We here at Hard Drive are all True Gamers™. What that means is we’re experts who know no matter how great gaming gets, it will never be as good as the games we loved in the past. That’s just science. No amount of innovation, technological advancements, or employee abuse will ever be able to match the greatness that was the games we played back in the day. Some may say we only think this way because we’re blinded by nostalgia or because the time period we played those games was the last time we were truly happy but to that we say, shut up.
In an effort to make it easier for game company CEOs to do their incredibly difficult jobs, we decided to make a list of all the games that should be remade. You’re welcome CEOs, now you can stop crunching your employees to make the new games they’re working on and start crunching them to remake these instead. – Matt Fresh
Rhythm Heaven Fever
Nintendo. Nintendo, listen to me. You know how successful WarioWare has been? Those guys made this. This artistic master work. It has the best minigames and songs in the series and multiplayer. Megamix doesn’t have multiplayer!
…okay, well, it does, but the 3DS is dead, and none of my friends would play with me, anyway.
Fever can’t go down in history as a TikTok audio. Or as the one that Ringside comes from. Have you seen modern ‘rhythm’ games? All that … “Hit the A Button When The Ring Closes In” type junk? Rhythm Doctor WISHES it had the punch of Monkey Watch. All those Miku games are just slapping piano keys. Osu is a carpal tunnel simulator. This? This is a s*x simulator. Better than s*x. I’m saying Rhythm Heaven Fever is better than s*x, which I have, and participate in often.
All I want are the perfect versions of these songs on Spotify. Please, Nintendo. Please. I had to buy my Wii copy for $70. Let this be my Hole In One. 2. (The first one is just okay.) – By Benjamin ‘Cherry’ M.
WcW/nWo Revenge
Yes, I have Fire Pro Wrestling World. Yes, I played the new AEW Fight Forever game. And yes, I sometimes will buy a new WWE game.
But you know what? Sometimes I just wish we could get a remake of the real deal, the best wrestling game to ever exist: WcW/NWO Revenge. No Mercy fans who don’t respect Goldberg and his streak can fight me in the comments, I don’t care. The combat mechanics in Revenge were perfect. Well, at least perfect enough for my brothers, neighborhood kids, and I to spend thousands of hours in couch co-op mode (remember when every game had that?) battling it out.
God, I want a remake of this game BAD. Who knows if I’ll even play it after. It might just be like Age of Empires II were I instinctively hand over my dollars out of pure nostalgia and then have the game sit there on my computer unplayed. I still want it though. I want it bad. – by Matt Saincome.
Dino Crisis
Give me a few days and I could give you a hundred games I want remade, because they’re long out of print or had a lot of potential or just messed up a good idea the first time. The history of video games is littered with big swings, near misses, and unfriendly release windows. If you’ve got to put out a remake, don’t do it to wring money out of an established franchise; call it a do-over and make something that might as well be new. By now, that includes Dino Crisis.
Every time Capcom announces they’ve got plans to remake yet another core Resident Evil game, a thousand people leap into the breach to make the “and now you’ll do Dino Crisis, right?” joke. I’m convinced half the reason Exoprimal got the reception it did is because Capcom made a game about fighting time-traveling dinosaurs, put a redhead in the trailer, and it has nothing to do with Dino Crisis. They told everyone they’d bring pizza, and they did, but the pizzas were all made out of modeling clay.
Anyway, Dino Crisis got dropped like a hot rock back in 2003, primarily because the third game was bad enough that Capcom threw it out on the original Xbox to die. Now that survival horror’s back in the limelight, there’s no better time to remix the original game into a raptor-hunting horror theme park. And hey, maybe Capcom could get around to resolving that time-travel paradox from the ending of the second game, which has bothered me for over 20 years now. – by Thomas Wilde
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Look, I don’t yearn for much. I live a mostly quiet life. I try not to be a burden unto others, and my existence thus far has left a quite small global footprint. I like to think I’m generally a good person, I mean I’m not going out to feed the homeless every day, but I do good in small ways. I’m kind to folks in the service industry. I transport earthworms from the sidewalk back into the dirt. I have tried to live every day through the lens of our collective shared humanity. I know I’m not perfect. I can be quick to judge, a bit cynical at times, I often grow hopeless about the state of affairs on this pale blue dot of ours. But every now and then, a glimmer of hope shines through. It’s a small spark, but one that’s being kindled nonetheless. And so it’s this I ask of you, Aspyr, Embracer, Lucasfilm, whoever — what did I do to deserve this?
