Old Games that Should Be Remade

After reading the Old games deserving a sequel.." thread, it made me think about old games that should be remade using today's technology. There has been a trend to remake old movies (The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, etc), why not do the same with games? What games would you want remade to make them better and/or to show them off using the latest RT3D technology?

Here is my list (off the top of my head):

- Half-Life
- Quake
- Doom
- Azrael's Tear
- System Shock (both 1 and 2)
- Bioforge
- Unreal

resident evil 3: Nemesis!

Yeah, good thinking. I especially agree with Quake on the list. It would be so cool to see a true remake, one that has a very similar style and feel as the original game.

It's sad to see that a lot of developers try to do 'something new' with the sequels. Take Deus Ex 2: The Invisible War... I mean, they ruined the RPG part, made it a more generic almost console-like shooter. The first game had a very unique style, a matrix-meets-james bond kind of style, sci-fi at it's best.

Cheers

I am also waiting so long for a Bioforge sequel but I would also play a remake of it. At that time it was such a nice game.

The reason why Deus Ex2 and even Bioshock changed so much is easy: high production costs and main stream marketing, it is simply because of the money. A game like Bioshock, a simple RPG shooter is probably more appealing to the majority of gamers.

I would also like to see a new Outcast or a remake, why not. This was a nice game.

And I agree that we need a new game like the old Unreal. It was a nice mixture of fantasy and sci-fi, peaceful worlds combined with action fights, this was much more interesting than the Marine-missions in U2. So it really should be like the first one, maybe just a remake.

By the way I enjoyed Tomb Raider Anniversary, a remake of the old one and it is really well made.

Dan, most of the games you mentioned have available mods to turn their sequels to the originals.. I mean I'm sure you could play all Doom levels and weapons using the Doom 3 engine, etc..

Saying that, I think remaking old games is even a worse idea than remaking old movies. I honestly fail to see a point in doing so, but I guess that's just me..

I think they are pretty successful with this approach. Tomb Raider got such a remake and it was great. A RTS game called "Die Siedler" (Settlers) got a remake. And maybe I missed some more.

It probably has to do with nostalgia of the old gamers and with curiosity of the younger ones who don't know the original but heard of it. So you reach a lot of customers, old and new ones.

Sure I would. One reason is simple nostalgia. I played Doom when it first came out and I would love to see a professional homage to the original game. It would be very cool, imo, to even have the levels the same (same layout) and even the "hidden" areas in the same place, etc, but update the graphics, use actual 3D models instead of sprites for the enemies, etc. Imagine the original Doom made with the latest Doom or Unreal engine. Nostalgia freaks would go nuts for this sort of thing . This would be like creating Doom for what it was meant to be ... how they would have created it back then if they had the technology of today.

Frank,

I STILL play the original Unreal from time to time. In some ways, the graphics are still awesome. That first scene when you get off the ship and see the sky, the canyon and the waterfall ... it was great! Imagine what this game could look like in the latest Unreal engine!

I totally would love to see Zelda Link To The Past in 3D with todays graphics. I'd also love a remake of Zelda Ocarina Of Time and Majora's Mask. Imagine this games with the latest CryEngine graphics and character voices

Yes. I absolutely agree.

Maybe not the latest Unreal engine, but check out Doomsday engine.

It runs with Original Final/Ultimate Doom 1/2 Hexen Heretic WADs using a modern 3D Engine with lighting features.
Also there is a lot of user provided content like 3d models which nicely integrate into the game and replace 2d sprites.
Users have provided TONs of hires texture packs.
Check it out, it's a lot of fun!

It made me play through Hexen + Deathknights Addon one more time although I had a lot more modern games on my PC installed.

What about releasing finished remade stuff?

http://i38.tinypic.com/3522q8l.png
So sad...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

What's that? Codename: Eagle?

Yes but you wouldn't really be playing Doom now would you? I mean, in this new Doom you'd probably be able to jump and look up and down.. But that's not doom anymore cause now the gameplay is different resulting in a different game. One of the cool things i liked about doom is how you could play it without a mouse, making it feel so much faster and ultra responsive than newest FPSs. I actually still play 1vs1 battles of the first level of Doom 2 with my cousin when we get the chance. I know that level better than I know my home to be honest..

Anyhow, you're in luck cause I just googled it and I immediatly found a Doom 3 mod that gives you all original levels, monsters and weapons of Doom1.. It's called Classic Doom.

Actually you are right, a lot of these games would be quite difficult to remake in the same style or even perspective.

It's why Fallout 3 is 3D now, not 2D isometric. But it inevitably makes it a different game altogether.

I guess nostalgia alone just isn't enough to relive these great experiences as remakes, but some remakes are very worthy interpretations of the originals,

edit:

Will do!

