Every year we eagerly await the flurry of new announcements and confirmations that come with a new Electronic Entertainment Expo, and every year we are hit with more and more fake ‘leaks‘ and speculations. These creative fakes are sometimes a bittersweet revelation of the games we long for, but for one reason or another, we’ll more than likely never receive. Here is a list of 10 games we can only dream about being announced at E3.
EA’s Skate titles were an almost instant hit with its realistic and literally grounded approach to skateboarding. A stark contrast to the arcade-y style of the very successful Tony Hawk games, Skate brought gamers a real skateboard simulator. Requiring more dexterity than button mashing, it filled player’s hearts with an enormous sense of satisfaction and accomplishment by pulling off mostly believable tricks and feats. Its co-op modes were also wonderful additions in the second and third entries and only helped to enhance and heighten the overall enjoyment. Sadly while still a exceptional game, the third title in the series fell into the traps of most EA titles by cutting corners and having extremely repetitive missions. The studio, EA Black Box, was also closed in 2013, which all but finalizes the end of Skate as a whole. But there is a bit of light in the darkness of EA’s shadow. The recently funded crowdfunding game “Session” promises a return to realistic skateboarding gameplay, much in the spirit of the Skate series. Only time will tell if this dream is realized.
Every Metal Gear Solid fan has seen the amazing footage of Snake Eater running in FOX Engine, and every fan lost a little bit of their souls when it was discovered this footage was all for a mere Pachinko machine. The Kojima/Konami split was a very public affair for the most part, with the general consensus labeling Konami as the evil corporation that they may very well be. The real loser here though, are the players. With the series now entirely out of Kojima’s hands, the fate of Metal Gear is very much up in the air. Despite the release of Metal Gear Survive, there is still some hope that the clearly achievable dream of a full FOX Engine remake of the beloved Snake Eater could see the light of day. But given the track history of Konami with other beloved IPs such as Silent Hill, we’ll more likely to see a Metal Gear dungeon crawler before a proper remake.
Few games have captured the pure, unadulterated grit that the original Manhunt title achieved. Rockstar showed its darkest side with the release of this playable snuff film centered around stealth gameplay that rewards you for committing the most gruesome kills possible. The game was born from controversy, but also turned out to be well crafted, challenging, and one of the most nerve-wracking games to-date. The second entry, however, was crushed under its own media buzz, receiving no ‘official‘ version without large amounts of censorship. The game also featured a less interesting story and lack-luster visual fidelity which caused the second entry to fall flat with fans and new comers alike. A fresh start with next-gen visuals, some sort of co-op mode, or better yet, an ‘invader‘ style PvP as seen in the Dark Souls games, and the series could be back on top. But alas, with no official word on the future of the series, we’ll have to keep dreaming of beheadings and strangulation.
While recent releases in the ninja genre haven’t been fully realized, the stellar Nioh from last year proves the genre and setting can be wonderfully recreated. What was once the king of the stealth ninja genre, Tenchu has been missing in action since its 2006 Tenchu Z release, unless you count the PSP and puzzle game releases, which I am not going to. Originally from the Dark Souls developer FromSoftware, they’ve obviously been busy with Souls and Bloodborne releases. But a recent teaser trailer released during The Game Awards has created loads of speculation of the company working on a new entry in the Tenchu series. While many still believe the teaser to be the more obvious Bloodborne 2 or even Shadow Tower, fans of the series can still dream for a return to the bloody ninja action of Tenchu.
Fans and critics alike seem to have an undying love for the Portal series. Innovating puzzle games as well as the first-person shooter genre, Portal 1 and 2 prove yet again that Valve are the masters of interactive storytelling while still being a traditional ‘game’. Complete with a agonizing cliffhanger, Valve themselves stated various times that Chell (the protagonist of Portal), will in fact cross paths with Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman. This conjures ideas of portal gun combat, GlaDoS showdowns with DOG, and other fantastic set pieces. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen into the same “when it’s done” hole as Half-Life 3. Valve seems much more content to let the Steam card transactions rolls in, rather than make a new game. So it sadly seems a new Portal title may exist only in our dreams.
Anyone that was a PlayStation Network user during the PS2 era knows about the SOCOM series. And if they aren’t completely void of tastes, they’ll also know that the second entry is basically the perfect online third-person shooter. With extremely tight controls, wonderful performance, an insane amount of content, and combat that rewarded skill and aim, SOCOM was a game of tactic, finesse, and quick thinking. While the third entry was passable, every entry since has been increasingly bad. So poor in fact that series creator Zipper Interactive has gone belly up since. While this more or less kills any hope of a proper, well-made sequel, what fans have wanted for years is a remake, remaster, or even a simple port to the PlayStation 4. Include working online, and you have an instant community. There’s been rumors of a re-release for years, but for now, it still remains a dream.
Most people are well aware of the Dark Souls franchise these days. Yeah, yeah, it’s super hard and therefore anything with any remote amount of challenge is now “The Dark Souls of” whatever that subject may be. Annoying tropes aside, many never had a chance to play the first in the Souls series; Demon’s Souls. Other than its clearly poor name choice, the game has everything people love about the Dark Souls games, but arguably even better level design and more interesting creature and boss design. While we seem to get ports and remasters of nearly every game basically two years after release, we’ve yet to get a proper re-release of Demon’s Souls going on ten years later. It’s sad to think this title will never be playable in its true form again due to the online servers being recently shut down. So what’s the deal FromSoftware? You guys don’t like money? Shoot me an email and we’ll sort this out.
Oh look, another series taken behind the barn and shot by EA. Dead Space was a wonderfully gruesome space survival horror, that was ruined in the third entry by underdeveloped co-op, story, and forced micro-transactions. Sound familiar? Despite the ruination of the series, fans like myself would love to see any sort of next-gen entry. Why not give us a port at least? Use those funds to help boost the creation of an actual sequel. EA loves money. Ports are easy money. I truly don’t get why they don’t do this. Our hopes took an even bigger hit when the game’s developer Visceral Games (formerly EA Redwood Shores) were closed down by EA, rumored to be due to the company’s focus on multiplayer rather than single player games, the latter of which Visceral were known for. This basically seals the fate for a true Dead Space sequel, but the idea of a reboot is always something that could happen. Just keep dreaming guys.
While odds are none of these titles will be confirmed at E3 2018, or any E3 for that matter, they are surely stuck within our hearts and dreams for what someday may be. I mean hey, a few years ago people called me crazy for waiting for Shenmue 3, and look how that turned out.
0 comments:
Post a Comment