Pick 5: Franchises that need a reboot

With the release of DmC this week, it was only fitting to place this week's Pick 5 about reboots. Which franchise deserves a reset? Successful or forgotten, there are titles that we wish their developers could just toss everything and recreate it. Here are five video games that need a reboot..

Turok

Remember the N64 version of Turok? Turok: Dinosaur Hunter? I'm not sure about you guys but this game was one of my personal favorites during the N64 era. Released in 1997, this game was named a Doom clone, but I don't think Doom had Raptors spawning right in front of you. In a span of 6 years, the Turok franchise spawn four sequels:Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, Turok: Rage Wars, Turok 3: Oblivion, and Turok: Evolution. As the series moved forward, it slowly lost its edge and became a standard shooter.

Fast forward to 2008, we find Turok, a reboot of the series for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. But it fell head first to the ground and never got back up. Turok, which is actually based on  a comic book series of the same name, still has a lot of potential. An FPS dinosaur hunter with Far Cry 3 quality would come out as a day one purchase in my book, granted that I get to fight a T-Rex with a bow and tons of exploding arrows on hand. You never know, a second reboot might be the charm.

Xenogears

Back in the Playstation one days,  JRPGs were everywhere! Just like how FPS are today. Wild Arms, Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy, Tales of Destiny, Legend of Mana, Legend of Dragoon, oh I can go on and on. While I could simple say any of those titles mentioned deserve a reboot, one title sticks when I think about a JRPG reboot, and that is Xenogears. A true classic and one game that I could replay over and over.

Aside from the great sprite animation that blended well with the 3D graphics, what drew me in the most was the game's martial arts combat system, which allows players to make combos and discover new skills when applying the right combination. These mechanics were also used during the mech battles when the characters pilot their mechs called "Gears", which served as a whole different take on the combat. It was a great system and to this day I still hope to find an RPG similar to that style.

Xenogears was first released for Playstation in 1998, and it was only until 2002 when another title emerged, but not as a sequel, but as a "spiritual successor". Xenosaga trilogy was revealed and is a re-imagining of the Xenogears universe. Sadly nothing about Xenosaga got my attention. It was a different game, I quickly lost interest and did not even bother with the second and third game. It was successful though to a certain extent, but development stopped when the trilogy was complete.

They had a good thing with Xenogears, and if they reboot Xenogears and not go through the Xenosaga route, I can see it being a more successful franchise.

Resident Evil

Well this was a no brainer. Resident Evil. A franchise that defined the survival horror genre. First released in 1996 on the PlayStation, Resident Evil was one of the few games that would make you jump while playing. Everybody remembers the first cut-scene when Chris encounters his first zombie. This is a classic franchise that just kept growing after each title release. But sadly, Resident Evil evolved into a more action-oriented franchise. Exhibit A: The Resident Evil movies, Exhibit B: Resident Evil 6. Resident Evil slowly exited the survival horror genre and quickly jumped into the lines of action adventure and third person shooter.

The evolution was noticeable during Resident Evil 4, the first Resident Evil game that abandoned the still camera method of past games, and replaced it with an over the shoulder camera. Plus, no more zombies. Then Resident Evil 5 came and introduced co-op for the first time. Again, no traditional zombies, and had gameplay that was more about the action than anything else. Then the evolution was complete. The Resident Evil franchise has finally transformed itself into a non-resident evil  game in Resident Evil 6, with all the Hollywood explosions and mindless shooting that would make any of those Resident Evil movie directors proud. Don't get me started with the story.

This franchise screams for a reboot. Go back to your roots Capcom. Get the story close to at least  sane levels, and Get this generation of gamers a good scare for once. Capcom has clearly ran out of ideas with their latest entries, and it only makes sense to just start over.

Baldur's Gate

Before Bioware paired up with EA, they were once known as the creators Baldur's Gate. This fantasy RPG is a true PC classic. The first game was released back in 1998 and I still remember my love of the magic missile spell and the amazing feature of pausing combat by simply pressing a button in order to plan out your moves. From the release of the first game all the way up to 2001, Bioware has released an expansion for the original game, a sequel, and an expansion for the sequel.

From there, Bioware moved on, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was born. With a new developer on hand, they tried to make something different with Dark Alliance, and it became an action RPG game  similar to Diablo. The hack and slash did well enough to earn itself a sequel, but after that, no more Baldur's Gate game. The last game with Baldur's Gate in its title was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 released in 2004. It has been nearly a decade since we got another Baldur's Gate game and it's a shame really. Atari released Enhanced editions of the first two games last year, but no true sequel until now. With the big success of Dragon Age (successor to the Baldur's Gate franchise since they share the same gameplay mechanics), I think Bioware should really consider Baldur's Gate again.

