EA Looking Into Reviving Classic Games?

Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts has filed for trademarks on several popular old franchises: Populous, Wing Commander, Theme Park, and Road Rash. This, along with comments from Harvey Elliot of EA's Bright Light Studio, have led many to suspect that we may see new titles for those IPs in the near future. Elliot said, "If you remember all the old classics you played, if you go back and play them now, they're not the same. They were right for their time, and the trick with those games is coming up with what's right for the time now. I'm going to look at them at some point; I think there's an opportunity to bring those back in the future, but only if it's right for the time and not just a 'remake' or something. We'd need to do it in a way that's true to the original values, but would still make a great game today."

Comments

Theme Hospital 2

[omgarthas]

pretty please....

Re:Theme Hospital 2

[omgarthas]

I'm fine with that, Theme Hospital audio and gameplay with Unreal 3 engine.. /droll

Re:Theme Hospital 2

[RogueyWon]

Are you telling me a 50 bugs price tag is too high to watch people suffer from both Bloaty Head and The Squits at the same time in high definition 3d?

Heathen.

Re:Theme Hospital 2

[darthvader100]

50 bugs price tag

50 bugs?
Any restriction on what breed they have to be?
Do ants count?

What a novel way to pay for your games. I can now afford *millions* of games

Re:Theme Hospital 2

[abcjared]

There is an open source Theme Hospital in progress, OpenTH

Re:Theme Hospital 2

[Opportunist]

But of course they're outraged at piracy! Fewer and fewer people buy their products, so it has to be due to piracy! It can't be that people refuse to rent software at buying prices.

Re:Theme Hospital 2

[Opportunist]

I'm a programmer, I can afford billions. I'm rich. RICH!

Or...

[ledow]

Or, they are just renewing their trademarks? Or they are planning to pump some old stuff out through Steam, etc.?

Why does "trademark application" have to equal "writing a sequel"?

Re:Or...

[Xest]

It's worth pointing out that a new Wing Commander game was released just last year on XBox Live Arcade so I think you're probably right. They're just ensuring protection of existing trademarks I'd guess.

Still, I'd love a nice revamped 3D HD version of Desert Strike and Jungle Strike though personally! I wouldn't say no to a new Theme Park/Theme Hospital either. Oh, how about bringing Syndicate back whilst we're at it ;) ?

Re:Or...

[vell0cet]

That was in NO WAY a Wing Commander game. It was as much a Wing Commander game as the Star Wars Christmas Special was a Star Wars movie.

Re:Or...

[bertoelcon]

As far as I am concerned, the more stuff that gets pumped out through STEAM, the better. I pretty much refuse to buy games these days unless its through STEAM, because I am afraid that I will lose the discs or CD-Keys but STEAM will likely at least outlive my game-playing days.

But if STEAM does fall you get screwed over backwards. I can't believe that people that hate drm so much love STEAM, because its still a form of drm.

Sequels

[Carra]

Just what we need, more sequels... They'd better just rerelease the old classics or give them new graphics and rerelease them like Lucasarts did. Nothing wrong with a good remake, lots of people never played the originals.

Re:Sequels

[Delkster]

I'm particularly sceptical about sequels to titles like Populous which were originally interesting because they did something that was a pretty new concept in games at the time: in Populous, for example, it was the modeling of behaviour of relatively large populations, and giving the player seemingly great powers to drive those. (SimCity did something similar in that sense at around the same time, but I don't know of many other mainstream games that did.) Many of these games relied pretty heavily just on those novel ideas.

If you tried to make a new game now based on the same idea, it wouldn't be novel or exciting anymore. You'd have to make up a new and different concept in order to achieve a similar "wow" effect, but if it's going to be based on an entirely new concept and idea, why would you call it with the same name as an older title with a different concept, except for marketing purposes? That's a paradox -- you can't both be novel and retain the old idea. The only way it would make sense would be to use the original concept and develop it further so that it brings in an additional concept that is compatible with the original spirit but still novel enough *today* that it brings a new "wow" effect. I'm sure that's not impossible, but it's rarely seen, and probably rarely in the mind of people thinking up sequels.

I've seen really good sequels. System Shock 2 comes to mind, as do Civilization games. These sequels did exactly that: took parts of what was central to the spirit of the original games and built a game on top of it that brought in something else that made the combination interesting.

On the other hand, Populous 3 wasn't particularly interesting, IMHO, probably because it didn't have any particularly novel ideas anymore. It just shared the name and a loosely connected background story, neither of which made the original games interesting.

Re:Sequels

[NervousNerd]

They'd better just rerelease the old classics or give them new graphics and rerelease them like Lucasarts did.

Yeah, like what they did with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. I felt that Anniversary was a rare case where the remake was better than the original. Though, I doubt EA is innovative enough, and we'll just end up with Road Rash 2010.. Road Rash 2011 and so on..