Kid Icarus: Uprising
After bringing Pit to the public spotlight for the first time in decades via Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Kirby and Smash creator Massahiro Sakurai made something completely new featuring the character: a third-person shooter, Kid Icarus Uprising. There is just so much this game gets right. It implements the “intensity” system for difficulty, a robust challenge mechanic that encourages replays of chapters, and has weapon types that all feel different, both in the air and on the ground. I could sing the praises of the single-player gameplay all day, not to mention the multiplayer that was probably the cream of the crop from Nintendo before Splatoon came around.
Among everything the game does right, though, one of the greatest things it does is that it’s funny! There aren’t nearly enough funny games, and Uprising’s writing holds up years later. It’s about time more people got to experience this game without the risk of carpal tunnel due to the limitations of the 3DS. – By Parker Johnson
The Last of Us Part 1
There are a lot of classic and underappreciated games I’d love to be remade. I could talk about Resistance or Sly Cooper or even something niche like Binary Domain but nothing deserves a remake more than The Last of Us Part 1. This game is a masterpiece. It’s that simple. Joel and Ellie’s journey through post-apocalyptic America is an emotional thrill ride from beginning to end. A lot of people call it the Citizen Kane of gaming and while they mean that as a compliment I don’t think it does the game justice. Citizen Kane doesn’t feature a sad dad who violently murders mushroom monsters and doctors. Frankly, I think it’s a shame how this is only available on three generations of PlayStation, it’s too good to be Left Behind like that. Game Director Neil Druckmann could honestly spend the rest of his career doing nothing other than The Last of Us. Who needs more Naughty Dog games when you have this?
Its gameplay is a buttery smooth stealth action with bits of survival horror. You can sneak or go guns blazing and both are just as fun. It could do with a few more touch-ups though. Some slight unnoticeable lighting changes would do wonders for the aging photorealistic 4K graphics to catch up to the modern era and increase its creaky 120fps to something more playable. The story is eternal but it’s essential that the rest of the game be updated to keep up with the current gaming landscape. While we veteran gamers know how good this is, there’s an entire generation of gamers who didn’t even get a PS5 until this week and never got the chance to play this. With the sequel finally being made, now is the best time to introduce this game to a new generation of PlayStation gamers. – by Matt Fresh
Miasmata
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a tiny, janky, mesmerizing indie game releases on Steam in 2012 and no one plays it, does it even exist?
Reader, Miasmata exists. It is in my Steam Library to prove it, the name grayed out because it’s only on PC and I’m one of presumably three “Macbook gamers” in existence (I played it using Wine). Miasmata could be called the first “Strand” game (see: Death Stranding), but not because of any social elements between players. Rather, because the core gameplay loop is all about traversing an environment while holding a bunch of stuff and trying not to fall head over heels down a steep hill.
You assume the role of a plague-stricken scientist who wakes up on a seemingly uninhabited island and must seek out medicinal plants in an attempt to find a cure. It’s a survival game, and everything you carry, you carry visibly in your two (very floaty) hands. Miasmata is so compelling in how it grounds you in the reality of exploration. Your map doesn’t tell you where you are: your character has to triangulate your position based on landmarks. Your movement has momentum and your balance is spotty, meaning you’ll gather speed if you go down a hill, until you’re rolling and everything in your hands goes flying, leaving you injured and picking up the pieces. I’ve never played a game that got me so invested in walking, that made me creep diagonally down hills like an idiot— but an idiot who still has all the plants he’s picked over the last hour. If that’s not enough, there’s also a mysterious creature that stalks you across the island from time to time, Lost-style.
Seriously, does anyone besides me still think about this game?
