Dead Games That Should Have Lived

[Trilaan]

#1: Tex Murphy series:

A series of adventure games originally created to be run on DOS and eventually becoming one of the first computer games to use DVD technology.  Story focuses around Tex Murphy, a private investigator in post WWIII San Francisco during the late 2030's to the mid 2040's.  The Tex Murphy series was always groundbreaking in it's production, interactivity and especially it's humor; but was forced to meet it's end in a rather untimely fashion with the downfall of the adventure game genre.

Examples of Tex humor:

Tex Murphy (upon the player clicking on a certain item in a shop): "Ahh, the Rodent Tracker 5000...Because household pests never build up an immunity to bullets."

Tex relates a story of how he became known as "Tex".  He was a young boy, playing cowboy on a mechanical horse when a bolt of lightning caused a power surge and the horse launched him into the ceiling.  Afterwards his brothers and sisters noticed the hole he left behind was in the shape of Texas.

#2: Leisure Suit Larry

Scavenger hunt-style animated computer game series following the sexed up exploits of Larry Laffer, a balding, self-described "ladies man" (more like ladies punching bag) with a love of 70's style leisure suits and sufferer of self-delusions.  The series did not officially end until The series went down with the rest of the adventure game giants though there was a poorly recieved game featuring Larry's nephew and his exploits at college.  The franchise was, however, undeniably dead.

Game Examples from Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail

Larry attempts to win various shipboard contests to spend a night "Cruising on the captain(yes, the female captain)."  In one portion of a cooking contest Larry must procure "beaver cheese" to make quiche and he finds a bunch of beavers in a hamster-style cage stored in one of the ship's holds and proceeds to...ahem...milk them.  Thankfully the lights go out but after Larry finishes all the beavers light up cigarettes.

You get extra points in the game if you sit through the animatronic Bill Clinton's entire stand-up comedy act.  "Once I was walking along the beach when I found a bottle.  I picked it up and rubbed it and a genie came out and said he would grant me a wish.  So I thought and thought and finally I said "'I wish for peace in the middle east."' and pulled out a map and the genie said "'I can't grant that wish.  These countries have been fighting for thousands and thousands of years.  Ask for something else.'"  So I thought and thought and finally I said "'Well, then, could you make my wife Hillary the most beautiful, most beloved woman in the world?'"  The genie looks at me and says "Give me that damn map."

Well I'm going to TRY not to make this a list exclusively made up of adventure games but I just have to say there were so many great and worthwhile titles and just about all of them got the axe when the 90's ended.  The ones above will always be my personal favorites, though.  Actually, I don't think I should have all the fun here so why doesn't someone share a favorite game or style of game that they loved and was sad to see die out.

[mrbasehart]

I do believe they're making a sequel to the new Leisure Suit Larry game, though I think it'll be the same mixture of mini-games that the last one was.  There's only a few series I'd like to see revived, but recently they've just been announced or heavily rumoured: The Fallout and Knights of the Old Republic series.  One franchise I'm amazed that we haven't had a new release of is the X-Wing series.  It was a great space shooter and sold really well, so imagine it with today's graphics?

[Hobbit]

Knights of the Old Republic - The first one was a stand-alone title.  The second one is like The Empire Strikes Back, providing a definitive ending, but not a complete ending, meaning there's a conclusion coming, so where is it?  What great evil did Revan go to fight?  How will The Exile help him/her?  How did the Jedi order survive its almost complete destruction?  There's so many unanswered questions, and I want some frickin' answers.

Ultima - The first computer RPG.  Ultima Online doesn't count.

[Pak-Man]

I LOVED the Tex Murphy games. :^) I'd love to get more adventures from the detective from the mutant part of town. :^)

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

easy,

EARTHWORM JIM

even typing its name sends me into bliss

and

the lost vikings. 

[gbeenie]

easy,

EARTHWORM JIM

even typing its name sends me into bliss

Earthworm Jim was THE BOMB.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

Jim was the WORM man. 

[Pak-Man]

I LOVE Earthworm Jim. I loved the cartoon. I loved the 3 issue Marvel Miniseries. I love the comic books written by the dude who created Earthworm Jim (And The Neverhood!).

http://www.tennapel.com/

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

yeah they totally need a good next gen jim game, it would be cool to totally submurssed in that world. 

[Pak-Man]

Read an article in Retro Gamer (Costs an arm and a leg and can be found at most book store) where it was revealed that the rights to EWJ were passed around so many times it's keeping anything new from happening, but the creator said that he intends to pick up the rights and get the team back together once the company that currently has them goes bankrupt. (So probably not for a while at least. :^))

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

we should start a small fund,  a dollar or two donation to give it to the company so they can just buy the rights out right.

[Brak]

Heck i would put in a few dollars to bring Jimmy back.  I kinda with that Lucasarts would have stayed focused on more adventure games like the old classics such as Day of the Tenticle.  In my opinion in think that they have done enough with Star Wars for right now and should try and come up with some more creative stories.  I definatly would love to see another Full Throttle (sadly they canceled that) or Grim Fandango but since Tim is out on his own now i dont think that will be happeneing.  One can still hope though

[Swish]

I dunno, I just like to appreciate what's already there. I don't mind sequels when either a story was left unfinished, or a brilliant concept wasn't fully realised due to technical/budget constraints. I just find it a little irritating when people like something and then immediately clamour for it, again.

I mainly blame the games press for their bizarre and inexplicable habit of referring to any and all new IP as a "franchise".

The Eternal Darkness franchise? All of the one four year old game of it?

History has taught us that sometimes a game is best left as it is. Earthworm Jim 3D was atrocious, and the Sonic games Adventure onwards are absolutely dire for example.

Basically, I have the philosophy that if you want to play Earthworm Jim or Grim Fandango, what's stopping you playing Earthworm Jim or Grim Fandango?

In fact, talking about this has kind of made me want to flick on my Megadrive and play some good old fashioned Sonic how they used to make it when it was all fields.

Sorry to be so damn negative.

I definitely agree that LucasArts have lost their focus. Then again, they were the kings and queens of point and click games in their day, but if they took them on now I doubt they'd be very competant - the key staffers (Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert and David Grossman) have all long since moved on. Grossman is working on the new episodic Sam & Max games, Gilbert is producing various strategy and roleplaying types, and Schafer was last seen at the helm of Psychonauts.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

what's stopping you playing Earthworm Jim or Grim Fandango?

the fact im not at home and thats about it. heh.  But seriously though the beauty of video games is being immersed in new worlds.  With earthworm jim it just feels like we could have seen so much more with a newer console.  I think of games as closer to TV shows than movies.

[Swish]

what's stopping you playing Earthworm Jim or Grim Fandango?

I think of games as closer to TV shows than movies.

I agree ('mon the episodic content), although I prefer not to liken them to either.

I mean, sure they're cousins, but that doesn't mean they should marry.