nukem anyone???
  • There's one I'd like to see redone. Loved building up a special forces team of heros equiped with the best magical items I could buy or build and using them to help me conquer the world.
  • Tyrian (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xentor ( 600436 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:21AM (#17645646) Homepage
    How about a version of Tyrian that'll work on a modern machine? Such a simple game, but so well-made...

    There was a version, Tyrian 2000, that'd work on a Win9x box, but not on 2k/XP/EvilVista.

    Am I the only one that remembers this little classic? Am I the only one who yearns to play with Zica Lasers and Banana Bombs!?!?
    • by Thansal ( 999464 )
      Dosbox WILL get tyrian upand runnign on win2K *I can't say anythign for other OSes), and it really is not that hard.

      And yah, Tyrian is awsome. Admitedly I think I spent more time blowing up my friends with the tank game (destruct) that was also included :D
    • by Novus ( 182265 )
      Assuming "modern" means 2003 or later, DOSBox [sourceforge.net] should help you out (for both Tyrian and Tyrian 2000, which is still a DOS program despite its Windows installer!).

      In fact, it's quite hard to find DOS games that don't run on DOSBox.
  • Duke Nukem Forever II.
  • How about a Master of Orion sequel (okay, 2 was fun, but most of us know about the fiasco that was 3) that doesn't suck?

    Failing that...Colonization 2 and Master of Magic 2. Please. Purty please.

  • No question about it:
    Speedball 3 !!!
    And with multiplayer this time ;-)

    Also... I remember playing a game 'The Creed' in the late nineties. You had a top down/perspective view of a character ('Syndicate'-style) in a futuristic urban setting. I really liked that game but haven't been able to find anything about it since...
  • . . . But wasn't it just a few weeks to about 3 years ago when EVERYONE was entirely pissed off that all the game developers were only making sequels? Why this sudden change of heart, "Wait, now we need MORE sequels!!!!11"?
  • You just know it'd be from the prequel trilogy and let's face it that's a recipe for tripe no matter which way you spin it. Even if it wasn't a cheap cash-in on the licence it'd still be based on a set of films and vehicles which hold no interest for me whatsoever. That's one game series that's best left buried.
  • by Kalendraf ( 830012 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:37AM (#17645894)
    Pong 2
  • by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:43AM (#17645988)
    What, are these guys new to gaming?

    How about Syndicate, or Magic Carpet, or Dungeon Keeper, or Theme hospital?
    How about xcom? (a real sequel, thanks.)

    How about Alternate Reality the Wilderness, or the Arena, or the Palace?

    • by Hoplite3 ( 671379 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @01:52PM (#17649098)
      An excellent list. I'm a big fan of X-Com (UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe), but the publisher never understood what made it a great game. They said, "Oh, people like killing aliens!" so they made shooters, fliers, etc all themed around the same thing.

      What X-Com had going for it was a great tactical combat system. It was fire-tested in the team's previous Laser Squad Nemesis game, and worked great here. Plus, the marriage of the tactical battle game to the strategic research game kept the whole thing fresh. Throw in a little stat-building (what the kids these days call "RPG elements"), and you had a fun and varied game. The fact that you shot sectoids wasn't really important.

      I think the other thing that hurt X-Com (and lots of other games from this era) was the craze to have 3D, real-time, and realism. You can find old reviews still online. It's amazing to see these great games slighted for not including the buzzwords of the time. When the publishers commissioned sequels, they had to implement buzzwords even if they didn't fit with the game.

      Also, the notion of having a "hot property" blinds producers. They'll just recombine window-dressings from games, discarding the mechanics that made the games fun. It's a poisonous idea, and it's everywhere.
    • by rafg ( 586519 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @01:54PM (#17649144)
      It might not be an official X-Com sequel, but Laser Squad Nemesis [lasersquadnemesis.com] is a really good spiritual successor by the same designers, with more of a multiplayer focus.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Emetophobe ( 878584 )
      EA purchased Bullfrog around 1995, ever since then Bullfrog has been dead IMO. Yet another great game company swallowed and killed by EA...
  • 1.Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic (great little game, any game with a similar style and gameplay would be great IMO). Unlikely that there would ever be a direct sequal but a game with the same gameplay style (but done with full modern 3D graphics) could certainly be done. No clue who actually owns the rights to this.

