Offworld's Retro Remakes week: what needs to be remade?

AdamRobezzoli

#1 – 11:45 AM September 21, 2009

Squish 'em Sam!

wildweasel

#2 – 12:19 PM September 21, 2009

System Shock. Despite it being a fantastic game back in 1994, it really hasn't aged well, and Bioshock has completely the wrong idea about what made System Shock so great.

iarwain

#3 – 12:22 PM September 21, 2009

Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight! =)

Seg

#4 – 12:22 PM September 21, 2009

This may be a little too new (by a decade) and not entirely in the spirit of the post, but it's what I first thought of.

The Longest Journey (1999; Funcom) could use a redux in presentation. Instead of all wide-shots and the occasional FMV, doing the same presentation treatment that it's sequel "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey" (2006; Funcom) would match the powerful writing to the visual presentation.

Andrew Simone

#5 – 12:25 PM September 21, 2009

MOO2 and Warsong.

PhiCancri

#6 – 12:35 PM September 21, 2009

With all of the love given lately to Monkey Island, I would love to see a remake done of Maniac Mansion.

And sticking with the "point-and-click" theme, let's have Déjà Vu and Shadowgate remade too.

Doctor Popular

#7 – 1:29 PM September 21, 2009

Atari's Hard Drivin' is the first thing that comes to mind. http://www.klov.com/H/Hard_Drivin%27.html Modern racing games are too realistic... what's the point of that? I want ramps, loops, shortcuts, and phantom racecars.

I'd also like to see remakes of Street Fighter 2010 and Discs of Tron (that chintzy x-box update does not count!).

Doctor Popular

#8 – 1:30 PM September 21, 2009

oh... a remake of Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors would be awesome too. Maybe as an iPhone game? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_&_Teller%27s_Smoke_and_Mirrors

alexlitel

#9 – 1:30 PM September 21, 2009

Beetle Adventure Racing, Bad Dudes and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City

Cowboy_X

#10 – 3:07 PM September 21, 2009

I'd like to second the vote for System Shock. Not that I think Bioshock was a bad game at all, but if it were promoted as "Bioshock for grownups and the hardcore"... well, there's a huge neglected market there.

Not remakes, but simple high-rez "ports" of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus to PS3 are simply NECESSARY. Can you imagine if we couldn't watch movies from pre-1990 simply because nobody ported them to DVD? The gameplay and production value of these two in particular are timeless.

Cowboy_X

#11 – 3:11 PM September 21, 2009

also there's a ton of Infocom properties that I'd love to see reimagined, including Trinity.

btw, the non-logged comments form appears to be broken.

radomaj

#12 – 5:18 PM September 21, 2009

MDK and/or MDK2
Oni
Shogo

Seg

#13 – 6:45 PM September 21, 2009

Got another one: The Tex Murphy series. Mainly because I'm a Live-Action Video lover, but a good detective story is what we need now in these Hard Times™.

@Doctor Popular:
Yes. This. So hard. Were I to go to grad school, I was going to look into making Desert Bus: The MMO. Doing some footwork, it seems the current rights holder for all of P&T:S&M is Electronic Arts. Course, who knows what the original contract was like, thus what ownership actually means.

There is a silver lining. Penn & Teller currently have an iPhone App that runs the same spirit as the prank games. We may see more from them in the future!

mrballistic

#14 – 8:32 PM September 21, 2009

i'd love to see an xbla remake of rescue raiders. heck, maybe i'll make that my christmas project.

Abdiel

#15 – 10:52 PM September 21, 2009

I see your System Shock (which would be fine, btw) and up the obscurity ante with Terra Nova, Looking Glass Studios' fantastic power armor squad combat simulation. Never equalled--never even attempted before or since.

SleighBoy

#16 – 11:15 PM September 21, 2009

The Dark Eye - the Myst-style surreal walk through the stories of E.A. Poe

Inverse Square

#17 – 2:51 AM September 22, 2009

Tim Rogers wrote an interesting review of a game called Panzer Dragoon Zwei: http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=405

It was only ever released on the Sega Saturn, which is really weird. Also the Street Fighter 3 games need a port to modern systems.

tamewhale

#18 – 4:55 AM September 22, 2009

I think it was mentioned on here a few weeks ago in a post about jetpacks, but I'd love to see Exile updated. I think a 3D version might be awful though, so keeping it 2D would be just dandy.

imaginarythomas

#19 – 6:19 AM September 22, 2009

Any of the old Apogee games. Crystal Caves, Commander Keen and the 2D Duke Nukem games.

