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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Resurrecting Old Games, What Works? 381

There has definitely been a resurgence of old games being made new again through various methods. Unfortunately, any time you reinvent an old classic you risk either alienating the original audience or not making it appealing enough for the a new audience. "Capcom has been at the forefront of the recent remake boom, re-imagining a number of their classic titles as downloadable games. Bionic Commando, for example, was given a high-definition 2.5D makeover, and a rockin' remixed soundtrack with Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Capcom also re-released a new version of Street Fighter II on the way, with the lengthy new title Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Interestingly, both games are coming out near new entries in their respective franchises: Street Fighter IV and Bionic Commando. But the question remains, how do you decided what games will still appeal to the current gaming audience? " What games can be counted amongst the success stories, and which can be chalked up as utter failures?
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Resurrecting Old Games, What Works?

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  • I don't know if there are any fans of the classic game Crossfire [wikipedia.org] here, but I'd love to know if this reimagining [wiicade.com] of the game does it justice*. I've tried a few clones (notably SDL Crossfire [burningsmell.org], GridBlaster [videogamebiscuit.com], and Gridfire [foppygames.nl]), but none of them were very satisfying. In fact, most of them made changes that I felt were distateful to anyone who enjoyed the original. (Or maybe I was the only one who played with keyboard controls? Hmm...)

    Anyway, try it out and let me know what you think. And if you have a Wii, give it a g

    • I used to play crossfire all the time on my Atari 600XL. I don't know what it would be like playing with keyboard controls, though. What you need is a proper joystick [worldofatari.com].
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Pac-Man World [wikipedia.org] has to be one of the worst failures. And it illustrates what I hate about these updates---that the designers try to reimagine the game from scratch.

      Change the graphics, not the gameplay. When designers follow this rule, the game succeeds. (See Super Mario World [wikipedia.org] and A Link to the Past [wikipedia.org].) When designers disregard this rule, the game fails. (See Spy Hunter [wikipedia.org].) None of the best games became classics because players really loved the names of the characters. We loved the gameplay. The new Street Fight

  • pong (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xaositecte ( 897197 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:15PM (#26262303) Journal

    it's a conundrum;

    Anything with a strong amount of Nostalgia for it is going to suffer from the fans who still play it proclaiming "they changed it, now it sucks" - See: Fallout 3, or any remake of Master of Magic ever done.

    At the same time, some really great work has been done with remaking old games. I, for one, LIKED fighting the Enclave alongside a Giant mecha that spewed anti-communist propaganda.

    • I just got Fallout 3 and it's actually a pretty good game, great atmosphere and such. But it probably shouldn't have been called Fallout 3 since it is such a radical departure from previous games.

      For the most part remakes work mainly when they are just an update with graphics fixes and not much more. Perhaps bundling in bug fixes and extra levels. But seriously classic games are classic for a reason, and not because of age.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Narishma ( 822073 )
        Fallout 3 is a sequel, not a remake. Another game that changed radically in a sequel (for better) is Resident Evil 4.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Blakey Rat ( 99501 )

        But it probably shouldn't have been called Fallout 3 since it is such a radical departure from previous games.

        Ok, you have a different definition of the word "radical" than I do.

        Fallout 3:
        1) Has (virtually) the same setting
        2) The same enemies
        3) The same leveling system
        4) The same targeting/criticals system
        5) Extremely similar plotlines/quests
        6) Even a virtually identical inventory system! (Which is something they should have changed, IMO)

        What is so "radically" different about Fallout 3 compared to the other

    • The only remake Master of Magic needs is a bug-free one. The game itself was great, except for the constant crashing and half-broken features. Had they released another patch that actually fixed these things, it would have stood perfectly on its own.

    • by rtechie ( 244489 ) *

      I haven't heard anyone complaining that Fallout 3 isn't true enough to the original. In fact, one of my big criticisms with the game is how slavishly it follows the conventions of the original games, to the point where it feels like a 3D version of Fallout 2. The plot, monsters, equipment, etc. are pretty much all straight from Fallout 2. Combat is a little bit different. And many of the levels are different (mainly due to 2D vs. 3D conventions). That's about it.

      OTOH, many people considered Fallout 2 to be

    • Anything with a strong amount of Nostalgia for it is going to suffer from the fans who still play it proclaiming "they changed it, now it sucks" - See: Fallout 3, or any remake of Master of Magic ever done.

