People invented, composed and made everything already. It must be the case and seeing all the movie and music re-makes, game to movie adaptations, book to movie adaptations and adaptations of adaptations only proves it. In most cases the remake is painfully worse than the original, especially in case of music where new “stars” having neither talent nor ideas sing covers of artists who managed to become successful without using other peoples’ work. And every time I hear “Satisfaction” performed by Britney I know that someone is being stabbed by the Devil somewhere.
In case of games the situation is a bit different, because usually a remake is made by the same company that made the original game or at least the company supervises the work. Over the years we’ve seen a few remakes that improved on the original. We had Doom 3 which was a remake of the original Doom. We had a very good remake of Metal Gear Solid - the Twin Snakes was a great production although the re-recorded voice overs were criticized by hardcore fans. We had the excellent Resident Evil: Rebirth that not only featured incredible graphics but also added a few elements gameplay-wise and story-wise. And then there was Tomb Raider Anniversary a very good remake of the original game featuring the busty archeologist. On XBLA we can play the original Prince of Persia with Sands of Time graphics and Capcom is making a HD version of Street Fighter II Turbo for XBLA and PSN. Not to mention the great Final Fantasy III for the DS and the upcoming FF IV (with voice overs for God’s sake, VOICE OVERS) for the same system. Those among a few other show that game remakes are usually a good thing, so we will give you a few titles that we would like to see remade.
- Parasite Eve - this Squaresoft’s classic is an excellent candidate for an overhaul. Some new spells, even more guns and more customization options would be nice as well. Ten additional floors in the Chrysler Building anyone?
- Final Fantasy VII is a no brainer. We all want it, and Square Enix knows it.
- Resident Evil 2 is my favorite RE game. I’ve finished it a few dozen times and wouldn’t mind doing it again on the Resident Evil 5 engine perhaps.
- Nightmare Creatures 2 might have not been an amazing game but dismembering zombies and demons was never more fun. Do it on the Unreal Engine 3, add some combos and we’re good to go.
- The first Broken Sword in glorious 2D HD with digital sound would be amazing. Me want.
- Metal Gear Solid on Nintendo DS would be very cool. Top screen showing the radar and the bottom one the action. Some touch screen action and the boss fight would be a completely new experience.
- Chrono Trigger either for the consoles or a handheld would be something worth looking into. Square Enix, are you there, people? (Actually there will be a DS version of the title, but right now it looks more like an enhanced port rather than a remake)
The whole idea of remaking things is a little bit sad, isn't it?
You take something which was good and still lives in people's memories
and you just stage it again, admitting that, no, you don't have any
ideas of your own. This is especially the case in music industry where
the only way of starting one's "career" is to cover some hit from the
past.
Thank God, that awful trend hasn't touched the world of video games.
Besides, in this area things change a lot faster that in music industry - we don't talk about the sixties being different than the seventies; we talk about 2002 being different than 2005. There were many great ideas in the old games and it's great to see them revamped and refreshed, even if it means leaving everything as it is, only bringing the gameplay and graphics up to date.
I guess it wouldn't hurt to try a little different approach every once in a while - why don't change the spirit of the original game, the way Marilyn Manson changed the spirit of "Sweet Dreams"? Wouldn't it be great to play the game you know and love in a totally different way, where everything has been rewritten somehow? This way, you would love both the original and the new one - you would play them both, compare them, etc. which is what a good remake should be in my opinion.
No such luck; it smells of art and no one makes artistic games these days, except for Grasshopper. Let's get it on then:
Apart from that, there are also 3 games I'm not sure about. They are perfect as they are, still I love their plots, gameplays, and characters and would die to be able to experience them once more, in an improved way. On the other hand, it scares me that the good remake may kill the original game - I used to play Resident Evil day and night, not caring about the game's flaws, but once the remake came out, I couldn't be bothered to play it again, was it not for Dead Silence. Same thing with Metal Gear Solid and Twin Snakes. The first two are Resident Evil 2 and Parasite Eve (same as above), the third one is Silent Hill. There are some additional problems with making a good Silent Hill remake. The prime one is the fact that the old PSone graphics quality was actually the key element of the game's atmosphere. Nowadays, the grayness and dullness of the old textures would probably be replaced with new, colorful ones and this would be nothing short of a disaster. Next, considering that the series itself is undergoing its own personal "survival horror", a *good* remake is next to impossible - it would probably contain many dumb movie references, maybe even an altered plot, since the original one was often considered incomprehensive. So I guess leaving the game alone is for the best, yet my imagination is sometimes just not enough...
You take something which was good and still lives in people's memories
and you just stage it again, admitting that, no, you don't have any
ideas of your own. This is especially the case in music industry where
the only way of starting one's "career" is to cover some hit from the
past.
Thank God, that awful trend hasn't touched the world of video games.
Besides, in this area things change a lot faster that in music industry - we don't talk about the sixties being different than the seventies; we talk about 2002 being different than 2005. There were many great ideas in the old games and it's great to see them revamped and refreshed, even if it means leaving everything as it is, only bringing the gameplay and graphics up to date.
I guess it wouldn't hurt to try a little different approach every once in a while - why don't change the spirit of the original game, the way Marilyn Manson changed the spirit of "Sweet Dreams"? Wouldn't it be great to play the game you know and love in a totally different way, where everything has been rewritten somehow? This way, you would love both the original and the new one - you would play them both, compare them, etc. which is what a good remake should be in my opinion.
No such luck; it smells of art and no one makes artistic games these days, except for Grasshopper. Let's get it on then:
- Walker, because mayhem in HD is always a good thing.
- Syndicate /Syndicate Wars - I don't care which, just do it, people - can it be that hard?
- Total Annihilation - one of my favorite RTS games, completely hi-tech, without even a single human element - this could be like controlling the city of machines in matrix... [salivates profusely]
- Rise of the Robots - before you think I'm nuts, let me tell you this. I have a dream, a dream where this game is not a dumb beat'em-up but a third-person, Tomb Raider-like, platform-adventure-beat'em-up hybrid, with lots of lesser robots, swarming the levels, with side tasks to complete, with epic boss battles like in God of War featuring the redesigned versions of the original enemies and with a great story in the background (I was thinking about infusing robots with human souls, like in Ghost in the Shell - Innocence). Okay, back to Earth...
Apart from that, there are also 3 games I'm not sure about. They are perfect as they are, still I love their plots, gameplays, and characters and would die to be able to experience them once more, in an improved way. On the other hand, it scares me that the good remake may kill the original game - I used to play Resident Evil day and night, not caring about the game's flaws, but once the remake came out, I couldn't be bothered to play it again, was it not for Dead Silence. Same thing with Metal Gear Solid and Twin Snakes. The first two are Resident Evil 2 and Parasite Eve (same as above), the third one is Silent Hill. There are some additional problems with making a good Silent Hill remake. The prime one is the fact that the old PSone graphics quality was actually the key element of the game's atmosphere. Nowadays, the grayness and dullness of the old textures would probably be replaced with new, colorful ones and this would be nothing short of a disaster. Next, considering that the series itself is undergoing its own personal "survival horror", a *good* remake is next to impossible - it would probably contain many dumb movie references, maybe even an altered plot, since the original one was often considered incomprehensive. So I guess leaving the game alone is for the best, yet my imagination is sometimes just not enough...
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