Re:Sequels

[zoney_ie]

I just started up Civ 4 again in the last day or two - it is I think a particularly interesting "sequel" because it's not just about new concepts - it also tries to offer the central ideas of the past games with improvements based on experience since then. A lot of items are redesigned to offer smoother and less annoying gameplay. All previous Civ games had myriad things that were genuine annoyances in the game. Civ 4, almost none. And, on top of all of that it's got modern 3D graphics and nice animations without compromising the essential isometric-style view.

If the attempted reworking of EA classics are anything like Civ 4, then that's a worthwhile endeavour in my view and something that will be genuinely nice to play. The summary is right about the old games unless you're a hardcore enthusiast. Even Diablo II, that I sunk hours into and is a formative game for any number of copycats, I can't go back to even after an imitation like Titan Quest. I enjoyed the updated version of Monkey Island far more than I would have going back and playing the original. However, like the updated version of Monkey Island, I'd only probably be interested in spending 10 on these.

So what's the yay factor?

[RogueyWon]

Let's assume that in each case, we're talking about a bona-fide sequel or franchise reboot, rather than just a port of the original to Steam/Xbox Live/PSN. Just how much of a gap in the market is there for the games named in the summary?

Populous: This might work. However, the god-game genre has been through quite a few evolutionary steps since Populous kicked things off. I think a game that stuck too closely to the formula of the original (or Populous 2) would feel a bit dated and lacklustre now. A new installment in the series would need to either reflect the advances we've seen over the last couple of decades, or else have enough brand new ideas of its own that it could stand out from the crowd. If you're looking at old Bulldog franchises, I'd much rather they try to resurrect Syndicate.

Wing Commander: Yes please. The space-combat-sim genre has been sadly dormant for many years now and this is one franchise where a full reboot would be highly desirable. Take it back to the Kilrathi war, spend a fortune on the FMV cutscenes and recreate the sinking "I'm going to need a new PC" series that the old games were known and loved for.

Theme Park: This one I'm really not convinced by. There's been an absolute flood of Theme-Sim-Tycoon games in recent years, many of which have focussed around Theme Parks. The quality has varied wildly, and I'm not sure the genre's standing is particularly high. I'm really not sure that there's much room to reawaken this franchise without a distinct feeling that you're flogging a dead horse.

Road Rash: Fun enough games in their day, but I'm not really sure the old Road Rash titles really stand comparison to the other 3 franchises named above. Still, if they want to make a fun, arcadey motorcycle combat game and stick the Road Rash name on it, it certainly wouldn't do any harm.

Re:So what's the yay factor?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While they're digging through Bullfrog's ruins, a new Dungeon Keeper would kick ass.

Populous could go either way. Done wrong, it'd just be EA sodomizing the corpse of a once inspiring series. Done right, it could be the game that Black & White never managed to be.

Re:More Like...

[hedwards]

Technically speaking killing the undead isn't murder.

System Shock

[rarel]

I'd love to see a sequel to System Shock 2, a third installment would not only complete the Shock series, it would also complete the great "Looking Glass Trinity" as one could call it: Thief, Shock, Deus Ex. Two of these have "lived" to see a third, as DX3 is currently in the works. Thief will even have a #4...
(I'm aware that DX isn't technically an LG game, but its development was heavily influenced by Shock and Thief to say the least.)

Plus Shock 2 just turned 10 this week ;)

Sadly it will probably never be done. EA may have some trademark but the whole Shock licence is scattered among people who probably don't know or care that they have it. Even Levine back in the day couldn't trace it back.

Sucks. :(

Ultima

[MatrixCubed]

Ultima died years ago. If brought back with the panache found at its pinnacle (IV-VII), it would far surpass any current-day RPG.

Cinemaware

[jamesh]

I was a kid when I played them, and the storylines were pretty linear, but I loved "It came from the desert", and "wings". It would be nice if they could be given an updated retelling...

I will pay 50â for a good remake of Wing Comm

[Kaleidoscopio]

Wing Commander was and his a great game. The story line did got a bit cheesy, it looked like a Sopa Opera towards the end, but it was fun, it was great and it even had Mark Hamil. I believe it was on Wing Commander II that your carrier got destroyed right at the start. Great storyline. Epic I would say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander_(video_game)

Milliways, Infocom & risking being eaten by a

[Daem(Off)]

I really miss the old Infocom games. I remember playing them the first round through in elementary school, HHGTtG gave my brain a real hardcore tease for the longest time. IF (Interactive Fiction) is just so much fun, for both authors as well as players.

Anybody else read the Choose Your Own Adventure series? I used to have the whole collection, I just wish they were longer. Would love to see something more along these lines for adults. (My gutter-fabulous mind can only start to envision some of the more 'adult' "tails" that could be chosen. *starts chortling to self*

I think also would be great to see a revival of the old games we used to play on BBS'. Still to this day trying to remember the title of this one, it simulated hacking, sort of like GIbson's Johnny Mnemonic, pre-Shadowrun sort of era. Turn based, only got so many a day, and I believe it was interactive with the other players as well, as you rose up in levels.

Well, probably enough nostalgia for now... Should get back to social-notworking....

