Bad/mediocre games that could be awesome remakes

[Dalisclock]

Mirror's Edge. Remove a lot (that being, all of) the combat, tighten up the free running, and give us a decent story. Boom, really good game right there.
Also Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. First off, remove the "Prince of Persia" thing it's pretending to be. Then remove about 90% of the grunge. I'd enjoy it.

Also, make the island of time more interesting. Much more interesting. Hell, use the concept to it's fullest. Anything but the generically gothic castle/fortress in the game where it really doesn't look that much different in the past then in the present(except things were sunnier in the past).

Also, make the prince a lot less emo and have more emotions then "I'm angry! Rawr!"

 

[songnar]

E.T. The Extraterrestrial, anyone?

Anyone at all?

No?

Alright, then. Nevermind.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Alpha Protocol,

It's not a bad game, it's even got some pretty awesome level/mission design and the non-linearity of the title is inspired. Unfortunately the combat is dumb at best and really, really buggy at worst and would need a complete rework to be any good. However if this were to happen Alpha Protocol would go from being a mediocre game with a great narrative to a full on great game.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Breath of Fire series. Dragon Quarter was pretty mediocre. But the franchise still has potential.

What? Dragon Quarter was BRILLIANT! One of the darkest stories I've ever seen, tense tactical combat...

Though I agree that I'd like to see Breath of Fire come back... either in an innovative form or as a nice throwback ala Breath of Fire 4.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Lost Planet - the thermal energy/health regeneration mechanic is genius and deserves a better game. Maybe one with an exploration focus.
The thermal energy mechanic is basically a soft timer, it constantly ticks down and if you run out you die, but here's the thing, thermal energy also drives your health regeneration as you regen health you lose thermal energy at a rapid rate.
It can drive the choice, if I explore, i need to expend time and thus lose thermal energy, i might also run into combat and lose even more thermal energy.... but i might find a huge pool of thermal energy...

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

The Phantom Menace tie-in game for the PS1 had some surprisingly good ideas. The levels were huge and sprawling with a LOT to do. The Tattooine levels, in particular, were like mini-GTAs. Complete with huge murder-sprees!

There was just so much wasted potential. The levels were absolutely full of sidequests and several different routes to your objective. The NPCs also seemed to react to nearly everything that could happen. But the mechanics... ugh. The movement and combat were both awful and whoever decided on that camera angle was a doo-doo head. I really think that it could have been the best Star Wars game ever, but the mechanics let it down.

 

[Captain Billy]

Assassin's Creed, definitely. Though not without some clarifications. I don't think the current AC franchises are bad games, strictly speaking; I always have a hell of a lot of fun with them. But somewhere along the line, around AC2, the games completely lost sight of actual assassination. I'd love to see a remade AC series (or even the next installment) that focuses almost exclusively on stealth and strategy.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Spore.

I shouldn't really have to explain why.

I second this bowel motion! Although I'm not sure if a 'remake' is required so much as going back to what was promised in 2005-06.

 

[Gabanuka]

[HEADING=3]NinjaBread Man[/HEADING]

NinjaBread Man is, to me, one of the greatest missed opportunities of the last generation.

What it was: A shitty shovelware platformer, released on the Wii early after release. An utterly broken game, with completely ineffectual weapons and horrid coding, the only saving grace was the brilliance of the idea.

What it should be: A gory hack-and-slash brawler, somewhere between God of War Smash Bros. But here's the twist- the whole thing aesthetically looks like a Kirby game... Right up until you tear out the spine of a cake monster and get showered in strawberry jam. All the over-the-top violence of Kratos, filtered through the diabetically sweet lens of a 'kiddie platformer'.

Sounds like you want to play Naughty Bear

 

[hiverious]

[HEADING=3]NinjaBread Man[/HEADING]

NinjaBread Man is, to me, one of the greatest missed opportunities of the last generation.

What it was: A shitty shovelware platformer, released on the Wii early after release. An utterly broken game, with completely ineffectual weapons and horrid coding, the only saving grace was the brilliance of the idea.

What it should be: A gory hack-and-slash brawler, somewhere between God of War Smash Bros. But here's the twist- the whole thing aesthetically looks like a Kirby game... Right up until you tear out the spine of a cake monster and get showered in strawberry jam. All the over-the-top violence of Kratos, filtered through the diabetically sweet lens of a 'kiddie platformer'.