Crash Bandicoot

PlayStation One's original mascot in my eyes, Crash Bandicoot is one game that needs to return. Crash Bandicoot first appeared in 1996 under the now famous developers Naughty Dog ( Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, The Last of Us), this platformer was one of  my favorites growing up. It was no Mario, but it's definitely Sony's best in that genre. From 1996 - 2008, 7  main Crash Bandicoot titles were made, with the last four titles not developed by Naughty Dog. Spin-offs like Crash Team Racing and other titles brought the franchise to other genres, but they were nothing compared to the original three.

The last  game released was Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2, which is an iOS title released by Activision. Why the sudden disappearance? I'm not too sure, but I'm sure it has something to do with legal rights to the series. Hopefully a miracle happens, and we see Crash make a glorious comeback. I'm still holding the torch demanding Sony to include Crash Bandicoot in Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. The game just seems wrong without him.

What about you? Got any games in mind that are in dire need of a reboot? Hit the comments below.

No games to buy? look around an online store...

Weird title I know, but I couldn't think of a better one for this post. This July, not a single disc-based game interested me and my friends, so we decided to split the money for two $20 PSN US prepaid cards to search for some games in the PSN Store that might interest us. Luckily we found a couple that used almost all the money we loaded up in my account.

Xenogears

First thing we looked at is on the PSone classics, and this was instantly our first pick. Priced at $9.99, this RPG was one of my favorite games when i was young. My friends were also fans of Xenogears and we instantly bought the game for us to play through one more time. It's unique combat mechanics of doing button combinations for attacks and doing special moves by doing specific combinations was a treat. Plus they had mechs, and as a kid, those blocky things back then were cool to me. If any gamer that wants to experience a great Japananese RPG that isn't Final Fantasy, this is the one to get. Just started playing and playing it again makes me appreciate how good RPGs were back then.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0xGILHchUo]

Moon Diver

Since we got something out of our childhood and the next game needed to be something co-op, we found one that was also made by Squaresoft, but we all know it now as Square-Enix.  This was a random find. I wasn't aware this game existed, my friend just researched on the net because we wanted a 4 player co-op to buy. He found Moon Diver and when we saw gameplay we all went "PERFECT!". Our first initial pick to buy was Dungeon Hunter Alliance and i wasn't 100% game in getting it since it was made my Gameloft, makers of cellphone game ripoffs. It was a dungeon crawler but it didn't seem worth the buy at $15. Thank god my we found Moon Diver because it felt like we would have regret buying Dungeon Hunter Alliance.

Moon Diver is a 2D side scroller that's playable with 4 players. You pick specific characters with different abilities to pick from and can level up fixing the characters stats as you go through the stages. It felt a lot like the old Strider games and with 4 players it was chaotic. We were all jumping around, slashing away, climbing walls, falling off. It was hard to get used to with all of us running around but we got what we wanted. A co-op game that gave us the same satisfaction as what Castle Crashers gave us. We are not done yet but it's definitely something to look at if you want a Co-op to play with your buddies. Fun stuff but after two stages, one friend blurted that he wanted to start watching Jackass 3D minus the 3D, so were not done yet! It's priced at $14.99 in the PSN store and also available in Xblox Live Marketplace for 1200 Microsoft Points.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_3OazMtu0]

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - Downloadable characters - Jill Valentine and Shuma Gorath

This has been long overdue. have no idea why i didn't bother getting these characters when they released it. I play Marvel vs Capcom 3 a lot, especially with friends when they come over and when i suggested it we all said "YES! let's get that shit already!". We downloaded each character for $4.99 or  400 Microsoft Points. Decent price considering that you get a completely different characters.  It's really not much of a download since the character is already on the disc and all you need is the unlock code which what you download that takes only seconds.

Since this finished ahead of the rest, we popped mt MvC 3 copies to give these new characters a try. Jill, i still don't have an idea how to play her but Shuma Gorath was trippy and easy to get used to. Whats weird with Shuma Gorath though is that he has charge moves which is very unusual in Marvel vs Capcom. I believe he's the only charge character actually. Jill looks like a great point character for a team. She isn't the Jill from Marvel vs Capcom 2, she's a completely new character coming form Resident Evil 5. That's why she has similar powers as Wesker. Why do Resident Evil have people like Wesker and Jill with powers?? well, that's another topic for another day, but she fits well in the Marvel vs Capcom universe. She's hella fast and has some crazy combos that I'm yet to learn. By the way Capcom, when are you giving us info on new DLC characters??

Jill Valentine

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG2_N418-lw&feature=fvst]

Shuma Gorath

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKnKnT8jghc]

With these buys, our $40 went down to around $4. I currently had $6 left before putting the two $20 cards which makes my remaining money $10.16. Are we happy with our buys?? definitely. We got what we needed and covered almost all the bases. We got an old school game, a PSN/XBLA game and DLC content. We are still looking what else to get with the remaining 10 bucks but so far no luck. Might consider saving it for possible DLC's that might come out, but we'll see what we decide. Any suggestions for the remaining 10 bucks?? and if you guys had around $40 to spend with some friends on either PSN or Xbox Live Marketplace, what would you guys pick?