The Warp Pipe - 01/03/09
By Matt Keller - Sun Mar 1, 2009 8:58am
March, the busiest non-Holiday month of the release calendar is now upon us, and as such we’re a bit overwhelmed here on the reviewing side of things at Games On Net. Fortunately, we’re not too busy to bring you another helping of The Warp Pipe, though we were distracted enough to not notice that we recently passed our 50th column. Go us!
This week, The Warp Pipe runs through another list of our most wanted remakes.
This week, The Warp Pipe runs through another list of our most wanted remakes.
An emerging reality of the entertainment industry seems to be that everything old can be new again. Just this year, I can name five motion picture remakes or franchise reboots off the top of my head. The remake is becoming increasingly popular in gaming, where more powerful technology can be used to make a serious difference in the appearance and quality of a product, or breathe new life back into a tired IP.Most Wanted Remakes III
Developer: Origin Systems Format: PC Released: 1999 Avatar’s final adventure in Britannia is also his most reviled. Riddled with bugs, technical issues and design flaws, few can truly enjoy what was on offer in Ultima IX. With EA looking to capitalise on its strong base of IP while making high quality products and Richard Garriott looking to work on a new game, perhaps it is time for the two parties to put aside past differences, come together and re-imagine the final game in the series. Many things that Ultima IX set out to achieve in the late nineties, like a free-roaming 3D open world, have become commonplace in modern games, particularly western RPGs. With a better tech base, the team could focus on a more comprehensive story, in-depth character and lore creation and designing a game that people actually want to play. Perhaps one could even go a step further, and retcon/re-imagine both Ultima VIII and IX to appease the fans who hate them so dearly. | ) Give the Avatar the send-off he deserves |
) Deckard, replicant or whacko? | Developer: Westwood Studios Format: PC Released: 1997 In 1997, Westwood created an adventure game based on the Blade Runner world. The game focused on the exploits of Ray McCoy, who was hot on the trail of a group of replicants. Rather than re-telling the story of the film, Westwood instead created a story that happened concurrently, allowing many of the actors involved in the film to reprise their roles, without doing injustice to the film’s story. Due to the use of voxel technology, however, the game ran like a dog on most PCs of the time. Blade Runner’s use of real time gameplay really set itself apart from other adventure games. While it was not the first or last game to use such techniques, it was one of the few where the concept worked well. More advanced graphical technology could address the shortcomings of voxel technology, and more sophisticated gameplay design could give the title an extra layer of depth that some critics felt the game was missing at the time. Plus everybody loves Blade Runner. |
Developer: Konami Format: PlayStation Released: 1999 Konami introduced a heightened psychological factor to the survival horror genre with the release of Silent Hill in 1999, but the series has fallen off the wagon in the last five years. The original story is often considered to be one of the strongest stories in gaming (though some hold Silent Hill 2 in higher regard, myself included), with everyman Harry Mason searching for his lost daughter Cheryl in the vacated resort town of Silent Hill. The only entry produced on the original PlayStation, Silent Hill suffers from the system’s early 3D abilities. Recent rumours suggest that Konami is producing a remake of the original game for the Wii in conjunction with Climax, who developed Silent Hill Origins for the PSP and PS2. Personally I’d prefer Konami to bring the series in-house and reform Team Silent, to have them work on the game directly. There is an element of horror which just has not been there in the western developed games, and I could easily see it being lost in a remake produced by the same team that did Origins. With some good support from the publisher and an impressive re-imagining, Silent Hill could easily be a hit game once again. | ) Harry Mason, demon slayer |
) Let us lose ourselves in more game worlds like this one | Developer: Looking Glass Technologies Format: PC Released: 1994 System Shock features quite possibly the strongest atmosphere of any computer game and a level of immersion and interactivity that many modern games can only dream about. Players control a nameless hacker who is trapped on a space station, having just recently woken up from a medically induced coma required for a recent operation involving neural implants. During your coma, an AI named SHODAN has gone rogue and taken control of the station, killing most of the humans on board. Have a guess who gets to stop it. In the last 15 years, many games have come and gone that have tried to match what System Shock offered but fallen short. Games like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex which have come close to approaching the same glory are among the best games of all time, so surely a remake of the original with modern technology would be an easy sell. Modern graphics technology, physics and surround sound would make for one hell of a scary return to Citadel Station. |
Developer: Rare Format: Nintendo 64 Released: 1999 Rare had a string of high quality hits on the Nintendo 64, but a couple of gems went unloved. One of these was Jet Force Gemini, a game about a couple of teenage space kids on a quest to stop an evil overlord named Mizar, who recently attacked the planet Goldwood, home of the cuddly Tribals. A spectacular looking third person shooter, Jet Force Gemini proved to be rather difficult to control, was a bit sluggish in the frame rate department, and suffered from a rather annoying collect ‘em up quest. With a bit of tweaking, Rare could easily successfully reintroduce Jet Force Gemini to the Xbox 360’s audience. Tweak the character designs a little, increase the violence factor and fix the stupidily mandatory “save each and every one of the Tribals” quest and you’d have the makings of a fantastic game. Heck, just release the original for Xbox Live Arcade with a more modern third person shooter control scheme and you’d be onto a winner. | ) Mizar is one of the nastiest end bosses ever |
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