      I think it's no different from remakes of anything. Movies and music mostly. Adaptations from one medium to another as well provokes the ire of diehard fans. It doesn't matter how good the finished product is even. A lot of it has to do with nostalgia vs reality. Maybe you played a game a lot as a teen, now that you don't have enough time to get into the sequel or remake you think it's worse. Maybe you loved a book when you were younger, but now that you're more mature, the1faithfully adapted movie do

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

        Film and TV remakes generally are disliked because people loved the original and the idea of going back and "updating" them seems offensive when the originals were just fine to begin with. Such unnecessary meddling has become the trademark of lame filmmaker wannabes (like McG) and washed-up former greats (like George Lucas and Ridley Scott).

        There are, of course rare exceptions to this rule. Scorsese's remake of "Cape Fear" and Ron Moore's remake of "Battlestar Galactica" are both far superior to the origin

  • ask a 12 year old (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bigattichouse ( 527527 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:15PM (#26262309) Homepage
    My son will easily say - wow, you're right dad - Megaman rocks. cha-ching for Nintendo Wii. He came into the gaming scene after the "progression of graphics", so he easily yawns as 4 extra FPS or slightly enhanced visuals - he wants playability. Caught them playing pac-man on one of those joysticks that plugs into the TV. He laughed at the graphics, but they kept right on playing for an hour or so.
    • Re:ask a 12 year old (Score:5, Interesting)

      by D Ninja ( 825055 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:20PM (#26262375)

      Exactly.

      Nintendo's release of old games to the Wii is absolute genius. Those games were so popular for a reason. It wasn't for their killer graphics - it was because they held your attention and entertained you for hours. Good graphics are nice, but good graphics are a dime a dozen and are relatively easy to reproduce. But to have the storyline and the immersion of a game like "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" is rare thing.

      Like you said, your son laughed at Pac-Man graphics, but Pac-Man is a very good game. Same as the many other "oldies but goodies" that exist out there. I think, as players become bored with their new Wii games, they'll start checking out some of the old titles and will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of those games that captured my generation's attention. And, of course, at $5.00 a pop, it's hard not to do an impulse buy.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Those games were so popular for a reason. It wasn't for their killer graphics

        It's easy to say "it wasn't about the graphics back then," but let's not forget that the NES's graphics were considered "killer" at the time, at least for a $200 home console in 1985. Certainly better in most respects than the graphics on an Atari 2600 or a Commodore 64.

        • by rob1980 ( 941751 )
          And don't forget people fretting over "how many bits" the console was. NES was 8-bit, SNES was 16-bit, TurboGrafx 16 had an 8-bit CPU and a 16-bit GPU, and what have you. That carried through the late 90s until the 32-bit Playstation wiped the floor with the Nintendo 64. Now people worry about number of polygons or frames per second. It's always been and probably always will be about graphics and numbers.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          I remember loading Super Mario Brothers on my NES back in the day and being amazed by the "incredible" quality of the graphics. I had come from an Atari 5200 and my jaw dropped at the mere fact that Mario and Luigi looked like actual people and not like square representations of people. When Super Mario Brothers 2 came out, I was amazed that the corners of the ledges were rounded. Of course, little items like that pale in comparison to Super Mario Galaxy today, but back then it was a giant leap in graphi

      • Re:ask a 12 year old (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Haoie ( 1277294 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:17PM (#26263017)

        Easy to learn, hard to master.

        That makes a good game a great game. And many older titles have that charm.

      • by White Flame ( 1074973 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @07:34PM (#26263713)

        Nintendo's release of old games to the Wii is absolute genius. Those games were so popular for a reason. It wasn't for their killer graphics - it was because they held your attention and entertained you for hours.

        That has little to do with the age of the game. The ratio of garbage to memorable has most likely stayed similar. These old "classics" are just the very few games that have survived the quality filter, out of myriad lumps of crap.

        • by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @08:30PM (#26264177)

          Very true. I've been playing video games since the Atari 2600 days, and there have always been a myriad of crappy games out there. Just as an example, during the 2600 days after video games became a hot commodity, there were "game companies" out there hiring anybody who could write code at all and cranking out anything they could think of as a video game. Most were pretty terrible. It put such a bad spin on the whole video game scene that until the NES came out many had assumed that the entire concept of the "video game" was to be a passing fad.

