#10 - ACTRAISER 3
GAME TYPE: ACTION/ADVENTURE and SIM
SEE ALSO: ACTRAISER
For those that can remember, ACTRAISER for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES) was quite the experience in its day. The game combined side-scrolling action sequences with simple city simulation levels in a way that was both inspired and unique.
When the sequel released, those of us that had played the original rejoiced… until we played it, at least. Upon doing so we learned something terrible had happened. The game designers had removed the entire simulation aspect from the game and concentrated on the side scrolling action bits instead. The result - ACTRAISER 2 - was a very solid (if hellishly difficult) example of that genre… but there were already dozens of side-scrolling beat ‘em ups on the SNES. What fans wanted was a true sequel that once again incorporated both types of gameplay.
I'd love to see the ACTRAISER series return from the dead with an ACTRAISER 3 that plays like some unholy hybrid of GOD OF WAR and the CIVILIZATION series.
#9 - MARVEL VS. DC
GAME TYPE: 2D FIGHTING WITH 3D GRAPHICS
SEE ALSO: MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3
The obvious holy grail of comic book fighting games, a MARVEL VS. DC game has, somehow, never managed to come together. You’d think the massive sea of cash that would result from releasing such a game would be incentive enough for the lawyers to figure this one out, but alas...
CAPCOM is the only company I would trust with doing justice to this fighter, and I think bringing this contest to life using the MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3 game engine is the way to go. I would suggest slowing things down just a bit and making it slightly less over the top, however. Basically a smidge more of STREET FIGHTER IV’s style, but still closer to the VS. games, overall.
Obviously character lists should start out with the most iconic heroes and villains from either company, but down the line I'd love to see some of the more obscure characters (like Deadman or Moon Knight for example) come out via DLC.
#8 - THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
GAME TYPE: HORROR/ACTION
SEE ALSO: MANHUNT 2 (Wii VERSION)
MANHUNT 2 on the Wii made quite the impression on me. I was at a horror movie convention in Burbank, CA the year it was announced, and they demonstrated it there. Like at most types of conventions, half your time is spent seeing the presentations and getting autographs while the other half is spent scouring the dealer’s room. If you want any serious shopping time than you must choose which presentations are must sees, and which are expendable.
For many of the convention goers MANHUNT 2 seemed to fall into the latter category… At least at first. As black shirted people all around me started to gather up their loot to head out, the woman from ROCKSTAR games started playing MANHUNT 2. With sidelong glances from the corners of their eyes, the throng of horror fans saw the Wii-mote being used to bash people to death, slit throats, repeatedly stab… and crooked, guilty “should I be liking this?” grins in place, many of those fans sat back down to watch.
While a lot of people site SE7EN as the visual inspiration for many of the grungy, desaturated games we see today, the original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (amongst other 70’s horror) also features that sort of a style. And while parents would LOATHE it, running around wielding a Wii-mote (or even better, a custom chainsaw controller you could actually USE) to Chainsaw victims to death…. Sounds pretty cool to me.
The story mode would follow all of the films, thus far (doing it's best to weave a single narrative through so many reboots), with players in the role of Leatherface, chasing down and stringing up victims for the family BBQ.
#7 DOCTOR DOOM
GAME TYPE: STRATEGY
SEE ALSO: DECEPTION series and FRONT MISSION series
It’s hard to imagine a comic fan that doesn’t love Doctor Doom. The imperiousness, the cool armor, the speaking about himself in the third person… Doom has all the trademark supervillain qualities, yet has somehow managed to remain threatening after all these years.
In this game, players would begin as a young Doom, sometime after his mother’s death, as he goes about the conquest of his home country of Latveria. Gameplay would be a large dose of the turn based strategy seen in the Front Mission series, with just a dash of Tecmo’s Deception series thrown in to represent the diabolical traps Doom is capable of setting for his foes.
After the conquest of Latveria, players would move on to Doom’s many contests with Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four. Here Doom can maneuver a series of Doombots and other supervillains (like the Frightful Four) against his foes. Later levels, such as SECRET WARS, would include a much wider array of heroes to contest with, and villains to control.
The final levels would consist of Doom taking over the planet, bit by bit, as the world’s armies (and Superheroes) try to stop Doom’s megalomaniacal aspirations.