Definitely NinjaBread Man. It could have been such an amazing game as a twisted and quirky platformer, like Psychonauts. I'm not particularly sure the gory hack-and-slash angle would have worked as well as a Psychonauts-like game. Just think of the possibilities for level design and scenarios when the game takes place in a candyland inhabited by sentient sweets.

And yes, similarly, if Naughty Bear was a good game, I would have loved to play that.

With regard to these two games, I think I am just taking pleasure in seeing something innocent perverted into something violent and horrific.

Either those or Neverdead. I found the idea behind the game to be interesting, and probably with some better balancing of the limb removal system, better writing, and probably better everything else, it would have been an interesting shooter in a sea of otherwise samey shooters.

 

[zzkill]

My standard answer to this thread is VTM:B. Require tons of patching to even get working and even then it still a mess, combat and despite combat was at most passable, most of the game had multiple ways of solving issues but about ¾ of the through it throws you into sewer level with nothing but combat yet it still managed to be entertaining.

I concur, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines seems awesome, old-school vampires(no glittery here) in a modern setting and some rebellious elements among them, and you are one of them, drinking blood, avoiding detection, staying in the dark, picking sides and playing vampire politics. Awesome. One could even say it has the best parts (few, I admit) from the dreaded Twilight series: power struggles, new ideas vs tradition and battles between beings of the supernatural. Only that the character moves awkward, combat is weird, areas are small/limited, and graphics, well old game and all that but I would love better graphics. A great candidate for a remake.

 

[Austin Howe]

I gotta be honest with myself . . . every single game in the Legacy of Kain series is at best an example of really mediocre game design. Oh the graphics were always gorgeous, the soundtrack was wonderfully unique and the entire story aesthetic, dialogue, character, voice-acting, etc, represent one of the greatest accomplishments of storytelling in the medium, but lemme tell ya, these games as games need so much work.

 

[Piorn]

Dark Void had some pretty cool concepts like the flying and awesome particle physx, but was ultimately held back by an incoherent plot, was much too short, and was not properly fleshed out.
I'd really like to see something similar one day.

 

[TrulyBritish]

Assassin's Creed, definitely. Though not without some clarifications. I don't think the current AC franchises are bad games, strictly speaking; I always have a hell of a lot of fun with them. But somewhere along the line, around AC2, the games completely lost sight of actual assassination. I'd love to see a remade AC series (or even the next installment) that focuses almost exclusively on stealth and strategy.

Definitely got to agree with this. I enjoy the games and quite enjoyed AC3, but it just wasn't an Assassins Creed game. Conner just felt too blunt to be an assassin and there were really no satisfying assassinations. While in all of the games you could just basically run in and massacre every guard just to reach your target, AC3 made it feel like that was the only option you could do to keep the flow.
I love the ship segments though. Just put them into a different game Ubisoft, not my assassin one. *grumbles about Black Flag*

 

[XX Y XY]

The 2 big obvious ones that come to mind are Spore and the new Steel Battalion. Those should require no explanation. But the one horrible game that really lends itself well to the upcoming generation, especially the WiiU, would have to be Lifeline for the PS2. I'm sure most people haven't heard of it but it was a space/sci-fi survival horror game that utilized a headset communicator. The game was run entirely using voice command. There was another survivor you stayed in contact with that was in some sort of security room and he had access to the cameras around the space station. Someone could remake that game as a co-op with one player using the WiiU tablet as a sort of security display panel looking through different cameras trying to spot clues, enemies, and hazards for the other character that would be controlled by a player on the TV screen. Instead of doing the whole thing in voice command maybe just use them as an option to do things that the WiiU tablet player would do when you don't have someone available to play with. Things like unlocking doors, forcing computer access, and accessing maintenance hatches and repair terminals come to mind.

 

[exxxed]

Advent Rising, hell of a lotta' potential, but it was kicked out the door too early and it died in the mud sadly.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, definitely not a bad game by any stretch... if you install the unofficial patch, I would personally love a remake or a sequel to it, and mno CCP thanks, but no thanks regarding World of Darkness.

Drakan: Order of the Flame, man I loved this game back in the day, a remake would be stellar, to it and it's sequel... considering it's broad gameplay mechanics that were implemented well too (replayed it recently and it didn't feel dated by any stretch of the word).