          For every system I can think of though, out of the hundreds (possibly thousands in the case of Playsation 1 & 2) of games released for them, I can remember maybe 10 to 12 really stand out titles that I'd really want to go back and play.

      • by Eil ( 82413 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @08:10PM (#26263997) Homepage Journal

        Nintendo's release of old games to the Wii is absolute genius.

        No, it's something the die-hard gamers have been begging Nintendo (or someone) to do for at least a decade. It's not a coincidence that every time a new console or handheld is hacked to run homebrew code, emulators are the first applications to be ported. Nintendo could have made a killing many times over by selling PC-based emulators and game ROMs online at something like $1 a pop, but instead they chose to sue and harass the emulation community. (I.e., their fans. Sound like a familiar story?)

        But what irks me the most about the Wii thing is that the old games are pretty damned expensive. According to this page [wikipedia.org] NES games average $5 and SNES games average $8. That's quite a lot of money just for a trip down memory lane.

        • Re:ask a 12 year old (Score:4, Interesting)

          by everett ( 154868 ) <efeldt&efeldt,com> on Monday December 29, 2008 @10:13PM (#26264843) Homepage

          As opposed to the $50 and $60 price tags those games carried when they were brand new? What you're not realizing is that to a generation of gamers older than you (most likely) that price is an INCREDIBLE bargain. And still even if you had a working console to this day, those are the prices I would expect to play for cartridges at flea markets/auctions and in my opinion is a completely reasonable price to pay. If you're going to pick something to complain about these games for, price should not be it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SpicyLemon ( 803639 )

      Mega Man 9 is awesome. I'm glad they stuck with the 8 bit graphics (and stayed 2D). I hate it when 2D games go 3D. It almost never works out well.

      The castlevania games have stayed 2D (for the most part) and are pretty fun too. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is in my shortlist for best game ever.

      I think too many games focus on the graphics these days and forget that better graphics does not equal more fun. Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Missile Command, Joust etc weren't fun because we could t

      • MegaMan 9 is ok. I think they made it just a bit too hard though. After failing to defeat a single stage in my first playthrough (tried all of them once) I put on MegaMan 2 and 3, and they're tough, but nowhere near as difficult.
  • by acehole ( 174372 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:18PM (#26262337) Homepage

    Pfft, I'm holding out for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix-Remix.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by AsmordeanX ( 615669 )

      Bah, I want Super Street Fighter II EX Turbo HD Remix Champion Edition Alpha: The World Warrior - Fight for the Future.

  • by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:18PM (#26262343)

    |

              .

                          |

  • by CannonballHead ( 842625 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:21PM (#26262387)

    It seems that a lot of the success of a resurrection of an old game depends on the gameplay (how it transitions to modern graphics, modern controls, modern gameplay expectations) and on the nostalgia associated with the game.

    As an example of the latter, I would actually likely dislike a remake of The Secret of Monkey Island (MI 1).

    Gameplay seems to be important though. Some of the classic games relied on gameplay, whilst others relied on story, etc. It doesn't seem like the gameplay from 1990 always transitions well into modern games. The culture of the gamer has shifted, as have the expectations. Graphics alone can almost make a game successful these days, although not completely; whereas back in 1990, graphics seemed to play a small role. Sure, it did to some extent, but I think it was less "realistic graphics" that was of interest back then(Commander Keen != realistic, even a classic like Loom wasn't realistic, although it was certainly colorful and "pretty").

    As for successes that I have personally played, I think the continuation of Prince of Persia appears to have done fairly well.

    There are only a few recent games that I have any lasting nostalgic impressions about, but there are quite a few old games that do. One reason is personal taste, of course, but I think games in the past had to rely on something else than games typically do now. Of course, everyone has heard this 500x, but that's ok. :)

    One game that I wish WAS remade with more modern engines was Baldur's Gate. I loved the game (granted, it was my first CRPG, a genre I have since come to really enjoy more than any other), the story, the characters, etc... but I think if it were remade and put into even the Aurora 2 engine, it would do alright as a remake.

    • by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:40PM (#26262595) Journal

      You should look up "BGTutu." It lets you play through the original Baldur's Gate using the BG2/ToB engine. That solves a lot of the resolution/interface issues.

