Gaming wish list

As an avid gamer, some of my all time favourite game franchises always keep me coming back, but more often than not those things I wished they would include in their sequels often disappoint in the absence – so here’s my run down of the gaming sequels I would love to see…

HALO ARENA

I think the story driven campaign of the Halo franchise has been lacking ever since Halo Combat Evolved – the enemy intelligence, character design and graphical polish has always been top notch – but the story? I couldn’t care less. Now when you consider that the multi-player element is by far the most popular draw for the millions of Halo fans out there -I think Halo 4 needs to go death match only. See Quake 3 Arena for how such an idea can prove successful (and how Quake 4 was a whopping heap of dog poo). Bungie you know it makes sense.

Half Life 3

No this is tricky – what was missing from Half-Life 2? Well lets begin with the game’s most obvious fault – the enemy A.I. Valve – if u want to see how enemy intelligence is done, take a look at F.E.A.R. or the Halo franchise – the combat in HL#2 was good because of the environmental physics, the gravity gun, the cool weapons…not because you felt particularly challenged by your enemy. Secondly, what happened to the cool alien weapons from Half Life 1? I also want trip wires or sticky grenades so I can lay traps for my enemies? Oh and how about controlling the ant-lions again, but this time ‘having control over them’, and not just knowing they’ll go kill the bad guys regardless of whether or not I throw the bug bait?

Story wise, its difficult to say – perhaps lets learn more this time about the G-Man and his involvement in Gordon Freeman’s life? How about going back to Black-Mesa for one segment? Oh and take a look at BLACK or Red Faction for destructible environments – I think Valve are the guys to finally make this idea work. Other than that, how about something to rival the brilliance of Nova Prospect? These are of course obvious requests – and I just hope we see Half-Life 3 a helluva lot sooner than we got to see HL#2. Bring it on!

Jet Set Radio 3

This stalled franchise hit the ground running with the near-perfect Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast, but in my opinion was ruined for Jet Set Radio Future with the over-simplifying of the graffiti and a move to large cities – it was the suburban Japanese ghetto feel that made Jet Set Radio work, that and the superb Jap-pop soundtrack (of which wasn’t as well done in the sequel). With today’s technology, the cell-shaded visuals would look amazing, and taking it back to sewers, housing estates etc and making every graffiti a quick time event mini game adds much more depth. Oh and with advent of on-line gaming, we could again download our own graffiti, have multi-player contests – oh the list goes on…and how about a design your own character mode? MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

And for those who have no idea what I’m talking about: