10 Great Video Game Reboots (That Failed Anyway)

They can't all be like Doom.

By Paul Mills /

Reboots are always a tricky thing. On one hand if they're done right they bring fresh ideas into a rather tired franchise, or allow some of the less-than-savory entries in a series to be entirely scrubbed clean. On the other hand if they're done wrong they can destroy characters, ruin fan-favourite storylines, and worst of all put the final nail in a franchise's coffin.

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But what about the ones that just didn't deserve it? Sometimes a reboot simply gets a bad beat, comes out at the wrong time, or is only picked up by a small amount of loyal and loving fans.

Yet, according to the general consensus none of them are worth playing due to their metacritic score.

So for reasons undeserved the games on this list have been given a bad rap in the collective subconscious of gamers everywhere. While most of them may not have been particularly groundbreaking or even really all that original they still had the one single most important factor in the world of video games: they were all damn fun.

And if a game is fun then really, who cares how badly it failed?

10. SimCity (2013)

There are two major cases of DRM having absolutely obliterated a game at launch; one was Diablo 3 and the other was SimCity (2013), guess which one still hasn't recovered?

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Yes SimCity (2013) was an absolute disaster at launch due to the always online requirement meaning players couldn't play a single-player game without a connection to the internet. As if struck by destiny itself, this meant that as soon as the game went live the servers shut down due to the massive influx of logins.

Understandably people were upset, and to even mention SimCity these days is to be met with a barrage of criticism about how much better Cities: Skylines is.

But looking back on the game now - with none of the launch issues - it's a perfectly good city building simulator with a depth of customisation not often found in the minutia of these games. Plus giving the multiplayer a chance reveals a very competent co-op city building experience, with players able to set up trade and visit each other's cities whenever they want.

It's a true shame just how badly a launch can damage a game forever, especially when it's done to such a legendary franchise like this.

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