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Neglected Classic Games That Deserve Remakes?
Thanks to GameSpot for its feature discussing neglected videogames that nonetheless deserve remakes. The "games that may have been forgotten but were at least pretty well known in their day" include Roadwar 2000 ("[an] innovative adventure set in the ruins of American civilization"), Biomotor Unitron ("an exceptional game... [that] had the poor luck of being released on the profoundly underappreciated NeoGeo Pocket Color in 1999"), and Xenophobe ("a lighthearted and memorable arcade game... [that] takes itself less seriously than the average alien shoot-'em-up.")
I suspect that only a minority of Slashdot-ers will recognize what I'm talking about, but any game in the trilogy deserves a remake on it's own; the whole trilogy deserves a remake, even more.
Lucky for us, that's already in the works. In fact, it's being simultaneously ported for Linux and Windows as well as OS X, AND it's an Open Source project. If I had any programming skills (alas, I don't), I'd be in on the project. As it stands, I'll have to wait until Pfhorge (pronounced "forge," for the uninitiated) comes out to make any contribution.
Anyhow, for those interested, the project is called Aleph One; the main site can be found here, and the SourceForge site can be found here.
~UP
Eat the Path.
Mail Order Monsters - Keep the old idea: build monsters, add on parts with money earned through sparring with other monsters. (Sort of like Tecmo's Monster Rancher, but different.) Put this online with plenty of cool upgrades, tournaments, and other modern niceties and you'll make a mint.
Racing Destruction Set - The old ideas: Design cars and race courses with traps, terrain hazards, and so forth, then race. Add same updates as above for MOM. Also make sure you can build a course and then race against computer-controlled opponents of real intelligence.
Adventure Construction Set - Build a single-player RPG from the ground up, including graphics, items, scenery, and more. Update to modern standards for graphics, sound. Set up a site where users can upload their creations and then vote on them. Eventually, game buyers themselves become the real engine for driving more sales of the game.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Spoken like someone who hasn't been to EB in a while.
"Games like Final Fantasy 4 (2 US) had what I still think is a great plot, but it suffered due to the poor translation and "Americanization" that Japanese video game makers thought we needed."
They re-vamped the English translation when FF IV was re-released for PSX as 1/2 of Final Fantasy Chronicles. They still kept certain flubs for nostalgia's sake ("You spoony bard!"), but we now have a game where Cecil and Rosa aren't afraid to do anything more than hold hands.
"Or maybe just great games that never made it over here. Things like Fire Emblem"
Released for GBA a few months back.
The site Retro Remakes catalogs remakes of classic games and games inspired by classic games that you probably never knew about. Most of them are free. Granted, most often it's not the original game company doing a full-blown 3d version of some classic 80's space shooter, but there's enough stuff on the site to keep anyone entertained for hours.
LifeForce (keep it a 2D shooter with 2 player co-op).
Gorilla Wars
Ikari Warriors (this and above must be co-op)
Blaster Master
Strider
Bionic commando (not the stupid gameboy poop)
River city Ransom
X-COM:UFO Defense (the first one, timeline should be present day)
Ultima 1-9 (in one engine)
Fallout 1
Jagged Alliance 2
Ultima Underworld 1
Anyone who owned a copy of Berkely Systems "After Dark" screen saver for Mac in the early 90's will remember this.... loved that one!
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I haven't been able to find another RPG that quite captures the mood and attention to detail of FTL's Dungeon Master games. There's several nice fan remakes of the first and its expansion pack, but I prefer the second, so I'm stuck with my good old Amiga emulator for the time being...