Lately I have found myself more annoyed with the usual bunch of video gaming trends and pop fiction tropes. Bipedal English-speaking aliens, anything with Jedi or Jedi-like characters in it and endlessly cycled fiction crutches like the Xanatos Roulette and characters that never seem to die. Perhaps the anguish of waiting for my new machine has made me extra edgy (especially with Spore: Galactic Edition staring me in the face), but am I the only one that thinks it’s time that fiction writers (in all mediums) tried something new? Or is this just Sturgeon’s Law in practice?

With this week’s Warp Pipe, I thought we’d take a look at another round of classic video games that could use a remake or reimagining.

Most Wanted Remakes II

Due to the way technology drives our industry, it’s inevitable that any popular title could be up for a remake at some stage in the future. Unlike movies, where any film can still be watched at any time (though maybe with a degree of unintentional cheese due to aging), video game remakes are often made impossible to play due to hardware incompatibility or aged game mechanics. Remakes of video games make a lot of sense to business types as they’re relatively safe; they’re easy to market, audiences are familiar with the brand, and much of the design work is already done. This time around, I’ve mostly gone for personal favourites which, although still (mostly) playable, could use a fresh coat of paint.

X-COM: UFO Defense/UFO: Enemy Unknown Developer: MicroProse Format: Amiga, PC, PSX First released: 1993 In 1998, UFO activity spikes off the charts with record reports of sightings. Soon after, abductions become commonplace, followed soon after by random alien attacks. Each of the world’s nations forms an extra-terrestrial defence force to deal with the threat, but soon finds the aliens to be too strong. In December, the world’s most powerful nations meet in Geneva to discuss the issue. The meeting leads to the formation of the Extraterrestrial Combat unit, or X-COM. Players begin their reign as the leader of X-COM on January 1, 1999. Presented with a world map (called the Geoscape), you are required to construct your first base, where you will house your soldiers, attack craft, scientists and research. Not long after, alien activity will begin to ramp up, and you’ll be required to intercept UFOs. By shooting down the UFO and performing autopsies on the dead aliens (and their equipment), you’ll be able to develop a better understanding of the creatures, as well as new weapons and defensive countermeasures. After a couple of months, the aliens will become bolder; UFO activity will increase and they’ll start attacking cities. In these turn based sequences, you’ve got to put together strategies to neutralise the alien threat while minimising X-COM and civilian casualties, otherwise you’ll lose valuable troops, and/or funding from countries involved in the initiative. The aim of the game is to develop the technology needed to get to the alien planet, and defeat them on their home turf. The original X-COM game was pretty much the pinnacle of the series; after UFO, each game in the series seemed to water down much-loved elements of the original. A remake of UFO needs to maintain the elements that made the game great, but add higher resolution graphics and some sort of tutorial mode to help players learn about the more complex side of the game. No less than six user remakes are under way, and lead designers the Gollop brothers have revisited the ground combat aspect of the game with Laser Squad Nemesis, but we need a new version with all of the classic elements intact. The X-COM license now resides with2K Games, but they have not revealed any intention to use the IP as yet (beyond the recent Steam release). If they do, here’s hoping they keep it on the PC.

X-COM’s aliens will cause nervous breakdowns

Perfect Dark in real time

Perfect Dark Developer: Rare Format: N64 First released: 2000 Perfect Dark is set in the near future, with players taking on the role of Joanna Dark, a new, but extraordinarily talented recruit for the R&D firm Carrington Institute, which is really an espionage group. While investigating a report from an insider at rival company dataDyne, Jo uncovers a link between the shady corporation and an evil alien race named the Skedar. The Skedar are at war with the Maians, another alien race in league with Carrington. They’ve joined forces with dataDyne to recover a weapon from the ocean floor that will ensure the destruction of the Maian race. Guess who gets to thwart this evil plan! Rare had experienced tremendous success with GoldenEye 007, which broke new ground for first person shooters on consoles. Having rejected offers for a game based on the next Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, they set about making their own character and mythos. Perfect Darkuses the same mission structure, same game engine and even a few of the weapons. The multiplayer side of the game saw a tremendous amount of attention, with the inclusion of bots (with various AI profiles) and several more gameplay modes, including co-operative play in the single player game and counter operative, where the other player could take the role of the various dataDyne troops one encounters in a given level. The problem with Perfect Dark is that Rare was too ambitious, and the game is clearly more than the Nintendo 64 could handle. This is further backed up by the fact that two thirds of the game is inaccessible without the use of the Nintendo 64’s RAM pak. The game runs slowly at the best of times, but is frequently reduced to a slideshow (don’t even think about using the game’s high resolution mode). The game was released very close to the end of the Nintendo 64’s life, and as a result sold less than a quarter of GoldenEye’s total. The concept and design are all in place – someone just needs to come along and polish the visuals up to more modern standards. And pretend that Perfect Dark Zero never happened while they’re at it. Xbox 360 for this one.

