Best (and Worst) Gaming Comebacks

As Rambo prepares to return to the big screen after a twenty-year absence, we look back over video games series and companies that have tried to pull off similar comebacks. Which games vanished for years, only to return out of nowhere? Which companies tried to cash in on fondly remembered franchises and failed? And which much-loved character could be set for a ten-year-overdue comeback of his own?

WATCH METROID 3 TRAILER NOW

Metroid

Eight long years separated the releases of 1994's SNES smash Super Metroid and the 2002 Gamecube masterpiece Metroid Prime. Not only did the series skip the N64 entirely, it lost its original designer, the celebrated Gunpei Yokoi, who resigned from Nintendo in 1996 shortly before his tragic death in a car wreck. Instead, Nintendo kicked this particular morph ball to Austin-based Retro Studios, which turned it into that most American of genres: a first-person shooter. Spectacular success followed, as Retro carved itself a unique niche in an all-too-well-trodden theme with the help of atmospheric levels, superb music and classic weapons and abilities from Metroids past. Neither critics nor consumers failed to recognize its quality, making it both one of the highest-rated and biggest-selling games on the Gamecube.

WATCH HALO WARS TRAILER NOW

Marathon

Believe it or not, once upon a time there were games on the Mac. One of them was Marathon, a trilogy of spectacularly good first-person shooters from now-celebrated developer Bungie set in a compelling sci-fi world. They starred Durandal, a rogue artificial intelligence who manipulated the player as he made his way through an intricate storyline packed with imaginative alien races. The Marathon games also earned well-deserved praise for their multiplayer modes, which were far more fleshed out than comparable shooters of the age.

Sound familiar? In 2001, Bungie had a new baby, and they named it Halo. OK, Halo isn't exactly a Marathon comeback, and the official word from Bungie is that the two series share no more than a developer. But many of the gameplay concepts developed in the Marathon games persist in the Halo universe, and in-jokes and references are everywhere. What's that? You want to play Marathon now? You're in luck. Not only is Marathon 2 available on Xbox Live (under the name Marathon: Durandal), all three Marathon games can be downloaded for PC from Bungie's web site, for the grand total of...nothing.

WATCH PIRATES TRAILER NOW

Sid Meier's Pirates

Pirates! designer Sid Meier is set to be honored with a Lifetime Achievement award at this year's Game Developers Conference, and it's long overdue. His classic Pirates! mixes open-ended navigation, ship-to-ship combat, swordplay and messing around with Governors' daughters, and backs it all up with a suitably swashbuckling tale. Released in 2004, the remake brought this nautical adventure to a whole new generation of hardware -- including the PSP, for an on-the-go experience addictive enough to while away even the longest sea voyage.

WATCH DOOM 3 TRAILER NOW

Doom

Perhaps the most famous of the early first-person shooters, the Doom series seemed to vanish into the ether somewhere around 1996. For some years, you could play Doom on your cellphone, your digital camera and even your 3DO - but no new version of what many hold to be one of the most important games of all time was even mentioned.

All that changed, of course, with the coming of Doom 3. Although a decade had passed since the original game made the hairs on the back of our necks stand up, Doom 3's state-of-the-art graphics and movie-quality storytelling terrified us all over again. A successful PC release was followed up with a well-regarded Xbox port, and this notoriously dark game joined its predecessors in the halls of first-person shooter fame.

WATCH BIOSHOCK TRAILER NOW

Bioshock

Way back in 1994, now-defunct studio Looking Glass Technologies released an odd little first-person role-playing game called System Shock. With an innovative 3D engine, a detailed storyline and a realistic world, it caused quite a stir - and the sequel, helmed by the now legendary Ken Levine, made even more of an impact. System Shock 2, originally released in 1999, is still enjoyed by many enthusiasts, thanks to fan-made modifications that enhance the graphics and tweak the gameplay to meet modern expectations.

Although last year's Bioshock isn't a follow-up to System Shock in a literal sense, the similarities in plot development, gameplay and development staffers speak for themselves. It was a hot contender for our Best Game of 2007 award, and if you're one of the few who has yet to immerse themselves in its suboceanic world, you're missing out.

WATCH WII FIT TRAILER NOW

Nintendo

Let's face it: The Gamecube didn't exactly perform well. Hamstrung by poor third-party support, strong competition from the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, and essentially no online capabilities, it crossed last generation's finish line in third place. Who'd have put money on Nintendo's chances once Sony and Microsoft rolled out their next-generation hardware? And who would have honestly thought that a machine with a dopey name like "Wii" would still have been sold out more than a year after its release?

Not only did Nintendo bounce back, it defied its critics with a system that caught the public imagination - and shows no signs of letting it go. The Wii's been topping charts for the last year, and we still have the heavyweight tag-team of Wii Fit and Super Smash Bros. Brawl to come in 2008. This might just be the most drastic comeback of all.