How do you bring a big franchise back from the dead? We’ve got some classic games we’d love to see re-animated by today’s top talent…

For every Halo, there are a dozen Descents — games or franchises that delighted us and provided myriad happy memories in front of our TVs and computer monitors, only to go missing for years. Each has its own story — a bankrupt publisher, a dissolved developer, and so on — but every one of them is a series we’d welcome back with open arms. We’ve weeded out the best fits for the Xbox 360, and we think we know which might actually happen.

ROAD RASH

WHO CONTROLLED IT: Electronic Arts

LAST SEEN: 2004 (Road Rash: Jailbreak for Game Boy Advance)

WHO CONTROLS IT NOW: EA

WHAT IT WAS: An arcade motorcycle racer with a mean streak, Road Rash —
probably best known from its Sega Genesis days — had balls. The idea was to win the race against your fellow bikers by any means necessary, even if that meant pulling up alongside them at 90mph and whipping them with a chain until they tumbled off their crotch rocket, possibly (or hopefully, really) into an oncoming car or roadside object.

WHO SHOULD RE-ANIMATE IT: Criterion Games

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS: Nobody does high-velocity, eyeball-melting racing better than the Burnout-birthing blokes at the U.K.-based Criterion studio. And their unique brand of crash-based gameplay is a perfect match for the machismo required to do Road Rash and its brand of road-rage justice…uh, justice. Don’t believe us? Try picturing Burnout with bikes and tell us that wouldn’t be badass — and that would only be Criterion’s starting point. We can’t think of a reason EA wouldn’t hand Alex Ward and company the keys to the franchise.

OXM’S MAGIC 8-BALL SAYS: “Such a logical fit, it hurts.”

CARMAGEDDON

WHO CONTROLLED IT: Interplay

LAST SEEN: 2000 (Carmageddon: TDR 2000 for PC)

WHO CONTROLS IT NOW: SCi (Eidos)

WHAT IT WAS: Before Grand Theft Auto went huge, Carmageddon burst onto virtual sidewalks and plowed into the collective gaming consciousness with a gory racing game that banked on the sadism and road rage buried deep within us all. It hit its target (uh, figuratively speaking), and the follow-up, 1998’s Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now, refined the formula, offering a huge world to drive around in and cars like the “Degorian” — a gull wing–doored, stainless-steel ride with spikes sticking out of the front bumper — for mowing down scores of “peds.” Hell, you could even save replays of your best kills as Quicktime movies and share them online.

WHO SHOULD RE-ANIMATE IT: Rockstar North

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS: The savvy Scots at Rockstar North have already proven that they’re exceptionally good at making games where you can hit pedestrians with cars in large, open worlds, so they would be the natural choice to get behind the wheel of a new Carmageddon — especially with GTA IV’s Euphoria physics system under the hood. But frankly, all gameplay qualities aside, their unique and twisted sense of humor alone makes Rockstar North a perfect choice.

OXM’S MAGIC 8-BALL SAYS: “Outlook not so good; Jack Thompson would surely have an aneurysm and die, leaving his family to sue Rockstar North into bankruptcy.”

BATMAN

WHO CONTROLLED IT: Various publishers

LAST SEEN: 2005 (Batman Begins for all consoles)

WHO CONTROLS IT NOW: EA (film rights), Warner Bros. (other)

WHAT IT WAS: The last Batman videogame we can recall even not hating was Batman Returns for the Super Nintendo (yes, that long ago). In the many attempts since, Bruce Wayne has never been done justice on a console.

WHO SHOULD RE-ANIMATE IT: Ubisoft Montreal (Assassin’s Creed team)

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS: As big Bat-fans, we’ve always dreamed about who could do the Dark Knight right. After Chaos Theory, we were convinced Ubisoft Montreal’s Splinter Cell team could craft an incredible darkness-and-shadow stealth experience. We’ve also fantasized about what the Grand Theft Auto team at Rockstar North could do with the Caped Crusader: open-world, violent, graphic-novel–ish grit.

But a light bulb went off for us while playing Assassin’s Creed: “This is Batman!” Think about it: clambering up buildings, leaping across rooftops, sneaking about, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, and fighting crime. Replace Altair’s horse with the Batmobile, set it in Gotham City, and it’s the best Bat-game ever!

Intriguingly, Ubisoft used to have a Batman license as recently as 2003. But EA grabbed it after that, so the opportunity is lost…for now.

OXM’S MAGIC 8-BALL SAYS: “Ask again later…after EA buys the other 75% of Ubisoft.”