      Of course I do agree that a full modernization of the games would be best ... I gotta say though, I think BG would lose something in a full 3d engine.

    • by richlv ( 778496 )

      Commander Keen != realistic, even a classic like Loom wasn't realistic, although it was certainly colorful and "pretty"

      wouldn't this imply that simply _better_ graphics are important, not exactly realistic from a viewpoint several years forward ?
      in a retrospect, loom might even be somehwat more realistic than keen was...
      the key here is - do not sacrifice gameplay, story and immersion for graphics or some sort of perverted "interactivity". simply improving appearance can be huge, but if you create shit for gameplay, no graphics will rescue you.
      i'm not that much into games, but i can recall two huge disappointments that i ass

    • by teg ( 97890 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:10PM (#26262923)

      One reason is personal taste, of course, but I think games in the past had to rely on something else than games typically do now

      Just a myth... back in the "good old days", many eye-candy-only games were made too - not just the good ones people remember. Sure, there were "Rainbow Island", "Impossible Mission", "Lemmings", "Elite" and "Psi-5 Trading Company" and "Wizkid" - but there were plenty of games we have forgotten. "Space Ace" and "Dragon's Lair" spring first to mind, but there were tons of "looks great, plays bad" games on the Amiga as well - and on the CBM64, even though the "graphics candy" bar were a bit lower.

      The worst period of "eye candy" was probably when the CD-ROM was introduced... e.g. "the 7th guest"

      • Perhaps I should rephrase then... successful games in the past had to rely on something else. I'm not implying that games relying on the newest technology, whether that was improved graphics, a new controller, or whatever, didn't exist... but I don't think they were as easily successful. Hence bringing up the gaming culture of then and now. Just look at TV and the garbage people watch - I think the culture of today is satisfied (or at least, thinks they are?) with low-quality games, as long as there is a

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        On the C64, IIRC, the candy was more of the ear candy variety. There were a lot of terrible games with great Rob Hubbard sound tracks on the 64.
  • As a retro gamer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by infinite9 ( 319274 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:21PM (#26262401)

    I have a few tips for anyone trying to revive an old game. First and foremost, don't screw up the controls. Don't try to recreate robotron for example on a console with only 1 directional control (gameboy sp, i'm looking at you)

    Also, rather than a old version and a new souped-up version of an old game, I'd rather see 1 game that starts out looking like the old one, but with 100 little options that would allow you to customize the game. Extra visual enhancements would be great, like tempest on the jaguar, but make them optional. And what about more options? Xevious with 50 solvalous would be nice for example. Or speed ups/slow downs. Or new levels for an old game. New weapons. Be creative. Provide more options. Don't just churn out crap and hope to milk us old guys.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by DigitalDreg ( 206095 )

      Some of us old guys like getting milked ..

      How else do you explain cable TV and marriage?

    • by richlv ( 778496 )

      well, maybe not as retro... but we'd like to know your opinion about UFO:AI http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] ;)
      improving over the original design as much as possible - and to please both new and old players - would be the most satisfactory.

    • by G00F ( 241765 )

      Yes, not only don't screw up the controls, I'd like to add the following

      Don't get caught up on graphics.
      Keep it simple.
      Don't entwine the interface where it looks more decorative. (IE, when it no longer looks like a button that does X)
      I should never have to look at the manual to play the game.
      Don't add to many new elements. (A game about space combat should not turn into spys, trade, etc)

  • by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:24PM (#26262429)

    But the question remains, how do you decided[sic] what games will still appeal to the current gaming audience?

    I would guess the same way you'd do any market research. Come up with ideas, run them past your target market, have them fill out surveys and see which ones are most likely to be well received.

    The whole "resurrecting an old game" idea is really nothing but marketing anyways. Old games ran on 6502s or 68000s. Today's processors are orders of magnitude better. The only thing these new games have in common with their old counterparts is the name. And since that's the case, it's not really a special case. Only thing you'll most likely get is a slight marketing boost from people seeing a familiar name.

    So I'd have to say "nothing unusual".

  • I haven't used Windows for anything but office stuff for quite a long time. I use Linux and some Mac OS most of the time. But I would LOVE to be able to play the X-Wing games again... such fond memories. And now I'm older and can afford to spend money on it instead of just copying it from somewhere. So yeah, I would actually buy it this time. I remember pre-broadband-internet days when I bought a second phone line just so I could play games like that and Doom and stuff with my brother across town. Tho

    • Amen..

