Games that should get remade

[TheBlackBard]

I'd love the og Fallout games to be remade 3d. They could at least put that out since we may never see another regular Fallout.

That would work if we knew for a fact that Bethesda wouldn't fuck them up. That said, I don't have that much trust in them. Every time they release a game, it's ultimately up to the fans to fix it. They fucking RUINED Fallout, starting with 4, where 3 was already pushing the issue a bit. It's not a shock that the only decent Fallout games to happen was made by Obsidian/Black Isle Studios. 3 is certainly forgivable in some ways, but Fallout 4 is just a first person shooter trying to convince everyone that it's in some way related to the ones before it. And Fallout 76? Whoever came up with that idea deserves the EXACT same reaction that one guy got when he showed off Diablo: Immortal for the first time and they deserve to have nightmares about that reaction happening to them until the day they die so they can live it in purgatory. Fuck that thing right to hell.

 

[TedEH]

they deserve to have nightmares about that reaction happening to them until the day they die so they can live it in purgatory

I wish more people saw the other side of this so they could know that unwanted entertainment products don't come entirely from a place of evil or incompetence.

 

[MFB]

I wish more people saw the other side of this so they could know that unwanted entertainment products don't come entirely from a place of evil or incompetence.

I think the more accurate/fair version would be that when they do, it's not from the people who are MAKING the games, it's the people paying those people to make the game in the hopes that they see a shit-ton of profit in return for a cheap retread.

 

[TheBlackBard]

I wish more people saw the other side of this so they could know that unwanted entertainment products don't come entirely from a place of evil or incompetence.

Nah, just laziness on behalf of the people commanding a group of devs who feel similarly to the way the audience does. The devs don't deserve the flack for Diablo: Immortal. The devs don't deserve the flack from Anthem. The devs don't deserve the flack from Cyberpunk 2077. The ones who are over them, looking to make a quick buck while not assuming any responsibility for the senseless death threats and insults flung at the devs? THEY absolutely deserve that reaction, especially when it's a deal they make and they assume no accountability over it, letting the people who do the work they don't even agree with.

 

[StevenC]

I wish more people saw the other side of this so they could know that unwanted entertainment products don't come entirely from a place of evil or incompetence.

Elaborate please.

As I see it, a bad game comes from either: a good idea executed poorly; a bad idea that no one recognises; shovelware; or intentional predatory design.

All of those are a result of incompetence, capitalism or a combination.

 

[TedEH]

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, only the people I've worked with or around.

a good idea executed poorly

This is basically every game every though. The bigger and more ambitious the game, the more likely it's going to fall apart in a terrible mess that nobody could have seen coming. I've said it before and it's continued to ring true on every new project I've seen: it's almost a miracle any sizeable game gets made at all. It's such a giant ridiculous mess of people and code and assets and designs and opinions and management styles and personalities and every type of jerk with every type of character, etc etc etc.

a bad idea that no one recognises

See the last point, but to go a step further - ideas are abundant in games. Everyone has a brilliant idea if only they had the money and team to pull it off. Half of all the big-team devs think they're design geniuses who could solve all the problems of modern gaming, if they juuuust had all the resources. Not to say they aren't good people - ambition is good - but ideas have no real value here. It's the execution that matters - and yes, a huge chunk of that execution is management.

shovelware

Hard to argue with that one, but then again, like any other medium, much of the audience has gotten pretty good at dodging the obvious junk.

intentional predatory design

So I've worked on some knowingly predatory games. They're well aware of what they're doing, and don't feel good about it. To many of them, it feels unavoidable and they do what they can to negate the grossness of it and put a real good game underneath it. But at the end of the day, they have to deliver what's been asked of them, and the people doing the asking are convinced that they have to make games like this to keep the lights on - 'cause lets not kid ourselves, mobile gaming is a bigger market than "real games", and whales keep the lights on.

On one project, the monetization designers (yes, people have that title, lol) had to go through several iterations of a "how evil do we have to be" document that tried to balance the gross stuff they needed to do with keeping the game feeling like it's of value to those that can't or won't pay. Personally, I think it's impossible. For every "oh my god, they put timers on EVERYTHING", I promise there was something a lot worse that got cut or scaled down because they didn't want to feel evil about it.

