With 2020 being the year it is, more of us are reliving old memories of playing games. With new games constantly coming out to keep us occupied, it is easy to get lost in new worlds, storylines, and character arcs. However, we all deserve a bit of nostalgia as we look back to the “good old days” of 2019. So, here is a list of games that have seemingly fallen out of many gamer’s rotation that should be brought back, either by creating a new title in the franchise or by remastering old titles.
This list is based on my own personal preferences and my memories of playing those games. I would expect many titles that a lot of people have played over the years will not be able to make it to this list.
1) InFamous: Sucker Punch Studio’s amazing game, InFamous, is one of the best games to join the PlayStation console family. The game itself has a great base concept, players control a super-powered being and get free reign on how they want to use their powers. The game’s karma system is one of the best additions to a video game franchise in years and the thrill of going down either route, Hero or Evil, is unmatched. Outside of this system, the games have all featured amazing open worlds of fictional cities, great characters, and a plethora of unique powers. The first two games followed a single protagonist (if you can call it that), Cole MacGrath while the third installment, InFamous Second Son, gave players the ability to control Delsin Rowe. Both these characters were strong, and while I would not be mad if they did not bring back Cole since they finished his story, it would be awesome to play as a new character. Of course, Sucker Punch recently released Ghost of Tsushima, which is one of the best games I have ever played but having a new InFamous title would be a dream come true, especially since we have just been introduced to a new console generation.
2) Prototype: Sticking close to the superpower genre, Prototype is another of those unique games that deserves a new title in the new generation of consoles. The game features a character that has been infected with a virus that allows them to morph parts of their body into weapons and armor while giving them increased speed, health, and agility, think a symbiote from Marvel Comics or the anime Parasyte. Prototype took place in New York and the parkour system was one of the best for its time as players could run up buildings and glide between rooftops as they were constantly being hunted down by the United States military in a quarantined New York. While both titles tied in together well, I would love to explore New York once more with a new character utilizing different morphing abilities.
3) God Hand: Here is a game that did not do well in terms of critic response but was an extremely fun game with a cult following. God Hand had an extremely unique concept that they applied to a great fighting style, like Devil May Cry’s beat ‘em up style of gaming. While the critics claimed that the game was a flop, the gameplay was addictive, and the character was a blast to play and interact with. The concept was that the main character had a special embedded into one of his arms, think Scar from Full Metal Alchemist, that he uses to perform several special moves. While the game has probably not been on anybody’s mind for years now, the gameplay and characterizations were some of the best in gaming at the time. Revisiting this cult classic will be a blast to play through.
4) X-Men Legends: Great Marvel Comics games have been hard to come by. Outside of Spiderman, there are not a lot of games that live up to the hype. While the release of the Avengers game was met with high expectations, I thought the overall game fell short with its repetitive gameplay and linear characters. The need for a great Marvel game spanning across multiple platforms is higher than ever. X-Men Legends can help fill that void. The game was a peculiar take on superheroes games. It was a point-and-click role-playing game where players controlled a team of characters found in the X-Men universe and without a doubt, it was phenomenal. I remember spending hours playing X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and constantly encountering enemies that required certain strategies and moves to take down. The gameplay was great and so was the story arc. It was a unique blend of Dragon Age gameplay with some of the best Marvel characterization and plot building outside of Spiderman. While this style of game is not popular among console games, I think bringing the game back for PC users will have gamers glued to their screens for hours.
5) The Incredible Hulk: let’s not stray away from the Marvel Universe for a moment. There was one other character that got a cult classic in the gaming industry. The Incredible Hulk released initially during the peak of PlayStation 2 popularity and delivered a very promising game. Controlling the rampaging green giant may not have been received well by various critics but I remember the game being one of the first that offered complete destruction. One of the best features of the game was the ability to destroy everything as the Hulk. From cars and tanks to entire buildings, the Hulk was more than capable of bringing the city to its knees. The game was based on the Edward Norton movie and the creators were able to bring the cast of the movie into the game which gave the game an elevated sense of nostalgia thinking back to it. The game encapsulated the feeling of playing the Hulk with players given an entire city and allowed to basically wander and destroy everything they could, and I am not going to lie, when I played it, I didn’t even attempt to tackle the story. The joys of just bringing a city to its knees as the Hulk was more than enough to grip my attention for weeks and months.
6) Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee: Another great game that released early on in my gaming life was the fighting game based on the Godzilla Universe. Destroy All Monsters was a great game only because of the size of the character list and the fact that you could battle through the streets of Tokyo as two mega monsters. It was a great couch co=op game that resembled some of the earlier Mortal Kombat games, except with dragons and monsters. Like the Hulk game previously mentioned, this title gave players the ability to cause widespread destruction as two monsters were pit against each other. The storyline consisted of Godzilla fighting through multiple monsters and the oy of defeating one of the monsters was heightened by the fact that they would be unlocked for use in the co-op fights. This progression was ultimately extremely gratifying and attempting runs of the entire game in a single day became commonplace in my house growing up. I would love to see this game remade with the new Godzilla Universe portrayed in the movies as more monsters have been introduced.
7) Saints Row: Grand Theft Auto V is one of the greatest games of all time. Its huge open world, technical gameplay, and wonderful story has led it straight into the gaming Hall of Fame alongside various other GTA titles. Saints Row can be viewed as the parody version of Rockstar’s phenomenal series. It is goofy, vulgar, and downright fun. The game is like GTA where players control a single character in an open-world city as they complete missions and evade the cops. Saints Row IV, the latest installment, was a lot of fun as it introduced superpowers and only added to the wacky mechanics within the game. I would love to get my hands on some of the old crew and play through a new game with wackier mechanics, especially on next-gen consoles. Saints Row: The Third was probably my favorite in the series and it successfully drew me away from the GTA title that had been released at the time. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the game will be able to compete with GTA V, it would still be a butt load of fun to play through the immersive world centered around the uber-popular gang, the 3rd Street Saints.
Since a list like this is basically never-ending, I also wanted to include a few honorable mentions that were not written about.
FIFA Street (the original), Jak and Daxter, Age of Empires, Pokémon Red and Blue, Mass Effect (already announced), Prince of Persia (new title), Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Ultimate Spiderman.