10 Iconic Video Games That NEED A Remake

5. MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries

This might just be me (literally nobody else in the WhatCulture office has played any of the Mech games, apparently) but I've never seen a better realisation of humanity's bleak future amongst the stars than MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. The franchise, as it exists today, is trying desperately to be Call of Duty in big robots, but back in the mid 90s it was basically Metal Gear set in the Blade Runner universe.

You know the story; humanity finally leaves earth, populates the galaxy, unites under a single banner, slowly begins to eat itself and, next thing you know, everything is on fire. The only difference between this and every other sci-fi dystopia is that you get to walk around in 80 tonne walking tanks that throw missiles and lasers around.

The franchise endures (as does the wider BattleTech universe) but the modern games have lost the gritty, grim, image of the far future that we all seemed to have before the turn of the millennium. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries drops later this year, but already we've seen images of 'Mechs striding across nicely-lit fields and defending farms full of bad voice actors.

The original games were bleak and desperate and dark and the very embodiment of that neo-noir "retrofitted" future that would suck you effortlessly into the world-building. Microsoft seem intent on pushing forward with a cleaner vision though, the big dopes.