Don't get me wrong, there's a non-zero amount of evil in modern game design. But in my experience, there's very little evil in the process/teams until you reach the very top level - the people signing the checks. There are a LOT of levels up to that point though. And most of the team spend a lot of effort doing whatever they can to mitigate that evil.

 

[StevenC]

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, only the people I've worked with or around.


This is basically every game every though. The bigger and more ambitious the game, the more likely it's going to fall apart in a terrible mess that nobody could have seen coming. I've said it before and it's continued to ring true on every new project I've seen: it's almost a miracle any sizeable game gets made at all. It's such a giant ridiculous mess of people and code and assets and designs and opinions and management styles and personalities and every type of jerk with every type of character, etc etc etc.


See the last point, but to go a step further - ideas are abundant in games. Everyone has a brilliant idea if only they had the money and team to pull it off. Half of all the big-team devs think they're design geniuses who could solve all the problems of modern gaming, if they juuuust had all the resources. Not to say they aren't good people - ambition is good - but ideas have no real value here. It's the execution that matters - and yes, a huge chunk of that execution is management.


Hard to argue with that one, but then again, like any other medium, much of the audience has gotten pretty good at dodging the obvious junk.


So I've worked on some knowingly predatory games. They're well aware of what they're doing, and don't feel good about it. To many of them, it feels unavoidable and they do what they can to negate the grossness of it and put a real good game underneath it. But at the end of the day, they have to deliver what's been asked of them, and the people doing the asking are convinced that they have to make games like this to keep the lights on - 'cause lets not kid ourselves, mobile gaming is a bigger market than "real games", and whales keep the lights on.

On one project, the monetization designers (yes, people have that title, lol) had to go through several iterations of a "how evil do we have to be" document that tried to balance the gross stuff they needed to do with keeping the game feeling like it's of value to those that can't or won't pay. Personally, I think it's impossible. For every "oh my god, they put timers on EVERYTHING", I promise there was something a lot worse that got cut or scaled down because they didn't want to feel evil about it.

Don't get me wrong, there's a non-zero amount of evil in modern game design. But in my experience, there's very little evil in the process/teams until you reach the very top level - the people signing the checks. There are a LOT of levels up to that point though. And most of the team spend a lot of effort doing whatever they can to mitigate that evil.

Thanks for the detailed response!

I think we're broadly on the same page. I 100% don't think games are bad because developers are out to make a bad game or are incompetent. Those are all executive decisions and time constraints, or incompetence managing (at least in modern games, see Satoru Iwata saving Pokemon and Earthbound). I suppose there are the occasional incompetences of, for example, following a path that would be obviously incorrect with deeper consideration or experience, but I think that's pretty negligible. Even in the worst cases I'm sure the developers at EA or TakeTwo feel icky about what they're asked to do every year.

I would definitely insist that there are bad ideas though. Like making Fallout games that aren't Fallout games, or Paper Mario games that aren't Paper Mario games. Maybe they're good standalone games without the baggage of the series they're continuing, but it's still a bad idea.

 

[TedEH]

I personally tend to like all the games that get shit on for not being enough like their franchise predecessors, so I'm outside of the norm on that one, I guess. In some fairness, I've seen some pretty bad ideas make their way to production and then get shipped. It's pretty rare someone thinks their ideas are bad, until it's too late, hah.

 

[StevenC]

I personally tend to like all the games that get shit on for not being enough like their franchise predecessors, so I'm outside of the norm on that one, I guess. In some fairness, I've seen some pretty bad ideas make their way to production and then get shipped. It's pretty rare someone thinks their ideas are bad, until it's too late, hah.

Yeah, I'm not saying all the later Paper Marios are bad, just that they aren't Paper Mario games and would likely sell as well if they were a different Mario franchise instead. The bad idea being the naming, not necessarily the difference in game design and their negative reception being outsized to their actual quality. A bad idea is contextual, basically.

 

[TedEH]

A bad idea is contextual, basically.