To be honest, I was torn between including Miasmata or Hannah and the Pirate Caves (from Neopets!) on this list. But the thing is, Hannah and the Pirate Caves is pretty much perfect. Miasmata is not. It deserves to be remade. I personally never finished it (partially because it was so hard to play on Mac). The dev team was two people. It’s old, it’s vague, it sits comfortably in the 2012 graphical era. But my god, did it make a sound. – by Nik Theorin
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are arguably – scratch that – INARGUABLY the greatest Pokemon games to bless this earth. The region is beautiful with much to explore, it has the most main game content of any Pokemon game, it’s the only Pokemon game with any sort of challenge, and the pixel art is incredibly well done. “B-b-but Jelly”, you say, fidgeting with your huge, thick-rimmed nerd glasses, “didn’t they… didn’t they make a remake already?” No. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl was not a remake. It was a bastardization of the best games in the series and a deliberate attack on me by Masuda himself. There’s a reason he left GameFreak: fear. The Pokemon Company decided their crown jewel wasn’t worth their full and undying attention, and thus offloaded all of the work on some no-name studio that brutalized the graphics and added NOTHING of value. How could the Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire remakes be so good, and then these so utterly not? I CANNOT and WILL NOT stand for this. REMAKE THIS GAME NOW. – JellynJam
The Year of Luigi
The Year of Luigi was one of the worst performing years for Nintendo, and that’s unfair! It wasn’t Luigi’s fault! They put a target on his back. They wanted him dead I tell you. Nintendo is not without sin. They owe this man reparations for creating Dr. Luigi—for tarnishing his name.
As someone who grew up on Luigi—eating his cereal, kissing his posters, wearing his swag—this event was disheartening. No, it was enraging. It made a mockery of Luigi. A Luigi Nenderoid? Go to hell, Nintendo. Did you know only 6 Luigi games were released during 2013? That’s right, out of 365 days only 1.6% of them were spent with Luigi.
We just need another Year of Luigi. 41 years can still be a milestone! Kobe Bryant died at 41 we might not have much time. Please Nintendo! -Luigi (Matt B)
Peek A Boo
Remember back in the day when you were hanging out with your Dad and out of nowhere he would put his hands in front of his face and disappear completely? Then after a few seconds, the hands would move and he would come rocketing back into this mortal coil just as quickly as he left. I do, which is why I am calling for a remake of Peek A Boo on modern consoles and PC. Now I do understand that this game is mostly cinematic with simple and repetitive gameplay, but so is Uncharted and that keeps getting remade. -Jack H.
Kessen
I’m pretty sure this is one of those games that I only initially ended up playing as a kid because all of the games I thought I wanted were already rented out at Blockbuster and my mom told me, “the store is closing in five minutes, James. Just pick something already before I decide to just abandon you to be raised by the stoner teenagers who work here.” At least that’s my memory of events.
But occasionally threatened parental neglect can sometimes pay off because I ended up playing one of the most underrated games of its era. A real-time war strategy game set in feudal Japan that lets you control unique units and weaponry on 3-dimensional maps that may or may not have been based on actual feudal era battles (I never did bother to look into the history aspect).
And it all still had a satisfying story wrapped into the whole game. Can you even imagine how incredible this game would be remade in this age of cinematic gameplay? I thought the ‘cannonade’ attack looked cool in PS2 graphics – now it would a thousand times better than whatever that stupid Tom Cruise samurai movie was.
Kessen is absolutely a game that deserves a reboot, and hopefully this time they make the cutscenes not look like what 90s virtual reality thought the future was supposed to be. – By James Knapp
Game of Thrones: Season 8
Nothing says ‘refusing to let the past die’ like still being hung-up on the ending of a series that used to be the biggest deal ever and now only enters your life in fleeting moments of unresolved frustration.
Released on the Intellivision in 2019, this high fantasy series stars Jonathan Snow in his battle against the 7 Evil Ice Guys to date Emilia Clarke and try not to accidentally hook up with someone they’re related to. It also stars a bunch of actors becoming noticeably less infused with the material they are contractually obligated to read.
The main gameplay hook is imagining the most unsatisfying resolution possible for any given character arc and watching in profound horror as something far worse unfolds before your very eyes. It’s similar to opening loot-boxes, albeit instead of your hard-earned money being thrown down the drain, it’s eight years of emotional investment. – by Ted Curtis
Tomodachi Life
Back in 2014, Nintendo announced that they’d be bringing their Tomodachi series to the United States with a strange Direct involving Miis dancing around hailing the Virtual Boy. What was originally regarded as a silly novelty game would eventually become one of the defining games of the Nintendo 3DS catalog. A decade on, it still confuses me how we have yet to hear any talk of a potential sequel to the best selling newcomer 3DS game (outside of Japan, anyways).