How about Zero Wing

[oodaloop]

You don't even need to correct the English for kids today to recognize it. You know what you doing!

I could get into some of these

[Tridus]

A new Wing Commander would be nice, that entire genre doesn't seem to exist anymore. I'm not sure what happened to cause that.

I could go for a new Populous too, depending on how it's done.

Hey, can EA get the Spore team to make a new

[DeanCubed]

Dungeon Keeper? That game ruled - 3rd person RTS that could turn into a first person game whenever you wanted. Imagine if that concept had been added to other RTS games that came out later - Warcraft 3, Age of Empires, etc. Hell, port the original games on Steam, WiiWare and the new download service on the DSi. It's a NO BRAINER EA! Both the Wii and DS have great interfaces for playing RTS/FPS games.

Heeeello! This is EA...

[castironpigeon]

Nothing good can come of this. If they do start churning out sequels it'll only be to cash in on old names.

Not just graphics. . .

[JSBiff]

There are great reasons to make new games in 'old' franchises, or to re-do earlier games. Graphics is only one of those. There's also issues of the ability to do much more with sound now than some of the early games were able to do with the PC speakers, but even more importantly. . .

* Network/Internet multiplayer (ok, for some games multiplayer would make no sense, but for others, there's great potential

* More memory and faster CPUs means that not only can you update graphics, but you can create universes/worlds populated by more planets, stations, NPCs, ships, etc (how many of those really old games which were supposed to have 'epic' scope, ended up feeling a bit small or empty because of the memory and processing constraints of having 4M or less of memory? There's great opportunity to go back and have much 'bigger' worlds now that most 'gaming' machines have >= 1G of RAM.

Re:Not just graphics. . .

[Gaian-Orlanthii]

I think you're confusing abstraction with realisation. Yeah, it's true that a lot of older games had incredible depth. Lords Of Midnight on the 48k Spectrum could take weeks to complete. Ultima VII could take months (and it did when I played it) but most of that sense of freedom was engineered through your imagination. It usually wasn't possible to add the graphics and art to show you the scope of these worlds - you just imagined it when you suspended your sense of disbelief and followed the story and the characters.
It's also true that most modern games (even the 'sandbox' games) really are too restrictive. Call Of Duty 1 - 5 for example, still forces you to accept the tedious bullshit that you, the near-invulnerable superhero, capable of winning the war all on your own, can't climb over a metre high fence.
But it's not because the hardware can't make it so, it's obviously because the developers are being conservative and/or just plainly lazy. They want you on a track because they don't want to bother with all that game-testing and possible bug-fixing and they want the ga- sorry, product out on the market asap.
And that's the nub of the problem. EA set the standard/plumbed new depths (take your pick) in safe, derivative, marketshare seeking populist drivel around the time that most of the great games mentioned here came out. Clearly, it didn't hurt them financially one little bit, so anyone thinking that they'll show any respect now for the artistic sensibilities and originality of games like X-Com or Alien Legacy, is kind of misguided.

Crusader: No Remorse/Regret series

[PrescriptionWarning]

Now this is one series of games I would much rather see a fresh re-imagining of beyond all others. Just so long as its not like what they did with the Bionic Commando (that is to say a very generic platform 3rd person shooter).

I can think of a few possibilities

[KnownIssues]

• Populous: the MMO
• Wing Commander: the MMO
• Theme Park: the MMO
• Road Rash: the MMO

or when those fail to take off...

• Populous: the Movie
• Wing Commander II: the Movie
• Theme Park: the Movie
• Road Rash: the Movie

Re:Mission Based Road Rash?

[Hatta]

Mission based Road Rash wouldn't really be Road Rash. Road Rash is arcadey motorcycle racing with weapons. If I have to think about where I'm headed, it's not Road Rash. Not that there's anything wrong with a mission based motorcycle game. I just don't think they should revive a franchise and make substantial changes to the formula that made that franchise a success.

Re:I will pay 50â for a good remake of Wing C

[Reapy]

Honestly...WC was great for mind blowing graphics. I remember installing all 13+ disks taking over an hour and waiting patiently to get the thing going. The story was pretty cool, but what sucked me in were the incredible graphics. The story was pretty cool, but it always came down to how cool it looked to be flying around capitol ships and dog fighting such nice looking things. That is what WC sold me on.

But then I started playing tie fighter much later, then freespace 2. Sorry guys, the space combat in those games is MUCH MUCH better. The variety of capitol ships and the ability to take them out with small ships (needed torps in WC if i recall correctly) and the way the missions played out were much much more dynamic then anything I recall in WC.

If the space flight sim genera needs a reboot, it should be from freespace or the xwing/tie fighter games, not wing commander, unless of coarse they are going to blow my skirt up with disgustingly awesome graphics again.

Finally after nearly 20 years...

[bdleonard]

Maybe that Low Blow sequel I've been waiting for will become a reality. I mean a boxing game where the easiest way to win is kick the other guy in the crotch whenever the refs aren't looking. Can you think of a more realistic boxing experience?