    2.Transport Tycoon 2. Picture something like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 where you can actually get a drivers (or passengers) eye view from any vehicle on your network.
    If they do it, they gotta keep th
  • Commander Keen! Thief!

    All in all, this is a good list. Hits some of my favorites like Descent and Fallout.
  • No one has brought it up, but my favorite game on that list is probably Giants: Citizen Kabuto. The game play was exelent, each storyline having a very original play style (that counts ALOT to me), the commedy from the natives as well as other friendlys and baddies also made everything always worth checkign out.

    If a sequal to Giants came out I would be a very happy camper.
  • "Planescape Torment 2: The Poop"

    I would buy a game with that subtitle sight unseen.
  • As Fallout and X-Com have already been mentioned, I'd next have to go with Autoduel [mobygames.com], based on the Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars [sjgames.com].

    Yes, it was a little cheesy top-down type game, but before the MechWarrior series was Crescent Hawk's Revenge [mobygames.com]

    You could do Car Wars / Autoduel as an open-ended environment, where you could elect to participate in the autoduel circuit, a courier running jobs, looks for wrecks to scrounge, a go criminal and create wrecks to scrounge, or go vigilante and wait for people to try to creat
  • Deus Ex? (Score:4, Informative)

    by crossmr ( 957846 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:56AM (#17646208) Journal
    You know, one that doesn't suck so goddam much.
  • Shenmue 3. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ant P. ( 974313 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @11:00AM (#17646256)
    Might as well finish the series given that they've spent more than $20 million to make the first two.
  • I would love to see a sequel to Jet Set Radio Future on a next-gen console. I really love JSRF and its earlier Jet Grind Radio sibling...good music, cool graphic style, and just a lot of fun. Apparently, I'm somewhat alone in this.

    Also, how about a new Donkey Kong game? I guess we're not getting a good one, since Rare got absorbed, but I can dream can't I?

  • I'm gonna get flak for this, but I wouldn't mind another carmageddon sequel. Sure, once you look at the premise of the game, there really isn't anything to it. Competitor cars wander off, and al you basically do is run over people to keep your timer up, and casually hit checkpoints.

    I still would like to see one with a modern graphics engine(maybe base it off of GTA?), and make the missions OPTIONAL. The missions were overdone in Carmageddon TDR, and frankly, weren't that fun. Carmageddon 2's missions were a
  • What really deserves another go is Jet Force Gemini (Rare-developed 3rd person shooter for N64). The game was insanely well designed, with a soundtrack that rivals some of the best ever. Sadly no-one played it and it dropped to $20 within a couple of months of release. And even then no-one played it!

    Anyone who has played it would agree that it was an amazing title, just very poorly marketed. I would love to see a good developer (Rare? maybe...) take a stab at a sequel. And they should bring back the same
  • Okay, I'll bite. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by UncleRage ( 515550 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @11:09AM (#17646390)
    How about a sequal/remake of Below the Root?
    Maybe a true sequel (read, not FPS) for the Castle Wolfenstein's? Good stealth game here.

    For that matter, there's a slew of older 8/16 bit games from the 80's & early 90's that are dying for a facelift. Might give us a break from yet another FPS,RTS,RPG.

  • The ultimate sequel that myself and all of my friends want is a version of Mario Kart with improved graphics, levels, and etc.

    One based on the n64 version, as we've all roundly agreed that Double Dash sucks.

    Now if we could have it on PC, with AA, Ansio, and at 1280x1024, with 8 person internet play, well.... that'd be even better! :D

    rhY
  • by brian0918 ( 638904 ) <brian0918@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @11:42AM (#17646946)
    Activision holds the license to one of the greatest franchises of all time: Zork. Back when Zork Grand Inquisitor came out (1996?), they had planned it to be the first in a trilogy (much to the excitement of fans). Since then, they've done nothing. You can't even find any results for the work "zork" on their site anymore (they used to have a nice interactive site to promote ZGI). They're just sitting on the license and doing nothing with it.