What makes Tomodachi Life so memorable is that it has all the appeal of games like Animal Crossing or The Sims without the constant feel of having to do busywork. What you have instead is a little soap opera in your pocket. Your favorite anime characters get into a fight, someone melts to the floor from eating cottage cheese, mom and grandpa marry because you forgot to set them as related, just a day in the life! The investment in your little world and what happens to the islanders in it carries the game to hundreds of hours of replayability.
The elephant in the room is that sister game Miitopia did get to leave the 3DS in the form of an upgraded port. With the wide variety of characters people put in the game, makeup for Miis and being able to find more through the internet would be a god send for a future Tomodachi game. Not having to spend hours scrolling through the same ancient Tumblr blogs in vain would be more than worth the $60 alone. Nintendo, you know how much you love lazy ports. You have at least one customer right here.
So why hasn’t this charming little game found it’s way back to store shelves? Could it be because Miitomo, an endeavor to bring Miis to smartphones, succeeded as much as my Mii’s relationships? Because Miitopia is seen as more of a sequel than a spinoff, and thus Tomodachi has no need to come back? No, friends, the answer is simple. Nintendo said in a future Tomodachi Life game relationships wouldn’t be restricted to hetero-only, and don’t have to make good on that promise if they never make another game. – by HG Punk
Skryim
Skyrim has been on nearly every console since 2011, and for good reason. Todd Howard refuses to release anything else about the next Elder Scrolls game and instead wants us to play Skyrim until after GTA 7 releases. Regardless, we want Skyrim remade with no fundamental changes.
Todd Howard does not care you’ve already 100%’ed all the achievements on every edition you’ve played. You will become a stealth archer again and you will like it. Trust me, I’ve been stuck doing that for 12 years and I will not stop anytime soon. You cannot pray to Talos for anything to change. You can only pray to Todd.
If Skyrim gets remade with Starfield’s graphics, I’ll buy it. If Skyrim gets remade and lets us finally romance Serana, we’ll all buy it. If Skyrim gets remade with no changes and is released as Elder Scrolls VI, I will still buy it. Skyrim Premium Special Ultra Deluxe Remastered Remade Dragonborn Creation Club Oblivion Edition is going to be an all-timer. – by El Gimpador
SSX 3
Remember the early to mid 2000s, when you were actually happy? Remember loading up a game and hearing the roar of the THX tone blow up your speakers? Remember when EA didn’t paywall everything to their games? Remember when skateboarding and snowboarding games were actually a common thing?
I do, and I’m not going to shut up about it.
SSX 3 has all that you can ask for. A weird but banging playlist of techno, house, rock, and hip-hop, amazing level design, and easy to master gameplay. You don’t know true satisfaction until you are racing in Metro City while Jerk It Out by Caesars is playing.
I get it, SSX Tricky did have Run DMC, but everybody already talks about that game anyway and I am not accepting this oversight and let SSX 3 be forgotten. Sure, Shaun White Snowboarding, the SSX reboot, and some other games have come out since. However, I crave the days of ridiculous big air tricks, racing through avalanches, and a soundtrack that definitely would’ve been on my 2003 Spotify Wrapped.
EA, you have one chance to right all of your wrongs. Bring back EA Sports Big and bring back SSX 3. Put me in charge of the soundtrack. – by El Gimpador
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
Everyone loved the Stanley Parable back when it was originally released. So, the developers did the obvious thing and remade it for modern consoles and added a touch of new content. This content includes such wonderful features as a lot of elevators, an informative ride on the game narrated by Alex Hirsch, and The Jump Circle, where the main character could JUMP (Limited to 30 uses).
Later in subsequent play-throughs more content appears to provide some commentary on how cheap re-releases can be and how they ruin franchises and blah blah blah. But consider maybe the game was right all along. In an epilogue for the game, you find text saying the developers promise no more re-releases to “Preserve the integrity of the franchise”. What a load of nonsense, if the money printer isn’t broken why turn it off?
There’s even a computer in the game that agrees with this point and encourages this. Even going as far as to say, “Screw the legacy! Let’s keep making Stanley Parable games until the sun explodes! Let’s run this franchise into the ground, let’s drag it through the mud and back.”
