Sequels Botched Under Nintendo’s Watchful Eye…

Hello Blizzard, Ape and Midway. You let some of your best games go to waste: treasures such as Uniracers and Rock ‘N’ Roll Racing. Games in these series, of this caliber, never made a return to the world of Nintendo in sequel form; heck, even Nintendo must take the blame for destroying their potential. Here are five games which deserved worthwhile, life-changing sequels…that never came to be.

Rock ‘N’ Roll Racing: This game had so many elements of greatness, it’s completely sickening that its sequel sucked horribly. Who could forget the entertainment value of listening to Ozzy Osborne while firing rockets at your enemies? How any company could botch a sequel to such a fantastic piece of work is beyond comprehension, yet that’s exactly what happened with Rock and Roll Racing 2: Red Asphalt. If Blizzard is looking for a fourth franchise to build on, this would certainly be a great start.

Uniracers: This game skimmed so low under the radar it was difficult to remember that it ever existed. Uniracers was a fantastic 2D game that could easily deliver the same value as a 3D work. Heck, we could even create another version on the DS or Virtual Console. Either way, Uniracers was a fast-paced racing game with a million tricks to boot. In the world of online gaming, Uniracers would prove to be legendary in a new form.

Body Harvest: No matter what Nintendo 64 game you looked at, they all seemed to scream “BUY ME” when you walked past them in the game aisle. Body Harvest was more than just a game that said “buy me,” it was a popular one at that. Sadly, a sequel never came to fruition, although it is speculative that Body Harvest was the initial key to the locked door that would eventually contain Grand Theft Auto III.

Earthbound: Currently, Earthbound hovers around being the most wanted game to come out on the Virtual Console for the Wii. While there have been numerous sequels in other countries, we should ask the question: why hasn’t one been produced in America? Without a doubt, Earthbound is hot stuff in other countries, but for some reason fails to warrant anything meaningful in this one. We can only hope Nintendo continues to taunt us with more Earthbound characters in games such as Super Smash Bros. so we can scream “WTB NEW EARTHBOUND GAEM PLZ.”

Starfox 64: Does this even count? After all, it is already a sequel to Starfox, the Super Nintendo game that was tough to sit through but was revamped in the 64 version. Starfox 64 truly deserved better sequels than what we have previously received—neither of the GCN games lived up to their predecessor’s mad skills. Fox McCloud and his barnyard buddies will have to wait even longer to see better action—and barrel rolls—in the Lylat system.

The list of sequels that could have been is almost infinite and this definitely is not the end-all, be-all list. Every gamer has his favorite game that he wishes could be realized once again. For most of us, this will never happen. We can only pray to the Virtual Console gods in the hope that we’ll see some of our past loves return in some form.