The new young, vulnerable Lara
Lara's first triumphant return
Even back in the day Master Chief looked good
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Shacknews
replyGarnett Lee posted a new article, Videogame classics: reboot, reimagine, renovate, or just remember?.
Lara Croft made a huge impression at E3, but is this new Tomb Raider true to its roots. Or does that matter? And just how many trips down memory lane do we really want to take?-
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Glad you brought up Max Payne in the article, because supposedly Max Payne 3 is coming out in the near future. I really don't think it will be good though, Max Payne should just end with him saving Mona and living happily ever after. It won't be the same without Järvi's over-the-top writing, not to mention it will probably embrace modern FPS mechanics such as cover and regenerating health and whatnot.
I would kill for a renovation of Planescape: Torment though. -
For some games the reality is that a fresh coat of paint is nice but it's just papering over the cracks, it's what's underneath that counts. So while I'd love a GTA HD Collection I'd prefer a full remake for GTA San Andreas using the GTA IV engine.
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As your post shows there are two approaches to this, one a complete reboot and one a technology upgrade. For better or worse both are inevitable. I think the former are done more to capture new audience while the former will be done to try to appeal to the old audience.
Should either be done? I understand the desire for new experiences but just as some stories are timeless so are some experiences. Therefore, I think there should be a balance, not just old and not just new but both/and.
For example, I would love to see a remake of System Shock 2 that keeps all the essential gameplay mechanics and story but updates the graphics (a blending of the Lara Croft and Halo CE methods). I think if done well it would be great for fans of the game but would also attract those who love today's action RPGs.
At the same time I think games like Heavy Rain, Flower, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent that take risks help move the industry into new areas and provide new experiences. But some attempts at new experiences are just bad.
So both the nostalgic look back and the experimental look forward have risks but both are necessary to keep us from the rut of the present. That rut is far more dangerous than either nostalgia or experimentation right now. None of these games are likely to outsell the Call of Duty's of today but they serve to remind players of the variety that existed before and that even more variety is possible again.
PS: The rut of the present isn't all bad, it is part of that variety. Also, I don't think people doing these updates are, necessarily, doing it for anything more than a relatively certain payday. But for whatever reason they are being done, I think the benefits above remain. -
Reimagining a game like Lara Croft is okay. It's pretty much slapping the mythos/name on a new IP to get it going again. Lara really doesn't have an industry equivalent in setting/story so go with it.
Much like FarCry 2 had nothing to do with FarCry 1. It was a totally new game, but they threw the name on it for recognition.
And who doesn't love the "gritty reboot" of Batman Begins?
Something like Halo, well, it's a money grab. The original was "reasonably well done generic shooter but the best thing on the XBox". It looked okay, the mechanics were okay, but it was also slow and repetitive (a third of the game is literally going back the way you came in). But, if they want to spend minimal effort and throw it back up for sale, that's great. Much like they do with some PC games and retool them to work on modern hardware and sell them for $5. Monkey Island was done this way and sold for $10/15 easy. I could totally see Halo HD as a budget title.-
Im a fan of Halo, but the remake being a budget title is a dream. That thing will be $60. They will use the reach based multi player as an excuse
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They've said it's going to be $39.99. Not cheap by any means but a fair bit less than $60.
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Why not try to bring back games that are older than 10 or 15 years? Why not bring back a game that are older that people have forgotten? People may not want to play games that they feel like they played before, even if it is somewhat reimagined or with high res graphics. I would be more willing to replay games that have forgotten such as Interstate '76, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Crusader No Remorse with new graphics or reimagined. I say don't flood us with the same old games over and over again. It gets old and boring.
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I didn't know Tomb Raider inspired that kind of fandom.
There has to be a point where you move on. There are what, six or eight Tomb Raider games already? At least the first three do not stray very far at all from the design and style of the original. I love Deus Ex, but if I got three good Deus Ex games in a row I would have been happy and then started looking for a new direction in the franchise. At six or more games deep, it's time to think about other ways a gametype could work. -
Tomb Raider had become the Sonic series in a lot of ways. They kept trying to reinvent, but usually in the same wrong direction (shooter direction). However luckily for Eidos there are other successful series they can draw inspiration from. Whereas Sonic is sort of in a narrow market with a main mechanic (Sonic's speed) that seems to hamstring them when it comes to fresh designs.