Hell, I'd be more than pleased with a compilation of those for DS.

shanealeslie

#20 – 8:07 AM September 22, 2009

I'd like to see Thomas Biskup's ADOM (ADOM.de) receive the financial backing it needs to allow him to develop the MMORPG version JADE into existence.

Matthew_H

#21 – 8:11 AM September 22, 2009

@Doctor Popular: You might want to look into Trackmania. The best modern acrobatic racer. Nations version is free! (And a full game, not just a demo.)

@Abdiel: Hell yes. Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri FTW. They don't make 'em like they used to. All they have to do is license the Cryengine 2, and get rid of the FMV. Demolitions would look mighty fine in Cryengine 2... also gotta love that infrared scope... Hell, awesome game all around.

IronEdithKidd

#22 – 10:09 AM September 22, 2009

Comment system isn't letting me log in. Oh well.

I'm thinking of some old favorite PC games that could be updated for consoles. Sam and Max Hit the Road and Grim Fandango would be great. I'd also love to see an updated version of Afterlife. As for console games that could use a redo, I nominate Wipeout. Too bad Psygnosis went tets-up.

The Bus

#23 – 12:21 PM September 22, 2009

Rare's Blast Corps.

ARMed_Pirate

#24 – 12:35 PM September 22, 2009

Metal Warriors (SNES - published by Konami)
Possibly the best (only?) 2d sidescrolling multiplayer mech game for the SNES.

Little Nemo the Dream Master (NES)
Marvelous sidescrolling gameplay ala Adventure island, but with more creative/trippy level design, and references to the old Little Nemo comics.

@IronEdithKidd - Great call on the adventure games. I would love to share Sam & Max with others, and I never got a chance to play Grim Fandango (my PC was too low-end at the time).

@The Bus - I had forgotten about Blast Corps! Great suggestion!

MadRat

#25 – 12:39 PM September 22, 2009

What?! Not one person mentioned Final Fantasy VII? I thought every other message was going to be FF7 requests.

I'd say um... Captain Blood would look pretty good with current computer graphics as would Elite. (Yeah I really am that old.)

As for you IronEdithKidd, there are SEVEN Wipeout games including Wipeout Pulse for the Playstation Portable and Wipeout HD for the Playstation 3. Think about that... Wipeout. For. PS3. ("Contender eliminated" *wink*)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipeout_(video_game_series)

Rob

#26 – 12:51 PM September 22, 2009

I second the Maniac Mansion, and add Day of the Tentacle. Those are two of the LucasArts games I never did, I think I hit most of their other adventure games.

Fallout would be nice. Keep the original style though, don't convert to the style of Fallout 3.

Never did manage to finish Prisoner or Temple of Apshai. Prisoner would be apropos considering the remake coming out.

therevengor

#27 – 1:06 PM September 22, 2009

M.U.L.E. - as a multiplayer flash game. I would play a round every single day at lunchtime.

Sword of the Samurai - single combat, one on many, and RTS, wrapped in a strategy/RPG tortilla. Yum.

FFVII - So I have an excuse to play through one more time.

jakekingdead

#28 – 1:08 PM September 22, 2009

Beyond the obvious?

(Overhead) Fallout, Snatcher/Policenauts, Blaster Master, Z, Maniac Mansion (what Lucas Arts game doesn't deserve a second shot really), Virtual-On, Lost Vikings, Falcon 4.0 (hahah), The Sengoku series, Blade Runner, Tomba, Rise of the Triad, Bubble Bobble...

Well maybe some of those were obvious.

Seiken Densetsu 3 (what would have been secret of mana 2) needs to have a proper release, I'm just getting around to playing the fan translation ROM and now want to find and strangle the Squaresoft employee responsible for holding it back from the US.

toshimarise

#29 – 1:13 PM September 22, 2009

Really, a lot of old-school RPGs could be brought forward. Final Fantasy VII, yes, of course. But my all-time favorite game is Xenogears.

