(Image credit: Atari) Once heralded as a serious contender to rival Mario and Sonic , Bubsy the Bobcat has spent decades languishing as a gaming laughingstock, with his first foray into 3D platforming, 1996's Bubsy 3D, universally panned. It's then been a surprise that not only is he getting another 3D outing 30 years later, but that early impressions indicate it's actually good , and certainly the best Bubsy game in the franchise's history. That credit should go to Bubsy's new owner, Atari , for making the wise decision to entrust the IP to Fabraz, an indie studio with a track record of making good 3D platformers, even though the creators of Demon Tides didn't necessarily take it seriously at first. "We got bombarded on socials – 'Oh, Fabraz should do it!' – and we were king of joking around and saying, 'Leave us alone, we don't want to work on Bubsy!'," studio founder Fabian Rasforter tells me. "But in the back of our minds, we're like, this could be kind of interesting.…