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Garnett,
I don't know how I will afford the cost or the time investment, but I will be plunking down hard cash for Metal Gear Solid collection when it comes out later this year just so I can finally play through all the MGS games on next gen consoles, and better yet, the majority of them on my console of choice, the Xbox 360. Snake has finally come to the Xbox platform in a big way (short of MGS4 finally being announced for the system), and I'm surprised Microsoft didn't make more of a big deal about that at E3.
I for one am down for the HD remakes, as it means I'll only need to break out the PS2 for the truly hard to find classic games, and enjoy many of my favorite games in crystal-clear HD. As someone who has just played through Yakuza 1 on an HDTV and is about to embark on the second title, I must say that certain PS2 games look HORRIBLE in HD, even when you are using component cables to get the best possible visual output.
I'm still on the fence about Lara. The new, vulnerable Lara looks amazing, I wish I could have dated her when I was a single young buck. But I'm not sure how relevant Lara is to me now, and I'd rather be the empowered Nathan Drake than what appears to be the always scared and easily breakable Ms. Croft of this generation. I suppose it's better this than to see the Tomb Raider franchise dissappear into obscurity. But given the survival horror tone of this reboot, shouldn't Lara's new game be called "Tomb Escaper?" -
Garnett,
Seriously, I'm now listening to the section of this week's podcast that obviously inspired this editorial, and I'm really surprised at your argument that these HD remakes are not a big deal. Your colleagues even caught you contradicting yourself by bringing up the same argument that I posed earlier. These HD remakes, if priced accordingly, are worth it just for the ability to play the games on modern hardware alone. I've finished Shadow of the Colossus and ICO multiple times years ago, but I still yearn to revisit them once again. To be able to do so without being forced to suffer through long load times, shoddy framerates and blurry visuals (because of the previously brilliant graphics being displayed on modern HDTVs), not to mention being able to do so without having to break out the PS2 from the closet, to me, is worth it. The real problem is the time management issue, that is, having to juggle visiting an old friend (read: game) versus making a new one. My wall of shame ever grows... -
HD remakes imo. Full scale reboots are pretty hit and miss. If something was good the first time around, chances are it's because it had a solid mix of variables that worked together to make it that way. You don't go in and change everything and release it with the same name and expect it to automatically become the next big thing.
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Resident Evil for the Game Cube still ranks as one of my top favorite games, the new Mortal Kombat lives up to being a quality reboot also.
Very similar feel to the old school versions, but still looking and playing like a more modern version. -
HD remake of Pong.
I think some games I've played were beautiful in their simplicity and their non-human appeal. Musashi (for the PS1) was this midget made of 4 spheres, his 2 feet, his abdomen and his head. an HD remake of him would probably either make him horrifically ugly, misproportioned, or gruesomely realistic.
I think Valve did something like a reboot/remake a while ago with Half-Life: Source. Although it wasn't a HD remake it was just a remake, porting it to the new Source engine. Only real noticeable difference was Ragdolls and reflections. However if Valve had spent more than 10 bucks on HL:S they'd probably remodel all the guns, NPC's, and redo all the sounds. However, HL is still a great game in that everybody has a square face and the nice Bassy slamming noises of the crowbar upon the crotch of a Headcrab. The shoddy animation kinda made it more engrossing that Black Mesa was hellish that their employees were insane and the monsters were mistakenly unintelligent and simplistic.
I just lost track of my thought pattern-
How was HL:Source *not* an HD remake?
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The answer is quite clearly "just remember". There's no valid artistic reason to go back and add to a completed work.
Also, the quality of a game does not change. If you go back to a game from 2001 that was your favorite and it's not fun now, then it was never fun, and you just tricked yourself into thinking it was (just as you're probably doing now with a ton of crappy, horrible games). Nobody seems to appreciate the magnitude of the power of HYPE.
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