I wish it didn't work that way, 'cause people are missing out. New Paper Mario is fine - maybe even good.... maybe even delightful at times.

 

[sevenfoxes]

7th Guest

 

[mlp187]

I don’t recall if I’ve followed up from my previous post about Shadowman, so here’s an update:
My wettest dreams came true!

The game is goddamn glorious and I’ve played through it, nearly 100%-ing it. My kids (very young) liked it too until I got to Deadside, at which point I only played on the local screen.

Newcomers may find the controls a bit annoying at first, but the aesthetics, design, and narrative are completely worth it in my opinion. I spent way too much time playing that game instead of my guitars and I’m going to do it again.

I bought the game on my Switch and PS4 to show support for NightDive studios, for they are doing god’s neglected work.

 

[wankerness]

So if I want to play it, I should get the remaster? I just dug out a CRT tv and have the N64 version handy! But I'd have to buy a working memory card cause mine's been dead for many years.

 

[Robslalaina]

This!



Spent countless hours on the MSN Gaming Zone from 97 to 99 because of it. Good times...

 

[Manurack]

I've probably already posted this reply, but I really enjoyed it on the first generation Xbox console back then!

Set almost 4,000 years before the first Star Wars movie A New Hope came out, this one was pretty special considering your character is the old Dark Lord - Darth Revan of the Sith, who lost his long term memory. In the game, you can either go down the Light side of the Force, or the Dark side of the Force.

Classic! Nostalgia has kicked in and I actually have it on my Xbox 360 thanks to the Xbox Marketplace, I bought it for around $20 CAD a few years back. I want to play it and start the whole journey again as Darth Manurack

 

[works0fheart]

That would work if we knew for a fact that Bethesda wouldn't fuck them up. That said, I don't have that much trust in them. Every time they release a game, it's ultimately up to the fans to fix it.

Came to this thread to say Morrowind as it's my favorite game, and your post basically summed up why I'd be afraid to ever see it happen. There's that group of people that have been developing it themselves as a mod for Skyrim for the better part of 10 years now but the longer time goes on the less chance it has to ever see the light of day it seems.

Anyways, I didn't feel like sifting through the 27 pages of this thread to see if anyone had mentioned Morrowind already, but if none of you have ever played it, I'd recommend at least watching a playthrough of it. The gameplay has admittedly not aged well. Hell, even for it's time it was clunky as fuck. Where the game gets you though is the sheer depth of it. The story is so rich and original that I can't think of anything else that comes close really. The world is beautiful and alien and once the story has its' hooks in you it's one of the most immersive experiences you can get from a game I think. Whatever the writer was on when he came up with the plot must have been pretty good lol.

Another great game I'd love to see at the very least ported to the Switch is Final Fantasy Tactics. A lot of the other 90's Final Fantasy games get the limelight more frequently when it comes to remakes or ports (VI, VII, VIII, IX). I'm not saying they don't deserve it, but the story and play style in Tactics are just so different from the rest of the series that it really makes for a very original experience.

 

[Ralyks]

After watching a ridiculously long video on all of the Shin Megami Tensai games and spinoffs and such to date, I think they should remake both Shin Megami Tensai: Digital Devil Saga games from the PS2 as one complete game.

 

[Crungy]

@works0fheart I could get into that, as well as Daggerfall. I gave Morrowind a try recently and it's not bad but I struggled with it, it feels very dated unfortunately.

Obviously not the same, but I just started ESO and it's filling the void better than I expected lol kinda feels like I'm playing morrowind in a weird sort of way.


Also:
I'll never get sick of Oblivion, but an updated/freshened up/expanded version of that would be awesome.

 

[wankerness]

Didn't see anyone mention this anywhere, but apparently they're remaking The Witcher 1. Total overhaul with open world format, etc. Now I'm not sure if I should bother playing the original. Maybe I'll start with 2! I was hoping to get a refresher on 2 before replaying 3 later this month, cause my first time through 3 I sure remembered nothing about 2's plot and thus was lost for a long time.

 

[KentBrockman]

Simpsons Hit and Run!!!