Carmageddon Developer: Stainless Games Format: PC, Mac First released: 1997 Heavily inspired by (and at one stage created as a sequel to) Death Race 2000, Carmageddon puts you behind the wheel in a series of deadly races through urban, industrial and rural areas. A progenitor of free form gaming, Carmageddon allowed you to roam freely through each of its courses, giving you the option of finishing the races through several different means. One could run over every person in the race area, leaving a bloody mess in their wake. Alternatively, they could destroy the cars of the opposing racers, crushing their cars into unrecognisable states (in rare cases, tearing the car in two). More orthodox types could simply run through the race. Carmageddon is often remembered for the controversy and violence factor, but there is a good game under the gory exterior. The game is driven by impressive technology, particularly for the time. The sheer level of destruction one can unleash on a car in Carmageddon has not been matched in the decade since its release. Burnout might let you crash your car into others at high speed, but Carmageddon lets you keep on smashing the other car until it’s the size of a cube. Of course, mass killing off innocents through hit and runs is still particularly fun, especially when you’ve got some of the game’s nastier power ups, like the pedestrian bug zapper. While Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now was a decent sequel, the series fell of the back of the truck with TDR 2000, and was beaten into submission by the horrid N64 and PSX ports. SCi has had plans to bring the series back, but keeps cancelling them before production begins. Carmageddon’s brutality is the key to its success and any potential remake needs to maintain the damage technology while improving the visuals and ramping up the gore. Could easily be a multiformat HD release, if you could get it through the BBFC, OFLC, et al.

There’s some impressive tech underneath Carmageddon’s violence

Unreal’s atmosphere was second to none

Unreal Developer: Epic Format: PC First released: 1998 Unreal puts you in the shoes of the otherwise anonymous Prisoner 849 on the transport ship Vortex Rikers. The ship malfunctions and crash lands on the planet Na Pali, home to the four-armed Nali race. Na Pali has been invaded by the Skaarj, who seek to harness the planet’s supply of Tarydium, a high energy crystal. As you progress through the game, you see the atrocities caused by the Skaarj, and set out to put an end to their presence on the planet. When Unreal was released in 1998, it was praised for its graphics, which were pretty darn advanced, but there was a good game underneath to. The best aspect of Unreal is its atmosphere; Na Pali is a massive alien world with beautiful, yet strange environments. Weird animals and Nali occupy the environments, reacting to your presence. The Skaarj soldiers are worthy adversaries with astonishing intelligence and impressive strength. You can take one Skaarj out pretty easily, but when they hit in groups, you’ll need to improvise. Unreal’s weaponry was also very cool; the RazorJack could be used to lop the heads off your enemies, while the 8-Ball launcher would let you queue up six missiles for an extra strong explosion. The game also had extraordinarily good bots for Deathmatch. Epic seems to have gone in a different direction with their games produced after Unreal, focusing more on the visual and multiplayer side of things. With the latest Unreal Engine technology, they should be more than capable of producing a game that oozes atmosphere like the original game did. With their recent games going off on all sorts of weird tangents, perhaps a remake of something like Unreal is something they need to inspire more imaginative game designs. Multiformat release would be the best path to take.

Super Punch Out!! Developer: Nintendo R&D3 Format: SNES First released: 1994 As Little Mac, you must fight your way from the bottom of the World Video Boxing Association rankings to face the champion Nick Bruiser. Starting with the washed up old man Gabby Jay, you’ll fight some rather interesting characters in the ring. Super Punch Out!! starts out fairly conventionally, but the Maquis of Queensbury rules are quickly disregarded when your opponents start headbutting, throwing bleach in your eyes, smacking you with a bo staff and finally, jump kicking you in the head. Super Punch Out!! is an arcade-based boxing title, but rather than simply punching away at your opponent, you need to discover each fighter’s pattern. In the early fights, the patterns are easy to detect, and you’ll put your opponent on their arse within a minute. The key is to find a good rhythm and build up your special meter, so you can slam out a few uppercuts. By the end of the second circuit, it becomes a lot harder to spot an opening, and your opponents hit really hard, but with a bit of skill and determination, you can make it through. The boxing game in Wii Sports gave us a little taste of what’s in store for boxing games on the system, but the accuracy really needs to be improved before a fully fledged Super Punch Out!!game could be made. The solution is the Wii Motion Plus add-on; put a remote fitted with the device in each hand, and you’ll be golden. That said, one needs to be careful not to make the game too realistic; Super Punch Out!! is all about ducking, weaving and finding the right opening.

Nintendo encourages you to beat the elderly