    Bastards.
  • by Russ Steffen ( 263 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @11:54AM (#17647078) Homepage
    • A proper update to Elite and/or Frontier
    • A better sequel to 1998's Battlezone. Heck, just update the graphics and let it run on a modern PC and I'd be happy
    • Baldur's Gate III, Icewind Dale III
    • Another Max Payne installment
    • An updated Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire that will run stably on a modern PC
    Oh, yeah, and I want a pony too....
  • by maynard ( 3337 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @11:54AM (#17647082) Journal
    Ahhh, so many fine memories. Crush Crumble and Chomp [wikipedia.org] let you - the gamer - become a movie monster like Godzilla, run around a city destroying stuff, and eat people to sate hunger. As a kid, I loved that game. Funny story, back in 1981 or so I was caught playing CCC on a school Apple II. The teacher, and then the principal, were mortified by the premise of the game. They contacted my parents and demanded that I never bring it back to school again.

    I wonder how they would feel about Gears of War today?
  • by ghastlygray ( 968662 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @12:12PM (#17647354)
    For those who aren't familiar with it, Planescape Torment deserves a better description that "The Poop" of TFA. I got to know this wonderful game because of Ernst Adams, who devoted an entire column to ruminations about it (and its connection with the philosophical theme of Death). Adams' column is still the best introduction to Planescape Torment. Here is a link and a quote.
    http://www.gamasutra.com/features/designers_notebo ok/20000519/index.htm [gamasutra.com]

    But what's most interesting about Planescape: Torment, and what most deserves our attention as designers, is its setting, its characters and its plot. The phrase "fantasy role-playing game," of course, immediately conjures up images of a group of Tolkienesque characters marching through the forest in search of dragons. Planescape is blessedly free of these stereotypes - I've played for several hours now and there's not an elf or dwarf in sight, nor, for that matter, a forest. The designers of the Planescape universe have at long last abandoned Northern European mythology and devised something perhaps richer, definitely darker, and altogether fresher. If Baldur's Gate is a lager, Planescape is a homemade stout.

    The story centers around a nameless, immortal character who is searching for his forgotten past. It uses the hackneyed "amnesia" device to explain why he doesn't seem to know anything about the world he lives in, but I have to say that it's handled at least as well in Planescape: Torment as in any book or game I've seen it in. Our hero is seeking the information that will explain, and then end, his immortality and allow him at last to die permanently. At least that's what I think he's looking for; motives and morals in Planescape are nothing if not ambiguous.
  • Marble Madness 2 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by _Pablo ( 126574 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @12:42PM (#17647858)
    Marble Madness 2 - perhaps not the existing Marble Man version but a nice genuine update to it on the Wii would be nice.
  • by joeflies ( 529536 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @01:12PM (#17648452)
    Yes, I know that it's not a true blue Populous game, and it plays like warcraft-lite. But I still find this game incredibly fun because the god powers are integrated into the game play with your shaman, not set outside of the field of play that acts upon the people. The strategies that involve sculpting the geography are a great deal of fun.

    For a game that came out in 1998 with online play, it still lives on today with homebrew folks working on it. Too bad it hasn't had a true blue sequel though
  • by hurfy ( 735314 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @01:32PM (#17648776)
    How about a new stealth fighter or tank platoon with all the depth of the originals? Just incredible what they got that old 286 to do :)
  • by ckotchey ( 184135 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @02:00PM (#17649254)
    Enough with the Civ follow-ons! Time for Alpha Centauri 2!
  • Interstate 76 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zaphod-AVA ( 471116 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @03:23PM (#17650552)
    I'd like to see a modernization of Interstate 76.

    Modern graphics, updated multiplayer, classic game play would be fine. Ideally adding a Car Wars like pricing system to spice up muliplayer dueling would be perfect.

    I76 was a fantastic game, with a good story, immersive game engine style cut scenes, original funk sound track, and deep game play.

    The dual challenge of designing a good car, and learning to drive it well kept me playing it for years. The game play stands the test of time, but the graphics are dated, and it's extremely difficult to get it to run on modern computers, or network past modern firewalls.

    Sadly, Activision destroyed the franchise with a pair of sequels that were rushed out the door with buggy gameplay, and many undelivered promises.

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Working...