Now some may say this is also a commentary on how bland and soulless re-releases. How they’re nothing more than somebody trying to cash in on nostalgia. But I say that computer was right, burn the legacy down till all that’s left are ashes. As that same computer so eloquently put it, “And if people hate it? Who Cares?” – By Myles Conlon
Heroes Of The Storm
Forget watching paint dry while waiting in eternal MOBA queues, we need to remember the groundbreaking innovation in matchmaking that Heroes Of the Storm brought to the table. The game’s algorithm was so advanced that it took inspiration from a mystical oracle, pairing you with teammates whose skill levels ranged from beginner to esports champion.
It was a true rollercoaster of emotion, as you never knew whether you were about to witness the breathtaking toxicity of a prodigy or marvel at the strategic genius of someone who just discovered what a keyboard is. A Heroes Of The Storm remake is the best opportunity to relive these gorgeous moments of malignant unpredictability, proving once again the game was truly ahead of its time. – Tyler A.
Pong
Graphics matter, people. Pong fanatics like to insist that the retro aesthetic is part of the charm, but I find no charm in being outdated. Apparently, Pong is supposed to simulate a game of table tennis. Excuse me, but are there any table tennis players in the image up there? No, those are lines. I don’t care if they programmed it on a pile of rocks, that’s just terrible art direction. Pac-Man was a circle but at least they didn’t try to say he was a damn baseball player.
Here’s a short list of other necessary updates for this POS to be even slightly playable: button remapping, rollback netcode, Gamecube controller support, an open-world campaign with incredibly forced RPG elements, a Nintendo Switch port that barely functions, a 200 song soundtrack, a sound test for the 200 song soundtrack, a link on the main menu to buy the 200 song soundtrack, and Mr Beast.
I’m done ranting now. I’m gonna go play my favorite game, Pong – by TJ Main
Dark Alliance (2001)
Back in 2001, console gamers looking for a well-polished hack n’ slash adventure had a handful of options, but Dark Alliance was dead set on being one of the best. I know, I know, they rebooted this franchise a couple years ago, but that version feels nothing like how a spiritual successor to the series or a proper sequel should feel. God knows why they decided to breathe life into it some 20 years later while opting for waist-level camera movement and buttrock dad atmosphere, but I suppose big game studios are bound to torture us with decisions like this on a quarterly basis.
The cool thing is that Dark Alliance was the first video game to use the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition rules, taking the intricate tabletop details and funneling them into streamlined leveling and questing that anyone and their annoying little brother could pick up. Sure, it received some hate for being a little too simple, a dumbed-down Baldur’s Gate II, if you will, but the game was at its best when it let you go a bit mindless while smashing kobolds and slimes with a mace until your button-thumb hurt. Just one rudimentary storyline, three classes, and a few dozen enemy types to beat to a pulp throughout the game’s 40 or so levels. Perfect. – by Ian Guyette
Mario Superstar Baseball
Mario Superstar Baseball is absolutely the greatest Mario sports title ever released. There is still a lively esports community built around this game some 20 years after its release. Nintendo attempted to recreate its bountiful magic with Mario Super Sluggers on the Wii, but anyone who has experienced the joy of Superstar knows that the sequel is nothing in comparison. The GameCube version is a more raw baseball sim that I pray every single night gets a remake, or at the very least, a new coat of paint in a remaster. I’d even take a 10 FPS port at this point. Just let me first pick Bowser against my friends in online play Nintendo, you greedy scumbags. – by Lawrence Scotti
Animal Crossing
There’s been a lot of ranting on this list. I know how easy it is to get worked up when talking about your favorite games, so I’m gonna try to keep this one real mellow. I’m not even going to ask for a real remake or a remaster. I don’t need anything fancy, just a version of the original game that is easy to play on a modern console. I don’t want to have to hack anything; I don’t want to use an emulator and end up accidentally downloading the European version of the ROM so that the time and date are all weird; and I don’t want to dig through the closet to find my old GameCube. I just want to turn on my Switch and play “Animal Crossing.”
And no, “New Horizons” doesn’t count. I don’t care about crafting or flying to special islands. I don’t want to build a picture-perfect house filled with beautiful, realistic-looking furniture. I want exactly two enormous rooms filled with so much garrish junk that they make Pee Wee’s Playhouse look like a funeral home. I don’t want to dress up my island until it’s good enough for us to roll out the red carpet for superstar K.K. Slider. No, I want to watch that hobo busk outside of the train station while sitting on an apple crate. Yeah, I *want* Resetti to yell at me.
I’m sorry, I didn’t really keep my cool, there, did I? I just get so heated knowing that all my favorite villagers are locked up on a memory card that’s been obsolete for 20 years. It’s horrifying to see their hollowed-out but perfectly-rendered shells traipsing about my new island in high definition. It feels wrong. So, please, Nintendo. Give me the original “Animal Crossing” again. I just want my friends back. – by Kyle Duggan
Space Station Silicon Valley
As it stands currently, this is one of those games that you just had to be there for. When I describe it to other people, they don’t believe me that it was real. When I remember it myself, it just feels like a fever dream.
Space Station Silicon Valley takes place on what is effectively Noah’s Ark in space, except with robotic animals instead, and zero biblical affiliation. After an experiment gone wrong, Silicon Valley launches into space and immediately vanishes. A thousand years later, it is once again found when your ship suddenly crash lands into it. Once inside, you control a robot’s missing microchip, scattered from the debris of the crash, that can effectively jump from animal to animal, each with their own unique abilities and weapons. There are various different biomes to explore, each hosting a wide variety of critters and surprises. The fun never ends!
The team behind this game went on to make the Grand Theft Auto series. Obviously they’ve learned a thing or two about game design since then, so I see no harm in delaying GTA 6 for another five years so they can focus on and really polish up a gigantic, open-world Space Station Silicon Valley remake. Let’s make this happen, people! -by Kevin Podas
Ski or Die
Ahh 1990… the greatest year in the history of mankind. Also happened to be the greatest year in my life as well!
This pioneer of open-world games taught me how to ski jump. I can’t tell you enough how much that meant to me. Showing my ski jumping skills to my friends at the snow pit was a pivotal moment in my life. Something that defined me for the rest of my life. I got even better playing “Ski or Die” when I was home for 2 months with a broken leg. Those days will never come back but they are right here in my heart.
The realism of this game was so high level that it is quite impossible to imagine how today’s “technology” can do the same. Good luck with that Bethesda! Ski Or Die pretty much defined the graphical standard of video games for years to come. The penguins in the half-pipe were just like in real life. They still are.
I hope that in the new version you can buy beer from Rodney’s ski shop. The soundtrack needs to be modernized also. I’m thinking about Pig Destroyer bringing the songs to this century. Add multiplayer to this masterpiece and we have a game of the year. Sorry… game of the century.
Jeepers creepers’ yourself, buddy. – by Matt Youngspruce
LEGO Rock Raiders
While Manic Miners is a fan remake, an official remake is warranted. This is truly the pinnacle of early LEGO Computer games. Whilst LEGO Island and LEGO Racers 2 pushed the limits of LEGO gameplay, LEGO Rock Raiders stands unopposed. Even against the modern LEGO Star Wars games, which totally stink in comparison, LEGO Rock Raiders comes out on top. So many of the cool vehicles and secrets and missions kept me in some of the levels just so I could see them all in action.
LEGO Gaming Technology™ has come so far since this game was released in 1999. Surely, a new LEGO Rock Raiders game would be a smash hit and beloved by all. Surely, it will reignite that child-like innocence I lost after becoming an adult. If this game got remade, I would cry tears of joy. I would finally be able to confront my troubled past with my therapist and come to terms with my childhood trauma. I would reach nirvana.
Please LEGO Company. I am begging you. – by Max Schuhmacher
Alpha Protocol
I’ve never been one to be enthusiastic about something simply because it makes sense and is novel, but sincerely: how was “ESPIONAGE RPG” something that was only given a single try?! Yes, it was a buggy mess, yes the branching story is a bit more filling in blanks than actually solving a mystery, and yes the weapon and combat balance, especially in boss fights, was a bad joke, BUT…NONE OF THOSE are problems that couldn’t be ironed out in a remake or remaster of one of the best ideas ever in videogames. Matt Rorie Presents: Alpha Protocol balances stealth-focused gameplay with a twisting narrative and missions driven by previous choices and methods for dealing with previous issues. It also has some sharp writing and a wide variety of oddball characters, including entire missions where you ONLY talk your way through a situation, that still has yet to be duplicated in the space. But mostly: it’s a completely untapped setting of a near-future spy thriller done in something other than an FPS or adventure game.
