Oh San Fransisco Rush, how you robbed our pockets of quarters and our Saturdays of time in the late 90’s. We don’t mind though, we walked out of the arcades with heads held high having been the only ones to complete the Extreme courses. You’d think that all these years later with PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Midway Arcade Treasures re-releases we’d have had our fill. You’d be wrong. It’s time to bring Rush back yet again, but bigger and badder.

What should change:

Extreme Alcatraz 2049 Edition – Getting one version of Rush would be great, but if we’re going down this road then Extreme Edition, The Rock: Alcatraz Edition, and 2049 need to be smashed together in one game. We’re not talking some launcher with three games, we’re talking all the tracks, all cars, everything in one game. They all run on the exact same engine, so there’s no reason it can’t handle all the content. Besides, one end-all-be-all version of the game would dramatically drive up sales as players would never need to buy another edition again. Folks are far more likely to pay 800 MSP for a “best of” version than pay 400 MSP three times for three games.

Multiplayer focus – all good games that have any multiplayer whatsoever need to have both an off and online presence. Rush could take a page from Hydro Thunder Hurricane, a game that includes four player splitscreen, online play, and any combination of the two. If the game contained all the tracks from the old versions as listed above the online community would also be much stronger, providing a boost in sales.

What should stay the same:

Old-school look – It’s not often that we opt for pure port of a game, but in this case we can’t think of anything more fitting. Part of the appeal of the game is that classic Nintendo 64 look it had. It doesn’t need advanced lighting, complex shaders, or any of that next-gen fluff. It’s retro, and it should stay that way. Now we’re not saying we want a vanilla port, what we’re saying is we need 1080p output and Rush 2049 (Dreamcast) level graphics, not Unreal Engine 3.

Classic Rush racing – The Rush games of the 90’s  and early 00’s have something that still draws players in today. People break out their Dreamcasts or their favorite emulator to take a spin around Alcatraz. We’re not sure what exactly it is, but there’s just a gravitating property the game has that we can’t let go of. When it comes to gameplay there’s not a thing that needs touched. It’s, well, perfect.

Why it would succeed:

The formula for success on Xbox Live Arcade in regards to old games is a simple one. If it was popular then, it can be popular now. What’s more is that the same people who played these in the arcades are now the ones who make the money spending decisions. There’s nothing people like more on a rainy day then to relive a slice of their childhood, and taking a spin around San Fransisco does just that for many people.