The game I miss most...

catbarf on 1/9/2017 at 15:19

I miss story-based space sims. Freespace is fun and the modern updates to the engine make it seriously pretty, but I'd like to try something new. House of the Dying Sun is so, so close, but its fast-paced five-minutes-or-less mission style precludes telling much of a story beyond flavor text.

Maybe Squadron 42 will be the next big Wing Commander, but I'm not too optimistic.

icemann on 1/9/2017 at 15:23

So mine is more genres than just singular games.

* Beatem Ups - Highly popular in the 80s - roughly mid 90s. I LOVED these kinds of games. The rise of Street Fighter 2 killed these types of games off.
* God Sims (aka Populus, Power Monger etc). There was Black and White a while ago, but not much else since really.
* Resident Evil / Silent Hill style survivor horror games. By Resident Evil I'm referring to the zombie entries.
* Space Flight sims. Highly popular in the 80s - early 2000s. I loved these. More so with good FMV :). I know there's Elite, but that's strictly multiplayer.

Malf on 1/9/2017 at 18:25

Seeing Sulphur mention Okami made me think of Viewtiful Joe. There's nothing quite like it.

And no other racer has captured my heart to the extent F-Zero X did. I even played it again recently on a CRT, and it is still utterly wonderful, and it took seconds for me to get back in to it. It controls like a dream, and unfortunately, emulation just doesn't scratch the same itch. Dat music too.

I would say I miss Dungeon Master, but every time I say that, I realise it's still alive and well thanks to dmweb.free.fr
It still plays brilliantly, and it still has one of my favourite RPG levelling systems of all time, as well as my favourite magic system.

icemann's right about god games mind you. Playing through the wonderful but flawed Black & White games recently made me realise that since Molyneaux stopped making them, no-one's really been able to follow in his footsteps (even him), unless you count the world-conquering Dwarf Fortress.

But I even miss Dwarf Fortress! It's there! I can play it right now! But it's so badly optimised, it'll grind to an unplayable halt within a few hours of play, and I just can't bring myself to play it while it's in such a state.

Edit: Oh, and dedicated server online games without fecking persistent RPG elements! Ones that encouraged modding, and server administration, and community developed tournaments and clan systems!

demagogue on 1/9/2017 at 18:52

I'd agree with some of the ones you've mentioned ... Ultima, top-down or 2.5D RPGs, a few FLV games, some point & click adventures, interactive fiction...

froghawk on 1/9/2017 at 19:17

Was always sad Anachronox had so much cut content and never got a sequel despite the cliffhanger ending. I've never revisited it as a result... it's just too sad!

I also miss real Silent Hill games from Japanese developers. The Americans just don't get it, at all.

Renault on 1/9/2017 at 19:40

Well there hasn't been a good Thief game for 17 years, so of course I miss that.

I'd always hoped we'd get more Condemned games, I really enjoy the melee gameplay. And they were pretty scary and weird too.

I have great memories of playing Pilotwings when the N64 came out, and since then, nothing (except for a 3DS version, but I'm not really into handheld stuff).

Always wanted more Heretic/Hexen games, but I'm not sure they'd be the same as back in the day.

And of course Half Life.

Sulphur on 1/9/2017 at 19:56

Quote Posted by froghawk

Yeah, Anachronox is always going to be a shame unless Otherside manage to pick the license up from Squeenix. (Which they can. Squeenix is (https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015-17-02-square-offers-gex-fear-effect-and-anachronox-ips-out-for-developers-to-pitch-on) open to licensing it.)

And Silent Hill... well, if you ever get to play Siren: Blood Curse on the PS3, it's essentially a Team Silent game. Not quite Silent Hill, but effective in its own right. It's also a shame that Kojima and del Toro's take on SH never came to pass, but well, you know. Fuck Konami.

froghawk on 1/9/2017 at 20:59

I'm not a console gamer at all, so I've never gotten to play the sirens. I tried emulating the first one years back and it ran like crap for some reason :/

Seconded on Hexen, but I think modern design would kind of defeat the point of those games. Portal of Pravus already became too much of a linear shooter and lost the essence, but you'd never see a game with maze like hub levels to get lost in with no direction anymore.

TannisRoot on 2/9/2017 at 02:47

I want a modern Daggerfall with depth and procedural generation on par with the roguelike ADOM. I don't really give a shit about stories in games, but I love deep world building and lore.

Jason Moyer on 2/9/2017 at 04:28

While I think Arkane has been seriously delivering the goods with their Deus Ex-alikes and System-Shock-2-alike I miss the first 2 Thief games. I also miss stuff like Thief, System Shock 2, and Deus Ex coming out and being unlike anything I'd ever played before. Someone needs to do an immersive first person game with that level of simulation and depth and mystery but without being an homage to something that came before.

I also miss the days when we had proper racing simulators (I'm talking the stuff Papyrus, Crammond, and, as much as I dislike them, ISI made) that actually licensed a real-life racing series with the full set of rules/cars/drivers/tracks but didn't compromise on the sim-side of things. Grand Prix Legends, Indycar Racing, NASCAR Racing 2003, Grand Prix 4, GT Legends, GTR 2, etc. I wish it were possible for someone to license, say, the Assetto Corsa engine or the iRacing engine and then use it to make a WEC sim or a Blancpain GT sim or a 1991 IMSA Camel GT sim or a 1977 F1 sim or something. The content selection in modern racing sims is almost universally horrible and nonsensical.