I’d like a new SimCity game, too. I assume that Maxis is too busy making new The Sims content and swimming in Olympic-sized swimming pools full of money to bother, though.
Tropico 3 is a worthy diversion, but I’d call it a “town builder” rather than a city builder. Tracking every individual citizen really limits the size of a town before it begins to have severe logistical problems. I almost didn’t buy Tropico 3 because when I played the demo the construction times drove me up the wall. I’d be shouting at my Tropicans: “No! Don’t go to church, you asshole! You’re supposed to be building the new cannery!”. Fortunately, the instant-build cheat code makes the game playable (even though tracking individuals still diminishes the game). I want a real city builder where I can build a metropolis of millions, not a town of hundreds.
Also, I think we’re about due for Elder Scrolls V.
One thing that, considering the popularity of the WH40K franchise in video games right now, and the relative success of the Bloodbowl game, isn’t even a pipe dream (OK, not *totally *a pipe dream) : a direct conversion of the tabletop game. No real time, no completely changing the rules like Chaos Gate did. Just pure Warhammer 40K, with online matches and maybe a single player campaign architecture similar to the Total War games.
I loved Leisure Suit Larry. There have been a couple of LSL games fairly recently, but they weren’t the same at all; more like a collection of stupid semi-racy mini-games.
It was, the only problem was the line of sight rule. Every. Damn. Turn. There’d be a pissy argument about what a specific inch tall miniature could or could not see. A computer program could take care of that in a heartbeat.
Also the Archeotech Horde was WAY too nice, I’d like to see the Gang turf balanced a bit more.
I would love to see continued development and or expansion into more of an MMO type play for things like sins of a solar empire with hundreds of players and some rebalancing of the fighting so you can’t just swoop in and smoke a planet in 30 min. Make things like sieges and blockades a possibility, running repairs, capturing of space based assets. Sometimes I think I need to sit down and try to build a team to try and make such a game.
No, I mean Elder Scrolls V. I have Fallout 3, I like Fallout 3, but I’m kinda done with Fallout 3.
Dark Messiah is a pretty good first-person fantasy game, but it’s completely linear. I’m not aware of any sandbox-style first-person fantasy games newer than Oblivion, and Oblivion is pretty dated by now.
Well we have now had a Theme Hospital remake which was pretty good (Two Point Hospital) and a couple of decent X-Com games.
Still waiting for someone to remake all the classic Maxis games. A couple of attempts have been made to recreate Sim Tower but they just don’t feel as fun. I worry that my standards have improved since I was a child, perhaps I’m slightly blinded by nostalgia…
Funny, I just bought that last night. On sale right now, 79% off at Greenmangaming ($6.37). It’s awesome. I love that it can be as simple or as deep and complex as you want.
I miss them too. I read an interesting article a long time ago that speculated that Adventure games of that ilk were so popular early on because they fit perfectly with the types of entertainment early adopters of PCs would enjoy (logic and puzzles are the kind of things Science and Engineering type people often enjoy) but when PCs became more mainstream they got overshadowed by more mainstream games.
With D&D having a renaissance, I would love to see updated Gold Box type games also. I would imagine something like that must be on drawing board.
I also hate how time waster but fun games like Bejeweled have all become “Freemium” Skinner traps. Would love to see a game where you buy the game and get to play it however long you want.