#6 GODZILLA
GAME TYPE: 3D FIGHTING/WRESTLING
SEE ALSO: GODZILLA: DESTROY ALL MONSTERS MELEE
Way back in 2004 Atari released a sequel to the awesome GODZILLA: DESTROY ALL MONSTERS MELEE fighting game. I was writing for the website MONSTER ZERO back then, and I was asked to write up a synopsis of everything we knew about the upcoming game. Since I was already super excited about the release, I was happy to oblige. The resulting article then made its way around the web, as these things do, helping to ensure that Kaiju fans everywhere would feel the same sense of crushing disappointment I did when nearly every one of the promised upgrades for the sequel hit the cutting room floor.
Later on a second sequel was released for the Wii, titled GODZILLA UNLEASHED. The game could only be played with the motion controls. That’s right, a fighting game which had NO classic controller configuration. As you might expect, it was virtually unplayable.
It’s time to release a TRUE sequel to this franchise, done with the effort and imagination that Godzilla deserves.
Monsters should include:
ANGUIRUS, THE ATRAGON, BARAGON, BIOLLANTE, DESTOROYAH, EBIRAH, FIRE RODAN, GAIRA, GIGAN, GODZILLA, GOROSAURUS, HEDORAH, JET JAGUAR, KAIZER KING GHIDORAH, KAMACURAS, KING CAESAR, KING GHIDORAH, KIRYU, KUMONGA, MANDA, MECHAGODZILLA, MECHAGODZILLA 2, MECHA KING GHIDORAH, MEGAGUIRUS, MEGALON, MINYA, MOGUERA, MONSTER X, MOTHRA, ORGA, RODAN, SANDA, SPACE GODZILLA, TITANOSAURUS, VARAN and ZILLA.
The game should also have an in-depth story mode wherein the player - controlling Godzilla - follows the progression of the film series. Besides the obvious recreated monster battles, story mode would also have a few different kinds of levels to break things up a bit. Things like city destruction levels and on rail shooting levels. These side-levels would allow films such as the original GODZILLA and GODZILLA 1985, which don’t feature any monster fights, to still be represented. The story mode level layout would be like this:
Opening Cinema (Godzilla birthed from an Atom Bomb explosion)
LEVEL 1 GODZILLA (city destruction level)
Cinema – Godzilla vaporized by Oxygen Destroyer, than slowly reconstituting
LEVEL 2 GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN (Godzilla vs. Anguirus)
LEVEL 3 MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA (Godzilla vs. Mothra)
Cinema – King Ghidorah comes to Earth, monsters unite against him
LEVEL 4 GHIDORAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER (Godzilla, Rodan and Motha Larva vs. King Ghidorah)
LEVEL 5 MONSTER ZERO (Godzilla and Rodan vs. Ghidorah)
LEVEL 6 GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER (on rails shooting level ending in Godzilla vs. Ebirah)
And so on... The story mode would continue through the rest of the film series, and, once it was beaten, would unlock a smaller, less in-depth story mode that could be played through with any monster.
One final note – the music from the films MUST be in this game. The first game on XBOX allowed you to use your own soundtrack, and there is nothing like monster fighting to the actual Godzilla marches and themes.
#5 DOCTOR WHO
GAME TYPE: RPG
SEE ALSO: MASS EFFECT
Whenever the idea of a Doctor Who video game is brought up, people tend to say it wouldn’t work because there would be too little combat. I don’t necessarily think that needs to be the case. With a proper storyline in place to justify it, and with a few companions on your team (accompanying you as your teammates accompany Shepard in MASS EFFECT), I don’t see this as being a problem.
The Doctor has shown a willingness to use his sonic screwdriver offensively in the past (to disrupt enemy guns and such), and many RPGs have a “support” character that casts spells, uses tech knowledge or whatever in order to weaken your opponents. Having such a character as the MAIN character for once could be quite interesting.
The Doctor Who universe is 50 years old this year, and it’s a real shame that a full fledged, big budget game has never been released for this property. A MASS EFFECT style RPG set in the Doctor Who universe of Daleks and Cybermen and Ice Warriors sounds amazing enough, but throw in controllable time travel and you have a game with an insane amount of potential variety in both setting and gameplay.
#4 STREET FIGHTER VS. MORTAL KOMBAT
GAME TYPE: FIGHTING
SEE ALSO: STREET FIGHTER IV
If MARVEL VS. DC is the most wanted comic book fighting game of all time, than, in America at least, STREET FIGHTER VS. MORTAL KOMBAT may just be the most wanted fighting game, period.
I’m a big Mortal Kombat fan, but it has to be said that pretty much every MK game engine has seemed a little clunky compared to other fighters released around the same time. Contrast that with Street Fighter, where the rougher aspects of parts II and III really seem to have been ironed out in STREET FIGHTER IV, resulting in a near perfect 2D fighting game with beautiful 3D graphics.
