As a general rule, most licensed properties have never had a decent video game. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also to be expected considering how most developers need time to create a good video game— and the license holders rarely want to give them that time, instead demanding it come out at the same time as some other major project, in time for Christmas, or some other such unreasonable timeframe. Either that, or they don’t get anywhere near the budget they need.

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But that’s slowly starting to change with games like the Batman Arkham series and Marvel’s Spider-Man and, most recently, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Fans deserve great games for their favorite comics, anime, and cartoons, and hopefully going forward they can get them, and not just tossed into solid fighting games or as crossovers with other popular properties.

10 G.I. Joe Has Plenty Of Cool Characters & Vehicles For A Game

g.i. joes

One of the most popular animated series of the 1980s, it’s quite surprising there’s never been a great game for this franchise. There’s dozens of characters on both the side of the heroic G.I. Joes and the evil Cobra forces. They’ve got larger than life characters like Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and there’s so much source material to pull from.

The most recent attempt at this was a third-person shooter entitled G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout, which allowed players to be both sides of the faction in a third-person shooter, but it only scored a 56 average rating— that’s pretty far from what fans would expect for a good G.I. Joe game. There was some passable 8- and 16-bit G.I. Joe games, but not were truly worthy of the license.

9 RoboCop Is Begging For A Cyberpunk Action-Adventure Title

robocop cleans up the arcade

There's actually a RoboCop game in the works right now, Rogue City, from developer Teyon and publisher Nacon. Teyon was previously known for their work on Terminator: Resistance, and fans of the RoboCop franchise should hope this new game does better considering Terminator: Resistance got a 6/10 on Metacritic.

Still, it's not as if the franchise isn't ripe for being turned into a video game. Fans spent most of the generation hyping up Cyberpunk 2077, a game where players explore a dystopian cyberpunk city while using cybernetic enhancements to do their jobs.  The desire for a cyberpunk title is already there, if someone can deliver on it.

8 City Hunter Could Get An Open World Brawler By The Creators Of Yakuza

Ryo flicking a marble City Hunter

City Hunter is a fairly obscure franchise in the West, but it was popular enough in the East that it was represented in the Jump Force game that Bandai-Namco put out. A massive franchise that ran for several seasons in the '80s, it followed Saeba Ryo, a “sweeper” who would solve problems for anyone as a bodyguard and the greatest marksman ever.

Normally this wouldn’t be worth mentioning, but with Ryu Ga Gotoku studios churning out Yakuza games so regularly, it seems a shame they haven’t considered working on this property, especially since the framework of the Yakuza series would work perfectly for a City Hunter game.

7 Macross Needs A Game That Can Balance Mecha Fights With Love Triangles

macross

Robotech was one of the earlier real "anime" series that broke out in America, getting Western fans into the medium in the '80s. Of course, Harmony Gold had actually butchered Macross for the sake of making it something that could air in America, but no one knew that at the time.

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These days, the franchise is still massive in Japan and it’d be amazing to get a game that perfectly balanced being able to do space dog-fighting with the love triangles present in the franchise, as well as exploring an advanced space colony. There are plenty of awesome mech-based games that have already showed developers of a potential Macross game how it's done.

6 SWAT Kats Has Jet Jockeys Fighting Crime Using Their Own Experimental Weapons

Swat Kats

A popular action cartoon from the early '90s, SWAT Kats followed a pair of fighter pilots who had been kicked off the police force for being disobedient to their commanding officers. Afterwards, they built their own jet and technology and began patrolling and protecting the city themselves. They faced everything from wizards to cyborgs to protect their city.

This is such an old property that it shouldn’t even cost much to license it, and the cartoon offers so many different weapons and vehicles for the player.

5 Farscape Presents A Sci-Fi Future Unlike Any Other

Farscape's Bialar Crais, Rygel XVI, Chiana, Zhaan, Aeryn Sun, John Crichton and Ka D'Argo stand together

The science fiction world of Farscape was unique both at the time and now. More often than not, sci-fi involves federations and military organizations that the characters have to join just to explore space. In Farscape, that idea was turned on its head.

The protagonists are on a living ship trying to run from the Peacekeeper forces, a federation that wants the entire crew of Moya for one reason or another. The best part about Farscape is it doesn't even need to follow any specific story— they were constantly going to different planets and meeting a variety of cultures, having adventures that could easily fit into the existing canon.

4 Justice League Could Easily Support An RPG Of Their Own

Justice League International

The Justice League have yet to get a great video game after all these years. They got titles like Justice League Task Force and Justice League Heroes but both of them are okay at best. They haven’t gotten a single video game since the PlayStation 2 era, and that’s actually strange considering everyone was begging Rocksteady for a game about this team.

The biggest challenge would be their powers, but why not create some kind of RPG where they can have a larger roster of heroes and show off their powers without it being the same challenge as an action game?

3 Cowboy Bebop Would Make A Great Sci-Fi Title

Cowboy Bebop Kitchen Galley Spike Faye

As Cowboy Bebop looks to get it’s first live-action adaptation, it’s worth asking: Where’s a good Cowboy Bebop video game?

Admittedly, a game about their adventures would be a lot more challenging to figure out than most. How much of space does it take place in? Does it follow the story or is it largely non-canon? Would this have gun play or would it manage to balance Spike’s hand to hand abilities? This is one franchise that seems like it would be pretty challenging to figure out long-term.

2 Centurions Feature Adventurers In Extravagant Weapons Facing Cyber-Terrorists

Centurions designs were by Jack Kirby and Gil Kane

The Centurions were made to be a video game, but came out before video games were as big as they would be even a few short years later. It was a team of adventurers battling against an eco-terrorist named Doc Hacker.

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The ability to go into battle against large armies of robots while outfitted with complex armor seems like a dream-come-true for gamers. These days the property is so old they could almost pretend like it was something brand new, without having much of the baggage of the original property outside of the premise and characters.

1 Wonder Woman Should Have Had A Game After The First Film Came Out

Wonder Woman saying We Wonder Women fight back

People often claim Superman is impossible to make a game about. While that’s not true, even if it were, that wouldn’t mean no one could do a Wonder Woman video game. Unlike Superman she’s not invincible, and while she can fly it’s never been at the ridiculous speeds Superman is capable of.

The fact that she doesn’t have a game yet doesn’t make any sense— she’s got the rogues gallery, she’s got an intriguing powerset, she even has cool armor that people can wear and customize as much as they want. Currently WB Games Montreal is working on Gotham Knights and an unannounced second game, so hopefully that game is either a Justice League or a Wonder Woman game, because the fans have long deserved both.

NEXT: 10 Heroes Who Should Replace Superman As The Face Of DC