      The hours I wasted on this game I shudder to count, being locked in my parents study, with the lights out and the sound up, playing this for hours at a time. It was probably my first real addiction to a game.

      If they remade this, or Tie-Fighter I would buy it in a heartbeat, to this day it is still the best game I have ever played.

    • by ukemike ( 956477 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @07:16PM (#26263543) Homepage
      I recently reinstalled X-Wing Alliance and it works great. Back in the day I didn't have a joystick, and I used the mouse. I have a thrustmaster so some such thing now, and it works great, but I can't get it to support yaw when I twist the handle, which naturally makes me a total wanker in dogfights.

      This is definitely a game series that should be done again with modern graphics, AI, online play, team play, etc. Just as long as it stays a "simulator" type game instead of the video gamey stuff they've made recently.
  • If you're going for a 'change as little as possible' angle, try and improve the interface of some part of the game. Give it a decent level select so people can try different parts whenever. (If in doubt, look up Perfect Dark's level select rules.)

    That's basically the story behind the 'two D-pad scrolling method', level select, 'shoulder pause', 'frame advance' and zoom features in Lemmings DS [mrdictionary.net].

    Make it so that people can focus on the game rather than battling against the keyboard for what they need to d
  • I would LOVE remastered versions of Ultima IV-VI in DS form.. I think they would be perfect for it.

    • Ah yes, good times. I just wish they'd made more games after The Black Gate.

      I SAID THERE WERE NO MORE GAMES

  • The story's icon inspires me: Pac Man should be revived as a first person eater!

    • There were first-person versions of PacMan before Wolfenstein 3D. I remember playing them on my IBM 8088. They didn't have the same lasting appeal beyond "hey neat, I'm in the maze!"
  • Desert Bus (Score:5, Funny)

    by Captain Spam ( 66120 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @05:46PM (#26262687) Homepage

    We need Desert Bus resurrected. Only this time, in full 3D, rendering the entire trip at once, requiring a ton of RAM and video power in addition to six hours of time for the trip from Tuscon to Vegas.

    Plus a more photorealistic bug splattering on the windshield after five hours.

  • by Siberwulf ( 921893 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:00PM (#26262825)
    Who saw the topic and thought "Goblin Jumper Cables" ??? God.
  • I want Capt Keene and Leasure Suit Larry on my iPhone. They were written for iPhone resolution (CGA = Crap Grapic Adaptor) in the days of 12MHz i386 with 640k and no HD, so there should be no problem with performance!
  • by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:05PM (#26262871) Homepage

    I have heard somewhere that it might result in resurrection a few days later. Not tried is myself though.... but there is this old indian graveyard too.

  • Pinball 2000 was one way that did not work and part of that has do with the default settings

    No replays by default WTF!

    No ball saver in the first few rom vers.

    The games had a little to much of hit the center screen.

    The playfield felt smaller.

    The lack of a combo plunger on SWEP1.

    RFM was the better of the 2 games and did have some real funny bill Clinton jokes in it.

  • Chrono Trigger DS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fozzyuw ( 950608 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:14PM (#26262967)

    Releasing games is a great strategy. A) The legwork is done. B) You can shine it up. C) Customers who missed it the first time get another crack at it.

    This works very well for games that were great for a reason. Chrono Trigger DS is my current fav. game. I never got to play it on the SNES, but the DS version is simply awesome... even if the graphics are pretty old school.

    Likewise, Super Mario World DS, while not truly a remake, shows how the old formula can easily work in the modern generation.

    I've also enjoyed Final Fantasy games on the DS. Stuff I never got to play on the NES because RPG's never appealed to me then.

    Should companies do it? Yeah. For what games? Games that were obviously good for a reason. Final Fantasy 7 comes to mind. They could completely remake the game with higher quality graphics and cut-screens (using the models from the movies) and I'm sure it'd sell like hotcakes on all the systems... if they didn't have a lock-in with Sony.

    Needless to say, I've benefited greatly from being able to play timeless classics again, for the first time. =P

  • by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:17PM (#26263015)

    M.U.L.E.?