The execution on the Playstation was terrible, I'll be the first to admit. The second half of it was never even finished (the last ten hours is basically reading a plot synopsis and fighting occasional boss battles), and the graphics were not good even by Playstation standards. But the world, and the characters, and the arc of the story... you can just see the gem peeking out from underneath. A remake could fix the crap and deliver the game Xenogears should have been to start with. I've lusted for a remake since the PS2 came out. *sigh*

toxonix

#30 – 2:12 PM September 22, 2009

Flashback
Tempest
Arkanoid
San Francisco Rush

Tetrisphere

not retro, but still needs a comeback:
Sniper Elite

Rob

#31 – 3:41 PM September 22, 2009

@therevengor: I think they're working on a MULE remake.

@toxonix: Arkanoid came out recently on the DS

Casey Jones

#32 – 4:53 PM September 22, 2009

BATTLETOADS

shutz

#33 – 5:34 PM September 22, 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Orbit_Stations

It's an obscure game I only had a few chances of playing, mostly because I didn't own any of the home computers it was released on, and partly because the loading times on the C64 I did try it on were horrendous.

But the concept itself would make for a really fun game, with the added bonus that today's 3D graphics could really do it justice. For one thing, you'd get a chance to put together station modules as thought you're playing with Lego or Tinker Toy, and then you'd be able to view the results from any angle, possibly even move around inside the station you built.

I know these types of games aren't exactly the most popular genre right now, but at the very least, something like this would be a great match for XBLA / WiiWare, and on PC.

Vorn

#34 – 5:53 PM September 22, 2009

Armed_Pirate: there was also "Cybernator".

As for games I want remakes of...

the original King's Bounty.
X-COM, just to get a sensible interface.
and one games probably nobody here has ever heard of: Galactic Frontiers, a casual 4x for classic mac. How often do you see those two words together.

Mr_Staypuft

#35 – 6:47 PM September 22, 2009

@TAMEWHALE.
You wanted a modern remake of Exile?

Try this. :-)
http://exile.ovine.net/

Itsumishi

#36 – 8:28 PM September 22, 2009

Bring back Hugo's House of Horrors!

And Commander Keen.

Jape77

#37 – 9:59 PM September 22, 2009

"Full Metal Planet" ... and my favorite game of all time, Maxis' "Robosport"

Both were 4-player games -- one hot seat, the other LAN -- where you had to carefully but quickly plan your moves under a time constraint. I would LOVE to see updates of both you could play over the net.

Jape77

#38 – 10:20 PM September 22, 2009

Oh yeah -- and does anyone remember the Hypercard game "Bomber"? B-17 runs over europe. Very intense with the headphones on. Just think what you could do for that one with modern graphics.

Zagatto

#39 – 10:41 AM September 23, 2009

My fondest gaming memories are from my C64 days.

Raid on Bungeling Bay was fairly intense in its day and I think a remake would rock our socks.

The Bruce Lee platform game had some classic puzzles that I think would work well in a modern 3d engine.

I half expected every second request to be for Elite. There's an MMO that would eat every spare moment I have.

As already mentioned M.U.L.E. is another game that would be easy to update and lots of fun for everyone.

IronEdithKidd

#40 – 2:00 PM September 23, 2009

Madrat@25: Perhaps I should have mentioned that we've only had our PS3 since Nov. '08 and rarely have it connected to the netweb as it was moved misserably far from our router about a month after we got it. My partner tends to move furniture around a lot without regard for the need to hook stuff into other stuff. He seems to get bored with the lay of the land pretty quickly. That and the recent arrival of a little one have shoved gaming (and in particular randomly digging for remakes of past enjoyed games) to the back burner. Getting that longer piece of data cable is REALLY low on the priority list.

sledgehammer

#41 – 2:51 PM September 24, 2009

Tass Times in Tone Town. (C64)

Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator (Arcade/C64)

Gunship (C64/Amiga/PC)

Mech Warrior (The simulation, not the strategy version!) (PC)

Interstate 76 (PC)

Redneck Rampage (PC)

Outlaws (LucasArts PC)

Elevator Action

Rick Dangerous (Amiga)

Zaxxon

That'll do for now. If I had those on my PSP, PC or console, I'd be quite busy.

Jape77

#42 – 8:07 PM October 2, 2009

Hey wait -- where's the tally at the end of the week? I want my high score dammit!

bolounitlne

#43 – 5:02 AM October 4, 2009

DROL
Encounter
Archon
Blue Max