This is sort of piggybacking off of u/hankbaumbach’s recent post about “bad” games with great concepts that would benefit greatly from a new iteration - I had a few games in mind, but I quickly realised that each one I thought of was actually a really great game that could become even better with modern hardware capabilities and polish.

So what’s a great video game/franchise that was ended prematurely and really deserves a modern iteration?

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To start, my immediate thoughts were:

Split Second - An arcade racer meets action movie meets reality TV show where good driving is rewarded with the ability to alter the track and create hazards for opponents by blowing up skyscrapers and bridges, possessing machines, crashing cargo planes and all sorts of other insane shit. And it was published by Disney of all companies (before promptly shutting down the developer, Black Rock Studios, since the game was unfortunately a commercial failure). Nothing else before or since has felt like this game - so this is my Number 1.

Burnout - Burnout 3 is genuinely a contender for my favourite game of all time. You haven’t lived until you’ve been crashed out by another car and then proceeded to fly your destroyed shell of a vehicle directly back at them in slow motion and causing a several car pileup. This game may be 20 years old but it and its early 00’s alt rock/pop punk/emo soundtrack still hold up today. Revenge brings even more speed and a sickening amount of bloom and motion blur to the formula for next gen, and Paradise brought it to an open world (although unfortunately the incredible Crash Mode was ditched in favour of “Showtime” - it’s hard to explain but imagine a playable Michael Bay car crash). Paradise actually did get a remaster about 5 years ago which was great but it was essentially just a graphical upgrade and ported to PS4/XB1. I know some of the original Devs created a spiritual successor to crash mode a few years ago. I forge the name but I recall it being pretty half baked on release (there’s only so much you can do on such a small budget - it was an indie title after all)

Jet Set Radio Future - Honestly I just really want a PC version of this game available, doesn’t even have to be a remaster. As I was typing this I realised that the newly released Bomb Rush Cyberfunk does seem to be pretty much exactly the same game - even down to the locations - but with more modes of transportation (Plus, Hideki Naganuma - the guy behind JSRF’s ridiculously amazing soundtrack - contributed to this game’s OST too). So that might rule it out but I’ll leave it here anyways as a success story I guess!

Anyways I’d love to hear what y’all think!