    Considering how often it was called a revolutionary game, it's surprising that there's only been a couple remakes, with none of them working on modern hardware and internet aware. :-(

    • by Wordplay ( 54438 )

      They made one, Space HoRSE. [shrapnelgames.com] They even delayed the release to add internet multi.

      It was pretty faithful, and got tepid reviews for--mostly--not really enhancing the gameplay much. It didn't sell well.

  • I'm personally looking forward to this:

    http://www.wcsaga.com/ [wcsaga.com]

  • Give it to me. Or give me Vagrant Story 1 at a higher resolution. That game was godly.
  • They took an exciting RPG full of puzzles and mazes and monsters based on the D&D 2.0 rules with great music and special effects [wikipedia.org] and turned it into a parody of itself. [thebardstale.com]

    Now you play The Bard and instead of a real RPG it is a fake RPG ala a choose your own adventure.

    The Amiga, Atari ST, and Apple //gs versions of the games had the best sound and graphics and are the only versions of the entire Bard's Tale version that are enjoyable enough to run via emulators. [bardstaleonline.com] The PC version used 16 color CGA or Tandy/EGA

  • All I know is... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Xest ( 935314 ) on Monday December 29, 2008 @06:33PM (#26263175)

    I really really really miss the Desert/Jungle/Nuclear/Whatever Strike series of games.

    Why oh why has there been nothing even remotely similar in years! It's the type of game you could pick up and play without having to commit hours and hours, it was great for some quick, fun action, but the series seems to have been completely dropped.

    I'd love for a company remake anything even remotely similar. I'd guess there's a lot of old classics like these out there just gagging to be remade.

    I don't think there's a shortage of classics that could be remade that don't even have to be faithful to the originals, just something similar as in this example. The real problem seems to be that gaming has converged onto a few very tight specific genres- RTS, RPG, FPS and Sport and hardly anyone dares venture even slightly outside the defined rules for creating a game within these boundaries.

    Maybe gamers like me, who would like something like the Desert strike series games put into a rather nice modern form are just too much of a niche market to bother with.

  • Picture the Mushroomy Kingdom level from the new Smash Brothers Brawl as the graphics for the actual game play of the original Super Mario Brothers. Same exact game, still 2D, same controls, but re-done with awesome new graphics. That is the one retro area that I think has been completely unexplored.

    No need to make things 3D or mess up the controls, but games like Mega Man 9 could have taken more advantage of newer graphics while still keeping the old-school feel to it.

  • Why didn't anyone buy this game? Was it the super deformed artwork? I thought it was excellent, I would love to see the sequel. The remixed levels & boss battles with additional abilities, and the level editor was excellent. Exactly what a remake should be.
    • by Shados ( 741919 )

      A remake of a game that only appeals to people who like retro gaming is a mix up of the target audience. Thus why MM9 did so well. If you want to remake MM games, you need to remake the later ones, for example Maverick Hunter X, man that game is epic.

  • When I read the title of this article, I thought it would discuss playing actual old games in Wine or Mame or some other emulated environment, and debate which ones were worthy of that effort. Sadly, instead it's merely hype for "new" old stuff that publishers want to foist on us to make more money with even less effort than usual.

    I think the article that I expected to read would have been more interesting.

  • The one made for C64 & IBM PC back around late 1980's. You could play as any character in the game, and attempt to become Shogun by attacking, befriending (bowing like a crazy man, but not too much or others will lose respect for you), and trading items for respect/honor. The graphics stank, but the game could easily have a transition to 3D without any harm. Becoming Shogun as a peasant was super tough, and possible only via the trading items route.
    • Sounds a little bit like the old RPG Darklands, in the ability to choose a background and multiple paths to advancement. I mean, they're very different games, but that sounds like something you might like, if you haven't already tried it.

      I'm pretty sure it's on Home of the Underdogs as abandonware. You need the manual for to answer its periodic copy protection scheme questions, which should be on there as well. You'll probably need Dosbox to run it.

  • If they get a strike on this one and it sucks, the fans will come back at them with more power than they can possibly imagine >:(
    Syndicate Wars was enough to make most Syndicate fans shudder.

    and for the love of jebus, get the same music artist in, those atmospheric moody tunes were 1/3 of the game.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The Street Fighter II HD update looks great, and is as much fun as I remember, but I wish that they'd also improved the resolution of the animation by adding more frames.

  • How you prevent blatant spelling mistakes in your summary?

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