Duke Nukem Forever
Back in the Nineties, there were a few big game franchises everyone was well aware of such as Duke Nukem. This was a character that was the epitome of being badass. The character single handily saved the day on numerous occasions from annihilation over the course of its several video game installments with the latest being Duke Nukem Forever.
The game has an interesting backstory in terms of its development process where most had found the title to be vaporware or stuck forever in development hell. However, after being announced in 1996, Duke Nukem Forever found its way out into the market in 2011.
Unfortunately, the game was a massive failure. Duke Nukem Forever was riddled with bugs and most found the visuals, mechanics along with comedic material dated. So far there hasn’t been any talks of a new installment to the Duke Nukem franchise and it very well could stay that way after the long development time and poor reception from its previous main release.
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
Golden Axe was an arcade classic that made its way onto consoles starting with the Sega Genesis. This was a side-scrolling beat ‘em up title with an ancient fantasy setting. Players were slicing away enemies and monsters within the main video game title releases with the exception of a few spinoff titles such as Golden Axe: The Duel which acted as a one-on-one fighter.
It’s been years since Golden Axe was worked on after the last main installment, Golden Axe III was released in 1993. However, in 2008 fans were surprised to find a new Golden Axe title known as Golden Axe: Beast Rider hit store shelves. The game was developed by Secret Level in which developers had given players another chance to fight against Death Adder’s armies.
Instead of being a side-scrolling beat ‘em up title like the last main installments, Golden Axe: Beast Rider was a 3D hack-and-slash game. Unfortunately when Golden Axe: Beast Rider released the feedback was poor with critics and fans finding the game to be below expectations for a current generation game at the time. Controls were not intuitive and the design was a step down from what other titles were able to provide. We’re hoping that Sega gives Golden Axe and its other classic franchises another chance in today’s market.
F-Zero: GP Legend
The F-Zero franchise was a futuristic racing series from Nintendo that first released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Gamers were able to hop into futuristic spacecraft and fly down the racetrack in an attempt to finish first. Overall, the series did well and the games released across several Nintendo platforms.
Unfortunately, the last release the game franchise saw outside of Japan was F-Zero GP Legend which launched in 2003 for the Nintendo Game Boy Advanced. The game, for the most part, kept up with the same overall gameplay mechanics with the addition of a story mode. Despite average reviews of the game, the title didn’t sell enough to warrant Nintendo to bring out their next installment F-Zero Climax. This particular title only released in Japan and seemed to have reused some of the assets from the GP Legend. From reports online, the difficulty level was also not very challenging.
Currently, there has been no news of Nintendo giving F-Zero another chance with the Nintendo Switch platform which is a shame. Here’s hoping that we’ll get another game in the near future.
Burnout Crash
There are several big racing titles available within the market, both realistic simulators to mindless arcade style games. The Burnout series definitely reside in the latter with gameplay being fast-paced and full of chaotic action. Really it was the third installment, Burnout 3: Takedown that really provided notoriety for the game series.
Players were not only given a racing title to go head-to-head against friends and AI but Burnout put an emphasis on crashes. Rather than deducting points and penalizing players who ran into an obstacle, the game made crashes feel intense and addicting.
Gamers were rewarded for their near misses and causing wrecks against opposing players. In fact, there were game modes that allowed players to race into a busy intersection to see just how much destruction they could create.
Unfortunately, in 2011 the series would receive its last new game known as Burnout Crash! This was a title developed under Criterion Games as a digital-only release for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and iOS. Burnout Crash! was a top-down racer that lost the realism visuals for a cartoonish lighthearted game.
Overall the game had players attempting to create massive pile-ups similar to the beloved game modes from past Burnout installments though it seemed to have lost its charm that made the game franchise fun to begin with leaving developers to drop the franchise altogether.
Silent Hill Book of Memories
The Silent Hill franchise has been around since the early years of the original PlayStation and is often credited as an influential series for the survival horror genre. Overall the game revolves around a town called Silent Hill that is home to a mysterious cult. We could dive into a massive article about the history and lore behind Silent Hill, but to keep things short, the game narrative often lures people into the city where a nightmarish hell is unveiled.
Most often the original few titles had players solving cryptic puzzles, fleeing from the hostilities that flood the area and slowly unraveling the dark secrets from their past. There’s been a number of installments released for the franchise though the later releases tend to fall short from the fame and glory of the original few video game titles.
However, the last release had really fallen out of touch with the genre. Silent Hill Book of Memories was developed under WayForward Technologies and released exclusively on the PlayStation Vita. The game turned away from the third-person survival horror aspect the series was known for to instead become an action hack-and-slash video game.
All the way up to the release of Silent Hill Book of Memories, the franchise mainly focused on gamers avoiding danger when possible with every street you turned down and every door opened kept you on the edge of your seat. Silent Hill Book of Memories instead had players fighting off a slew of monsters featured from the franchise while completing objectives.
Since its release in 2012, the Silent Hill franchise has gone dark. There was a potential for a reboot that the fans were rooting for known as Silent Hills. But when Konami and the director behind the series, Hideo Kojima, split ways the reboot was canceled.