WIPEOUT

WHO CONTROLLED IT: Psygnosis

LAST SEEN: 2008 (Wipeout Pulse on PSP)

WHO CONTROLS IT NOW: Sony

WHAT IT WAS: Back in 1995, when gamers were reveling in the joy of playing games on an actual CD for the first time, Wipeout was revolutionary. Racing weapon-laden antigravity hovercraft sounds like old hat now, but at the time, the vehicle handling and graphics were simply awe-inspiring. In part because of its sheer speed, the game managed to be simultaneously demanding and enjoyable. It took all kinds of slowly earned skill to win, and you felt cooler than Han Solo when you pulled off clean laps and first-place finishes. Plus, the series just oozed cutting-edge style — the British lass who gravely and definitively intoned “Rocket” or “Missile” every time we fired will forever narrate our dreams.

WHO SHOULD RE-ANIMATE IT: Turn 10 Studios (the Forza team)

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS: Physics. The same love and care that Turn 10 puts into making Forza a scrumptious feat of racing simulation would make Wipeout soar again. Sure, plenty of imagination would be required to fashion some “realistic” hovercraft racing and combat, but Turn 10’s flair for authenticity would rescue this series from the handheld-gaming grave it’s been buried in. We can see it now: ripping out a 3:45 lap around Nürburgring, then trying to beat that on lap 2 with the twisted wreckage of our opponents littering the track. That’d be a good day.

OXM’S MAGIC 8-BALL SAYS: “Microsoft working on a Sony property? Expect the heat death of the universe to happen much,
much sooner.”

ULTIMA

WHO CONTROLLED IT: Electronic Arts

LAST SEEN: 1999 (Ultima IX: Ascension for PC)

WHO CONTROLS IT NOW: EA

WHAT IT WAS: One of the most popular and revered role-playing franchises in history, Ultima was, for nearly 20 years, as synonymous with digital role-playing as Dungeons & Dragons was with pen-and-paper RPGs. The ninth and final (non-MMO) iteration was subtitled Ascension, and beneath scores of technical problems and bugs, it was an incredible open-world opus…not unlike Oblivion, in fact.

WHO SHOULD RE-ANIMATE IT: Bethesda Softworks

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS: Who better to bring the Avatar back to Britannia and all its massively single-player glory in Ultima X than the current masters of the craft at Bethesda? They’re the undisputed kings of the go-anywhere, do-anything RPG subgenre, and they’ve even managed to leave their own reputation for buggy releases in the rearview mirror of their PC past. Heck, we’d have to think that even series creator Richard Garriott, who’s now creating MMORPGs for NCsoft, would give his blessing.

Not surprisingly, Oblivion and Fallout 3 executive producer Todd Howard has fantasized about this already. “Ultima has always been my favorite game series,” he told us, “so I, too, have had this fantasy. I’d ask Richard Garriott to help and make something in the spirit of Ultima IV through VII. [You’d be] the Avatar, and events would reflect issues of war, racism, and the path to true enlightenment.”

OXM’S MAGIC 8-BALL SAYS: “Very doubtful. EA will find its own solution.”

MECHWARRIOR

WHO CONTROLLED IT: Microsoft

LAST SEEN: 2000 (MechWarrior 4 for PC)

WHO CONTROLS IT NOW: Microsoft

WHAT IT WAS: The real MechWarrior (not the fast-action, plot-less ADD-diversion known as the MechAssault series) hasn’t seen the light of day since the pre-Xbox days, when the franchise carried the same kind of clout in the PC world as the Tom Clancy games do now. Back then, it was a rich exploration of the deep, clan-based, war-torn universe modeled after the pen-and-paper RPG of the same name. Mech customization was a primary focus, and targeting the legs of your foes was merely the beginning of a good strategy, not the whole thing.

WHO SHOULD RE-ANIMATE IT: Bungie Studios

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS: Story played a key role in the MechWarrior games — just as it does in the Halo trilogy — and in each case the characters and plotlines granted weight to the action at your fingertips. So, logically, the pairing of Bungie and MechWarrior would be a marriage not unlike Brangelina. As far as gameplay goes, we already know that Bungie can dish out slick, smooth visuals and action that’s distilled to its purest essence. And just think of Bungie’s take on the multiplayer madness of clan wars!

The best part is that Microsoft still keeps MechWarrior in its closet, so even though Bungie is technically free from Bill Gates’ shackles, the two could easily make this happen if they expressed the slightest bit of mutual interest.

OXM’S MAGIC 8-BALL SAYS: “Better not tell you now…lest you remember that Bungie is independent.”