It also ruined “Turn Up the Radio” by Autograph for me, and others should have to have that experience as well. –Corey Arder
Couch Co-Op
This is a couch. It’s not a special couch. It’s not a weird casting couch or something. It’s just a couch. You may remember it as the place for you and your friends to park your butts when playing video games together. Video games. Together. In person. Feels weird to think about now, right?
Oh, but once upon a time, it was the norm! Video games came with built-in local multiplayer functionality! You didn’t need to wait for a patch, or a DLC, or the inevitable bad news that local co-op wasn’t going to be supported this time—it was right there already, included as a feature at launch. Imagine that? Going over to your friend’s house to play video games was a thing normal people did! Eating new snacks that you didn’t have at your own house! Introducing a physical element to video games, like smacking the controller out of your friend’s hand at a crucial moment! Pretending to be a much better kid than you actually were to impress that one friend’s particularly comely mother! Of all the times to be alive, that was certainly one of them.
But now, like the pyramids of the Ancient Egyptians, the concrete of the Romans, Greek fire, or holding the door open for a stranger, the technology for local co-op video games is lost to us, and we are all poorer for it. – Lobster Jackson
MOTHER 3
“Who is Ness?” “Have you ever played EarthBound?”
You may have heard these words before. Heck, you may have had a cosplaying fan come up to you spouting “Blue, Blue” and “JOIN US, WE’RE A COOL CULT.” Regardless of whether or not you have played EarthBound, it’s available to us on multiple consoles. Well, only one of them still has it usable unless you bought it previously, but game preservation is a separate discussion. No, what we want you to really play is MOTHER 3, the sequel to EarthBound. Join us! Heck, it’s even enjoyable as a stand-alone experience that can make you cry! Sadly, other than an amazing but unofficial translation (go find it!), it’s never been released in English. A remake would be a fantastic way to find yourself crying at cartoony graphics and ambiguously-gendered magic people. Just join us.
What awaits the player is Simple JRPG gameplay with extra depth, amazing music, and a story that rivals the best games out there with its emotional impact. Join us in a good cry. Plus, we’d get to be upset about a silly renaming, like “EarthBound: Resolutions” or “EarthBound: The Last Chapter?” Trust me, just join us! Join us. JOIN US. – By Kayla Shaw Endo
Glover
There’s just something about a Glover remake that’s got me tickled pink. I need this glove’s vacant eyes to peer into my soul as I watch a stupid ball tumble down the hill out of grasp for the hundredth time. Sure, there could be something to say about interesting ideas being swallowed up by frustrating design and missed potential to justify why I’d want Glover remade, but it really is just because I think the glove guy’s funny. – by Ezra Tsao
Mcdonald’s Treasure Land Adventure (Genesis)
This is the first game finished (second game released) by Treasure, the company that also made classics like Gunstar Heroes, Mischief Makers, and Ikaruga. So it’s a piece of Treasure’s history that should get remade. It is also a game that I loved as a kid, assumed as an adult it had to be bad shovelware, but I played it again and… it was still pretty fun! It’s a short, trippy 2D platformer with Ronald McDonald attacking enemies with long distance clown magic, cleverly designed bosses which are only vulnerable when they are munching on one of the jewels that represent your health (requiring dodging most of their attacks but getting hit on purpose by a specific one), ballerina dancers dancing in a tunnel; you know, all the staples of a classic game. And don’t worry; you DO go to space. The most bizarre part of the game, and it’s a core to why this strange little game should return, is how little it has to do with McDonalds; the enemies, bosses, and game ideas are barely attached to the McDonald’s property, and it’s so weird. You do get to meet up with the Hamburgerlar (and other mascot character) at exactly one point during the levels each, and just that is neat. -by Andrew Fields
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition
Sure, there’s a lot of racing games out there I could play right now. If I wanted a realistic experience with stunning graphics, I’d play a Forza game or Gran Turismo 7. If I wanted to live like that handsome devil Daniel Ricciardo, I’d boot up F1 23. And if I wanted to throw bob-ombs and kill Dry Bones, Mario Kart 8 is ready to go. But I don’t want any of that.
