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E3 2015: A Lot of Nostalgia For Old Games
_xeno_ writes: E3 2015 saw a lot of game companies banking on nostalgia, but much less hype for new games. While the biggest thing coming out of Microsoft's press conference was undoubtedly the Hololens, the biggest buzz from E3 was probably Sony's announcement of Square Enix's announcement of a remake of a two decade old game (Final Fantasy VII), seconded by the announcement of a sequel to a fifteen year old game (Shenmue). Nintendo announced mostly new sequels as well. Ultimately, though, it isn't surprising that the biggest buzz is around old games. Old games are a known quantity, while truly new games are — well, new. Who knows if they're going to be the next classic or not?
There's a good argument for remakes or sequels for many game properties. As much as people love to stick their nose up in the air in disdain at remakes and sequels (and yeah, sometimes I'm guilty of that), in truth, fans of a world or character they've enjoyed in the past are also likely to appreciate the chance to revisit those same worlds or characters on a modern platform.
Besides, let's face it, while they're still enjoyable to play, many early videogames haven't exactly aged all that gracefully. It's not just about shinier graphics, although that's certainly a factor of course. There are a lot of examples of downright clunky gameplay mechanics that we once thought were acceptable, but wouldn't put up with in a modern game. And oh lord, don't get me started on the state of voice acting in the first games that attempted to do so. Cringe-worth doesn't even begin to describe it, mostly because earlier developers thought it would be a great idea for people in the studio or friends and family to do the voice-acting.
There are also some examples of fantastic games that had nothing wrong with them at a fundamental level, but would be great to see in a modern sequel. Star Wars Battlefront is a great example of this. Another good example (sticking with the Star Wars universe as an example) would be the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series of games, although as a PC franchise, I'm far less hopeful we'd ever see a remake of that one. It has nothing to do with the original being inadequate in any way given technology of the time, but a lot of fans of the original would love to see what could be done with modern state-of-the-art capabilities.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The new Doom really shows this nostalgic trend all by itself. The gameplay footage shows that they were definitely looking to approximate the feel of the original even to the point of abandoning more contemporary elements (regenerating health, weapon inventory limit). It will be interesting to see how the retro gameplay is received by younger gamers who haven't played the original, and whether this kind of nostalgia will affect the way that future, new franchises are designed.
On a side note, the game looks pretty awesome and brings me back to my childhood, but I will personally miss the survival horror style of Doom 3.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.