I don’t care if they go the STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN / TEKKEN X STREET FIGHTER path and allow both companies to make their own versions of the game, just as long as I get a CAPCOM created STREET FIGHTER VS. MORTAL KOMBAT on the STREET FIGHTER IV engine. Playing legendary matches like Scorpion vs. Akuma or Ryu vs. Liu Kang would be phenomenally cool, and there is no other fighting game I would rather see… Well, except for…
#3 HORROR MOVIE THROWDOWN
GAME TYPE: FIGHTING
SEE ALSO: TERRORDROME, MORTAL KOMBAT
Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Chucky, Ghostface, Ash, The Tall Man… there are a lot of super powered Horror icons out there nowadays. Wouldn’t it be great if someone would throw them into a fighting game together and we could see them hack each other apart?
The newest Mortal Kombat game teased this possibility when they released Freddy as DLC, but with no follow up character on the horizon it seems that, once again, this dream fighter is not to be…
Or is it? While no official game has been announced (and with the sheer amount of companies that would have to be negotiated with, it probably isn't likely that will ever change), an enterprising fan has created his own, free version of this idea with the game TERRORDROME. One of the most professional looking and playing fan-made games I have ever seen, TERRORDROME features pretty much everything I would want out of such a game. Sure the controls may not always be super smooth, but every major horror icon is present, complete with unique move sets, backgrounds, movie score and even the original movie posters!
TERRORDROME is an awesome taste of what a horror movie fighter could be like, and until some game company figures out a way to make something official happen, it's the only way to see these legendary characters together in one place.
#2 FRIDAY THE 13TH
GAME TYPE: FIRST PERSON ACTION W/ RPG ELEMENTS
SEE ALSO: THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION, FALLOUT 3
As far back as when FRIDAY THE 13TH was announced for the Nintendo Entertainment System gamers were excitedly asking: "Do you get to play, JASON?!" Even after all these years, I still remember my palpable disappointment when the answer was no.
So, naturally, in this version of FRIDAY THE 13TH, players would at last be able to assume the role of Jason Voorhees, indestructible serial killer, in a first person, stealth action game.
Starting off as the slightly more human, pillow sack wearing version of the character, players patrol the forests surrounding Crystal Lake. There they hunt down victims by going into the stealthy “stalker” mode and working their way ever closer to their target by staying in the shadows and such. Once close enough, players than switch to “slasher” mode and attack, dispatching their prey in any number of ways. Extra experience points would be given for taking the body back to your shrine to your mother (complete with mommy's lopped off head).
Leveling up allows you to increase your durability, healing factor, strength and other attributes or choose a new power of some kind. The powers list would include things like short teleportation abilities, a victim sense that helps pinpoint potential prey, a weapon locating sense, etc.
The FALLOUT 3 style open world format would include story missions based around the Friday the 13th films, starting with part 2 and culminating in JASON X (you could even expand the “holodeck” sequence in JASON X a bit, and work the FRIDAY THE 13TH remake into the game as well), with the appearance of Jason changing when a story mission is completed.
#1 RPG MAKER FOR DUMMIES
GAME TYPE: UTILITY
SEE ALSO: RPG MAKER, RPG MAKER 2
I can still remember that young, naive 22 year old that first heard of a game called RPG MAKER coming out on the Playstation. The idea of crafting my own video RPG was such a phenomenally cool one, and I couldn’t wait to see what the thing would be capable of.
Unfortunately, due to a devastating limited toolset and clunky as hell interface combination, I’m still waiting. I didn’t shell out for the PS2 sequel, but from what I’ve read the improvements were minor.
A new version of RPG Maker should feature the same sort of depth and ease of use as the best create a character features seen in recent and semi-recent fighting, music, and sports games. Make a utility for crafting a video role-playing game that’s as easy to use as the create a character in MORTAL KOMBAT: ARMAGEDDON (where you could even write your character’s ending) or in ROCK BAND 3, but with even more options for characters than, say SMACKDOWN 2 for the original playstation featured (and just as many options for the backgrounds and other design elements).
To this add the ability to rip your own soundtrack selections, scan in your own pictures and art etc.
More than any other game on this list, this is the one I’d love to see. An easy to use utility for making my own video role playing game on a modern console would be a dream come true.
Do you have any ideas for games that you can't believe haven't been made yet? If so, please share them in the comments section below!