I just want to pretend it’s 2006 and Pimp My Ride is still on TV and Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift is still in theaters. While any Midnight Club game would fill that void, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition has a special place in my heart. I spent countless hours tricking out my Saleen SR just to drift it into a building with pixelated windows. The PSP version of this game is the reason I had glasses in the second grade. Rockstar, I am on my hands and knees, please stop trying to make GTA racing work. Society (me) needs you to remake this game or at the very least, reboot the series. – by Neel Bhakta
Resident Evil 3
Look, I actually liked the remake of Resident Evil 3 a lot more than most people, but it could have been so much more. Uptown and the clocktower got totally gutted, which is a shame because they were some of my favorite parts of the original. Nemesis encounters all feel a bit too scripted, and the removal of the live selection mechanic seriously hurts replayability, which is a core aspect of the franchise. So I say, why not just remake it again? Restore the cut content and give this fantastic game what it deserves. Who says you can’t make a remake of a remake? The Last of Us did it, surely Capcom can do it too. – by Alex Kitsinger
Midtown Madness
Two years before Grand Theft Auto 3 revolutionized the world of driving cars with unbridled recklessness and jumping them into various of bodies of water, Midtown Madness ruled this space. Sure, it was kind of a racing game, but more importantly, you could speed, jump, and crash… into water.
Of course, there were sequels. Midtown Madness 2 was a very important game because I played it a lot, and “sleeping with the fishes” got even better. And then, Midtown Madness 3, which was not very important because I can’t really remember playing that one at all. Maybe it was on a console I didn’t have. Either way, zero stars.
But now that I’m older, I crave a nice quiet evening of crashing a Freightliner Century truck into a lake. I have since moved on to GTA5, where you can do things like jumping cars into planes and crashing them both into the ocean. But it’ll never hit like being eleven, sitting in front of a brand new Compaq, and jumping a Mustang GT over a drawbridge into an oncoming city bus. And then, obviously, having them both fall into a river.
So let’s give this franchise the remake it so desperately deserves. I don’t need all these distracting missions and side quests. Just give me a fast car, a ramp, and a body of water. And maybe some beautiful new water textures. – By Matt McInerney
Mr. Mosquito
Over the decades, we’ve embodied everything from a speedy little blue hedgehog, to a time-traveling cat, to a cherub that can possess the bodies of sex workers and sewer rats. So it should come as no surprise that there was once a game that had you playing a pesky little mosquito with a blood-sucking agenda in Mister Mosquito, aka Mr Moskeeto.
There has never been a game that mentioned ‘sucking’ in the intro as many times as this game did, almost 22 years ago in 2002. And there never will be. At least not until this masterpiece from the PS2’s Japanese catalog is remade anew! Photorealistic 4K sucking I say!
We got lucky the first time, when Eidos Interactive thought it was cool to release oddball games like this beyond the shores of Japan, but we don’t need to rely on corporate ideating any longer. Make it Unreal, and just toss it up on every digital store. You know it will be free on the Epic Games Store inside of three months, maybe even on launch! – by Michelle Pereira
The Simpsons Arcade Game
You’ll have to trust me on this, children, the Simpsons was once amazing.
The style, the intelligence, and the satire were all brilliant. And it was the funniest show in decades. In the first year of existence, it was also a monoculture merchandising juggernaut—clothes, toys, and music were everywhere. But it all came out before the humor and characters hit their stride, so it all feels a little first draft. Just look at the lukewarm “Simpsons Sing The Blues” cash grab album or the incisive wit of, “Underachiever and Proud Of It,” and it’s easy to dismiss. However, in those early years, Konami released one of the best arcade cabinet side-scrolling beat-em-ups of all time, using the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Engine. It was a classic arcade fixture that didn’t reach home consoles for another decade.
While the tv show went from perfect to occasionally okay, every Simpsons video game has been either one of the worst of all time to occasionally okay, with the exception of the original arcade game.
The problem is the game is too generic, with mischaracterization, and gags too weak for the show. The gameplay is solid! So, drop in some of the classic sign gags and storefronts, drop in some fan favorite NPCs, bring in some Hank Scorpios and Sideshow Bobs as bosses, and add some other player characters and Gen X will use their kids’ college tuition to buy this day one.
Much like the show, the Konami is not what it used to be, so someone like Tribute Games should snatch up the license, boot the lazy Boomer Lampoon alums and Nepo babies, hire some comedy nerds, and reskin the game, update the animation, and reap the nostalgia cash. – By: Dan Bookbinder