Cheers

http://www.doomsdayhq.com/

Give it a try

I think you CAN jump and look up/down, but you don't need to. Isn't that great news? I just started it and it feels like real Doom gameplay wise.

No - that actually is the all-famous Goldeneye for the N64. Well it's a remake that was done with obviously better graphics. It might not get released though because it was developed by Rare (i.e. the original on the N64) which now is owned by Microsoft but the rights still belong to Nintendo. After a bit of a hassle Mircosoft offered to make this a "virtual console style game" for both plattforms but Nintendo refused and so we're probably not going to see this at all...

So sad - it was such an amazing game and I'd sure buy that remade version...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

You don't have to add new features (jump, etc), but simply update the look to moderd standards. Doom was a scary game in its day because of the way the creatures jumped out at you from behind the walls. They could still do that, but the environment and the models could be updated. Using the type of lighting/shadows we have today would go a long way toward making a remake of Doom even more "frightening". True 3D sound could be added and other environmental effects. Mega-details could be added to the levels adding realism. And, at the same time, the nostalgia of the original game could be preserved.

On the other hand, a remake could try to get into the minds of the original creators and ask this question, "If they had access to one of today's game engines back then, how would that have changed the game?" And then proceed to create that while, at the same time attempting to preserve the original.

I don't know. I think it would be fun. In fact, I am thinking of a little GameStudio project on the side. Why not recreate the first level of Doom in GameStudio using the latest that this engine has to offer? I may try to create the first level's environment and add more details and appropriate lighting. It would be fun .

quake 2 (one of my, if not _the_ all-time fav)
freespace
project IGI
anno 1602
dark colony

Could even be a little competition on the site.

I had thought about that. It would be fun!

You could be right, sounds like an excellent first project to test my skills.
I may even start with sprite entities and stolen graphics.
(now where did I leave that 3.5 inch floppy disk drive....)

It looks like there are a lot of Doom remakes. The Classic Doom 3 looks great and is rendered with quite modern techniques. The Doomsday looks like the original.

Maybe it can indeed raise more interest all over the world to recreate the first Unreal level. But it will also be some good amount of work to create the characters, environments, scripts, sound, particle effects and music. This should be done by a team of a few ambitious people.







But actually I like this idea. I would love to create a new version of a Nali creature with all the needed details sculpted in ZBrush. This would be a nice project for improving skills and might end up in an interesting picture for a portfolio.

A cool remake of: Turrican 2!

Keeping the levelstructure and music, but upgrading it with new
flashy 3d Graphics.

Yes, Turrican in 3d could be interesting as well. Does somebody remember "The Last Ninja"? Could also be an interesting remake.

Im going to chime in with FF7.... everyone has saw so many "tech-demos" and teasers for both the ps2 and ps3, and most ff7 fans would love it.... but they wont do it.

I also agree with zelda:ocarina of time and some 2d remakes of some of the mario games (yoshi's island could look soooo cool now on uptodate hardware, with post-processingbluumeffectxors._

battle isle phase 4: incubation

yay for turn-based tactic games!

Although I'm sure it's not exactly what you were thinking of, here's my take on a Doom remake for gamestudio:



Download: Blast from the past (4.6mb)


I warn you though, since you're making levels for a living, this level may indeed make you want to gauge your eyes out with a spoon. It's more of an AI experiment than anything else. Having said that, the weapons themselves are dead-on like the originals. I've timed the reload times, distance traveling, damage per round, etc from the actual Doom game and programmed mine accordingly. The level is also shaped exactly like the original, only scaled up x2.

Btw, if you do go on and make a re-make of the first level of Doom(2), I'd happily contribute the AI for it, both for the monsters and as a Deathmatch like i did here. It'd be awesome if I could replace the misfortune that is my existing level..


Cheers,
Aris

Fun! But it shows you how slow I am. The bad guys kill me every single time! I can't kill a one of them. Ugh! The mouse movement is really fast, too. And the enemy fires like he has a machine gun. Does your code ran faster on faster PCs or something?

Yeah the mouse sensitivity could use some work for that demo.. And it's a deathmatch level, meaning the enemy here is a bot who has the exact same attributes as the player(same speed, same health, being able to pick up weapons/armor from ground etc). The purpose was to develop an AI that would be able to kick the player's ass on equal grounds. But as it turns out, that's not the best recipe for an enjoyable game :P

I couldn't beat the bot either, but I've set up a contest here some time ago, and I did found a guy that did! Goes to say that no matter how smart the AI can get, there will always be some dude that will eventually own it, just from the simple fact that humans learn and AIs don't (yet).

hehe dan, i remember how hard he had it before. I tried his contest for intense ai, which uh... I could never have won in a million years. :P

Ahem, Chrono Trigger. The one and only rpg that I love, and I don't like rpgs. It's a shame the Chrono Ressurection project got canceled... Square really needs to make one for pc, a fully 3d one like CR was going to be.