In case you missed the news earlier this morning, Rockstar Games is officially bringing back L.A. Noire. The hit detective game will be arriving on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch later this year, and a VR game is in the works as well.
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L.A. Noire is just one of the many franchises that Rockstar Games worked on before establishing itself as a Grand Theft Auto machine, and while all its effort is no doubt going into Red Dead Redemption 2 for its release next year, we can’t help but think there are a few long-lost franchises that deserve some kind of comeback, if only for a new audience to discover them.
Let’s look at some particular franchises that we feel would hit the spot with some sort of high-definition re-release.
Smuggler’s Run
If this name sounds familiar, it’s because Grand Theft Auto Online recently received an expansion that shares the same name, allowing you to smuggle cargo and evade enemies. But the original game, which came out for PlayStation 2 years ago, is a road-trip-based treat, one in which you run missions while evading the law in the best way possible. The game would do really well on today’s market, especially with multiplayer thrown into the mix, as you could take on friends with deliveries or even play as the law trying to bring them down. This is one Run we’d never get tired of.
Oni
While a lot of attention from Bungie was going into Halo in the early 2000’s, the team also worked with Rockstar Games on a third-person action/adventure game called Oni. This anime style adventure features stylish visuals that pop off the screen, along with a unique mixture of gunplay and hand-to-hand combat to take down enemies. While Bungie obviously has its hands full with Destiny 2 these days, we’d love to see this game make a comeback with HD visuals. In fact, some modders have been working on it through a PC project over the last few years. Rockstar should check their work out, and then make it official for consoles and PC.
Table Tennis
Call us crazy, but Rockstar Games isn’t just a master of the action terrain – it also knows its way around a good sports game. No other title shows more proof of that than Rockstar Games Table Tennis, a highly accurate and fun-to-play ping-pong game with a ton of great moves. A new version is definitely in order, with more players (like John Marston?), more tricks and more online options, so you can challenge the next paddle master that may be standing in line. Plus, if it’s budget priced like the original game, it’ll sell like hotcakes.
Thrasher: Skate And Destroy
Yep, a long time ago, Rockstar Games attempted to hop on the Tony Hawk skateboarding bandwagon with Thrasher: Skate and Destroy, and it brought a number of technical aspects that actually made it a much better game than your usual skateboarding clone. That’s why we feel the series would make quite a comeback, especially since we don’t have much skateboarding fare to choose from these days. Clean up the graphics, add online options, and give us the ability to design our own players and decks, and we’d totally be in a skateboarder’s paradise.
Midnight Club
There have already been a number of rumors circling that Midnight Club was making its way back to the game scene, possible reintroducing the fun open-world racing action that we’ve come to expect from the series, particularly with its last entry, Los Angeles. The timing for it would be perfect, as racing games are getting all sorts of attention right now, and Rockstar Games’ development prowess would be a perfect fit for those looking for high-impact street racing action. Make sure we still have the online options open though – we need to get some pink slip races going on.
Max Payne
This may be a bit of a stretch, as Max Payne 3 didn’t quite sell as well as the original games did, even though it was nothing short of a masterpiece. That said, what about giving the first two games a try on the market again? Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2 would probably, ahem, make a killing with some solid HD transfers, and, for that matter, refinements to the gameplay that make it a breeze to execute bullet-time, even as you have to keep downing painkillers like M & M’s. This is one gaming legacy that shouldn’t go away, so we’ll take whatever Rockstar can give us.
Manhunt
Fiiiiiiine. We’re psychotics. While the Manhunt games weren’t exactly the calmest gaming fare out there, we have to admit that there was something cool about doing in criminals in a number of sadistic ways. That said, a Manhunt 3 game would definitely be cool, if only to introduce even more dangerous enemies, and more murderous ways to take them down. For that matter, how about bringing back Brian Cox to narrate even more? He provides a bit of malice alongside a very bloody picture.
We’d love to see any of these games make a comeback…provided that Red Dead Redemption 2 stays on schedule, of course.
